Mexico part 1 : 6-14 September

Mexicans eat something spicy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They also love tequila with beer. David is in heaven. 

Having never been to Mexico, not speaking any Spanish and just having 4 weeks of Americans telling us how dangerous it is, we were skeptical, but excited. With 3 weeks and no set itinerary, Mexico was a complete mystery. All we knew was that the food and drink should be good. And we were right! Everything is so cheap and although the food is nothing like the Mexican fare we got in the US or at home, it is much more varied and a lot more flavorful.

Mexico City 6 Sep-10 Sep

• Our hotel, Condesa Haus, is in the very trendy Condesa district (think the Parkurst of Mexico City - ok, not quite but close). The hotel itself is in a beautiful old building, the rooms are gorgeous, the breakfast are lovely, but the best feature is Fernando. The best tour guide/hotel manager ever. He basically mapped out our whole Mexican trip for us in the first morning, as well as giving great tips for things to see, do, drink and eat in one of the world's largest cities.

• Being recognised Mexican food nuts, we were of course really keen to start trying the real stuff. El Kalifa, near Condesa, was the first name on the lips of our taxi driver and Fernando when it came to tacos, and they definitely did not disappoint.  In Mexico, your classic 'Tex-mex' dishes like tacos, burritos, enchiladas and quesadillas are actually close to snacks or almost like tapas - not a main course. This, of course, is easily solved by having 3 tacos for lunch. Tacos here are generally small corn tortillas filled with one meat and perhaps a vegetable or cheese, and are provided with sauces and salsas for garnishing. After decoding the Spanish menu, pollo al pastor (marinaded chicken) and arrachera (steak) were our favorites. The delicious salsas, heavy on cilantro and chili, really contribute to the taste.

• We didn't just eat though... While Mexico City is big, noisy and crowded, it does have a lot of history, being the capital of the Aztec empire, and the colonial New Spain. The open top bus took us into the historical centre, and we got a great first taste of the grandeur of the colonial Spanish city. The Zocalo (city square) was filled with some kind of anti-government protesters, which was unfortunate, as there were tents and police everywhere. We would have also liked to go into the cathedral, but the blood of Pope John Paul 2 was 'on tour', and there was a 2 km queue snaking across the square, so that was out as well, since the very Catholic Mexicans were out in force to see it.

• Public artwork is plentiful, and we saw a lot of murals by famous Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera. This one here is at the main government office in Mexico City, and shows the history of the Mexican people.

• Mexico City is a massive metropolis, but there are quite a few cute areas that are littered with good restaurants, bars and shopping malls. A friend of Elsa's, Isaac, suggested that we go to the Polanco district which is exactly like that. We had a great meal there (with South Africa's Tall Horse white wine) and we shopped in a mall that could have been in Cape Town. It's low-rise and tree-lined - very Joburg-esque.

• Mexico City was built on the ruins on the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, and we couldn't quite figure out how that happened. How do you build a city on another city? Well, amazingly, they only discovered the ruins of the largest Aztec temple in Tenochtitlan in the 1970's, and they found it just a few meters from the Zocalo. They've since excavated a large portion, and have found the base and first 20 steps or so of the remains of the old pyramid temple, along with lots of artifacts, remains, tombs etc. Its remarkable to walk around it surrounded by colonial buildings, wondering how it remained hidden for so long. We were to discover that the pre-Columbian Mexicans were a bloodthirsty race, and skull decorations and remnants of human sacrifice were very plentiful at the temple.

• A visit to the massive Anthropological museum told us a lot more about the ancient and classical era Mexican "Indians", and the many  different tribes and cultures that flourished there in huge cities when the Irish and native South Africans were still in tiny villages and settlements.

• Even better was the chance to see the amazingly intact ancient city of Teotihuacan, which is about an hour from Mexico City. On the way, we realised why Mexico city is such a metropolis, with the city spreading across hills and valleys in a mass of housing and people.

• Teotihuacan was the most important city in Mexico in the middle of the 1st millennium C.E., and was abandoned mysteriously around 900 C.E. It once housed over 100,000 people long before Dublin was ever founded. It's huge, and we were able to walk down the wide, straight avenue that leads to the main temples. Trying to dodge the incessant souvenir vendors, we explored the city, and then climbed the highest pyramid (The Pyramid of the Sun). It's harder than it looks! At over 2,000m above sea level, breathing is very difficult when climbing the almost vertical stairs. We managed to get away from the noisy students who camped up there and found a quiet spot to enjoy the view of the surrounding mountains.

• It was our first experience with public bus transport in Mexico (we were to learn a lot more about it!) and apart from some strange man trying to entice us onto his bus instead of our correct bus (not sure of the reason), we made it with only rudimentary Spanish.

• Fernando, our hotel manager, gave us great advice on watering holes, and we were very happy to take up the offer to try the local beers, tequilas and mezcals. A nice custom (in David's opinion), is to order a small beer and a tequila or mezcal. So you would have a sip of beer, then a sip of mezcal. It's surprisingly good, and inexpensive, but leads to .... late nights.

• Tequila is also served with a tomato-based companion called Sangrita, or with chili or salt coated lemons or oranges. The tequilas are also huge, being at least a triple shot (remember that you sip it over a long period). We did have a few margaritas, but they weren't that common, and to our surprise, they were all the frozen, slushy kind. Perhaps the margarita is not a traditional Mexican cocktail after all. 

• Upon a recommendation, we also went to a great night life place called T Gallery. Its all built in an old house (like the new Buena Vista in Cape Town), with different decor etc. going on in each room. The most fun thing was that a Cuban salsa band were playing, but the average age of the band members was at least 70. It was really cute seeing this really handsome 70-year old Cuban with flowing grey hair singing his heart out!

The Romanian waiter for the night, Nicolas, also gave us great tips on what to see in  Mexico, and its thanks to him that we hit our next stop - Puebla. This meant back to Mexico public buses, which are actually great compared to many other Western countries. The scenery was also really good.

Puebla 10 Sep - 11 Sep
Puebla is a small city about 2 hours by bus from Mexico City. It seems to be a popular weekend getaway and wedding destination, as we saw mostly Mexican tourists and a few wedding parties. In some parts of Mexico, Western tourists are sometimes hard to find. I suppose the more middle-class tourists tend not to come to Mexico, but there are plenty of backpackers in the smaller destinations.

Puebla was our first taste of the colonial architecture, the narrow streets, the artisenal markets and local cafes that you see in many of the small towns of Mexico. There are countless lovely churches, squares, houses and courtyards.

While walking through Puebla we found the cutest cafe on earth. One of the best features of the colonial architecture in our opinion is the inside courtyard, around which the house is generally built in a square shape, generally with a fountain and trees and plants. That's why you can't always judge a Mexican place by the exterior. We spotted this cafe by just a glimpse through the door, and inside was the smallest, cutest courtyard, completely hidden from view. A really unique feature was the seat built into the wall, and we loved all the antique tile decoration - Puebla is famous for it.

During lunch on the square, we first tried to two famous local dishes, Mole Poblano and Chiles en Nogada. The former is a sauce that originated in Puebla consisting of a rich, spicy chocolate/nut sauce over meat (normally chicken). The second can only be found at this time of the year and is made all over Mexico as the dish that signifies Mexican Independence Day (16 September), since it contains the colours of the Mexican flag (green, red and white) It is a very big (not very spicy) green chile filled with meat and fruit, covered with walnut sauce and pomegranates. As you might have noticed by now, all our photos contain the Mexican flag and this is all because of Independence Day which we would spend in San Cristobal (next blog). The Mexicanness is everywhere. It almost looks like World Cup month in SA.

We only stayed in Puebla for one night, but this is where we realised how cheap accommodation was going to be over the next few weeks. A private room with ensuite bathroom in a hotel cost us R200... The hotel itself was out-of-a-movie cute with a big courtyard, but as with all accommodation at this level, quite basic. BUT more than enough for our needs.

Oaxaca 11 Sep - 14 Sep
Bus is really the only way to travel in Mexico. The buses are modern and comfortable, and pretty inexpensive too. The only problem is the roads, which can be bumpy and twisty. However, after a decent 5 hour journey, we hit Oaxaca (wa-haka). Oaxaca is famous for its food, its beautiful churches and colonial architecture.

We stayed at yet another very cute guest house. It was like living in someone's garden, with cottages nestled between several courtyards. The staff didn't generally speak English, but David's Spanish had picked up the necessary words to navigate around, and ask questions. Understanding the answers would pose a different, unforeseen problem... To date, we can still ask the time shops close or buses depart, but cannot understand the time they give us. What else can you do but say 'ah gracias' and try to decipher it offline. Our most used phrase is 'Tiene wi-fi?' (do you have wi-fi Internet?), along with 'una otra cerveza, por favor' (another beer please)

Monte Alban is a mountain near Oaxaca that contains another set of Zapotec ruins, of a similar age to Teotihuacan. The more ancient ruins are generally less well preserved than the Spanish-era ruins, such as the Mayan ruins, which we would see later. However, they do have a special grandeur of their own. What sets this apart from others is that its on top of a flat mountain top that gives you great views of your surroundings. After an interesting minibus taxi ride, we passed hordes of tour buses leaving the ruins. Thank goodness we were late risers, because when we got to the the top around 12pm, all the 10am tours had left, and we pretty much had a stunning mountain top city to ourselves. We decided, therefore, to stick to the late-rising strategy for the foreseeable future.

We had hoped to visit some of the surrounding villages, but our hotel messed up our tour, and it didn't turn up. However, this gave us the unexpected bonus of a free day in Oaxaca. It was so nice to sit and read, buy an English cookbook at the first English bookstore we found in Mexico, have a nice meal and find a bar with a great view of the church and mountains. David finally finished Atlas Shrugged (6 months later), and Louise ate though 3 books in 2 days. We could also visit the markets and go tequila and mezcal tasting. We (unsurprisingly) liked all the tequila we tasted!

Arriving early back at our guest house, we ran into a older American named John, who had helped us out with Spanish with our failed tour bus attempt earlier. He struck us as one of the classic ex-pat Americans who had been stationed in Latin America in the past for whatever reason (his was some sort of secret semi-CIA mission), and just couldn't or wouldn't get along in the USA any more. He'd been travelling around Latin America for quite a while, and we had a great conversation over dinner and tequila, at a great restaurant he recommended, called La Olla, about Americans, books, movies, history and Mexico. by the end of the night he was poised to move to South Africa though, so we must have had an interesting influence too.

We decided to stay an extra night in Oaxaca so that we could do something we really wanted to : a cooking class. There are so many courses to choose from, as it's a really popular thing to do, but we went with one that had a local cook and was well rated on tripAdvisor.

At first the assistant took us to the local market where she explained the subtleties of all the food, where they buy food and why. We were in a group of about 16, with only two Spanish people (who must have felt a bit hard done by - they come to Mexico of all places, and get into an English speaking cooking course which they couldn't really understand). It was refreshing being able to chat about anything in English. The group was from the UK, Aus, America and then our odd situation... We instantly clicked with a couple from the UK and met them again later and spent Independence Day with them in San Cristobal.

Then we went back to meet the head chef who is a bit intimidating, but clearly very knowledgeable so we listened to her intently and added to her recipes where she omitted some 'state secrets'. The menu we prepared consisted of cheese and truffle quesadillas with a brilliant green spicy salsa, Aztec soup (a tomato based soup with tortillas), chile en nogada (explained before) and coconut flan. We also had local Mezcal and beer to wash it down. It took the 16 of us about 3 hours to prepare, we got the recipes printed out. Worth every cent! (R500 pp). Whether we will every be able to replicate the recipes is a question for December and Joburg's markets, but we will try!

That night we settled in for an 11 hour bus journey through the south of Mexico to San Cristobal de las Casas. It`s called a Night Bus as i guess the idea is that you are supposed to sleep all night, then awake refreshed for a whole day ahead of you. It did not quite turn out like that! But now for the next part of the trip, in deepest Mexico!