Girl hits Mexico Town!

Yes folks I´m in Mexico and what a place! The very first thing I realised is that two weeks is absolutely nothing in this place, and I mean nothing. It´s huge, people spend months and months here, this is a totally different experience from a lil ole Caribbean island! Mexico city on its own is like a gazillion times the size of London with about 26 million people......last time I complain about London being too big! As it is, I only have two weeks and I´m doing my best to keep the balance between taking in sights, but taking it easy...I´m supposed to be on holiday here!

So, I´ve spent a week in Mexico city which was amazing. I stayed in the Centro Historico, right next to the biggest and one of the oldest Cathedrals in Mexico, built right on top of the site of the Aztec Templo Mayor which has been partly excavated round the back of the cathedral. From the terrace bar in my hostel (Hostel Catedral is not bad as far as hostels go!) you can see way up into the mountains and get a good sense of just how ridiculously big the whole city is! The metro is extremely easy to use to get around, easier than the London Underground, and at $2 pesos a go, really quite cheap (21-22 pesos to the pound), but there is no way to see and do it all in a few days. I managed to go to Chapultapec park and the Anthropology museum in the park (geek I know) which are both amazing! I also did a lot of walking around the historical zone or Zocalo and managed to find a Zara!!!! Eeek!!! I also had a couple of excellent nights out, one going to see Mexican Wrestling, you can´t help but catch the bug, they get right into it, so so do you! The other was in an area called Condesa which is like a Clapham Junction with loads of bars, restaurants and clubs.

There are quite a few ancient ruins around Mexico City as well, I took a tour which took me to Tlatelolco which as well as being an excavated site was also the site of the 1982 masacre of students by the Mexican government. A really interesting but disgustingly tragic story. The tour also went to the shrine of Guadaloupe, patron saint of Mexicans. Amazing shrine and history but really quite shameless exploitation by the Catholic Church. I was amazed to see a billboard offering direct debit contibutions to the church in return for prayers and blessings....anyway.

The final stop on our tour was Teitohuacán, now that was something worth doing! Not only for the free Polque (spirit made from a cactus ;-) and Tequila but for the temple of the sun, which I managed to climb all the way to the top! Definitely worth doing if you´re coming this way!

There was some strange activity though, I´d already noticed that everyone here stares at me; in Mexico City its rare to see many dark skinned and certainly black people. So pretty much from arrival I´ve been open mouthed, stop dead in tracks, slow down traffic stared at. I never thought in this day and age a black person would draw so much attention, but I have. At Teitohuacán, myself and a fellow female tourist from France who was tall, slim and almost platinum blonde (probably the whitest white person many people here have seen!) got asked to take more photos with various school children than I think they took of the pyramids! I guess now I have a sense of what its like to have the paparrazzi on your back......not great I tell ya!

So now I´m in Oaxaca city 6 hours south west of Mexico City. Its a lot quieter which is nice, plus its got just as much character and stuff to do as anywhere else in Mexico. Its shame I won´t get to do more here, but yet again, now I know I have to come back! The food is great, although I can´t imagine that Tacos every day is ever good for your health and there are oodles of interesting places to look around, although I´ve spent today sleeping and reading...bliss!

So, last but not least niggles. Primary niggle here has to be being stared at, its just not something I´m used to and you can´t help but wonder if you´ve got your skirt in your pants, a massive bogie on your nose or bird shit on your head. But this chick is taking some well given advice (;-) and rocking it like she´s super hot and taking it in her stride!

Second but thankfully very temporary niggle was the Air Mexicana flight from Cuba. Apparently landing in a valley as Mexico City is in, is always gonna be a bit turbulent, but that cannot explain why my pilot decided to aim for the landing strip nose first. I´ve never in my life been more terrified on a plane, and it really doesn´t do much for my relationship with unfamiliar airlines!

Final niggle is the cold! Nobody told me it was cold here! Okay so its not UK cold and I don´t need a scarf and gloves, but in the evenings you do need a cardigan AND a jacket...poo... its annoying, I imagined months of summer dresses and flip flops day and night, instead I´m getting far too much use of my jeans and trainers!! Oh and I had to buy another jacket to replace the one that went missing in Jamaica :-(

Big thumbs up for Mexico overall, this place really is worth coming to, shame I only have a week left!

Before I go, I have a book and CD recommendation; Paulo Coelho's The Witch of Portobello, I´ve been reading it in spanish which isn´t easy, but hasn´t made it any less inspiring. I honestly think I´m just gonna go right ahead and join Paulo´s fan club. Sod it. Also, one of the popular sound tracks of my trip so far is Fire on the Mountain by Asa. The whole album actually (also called Asa) is fantastic although she sometimes sings in Yoruba which you´ll love even if you don´t understand! I promise neither will dissapoint!