Jeff and I got up on Saturday and packed our suitcases. They were so full everything would fall out if we opened them. We each put on the clothes we left out to wear on the bus and realized we matched.
There was no time to open our suitcases and repack so we had to just be nerdy gringos and match for the day.
The bus was like boarding a plane. We checked our luggage at a counter, went through a metal detector, and watched as our luggage was loaded.
Everyone got a bottle of water as they entered.
We didn’t match as much sitting side by side.
We watched the movie Shang-Chi and the Ledgend of the Ten Rings. It was so weird to watch a movie that took place in China dubbed in Spanish.
Three hours later we made it to Puebla. Thus bus was great. Lots of legroom, AC and cheap, only the equivalent of $10 USD.
On Thursday Jeff and I went to the Aztec Temple which is right in the middle of town. It turns out Aztec is a term made up by a German in the 1800’s. The Mexican term is mexica.
The site is huge, seven city blocks.
And it’s truly in the middle of town. Here’s a wall of stone skulls with a church from the 1500’s behind it.
They were really into skulls.
As if a wall of carved stone skulls wasn’t creepy enough, they also did this.
The attached museum housed all the things found at the site which is good because the museum is air conditioned.
This stone tablet was so big you needed to be up.2 floors top see it.
And I think they must have invented the recorder we all played in third grade.
The green instrument is made of stone but looks exactly the same.
This guy might have invented corn on the cob
This was something to put an offering in. I love the face on it.
And of course one that looks really pissed off.
Then it was back to the apartment to have a Spanish lesson.
On Tuesday we went to the Anthropology Museum which was truly amazing. It was so big we only made it through half of it.
Before we even entered we saw this dance being performed. Or, some lost a contact.
We started on the second floor and were not impressed. The above was ok but we weren’t blown away. We were confused until we went back down to floor one.
The below statue was giving me the side eye.
I think we all know if I was an artisan in this time which one below would be mine.
Jeff thought the one on the left might have been a kid’s artwork.
The above one looks disgusted.
I think the above statue has a bird on his head but it also looks like a faucet.
This is my ancient role model. Not just sitting down but half reclining.
After a few hours I was done. If there had been beds in this tomb I would have taken a nap.
And then we went out to lunch. The restaurant at the museum was really good.
On Monday all the museums were closed so we did a Hop On, Hop Off sight seeing bus. We normally don’t do these, but Mexico City is huge. It was a good way to see a lot of things.
It was fun seeing the second stories of the buildings which is hard to see from street level. Due to the heat, and laziness, we didn’t get off the bus. We just saw,everything from the bus.
Although we had already seen some of the things at different stops.
After the bus did it’s 10 stop loop we stopped for lunch. I was super thirsty so ordered a “jarra”of jaimaica which is hibiscus flowers, water and sugar. They must use a lot of sugar because it tasted a lot better than when I tried making it at home. I learned that jarra does not mean jar but jug. It was a lot of jaimaica.
On Sunday we woke up in the hotel we had moved to and ate some bread. A few days prior we bought this really heavy, delicious sourdough bread.
Little did we know we’d be carrying it all over town. When we moved hotels the night before, our Uber took us to the wrong hotel. The bellhop loaded all our suitcases onto the cart, Jeff carried a five liter bottle of water, and I carried the bread down the street and around the block. This is the bellhop after he unloaded the suitcases.
Next we went to Bosque de Chapultepec. This is a huge park in Mexico City. It’s been a forest since pre-Aztec times. It has a zoo, several museums and of course a Starbucks.
Jeff and I were talking about our hatred for Trump when a nice young gentleman asked us if he could interview us for a paper he was writing for univeristy. We agreed as long as he didn’t us our names.
We had planned on going to some museums, but they are free on Sundays and were packed. We decided to walk around in natural instead.
A lot of other people had the same idea. There were a lot of stands selling all kinds of things.
We ended the day with more tacos. These were slightly different and I thought better.
On Saturday we spent most of the day trying to get out of our 2 week Airbnb reservation.
The apartment had a lot of problems such as the couch.
The biggest problem was the “air conditioner” which was really a big fan. It didn’t cool the bedroom or any room down. The host didn’t want to give us a refund do we had to get Airbnb Support involved. They were able to refund our reservation and even pay for our night in a hotel. We were so happy to get into an air conditioned hotel.
We normally travel with a stainless Steel French Press but since we’re traveling light (by our standards) we left it in Merida. We thought we’d just use whatever was in the Airbnb. That lasted a day. Then we were in the market for a pour over. Not that we don’t have several in our storage locker in Seattle.
Dinner was Tacos Al Pastor. Mexico City is famous for them.
Vegetarians enjoy this photo of beer and stop reading. Skip the rest of this post.
They are pork tacos cooked on a spit like gyro meat . There is always chunks of pinapple included which is whats on top of the spit.
These were good. The best? No. We, have to keep trying more.
They are small, but was eating 5 overdoing it? Perhaps.
Should we have been curious and looked up the translation for the part of the menú with the skulls? Definitely not.
Suritida-assorted
Trompa-snout
Cachete-cheek
Ojo- eye
Maciza-solid (I don’t want to know)
Sesos-brains
Lengua-tongue
We have a lot more tacos to try. We will be only ordering tacos al pastor an no cabeza de rez. There was a time when I was trying to eat all parts of the cow in Argentina. I’m glad I stopped that quest before I got to any of the above.
On Friday we went out to see Mexico City. The good thing about having an AirBnB that is 90 degrees is it got us out the door earlier than normal.
Breakfast was at a cute outdoor cafe. The food wasn’t great but there were piñatas. The waiter got mad when Jeff blind folded me and I smashed this one with my knife expecting candy to fall out. (Just kidding).
This man sang. I normally don’t like that sort of thing but he was really good and it was worth the equivalent of fifty cents.
Next stop was the main square which had hundreds and hundreds of these tents. At first I thought it was a REI sale. Then maybe the world’s cleanest and most orderly homeless encampment. But after some Googling found that it is a protest of educators. Maybe they’ll give us a tent if we joined them. It would be cooler than our Airbnb.
The Cathedral was huge. There was a mass going on so we didn’t take photos inside, but it was beautiful.
Next up was the Palacio de Bella Artes
It was so big I had to get this picture from across the street. Inside there was an amazing floor of murales including two by Diego Rivera.
After the museum we went out for a late lunch and I got this pretty drink.
It was gin, lavender and a bunch of other things these made it pretty and delicious.
On Thursday we flew to Mexico City. We took the cheap airline which was great except for boarding. Since I have this hernia, Jeff had to carry both of our carry ons up the stairs.
Ironically, we are not beating the heat. In Merida. And Panama City it was hot but we had great AC.
Here there’s s heat wave and in the upper 80’s. The apt only has this portable AC that doesn’t really work. Sven and Sergio couldn’t figure it out either.
The good thing about a hot apartment is it got us to drop our suitcases and go right out. We started at a bar pretty much on the street which was cool but we were about 20-30 years older than everyone else there.
We had mole enchiladas which were good. And something we’ve never had before, wine from Brazil.
