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Published: March 11th 2011
Aztec Stadium
Our new footy team, Club America. Do you like the sponsor?After our unexpected detour to Panama, we got to Mexico City very late and very tired. I thought we had also missed our chance to see a soccer match in Mexico city as most games are played on Saturday. But we were lucky, the biggest team from mexico city, Club America, played a home grame on Sunday afternoon at Estadio Azteca, which has a capacity of 114,000 spectators. So Leanne and I got there just in time and bought some Club America shirts and saw them win a very exciting game 4-3. We were a bit of a novelty (perhaps Leanne was the novelty more so than I was). We were shown on the big screen 4 separate times thoughout the game and half time break. So we just kept having good luck and everything kept falling into place without much planning.
Sunday seems to be bike riding day in Mexico City. They close a lot of roads including 8 lanes out of 12 in the main street for cyclists. No one is riding fast. They just have a family outing on their bikes. Police block the intersections and bikes rule the city for one day of the week. The
Leanne at 23 weeks
You can just see the pyramid behind her belly. next day we went out to Teotihuacan to see a very impressive ancient city including two giant pyramids. The larger one, Pyramid of the sun, is the third largest in the world. (Thanks for the tip Marty!)
On the 1st of March we went to Veracruz for the start of carnaval. The only problem was that Carnaval didn't really start until the 5th. So we decided to stay a few extra days. We had a realaxing time as we saw the city transform over those five days. To begin there was a 'Burning of the bad humour' ceremony and dancing on the first night to kick start the event. Once the fire department put the burnt bad humour out (literally) some comedians got on stage and everyone seemed to like them. We didn't get any of the jokes because it was all in Spanish. But we came back in to check out some good music and see how latin americans can dance over the next few nights. Also checked out the Aquarium (pretty good, including dolphins), fort (History from Conquistadors to 20th century prison) and a short boat cruise to a sand bar off from the beach (good for
Subterrenean Cenote
Cool water in a cool place snorkelling). As the parade gets closer the atmosphere in town builds to a crashendo. Beer sales go through the roof, shops board up their windows and many close for the days of the parade. You can feel the excitimement and see car loads of Mexicans pour into town. The Parade itself is repeated 6 times. We saw number one only. It goes for 4 kilometres and takes about 3 hours to pass you as you watch from one of the 50,000 or so seats that line the route. Tickets cost a whopping $5. Thats because we got the comfy seats. As you watch you can sip rediculous 2.5 litre beer bottles and all sorts of tasty treats are brought to you by various vendors. So Carnaval was worth the wait and after an extended stay in Veracruz we flew to Merida.
I was in Veracruz for my birthday and thanks Leanne for taking me to an awesome seafood restaurant for dinner. One I will always remember.
In Merida we met some new friends, Astrid and Brigid from Germany, who also spoke very god Spanish (Bonus!!!!!). We decided to hire a car and go to the ancient ruins of
Oxkintok Deity Statue
Guaranteed to make you pregnant and once pregnant will deliver a healthy baby! Uxmal, which are about an hour away. The only problem was that we saw a sign and decided to see ruins at Oxkintok and got a guide who was willing to talk all day. He even showed us the Labirynth and made us promise to never put pictures on the internet. (Our secret Okay! No telling.) We also visited a subterrenean cenote (water hole) and spent an hour swimming in a beautiful place. So we never made it to Uxmal. Never mind; we just hired the car again and tried the next day. Uxmal was our first and only stop this time. We were not disappointed. It had another huge pyramid and we found a lot of the features that had been explained to us the day before like the underground cisterns used to store water, but not too deep, because they don't want to dig down into hell.
I was expecting Mexico to be the small dog capital of the world, but it turned out to be the small person capital instead. That can be very useful when you're watching a parade from the back row. Merida was also having a Carnaval and that was exactly what we were doing. This time around the parade had a lot more cultural acts. I found the girls on the Corona float very culturally pleasing too. The ladies in the crowd were sufficiently entertained too I'm sure. Late nights are no longer obligatory for Leanne but on this occasion I had some people to go out and party with in the streets. Life is good!
A special note about 'mi esposa embarazada' (my pregnant wife). What a trooper! How many mums to be, at 6 months, would keep going and going like the duracell bunny. She keeps on saying that she wants to do more and more stuff and I'd understand if she just wanted to sit beside a pool. She has had to cut back the pyramid climbing lately and missed out on some other cool stuff along the way, but we will have some stories to tell Bouncer about his/her first holiday.
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Michelle Machin
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Hey guys! So loving reading your travel blogs!!! Sounds like I'd fit in quite nicely in Mexico :) You're right about your impressive pregnant wife Jon, not sure if I would have coped!!Great to hear you're having such a great holiday!! Keep the blogs coming! Love Michelle :)