Activity Summary
Friday 14th April - Day 225
Flight to Mexico City
Mill around airport
Walk around Zocalo
Lunch at Los Especiales
Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral
Templo Mayar
Rooftop beer at Terraza Catedral
Dinner at Cafe El Popular
Saturday 15th April - Day 226
Turi bus - red route to Auditorio Nacional
Bosque de Chapultepec
Museo Nacional de Antropología
Turi bus - green route south
Lucha Libre - Arena Coliseo
Sunday 16th April - Day 227
Walking tour:
Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral
National Palace
Estatua Ecuestre de Carlos IV
Palacio Postal
Palacio de Bellas Artes (giant marble building)
The House of Tiles
Chapultepec Castle
Drink at Mercado Roma
Dinner - Yeccan
Monday 17th April - Day 228
Day trip to Teotihuacán:
Temple of the Sun
Temple of the Moon
Avenue of the Dead / Calzada de los Muertos
Summary
Mexico City
It was incredibly refreshing to be back in a city that had plenty to do, was nice to walk around and actually felt safe. The latter was a big sticking point in the US and Luke had come to Mexico thinking he would feel largely uncomfortable based on reported cases of various bad things that happen in the country. He felt safer walking around Mexico City at night than any US city in the day.
Mexico City was pretty smoggy at times from a combination of the dry heat and pollution but this really wasn’t that bad. It was easy enough to get around and it had a more chilled vibe (despite being a massive city) that was nice to be around.
Teotihuacán
Big old temple/pyramid site. Interesting to walk around and worth the day trip.
Transport
Mexico City
Airport -> [Uber] -> Hostel
To get around Mexico City by bus we had to purchase a plastic travel card that can be bought from bus or metro stops (when in stock). Costs very little at around $6 (30p) per ride and they are super easy to top up at bus stops, unlike the UK.
Teotihuacán
Hostel -> [walk] -> Bellas Artes -> [metrobus] -> Central Norte / Terminal de Autobuses de Pasajeros de Oriente -> [ADO bus] -> Teotihuacán
Accommodation
Mexico City - Hostel Mundo Joven Catedral
Number of nights - 4
Price per night per person - £15
The location of the hostel was perfect, being dead centre next to the Zocalo and it was not overly expensive for a private room which was desperately needed, although we would have liked a larger than queen sized bed... something we will have to readjust to again clearly. Sadly the tap in the room did mean that the pipes ended up reeking whenever used so we quickly had to abandon that and use the shared bathroom facilities.
The views from the rooftop bar were really nice but timing our stay on a Friday and Saturday night meant the pumping tunes didn’t stop until quite late. We didn’t really mind this so much however given the location and the comfort of the hostel.
Diary
The discomfort we had on the flight was predominantly as a result of the time we were flying and the time we would land. It was only a ~4 hour flight, leaving at midnight and arriving in Mexico City at around 5.30am. We both tried our best to sleep but largely unsuccessfully. Nicola was helped by the lack of a 3rd person in our row which meant she had two seats she could try utilising as a bed, the best position of the eve being on her back, head more or less in Luke’s lap and her legs bowed and spread eagle on the seats / window. Luke obviously just tried sleeping like a normal human being on an economy seat of a flight. It was also hella cold and no blankie this time on offer - sad times.
Once landed in Mexico City it was relatively quick to disembark and get through security, who did not require our fake outbound ticket proving we were leaving the country annoyingly. But we felt it was best to be safe after the faff with the American border patrol.
By the time we were through the airport it was an ungodly 6am and if we had travelled into Mexico City we would have been incredibly hard pressed to find a place open we could sit and be miserable in. Therefore after purchasing probably the least useful sim deal of our trip so far (4GB data, £8 and 30 days but this seemed to be the max data on offer according to the google) we opted to mope around the airport some more. Luke settled on a restaurant called Toks which gave him unlimited coffee and his first taste of Mexican food, chorizo y Jamon molletes (open faced cheers toastie with beans, chorizo or ham with some fresh salsa), which he very much enjoyed.
We sat at Toks, vacant and barely interacting with each other, until 8am and then got an Uber to our hostel. We really didn’t fancy trying to work out the bus system running on fumes.
The drive through Mexico City was honestly refreshing having come from the US. The city is so much nicer than any US city we had visited, it felt so much more chilled and just a happier place. And this was all just riding an Uber 20 minutes through the city.
At our hostel, Hostel Mundo Joven Catedral, we were able to drop our bags with reception and they were kind enough to allow us access to the free breakfast that would be part of our booking. The omelette and tea gave Nicola a little bit of strength enough to go for a quick wander outside.
Our hostel was right in the Center of the city’s main square (Zocalo) which had a massive open space with a couple of colourful marquee tents with benches overlooking the cathedral and parliament. It was a lovely open space and we just pottered around in a completely uninspired loop before heading back to our breakfast spot at the hostel in the upstairs part.
Here we spent a few hours doing absolutely nothing. Nicola had a quick cat nap head down on the table and the scroll hole continued until we got uncomfortable on the wicker chairs and decided lunch was in order.
Luke had found a well reviewed taco place on a blog so as it was close by that was our lunch choice. It would turn out to be such a good place we would go there every day. It was called Los Especiales and served only two types of taco; chicharron (soft pork rind) en adobe (spicy rub) or salsa verde (mild green sauce), each taco costing a measly $8 (36p). The back of the place has trays of fresh avo and a pickled carrot & jalapeño combo for anyone to help themselves to.
8 tacos between us, dollops of avo & plenty of carrots/ jalapeños for Luke all for under 100 pesos. The place is incredible. We were wholly confused about what to order, how to order and whether the trays of avo were a help yourself jobby or there as part of some kind of party but we eventually settled into getting our gorge on.
We decided to go for a bit of an extended walk around the nearby area, firstly going into the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. Pretty grand and was the first church we have been in what felt like forever. Still not Luke’s fave.
Around the corner is a ruin site called Templo Mayor which was the main temple of the Aztecs before their civilisation crumbled. As it had more or less been fully pulled down it wasn’t likely to be as impressive as future temples/pyramids. We did try and find the entrance to it but ended up walking the long way around the block and in that time the 27 degree sun, of which we had not had in such intensity since Abel Tasman in NZ, started cooking Nicola into a bad mood again so we returned back to the hostel.
Turns out there were some bean bags around the corner from where we had been previously sitting that would have served perfectly as a sleep spot. We spent the next hour here before checking in.
We knew we’d be tired and the decision for the private room in the hostel was a great decision (and wasn’t even expensive really). Nicola did some washing of our increasingly pongy trainers and then we crashed out for a few hours with that much needed nap. It took a lot to get out of bed.
After getting cleaned up we went upstairs to the rooftop bar at our hostel, Terraza Catedral, for a beer and took in the lovely views of the cathedral and Zocalo.
Dinner was at a cheap ish Mexican place called Cafe El Popular and it wasn’t really all that much to rave about, very affordable still but just nothing on Los Esp.
We spent the evening in the room chilling out as best we could. It turns out the rooftop bar on a Friday and Saturday plays pumping house and techno tunes until 12am and our fifth floor room was right under the party. Luke was however so tired by 11pm he just crashed out and Nicola followed suit once the music ended - we really didn’t care about this at all to be honest.
Safe to say there was little chance of us getting out of bed early, which was helped by the wooden window shutters that blocked 100% of all light so we had absolutely no idea what time it was. The only reason we got up was to make use of the included breakfast before the cut off of 10am. Nicola still thought it was 6am when the alarms went off.
The breakfasts were alright, usually a small egg or tortilla dish plus some fruit and the option of some fairly stale bread and jam. Not a whole lot of food and this base wouldn’t serve Nicola very well, giving rise to the requirement of ‘elevensies’ for her going forward, citing if it was appropriate for her nan it’s appropriate now.
By the time we were ready and out of the door it was closer to midday but we still felt this was plenty of time to do the most touristy thing possible in the city and jump on the pleb party bus. The bigger company seemed to be the Turi bus so we paid £12 each for our day passes and jumped on the open deck London style red bus.
The stop we jumped on was conveniently outside our hostel in Zocalo and then rode the bus along the ‘red’ route to the Auditorio Nacional, about half way along the loop. We ended up having to share headphones given one of the sockets didn’t work which gave some incredibly brief and largely uninteresting facts about various landmarks along the route. This was also made more challenging from the loud Californian lady behind us who, naturally, wouldn’t shut up and ironically was complaining the Spanish speaker system was too loud. Pot kettle black much. She did take a liking to Nicola however and kindly shouted thank you in her ear when she helped them with the headphone setup.
It was quite fun being on the bus at this point. We got to see a fair amount of the city in a very casual manner, the hop on hop off part would have worked pretty well had we decided it was worth getting off at the various stops but we decided seeing from atop the bus was plenty fine. Probably the best part was actually the beautiful tree laden streets that had numerous purple flowers bringing a load of colour to the drive. Very nice.
We got off at the Auditorio Nacional stop (it was pretty roasty so our increasingly wam sweaty butts were thankful for the change up) and then walked down into the Bosque de Chapultepec park.
Nicola was hungry as soon as we got off the bus. There were a couple of food stands straight ahead of us so Nicola opted for what should have been the easy option. The queue however didn’t seem to move for 5 minutes and in this time Nicola had managed to persuade herself out of the option having had some time to see some of the cleanliness practices involved.
So we started our walk through the park, past the zoo entrance with everyone seeming to have a weird fluffy/balloon hat, and along a rammed path in the park with a ton of stalls. Just off this route were a number of more permanent al fresco dining options so we settled on the first one offered. Nicola, regretfully, ordered one enchilada that was wholly disappointing compared to Luke’s huaraches (equivalent of a corn tortilla pizza) which safe to say didn’t fill any form of hole.
We then went in search of fruit which we found outside the park, rather than on one of the many stands inside unusually. $50 for a ton of mango could be lived with.
We knew the museums were free to locals on a Sunday so decided to hit up the Museo Nacional de Antropología. It was nice to be visiting museums again that were not extortionate, £4 compared to £20 in the States. There has naturally been a lot of comparison between the two since arriving…
The museum was interesting, housing a ton of ancient artefacts from a long time BC to the time Mexico succumbed to Cortes and the Spanish in 1500 ad (pre-Columbian era). It was all split by region and we were able to garner some basic understanding of how Mexico was formed and who each historic civilisation was. Interestingly the demise of the older civilisations (the Olmec, Teotihuacan & Toltec mainly) was largely unknown with the Spanish annihilation of the Aztecs in Northern Mexico and Maya in Southern pretty well documented.
We enjoyed the museum but we were really flagging hard at this point. Slowly trotting and reading while clearly still hindered by the previous few days meant we perhaps didn’t take full advantage of the history lesson but we decided a modern approach with a YouTube video later would help solidify our knowledge.
It was about 3.30pm when we got on the red bus round the next half of the loop and decided it would be a good idea to explore some of the rest of the city on the ‘south’ bus (there are 4 routes possible) thinking that it would be easy low energy to have a bus drive us around some more of the city.
We changed at the Fuente de Cibeles stop and started our ride around. The traffic was an absolute nightmare however. Of the green route, Coyoacan was probably the only worthwhile stop as the bus just crawled through a main high street for the most part, and given it took us so long to get there we felt we didn’t have enough time to get off and explore because we wanted to go to the wrestling at 7.30pm. The worst part was the bus had a breather for a good 20 minutes here so we actually could have quite easily hopped off, gotten some food and had a walk around.
The route back was a bit more interesting with Frida Kahlo's house and going through the pretty streets of Coyoacan. But it was still slow going back to the start of our route, the thing keeping us alert predominately being the low hanging tree branches that would take a good chunk of face off. We had made plans to go for some food in Roma, which seemed to have more of a recommended foodie vibe from what Luke had read, but we did not have the time.
Once we finally got to Zocalo we had been on the bus for 3.5 hours. Luke likes to call the final moments of Nicola’s bus journey interactions with him as the ‘Red Snapper’ as his harmless questions over what she would like to do regarding the wrestling was met with a 20 second annihilation of his question with seething rage that would leave him in stunned silence. Turns out asking Nicola questions when she’s super hungry while also needing the toilet with a starvation induced headache, comes with a large American portion size of chew out. Point taken going forward and Nicola will now use the code word for Luke to avoid speaking to her so he can avoid crying in public.
When hungry turn to things you know and Los Espaciales was that safe haven. Like Jesus turning water into wine, Nicola was rejuvenated after a 4 taco strong meal, muchos avo and a coke.
It’s a good job the food joint is incredibly efficient as we really didn’t have much time to get to the Lucha Libre wrestling at the Arena Coliseo. We stopped by the room briefly and then walked over to the arena with the aim to get tickets on the door. Ticketmaster had been an option to get them online but it was too involved and actually more expensive. We could only get tickets for the balcony at $75ea rather than the seats down front but this turned out to be great (thankfully it wasn’t standing as we first thought).
Seated in the rafters with the equivalent of a cage keeping us away from dropping down to the fighting floor we were able to relax for the first time in what felt like a long time. Luke grabbed a beer and we spent the next few hours watching some comedic wrestling and all in all some pretty incredible acrobatics. The guys were not small and they were flying all over the arena, flipping around and jumping onto people outside the ring. It was great fun! The only sour part was when one of the final moves pulled in the woman’s fight looked like it landed pretty savagely on one of their necks which made us reel in discomfort on her behalf. She seemed alright at the end but not sure whether that was scripted…
The language used by the Mexican crowd was hilarious. Much like the more controversial football hooligan chants of the English, there was a whole array of abuse shouted at the wrestlers and more hilariously the favourites would garner those chants and direct at their opponents. The Mexican men in particular, many beers in, were particularly vocal with their chanting and heckling. Some of our favourites:
Culero = coward or fucking asshole
Puto = male prostitute
Chinga tu madre = fuck your mother
Pretty hilarious and naturally once we worked out how to say them we joined in. There were kids in the stands with us as well.
Apparently Mystico, much like Rey Mysterio from Luke’s WWE/WWF days, was the big cheese here and the chants for his name were continuous.
A pretty fun experience, although it isn't something we would find ourselves at more than once.
With the relatively unsuccessful bus tour from the prior day we thought we’d try our hand at one of the free (minus tip) walking tours of the central area we hadn’t spent much time exploring. Our initial tour for 10am was cancelled due to a COVID case potentially infecting the guide the previous day but we were able to jump on the 11am last minute all fine. It was weird to have covid impact on our planned itinerary for the first time in what felt like forever - we just don’t think about it much at all anymore.
We met up with the group at 11am after a quick walk through the cathedral to kill some time before the start, split into two groups and had our tour guide Tadeo lead us around for a few hours.
There were a number of sites we stopped off at, had some decent information from Tadeo and then carried on while intermittently talking to various other people on the tour. It was easy going and we enjoyed the tour, the key points being:
Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral
National Palace
Estatua Ecuestre de Carlos IV
Palacio Postal - looked more like Gringotts bank than a post office.
Palacio de Bellas Artes - a giant marble building that was sinking 15cm per year compared to the Mexico City average of 5cm as the city was built on a lake. The building looked heavy AF. Opposite was a building that was full on splitting in two.
The House of Tiles
The tour ended at the house of tiles where we gave an alright tip. Luke ended up directing people to Los Esp for the dirt cheap tacos when the guide failed to be particularly useful in his suggestions of nearby eateries and also continued to be less than useful when Nicola asked about where she could get deodorant, of which she had little luck finding in central.
As we were in the city we decided that tacos everyday for every meal would be pretty boring quickly so decided to mix it up given there were more options here. We had lunch at an unnoteworthy Japanese place but can’t go wrong with ramen, veggies and soup.
Now back in the heat (although it is a nice dry heat rather than the moist SE Asia air) Nicola was missing her light cardigan to offer simple shelter from the sun. We tried looking through some of the shops and stalls but it seems cardigans aren’t a thing.
Once we had given up we walked through Alameda Central to the bus stop that would take us back to Bosque de Chapultepec. We spent the next 30 minutes wondering how we got a metro card and walking between two bus stops and a metro stop to try and get one. Nicola was not very happy, and eventually we found a bus stop where we could actually buy one - it seems that the first bus and metro stops had run out of these cards somehow, including the woman at the metro counter. A kind Mexican local was willing to tap us through the gate when our mixed conversation in Spanish confused the hell out of him, but he was useful in indicating that the ‘Comprar’ button should actually be active so it proved our conclusion that we needed to hit up another bus stop.
After all this we were with a top up travel card and we could have quite easily sacked off the rest of our day at this point from a combination of irritability and tiredness. But carpe diem.
Once back at the park we made our way to Chapultepec Castle. The security at the bottom of the steepish path up had a look inside Luke’s bag and said something in Spanish but let him through and he thought nothing of it, assuming because he thought Luke wasn’t a threat just let him by. Turns out he was saying that water wasn’t allowed in the castle so Luke, very annoyed, ended up drinking over a litre of water and throwing out another litre after paying the $90 ticket fee.
The castle & museum was alright. It had nice views over the city but being a Sunday (and free to locals) it was quite busy inside so naturally we spent as little of our time there.
Once done we descended down the hill and walked over to what seemed like the large bus terminal to try and get to the Roma district for some food and a drink. It was probably the most confusing place / bus system we have ever experienced. The bus we needed per google maps and Citymapper said we needed to be here but the mass of purple mini buses that came and went didn’t align their destinations with our expectations so after a while of standing hopelessly in a queue and half confirming with locals we sacked it off and got an Uber as Nicola didn’t want to walk. Right decision.
We had a drink at Mercado Roma, the equivalent of boxpark in London but much smaller and what seemed like not very good food for quite a dear price. We had a drink to wind down for a bit and then went looking for other food joints.
Initially we were tempted by Por Siempre Vegano which advertised vegan tacos that appealed to a vegetable deficit we had been feeling but the simple food truck without seating put us off. In the end we went round the corner to Yeccan and had a rather disappointing mac & cheese (we weren’t surprised) but the crispy chicharron was on point. The beer menu was also monstrous and the hazy IPA Luke had was decent, although not really in the mood to drink.
We got 2 buses back which were largely uneventful bar being overcrowded and had us constantly feeling we were in the way of someone. Nicola did finally manage to find some victory deodorant on the way back.
It was time for Luke’s first major temple site, of which there would be plenty to come. We got up earlier in order to get over to Teotihuacán for a reasonable time, which would involve a couple busses and a fair amount of travel time.
We had passed on the USD30 guided tour option as it was a lot cheaper to make our way own way there and following a guide around the historic site would be a bit cumbersome. This turned out to be a great shout as there were plenty of plaques to read, we had already had some information about the history of the place from our YouTube sesh and being able to walk around at our own pace in the sun was far more preferable than what looked like draining tour groups (as would be confirmed by someone we met). It only cost us $120 return (£6) for the ADO bus ticket and $90 for the entry fee (£4).
We were at breakfast for opening and as with earlier starts Nicola didn’t eat much food. We were also given American style pancakes so the dry stodgy bread really didn’t appeal to her.
It was a short walk to the L1 bus at Bella Artes and took us all the way to Central Norte / Terminal de Autobuses de Pasajeros de Oriente. Again it was ramo and we stood uncomfortably the whole time but it wasn’t too long a journey.
At the bus terminal we bought our tickets from the ADO counter, all very easily and we’re directed to the gate where we only had a short wait for the bus to arrive. The bus was about an hour and half to the temple where it terminated.
Nicola was hungry by the time we had gotten off the bus so we decided that an emergency elevensies / early lunch would be required to fuel her walking around the temple site for a few hours. We settled on the first restaurant that was on offer, after a quick consultation with Google maps and determining that a 4 rating was ok for the ass end of nowhere. Naturally it was mainly just Mexican food on offer and while it filled a hole it definitely wasn’t going to be on any top food lists. This was a great shout as there were zero food places inside the temple.
Once we had purchased our tickets we walked between the three main points of the temple site. Teotihuacán refers to the old city and also the civilisation that inhabited the area dating to before 200BC and the temple's creators are unknown. The city was in ruins when the Aztecs held power a thousand years later, Teotihuacáns fell as a major power around 750AD.
Temple of the Sun: the tallest of the monuments to the sun god and sadly we couldn’t walk up to the summit of the flat topped temple, although we completely understand why and agree with its preservation goal.
Temple of the Moon: a bit smaller but it had a lot more smaller temples around it which made it look a bit more impressive. There were some decent higher vantage points where we could appreciate the temple from up here as well.
Avenue of the Dead / Calzada de los Muertos: essentially a long street of smaller temples dedicated to less significant gods. It was straight as an arrow and ended with the Moon pyramid.
We had a walk between the 3 and then a long walk to gate 1 and away from the Moon temple where there were some other ruins and a larger temple we could walk up. Watching the oldies shuffle down the slightly steep steps on their asses was quite amusing.
After a few hours we left Teotihuacán and waited for the bus outside gate 2. Luke ended up speaking to a police officer here (there were a lot of them roaming around with automatic rifles) who just wanted a friendly chat and practise some English. A baby faced officer with a massive machine gun - a bit strange.
The bus out had a guy with a guitar jump on and perform but wasn’t very good at all. The return leg however had a guy with a guitar and pan flute which was pretty entertaining. Luke even took out his dnb to listen so felt he was deserving of a tip. Although $20 didn’t seem like a whole lot it appeared we were far more generous than most.
Once back at the hostel we milled around for a short time before getting an early dinner and pigging out on our last helping of Los Esp tacos. To round it off we frequented a local bakery to treat ourselves to some sugar and have bus snacks for the following day.
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