Mexico - Mexico City - Red Lights Are Only a Suggestion

Well friends, I made it to Mexico City without incident. At the Cancun airport, we discovered that just because Trident makes great gum at home, that does not mean that Trident makes great gum in Mexico. Tip: avoid freshmint flavour. Gross. Other highlights of purchases made at the airport while waiting center around the excellent marketing slogans used on Mexican products. I particularly enjoyed Ahora Mas Rico (now more yummy!) while at Tulum and my airport orange juice with Contiene Miles de Sonrisas (contains millions of smiles).

Armando was very good and picked Mick and I up from the shuttle drop off. Now, under North American circumstances, I would have been somewhat alarmed by his driving style. However, in Mexico City where stop signs are definitely only decorative and red lights appear to be completely optional, I was instead weirdly comforted by his darty and unpredictable driving. And hardly anyone really walks here - the roads and buses are all crammed full of people. Armandos daily commute to his office is about two hours each way. I dont know how he can stand it.

Ten minutes into the drive, Armando then casually drops that we are not going directly to his house. Oh no, in fact, Monday was the night before the Mexican holiday Dia de los Reyes Magos, sort of a second Christmas celebrating the arrival of the three wise men-kings of orient. So we were actually going to a family party hosted by his grandmother. Mick and I rolled eyes at each other - we looked like we had washed ashore in our clothes and literally had no clean laundry to change into. I pulled my classic move of adding jewelry and redoing my hair differently to create the illusion of presentableness, but it was a sad display. We walk in the door, Armando in his work suit, everyone at the party dressed up, and Mick and I in flipflops and t-shirts. Cool.

The amazing hospitality of his family overcame my fashion-related embarassment fairly quickly though, and we wound up staying for a good couple of hours. Part of the night included a tradition of cutting rosca, a round cake bread. Each person cuts their own slice and hidden inside the cake randomly are tiny plastic baby Jesuses. If your piece has a baby Jesus in it, then in February you have to buy everyone a tamale. I emerged with my piece debt free. P.S. rosca is quite tasty.

I scored the spare room to myself which is a welcome change from our very mediocre hostel in Playa. Better yet, Mick and I have a bathroom to ourselves as well, as compared with the not very clean one we shared with 12 other people at the hostel. This morning I was delighted to be able to do my laundry. Except as it turns out, their family has a housemaid who grabbed it before I had the chance to get to the washing machine. Not entirely sure where my clothes have ended up actually, hmmmm. Pretty sure the end result of this stay will be me be spoiled for the road onward. Ah well, I shall revel in it while its available.

Mick and I definitely do not know enough about Mexico City and whenever people ask us what we want to see, the answer is usually a shrug. Some research will be done tomorrow morning. Today we went to see The Castle, so named because we never worked out what its called (Update: Chapultepec is its name). Emperor Maximilian lived there at one point. Dont know much more, but it had a great view of the city all around and I finally could appreciate the enormous size of this place.

When youre weaving in and out of traffic on curvy one way streets that all seem to be uphill, its hard to imagine how far the city extends. Plus the smog is so thick that sometimes you can't even make out the ring of enormous volcanoes around the city.


We then walked up Paseo de la Reforma, a promenade styled after Paris (we didnt really see the similarities). It was cool in that it had outdoor art displays, so it was like a wander through a gallery but outside. Although I didnt love the art on display, the idea was solid.

We met up with Armando for lunch and then went to kill some time while he finished up his work day to get a ride back to his house. We wandered down Presidente Masaryk, an incredibly high end promenade of shops including Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Lacoste, Tiffanys, etc. Rodeo Drive of Mexico City I guess. Didnt do much souvenir shopping in that neighbourhood, let me tell you!

Have no idea whats in store for us over the next few days... hopefully will squeeze in one more post before we head south to the lands of unreliable internet!