MEXICO - THE FOOD. DEAR LORD THE FOOD

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After a shitty stretch at work in a new role, it was time for vacay. Needless to say, and as it always goes, I was soooooooooo pumped. Where to this time? Somewhere exotic, with a long plane flight, and at least two layovers. Yeah, has to be...

Well, after Zack wanted Egypt and I vetoed, I threw out Iran and then he vetoed. We came up with Armenia and Azerbaijian. This was the plan for a good while, but then at some point we both realized we weren't too jazzed about it. So, Mexico. Zack threw it up and it landed with a perfect 10.

¡Vamonos!

As it's the type that I absolutely love (hate), I had a really early morning to start things off. Weirdly enough, I had no issue getting up. The biggest problem that morning of, as well as the few days leading up to departure, was figuring out which bag I wanted to take. Seriously. I wanted a bag big enough to take all of my stuff (including my camera and schnazzy new lens), but small enough that I could use it as a daypack.

Mexico - Street Tacos and Beer

Well, I ended up taking two bags. That wasn't ideal, but it worked out, I guess. FINALLY packed and ready to go, I made my way to the airport. An easy walk to the MAX station, an easy ride to the airport, and easy jaunt through security, and then a short wait for the flight as I was fading and people watching, itching to take my nap on the flight to SF.

Even though I was heading off to a new country, I wasn't really in the travel-zone yet. I was super worn from work and struggling to find the positives out of it. And pulling 60ish hour weeks is a bitch. Flat out.

Either way, I was super pumped to finally reunite with Zack. Such a good dude, hilarious personality, history buff extraordinnaire, and amazing travel buddy. As always, we were gearing for another great trip. Well. Oiled. Machine.

Got into SF no sweat. Had to grab my bag and change terminals, but I did that, and when I checked in for our MEX flight, the ticket lady waived my baggage fee. Woot woot! That was a pleasant surprise, even though I mildly hammed it up. But boom baby, it worked.

TSA Pre-Check for the win again, and I was in the lounge waiting for Mr. Mustache to get in. Well he finally showed up and my guest pass got him in so we could chill with free food and drinks before we left. Hawt dayum. It was pretty funny too, seeing his excitement and wonder of the world of lounges, as it was his first airport lounge experience. Definitely a nice way to not only beat the crowds, but score some free vittles and libations.

Eventually we headed out to get to our plane and off we were..... not. For some reason, we had a pretty long wait on the tarmac. Neither of us were completely sure why, but we think it was something to do with the winds. Whatever. But of course it gave us enough time for Zack to do his terrible pre-trip ritual.

Quick flight. I watched Three Billboards, which was a pretty great movie, and then The Accountant, which was also pretty great. Soon enough though, we touched down in Mexico! Got in, squeezed through customs, picked up my bag, and off we were. Took a bus into town, and then realized it didn't go close to the hostel, so grabbed a (dirt cheap) Uber for the rest of the way. Buhbam.

Checked in and got the skinny from the hostel dude, David. Best thing he ever told us - where the best taco joint in the neighborhood was. First great thing, it was super close. Second great thing, we were both super hungry. Off we went.

Holy shit did it live up to the recommendations. El Gato Volador, savior. The tacos were beautiful, and unfathomably delicious.

Chorizo, potatoes, spicy onions (two different kinds!!!), salsas, everything. And a coke from a glass bottle to cooly wash it down. Seriously, it blew my mind. And they were $0.50 a pop!!! WHAT??!?!?!?!

Quick Thought - The common setup in Mexico would break nearly every Food Code there is, but dear fucking god I would kill for that kinda setup in the U.S. Flat griddle with a bunch of different kinds of meats fried up, warm, and ready to go. Then, out front, for the dear customer to dish up themselves, all kindsa toppings. El Gato Volador (seriously, amazing) had potatoes, fried onions, fried peppers and onions, pickled onions and jalapeños, cucumbers, red salsa, green salsa, and I think some other stuff too. Seriously. Sooooooooo fuuuuuuuuuuuucking gooooooooooooooood.

After eating in hog heaven as the very first thing I'd ever done in Mexico, we tried to find a place to grab a drink, but it was a little harder than we thought. Eventually we found a kinda high-priced place and had a very watery American Lager from a local brewery. A good piece of cheesecake salvaged the end of our first day in what would turn out to be a culinary heaven.

Day 1 - Getting our Bearings

Rise and shine to a meager hostel breakfast. That got us ready as we put on our travel/game faces and got out the door. We headed straight to the subway to make our way downtown. Though it was our first ride, it was super easy. Our cards from the metrobus reciprocated, it was quite straightforward, dirt cheap, and really quick. Hell yeah. I guess with a city of 8 million people though, it better be that way.

What better way to get your bearings straight than to head for the biggest plaza in town? So we Bee-lined it to El Zócalo, the heart of downtown. Weirdly enough, even at 09:00, it seemed like most stores and whatnot were still closed. We could see some of them slowly opening up as we kept marching along, but it seemed a little late in the day to start things going. I think we learned that things start a little later.

A quick walk from the train station and we were there. But, two things. There were some massive tents covering the plaza due to a regional arts, food, and crafts fair from Oaxaca. How cool! But we were kinda bummed we couldn't see the plaza on its own. No joke, same thing happened to us at Red Square. Just our luck...

And then, there was some kind of protest or strike going on. After reading some of their flags, it appeared to be an agricultural workers union strike of sorts. We criss-crossed through the Zócalo throughout the day, and they were going strong pretty much all day.

The fair/tents didn't seem to be open when we arrived, so we killed time by going to check out the big cathedral. And it was huge. There was a mass in progress, but we walked around quietly and marveled at the sheer size and opulence of the place.

At that point, I hung in the square for a bit and took some pictures while Zack tried to find a bathroom. We learned really quickly that Mexico is a little sketchy about their bathrooms, like Europe charging per use of public facilities. Lame. But he got us a map then we headed into the Oaxaca fair.

We got in, and it was a pretty cool setup, especially with each big tent purveying a different category (e.g. Food, Crafts, Plants, other stuff). Not all of the vendors were setup and going, but we cruised around taking a look at all the stuff they had to offer. We wandered around for a second, but things were still pretty closed, so we hopped out for a quick walk over to the National Palace.

Inside, it was a pretty open complex (after the security checkpoint, of course. The courtyards were quite pretty, but the big selling point were the big murals of Mexican History by Diego Rivera. One was on a giant wall behind a large staircase, which spanned from pre-history to today. It was a pretty incredible piece of art.

In addition to the big one, there were a number of smaller pieces as well highlighting certain aspects or periods of history. Really beautiful work.

After that, and a little more wandering through a couple of the courtyards, we headed back out and back to the fair for the third attempt.

Thank goodness for the food tent. We were a bit hungry, so we strolled up and down the aisles and got a few samples here and there. Long story short, decided on a Tlayuda, which was amazing. A fried tortilla, with refried beans, some kinda cheese, three diff kinds of meats (chorizo, bistec, something else), and grilled cactus. Truly delicious. Then, topped it off with some ice cream. Culinary success, again.

Right next to the Zócalo is what's called Templo Mayor. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site of a temple that used to stand right in the heart of town. It was the temple complex where, after Teotihuacan faded from prominence, people moved to Templo Mayor as the next prominent metropolis in the region.

This one was pretty crazy. There wasn't a whole lot or a huge structure to witness with the current ruins. The complex was quite large though, with a walkway weaving through it towards the museum, clarifying what was where. But, as that second picture above shows, the temple started out at one size, and then the next ruler built on top of it, and the next another layer higher, and on and on. There were seven layers to this temple. Talk about having to outdo your predecessor...

We walked through the ruins, and the walkway led us to the museum, which we meandered through as well. The artifacts that were present were pretty impressive.

But really, there was a lot of cool info and some great visualizations of the transformation of the current valley where Mexico City lies, how it turned from a lake to a lake with towns in the middle of it, to just a dried up and populated valley. That and a bunch of stuff on the cultures and groups that populated the area, including Teotihuacan and Templo Mayor.

Done with the museums, we hit up some free restrooms, and checked out a little bookstore next to the ruins. But, ready for a break, we popped up to the top floor to the cafe for a great view, and a coffee and beer (yeah, we were all about mixing the uppers and downers on our pit-stops). With a beautiful perch over the ruins, we pondered our next moves and took a break to enjoy the beautiful view.

From there, we walked back through the main square, and took a nice stroll down a giant pedestrian street connecting the main square to a giant park down the way. Took a peek into some of the stores, I looked at some hats, Zack kept an eye out for his newly-desired track suit, but we mostly admired the hustle and bustle of the downtown madness.

At the end of the street, kitty korner from the park, was the Torre Latinoamericano, at one point the tallest building in Latin America (it was ousted recently by Torre Mayor just down the road). We got our tickets, and took the quick ride up. As one could guess, we were greeted with some AMAZING views of the absolutely HUGE city. Seriously, Mexico City is fucking gigantic.

I was approached a couple of times by some of the workers there, telling me I couldn't use a camera with a zoom lens. Seriously? Obviously I disregarded that, because that's a stupid rule. But I wasn't sneaky enough, and they came up to me with a bit of finality, so I had to put it away. What kind of place forbids the use of zoomed cameras? That boggled me a good bit.

Continuing down from the tower the plan was to head across to the big park. Before we could do that, I spotted a New Era hat store, and decided to pop in. After a bit of a hunt and decision, I boiled it down to a Mexico and a Veracruz (Tiburones Rojos) hat. To go with my allegiance to San Jose and the feared king of the sea, I snagged the Veracruz hat and am really pretty pumped about it!

Successful purchase and token of remembrance in hand and on head, we popped across to Bellas Artes and a quick stroll through the park, before heading back to the hostel for a nap.

I aimed for a nap but couldn't really fall asleep. Despite that, the leg rest was pretty damn clutch.

Quick Thought - Zack brought up a good point in comparing city and society mindsets. He put Berlin and Mexico City on a similar level, saying that in both places, people create with what is available to them. Either with the spaces they have, the tools on hand, the materials available, etc. The canvas is present and the picture is pieced together.

In comparison, in the States, people create what they want. The canvas is built according to intention, so there's a lot more liberty in that respect to make what you see fit, rather than having to adapt to surroundings or environment. To that point, there's not a lot of improvisation in that respect, as you can make to order, rather than having to build around what's already there.

Quick Thought - Mexican culture is all about family and food. Therefore, as our hostel guy David said, regardless of where you go to eat, it’s going to be good. If it’s not, it won’t be in business for long. As first-hand experience, Zack and I can definitely verify the validity of that sentiment.

Rested and ready, and now hungry, it was dinner time. After hearing some recommendations from David, we sauntered through the neighborhood to find our dining hall. The first place we went to, Contra Mar, was supposed to be some of the best seafood in town, but it closed at 18:30. Definitely would have helped to understand the cultural food times and such (we postulated later that it was likely a lunch place, not a dinner place).

Not daunted, we headed on our way towards the second place on the list, but there was no sign for it. We ended up being in the right spot, but had to ask around to verify that we were are Páramo. We were a little early for their dinner hours, but went upstairs and waited at the super-hidden but awesome little place. It definitely had a similar vibe to the one place we went to in Havana.

Long story short, this place was intense. I got some amazing sangria, we split some insane ceviche, and then we had some crazy artisan-ish tacos, that were absolutely delicious. Definitely a trendy and amazing place to fill up on some killer grub.

We left there in quite a wholesome state of contentment and satisfaction, so we wandered over to a bar to grab a beer. That was a little short, as Zack had to chat with someone back home, but I hung out at the bar for a second before heading back to the hostel as well.

Rather than ending the night, eventually a big 'ole round of cards came to be with a huge group of random folks. I started off talking to Rene from NZ (:-O) and ended up heading to the common room to play cards with Zack. Rene joined in, then Henry from LA, then Beth from the UK and Lille from France. Eventually had Anja from Munich join, as well as Rachel from LA and Martin from Atlanta, quite the crowd! Stayed up much later than originally thought, but it was a really fun time chatting and hanging around with everyone.

Day 2 - Teotihuacan

Our plan for the day was to head a bit out of town and go explore Teotihuacan, the ruins of a formerly sprawling ancient metropolis. We got up and ready, filled up on water, then jumped into the subway to head to the outer edge of town. Once there, we asked around where we could find the bus to the ruins.

We asked the cops which way to the bus, and they pointed us unfortunately in the wrong direction, which we blindly walked for a good bit. Realizing we were off course, we wandered back and headed to the other side of the freeway, which seemed a little more promising. With the help of some really helpful and expressive attendants, we found the right bus, hopped on, and sat down.

Quick Thought - how do the various microeconomies in developing countries sprout up? People hocking headphones on the subway for $0.50USD, or folks sitting around with a sort of sidewalk-shop with gum and stuff. How are these goods acquired? And how in the world do people make a living off of them?

While we were waiting to depart, one dude came on and sat down, and no less than 10 seconds later we here some shouts of some kind of porn video coming from his phone. Mute dude, mute. Everyone on the bus chuckled after that one. With that, we were off, easy peasy.

It's Mexican Matt Damon!

Well, things started out ok. Then we got off the freeway. We (I, Zack didn't seem to care too much) learned that this was the local bus, and learned as well that the local/side roads had speed bumps roughly every 20m. I slowly became a very unhappy and agitated camper. Our scenic route meandered though every town at a snail's pace. In hindsight, it was cool to see the small towns and such, but I was really irked in the moment. And to top it off, we even had to stop for gas.

The bus eventually (after about 2.5 hours) dropped us off in the middle of the town near the ruins. Not quite what we were expecting. Because of that, we had to take a cab over to the ruins. No joke, kinda felt a little bit like Cuba in this instant, because as soon as we jumped into the cab, two old ladies jumped in too. Definitely the setup of the rich tourists pay for the local people's journey. On the one hand, kinda lame to be taken advantage of like that. On the other hand, I've got the means to help someone out. Therefore... I should probably help them out.

At some point we turned a corner and got a view of the Temple of the Sun. Wow. And finally, without further ado, we were at the gates of Teotihuacan. Needless to say I, and I think both of us, were quite ready to get exploring. A quick pitstop and some sunscreen application, and we were off.

First stop was the Temple of the Sun, the largest ruin in the complex. We crossed the Avenue of the Dead on the way over there, and immediately were impressed and floored by the size, construction, and history of the entire complex.

The walk up the temple was steep; it was pretty crazy how steep steps are there, as well as pretty much all ruins in Latin America. Craziness. A few things: altitude makes climbing giant ancient pyramids a little difficult, it was nice to go up the pyramids to get away from the many people trying to sell random shit (there was one that sounded like a jaguar call and got REALLY annoying, as they were all over the place), and holy shit what an amazing spot.

We got to the top and were floored by the views and the sheer size of what we were standing on. The 360-degree vista was pretty impressive, overseeing the entire complex, which was actually pretty damn huge, including the Temple of the Moon and the Avenue of the Dead. The mountains behind the Temple of the Moon were looming and beautiful, and the entire region was just gorgeous.

The climb/walk down was just as steep as the climb/walk up (surprise...). After crossing the many sections of staircases up and then right back down, we were back on the Avenue of the Dead, where we turned and headed down the extremely broad and impressive avenue running the length of the complex.

Quick Thought - Something Zack and I noticed and were forced to experience throughout the entire trip was that there is a very high prominence of elevation variation. For example, at Teotihuacan, to get from the gate to the Temple, there were at least two points where you had to climb up a wall and go right back down. Additionally, sidewalks are just simply stair workouts, where there are random bumps up and down, intermittent elevated driveways, and god knows what else...

The walk down the Avenue was pretty intense. There were tons of people there, but the area was so huge, there was no feeling cramped or overcrowded, not in the least. As we progressed down the avenue towards the other main temple, it slowly began to loom over us, as the giant hill behind it tried to disappear from view. Along the way there were also a number of smaller ruins that showed the various art and structural prowess of the giant city before it was vacated. And, just like the rest of the place, there were vendors all over, and again with that jaguar call thing. Me no likey.

Right in front of the Temple of the Moon is a giant courtyard, with I think 9 smaller temples lining the edges and facing inward toward the center.

The climb up this one wasn't as crazy, but was still nearly straight up like all the others. The top provided another extremely impressive view, with the entire complex staring back at you, trying to show you the crazy ancient history and activity that took place here centuries beforehand.

We sat and just took in the beautiful landscape and ancient structures occupying the view. It was definitely an impressive sight to take in. To add a little tourist flair to it all, one of the many hired tour guides had brought a troupe of people up and was explaining some kind of mumbo-jumbo (maybe it wasn't mumbo-jumbo, but it sure as shit seemed like it), about how the clapping at the top of the platform and the proceeding echo had some kind of significance in the many goings-on of the place.

A little bit of Zack being both baus and his normal self ;-)

Another walk down the Avenue of the Dead warranted some popsicles. Those were definitely delicious. But again, the sheer size of the broad alleyway was awesome. We passed the Temple of the Sun again and walked alongside one of the other sides on the way to the Museum. Again, just a freaking huge structure of pretty much solid rock. Pretty nuts to behold.

The museum on site was pretty cool. A number of cool artifacts dug up from the grounds were on display from excavations throughout the complex, my favorite was the bearded-dude pot. The coolest part though, in my opinion, was a scale replica of the entire complex. It was huge, detailed, and awesome, with a walkway right over it, so you could really get a birds eye view of what it all used to look like.

Quick Thought - it is always weird when a country is weird about their bathrooms. Not only the fact of having to pay to due nature's business, but other times where you have a sparkling clean and well-kept bathroom, but there's zero toilet paper within shouting distance, that makes no sense, and makes for a pretty uncomfortable/frustrating time.

After a nice little stroll through the museum, we walked back to the main avenue with the intention of a little more adventuring before starting a new venture to find some food. Well, we changed plans a bit, and decided to explore the entirety of the complex, which ended up being a good call. There was a big citadel at the end that ended up being cooler than anticipated.

The walk down gave us views of the other side of the entire complex, with the Temple of the Moon slowly disappearing off in the distance. The Citadel was pretty inconspicuous, but ended up being pretty neat. There were, I think, three different walls where we went up and over and then back down, and then we got to the Citadel edifice. It was a lot lower than the other big ones, but there was a big one that was sunk down compared to the rest of the area. And there were a bunch of snake and jaguar heads carved into the walls of it. That was cool.

We sat and enjoyed the cool ruin for a bit, before slowly making our way out. On the way, I tried to get a good pic of the entirety of the avenue.

Hungry, and a little tired from the fun adventuring, we stopped off at the museum restaurant for some food. Bonus points, our table had a pretty good view of the entire complex, so we could enjoy a little bit of sitting down and chatting with a nice set of ruins to look out over. I sprang for something different, and had a cactus salad. Weirdly enough, it ended up being pretty damn delicious.

After one last look at the pyramids, we headed out to the road and were helped by the random dudes on the street. There were no posts or signs clarifying how to get back to Mexico City from there, but they told us the exact spot to wait at. Skeptical me took a walk around the place to no avail, but lo and behold, the dude was right. A couple minutes later we were on the bus headed back to town.

It was a pretty straightforward bus ride this time, it was on the freeway the whole time which was also a huge added bonus. Before it got to the end of the road though, we got off on the edge of town near where we got off the train that morning with the intention of checking out the Basilica de Guadalupe, a world-renowned Catholic Basilica.

We got off the bus and started walking towards what we thought was the Basilica. As we approached though, we weren't too sure, because the building in front of us didn't come close to resembling that of a big Catholic landmark.

But, we crossed the street, and lo and behold we found it. The signage, the opulence, the catholic gift shop, it was all there. We walked in the rear entrance, which led right under the altar. We turned to go into the main sanctuary, and were hit by the best quote of the trip. We looked up to the right and saw a sign. "This is what I hate about Catholics. They're like the only group that celebrates Columbus arriving in the new world..." So apt, and yeah, definitely a weird thing to celebrate, the colonization and cultural appropriation of native peoples in an entire hemisphere.

Moving on, we entered the main sanctuary. It was quite huge. But the part I liked most was the open-air aspect. At the back of the sanctuary the doors were huge, and all were open wide to allow the fresh air to flow through. That was a really awesome design.

The plaza just outside of the main sanctuary was gigantic. A couple more churches lined along the sides, with a giant bell tower right in the middle. We walked over to the bell tower, checked it out, and then walked around to a church that was super tilted. We tried to postulate why it was so not-vertical, but could only peg it to the fact that Mexico City was built on a lake.

We walked back through the main basilica. The area where we entered was under the altar, and the fun part about that were the four moving sidewalks under it, allowing all the visitors to go under the giant thing without clogging it up. Naturally, we did that.

With that, Zack could cross off his catholic school teacher duty of visiting the Basilica, and we were off to the metro to head back to town. Unfortunately, I led us a bit astray. I thought I led us to the metro stop, but it ended up being to a bus stop, where no bus stopped. So we took the bus back up a stop to the train station, and with that we were able to get back to downtown.

Time flew by, and just as we got to town, it was dinner time. Thanks to some great research from Zack we had a table at Limosneros that night, apparently one of the many hip places in town to grab some grub. Needless to say, we were anything but disappointed. We walked into the cool vibe and neat decorations, and were about to be surprised by the deliciousness.

We were greeted by some awesome wait staff, and right off we were basking in culinary glory. The menu was full of treats, but we nailed our selections. Starting off with some pulled rabbit tacos and Oaxaca croquettes with chorizo and coriander aioli, we each had a great local beer to pair with it.

The main course for me was an Azteca cake, with lamb, onion, and a ton of cheese (think a pot pie), with a glass of the house-made wine. Holy shit this was absolutely unreal. So savory, and delicious, and whuh...

Our friendly waiter was super cool, and eventually I asked him about the giant glass things hanging above the bar and he shared with us a bit about mezcal. Not only that, but we jumped at his suggestion and snagged a couple shots to enjoy some 15-18 year old artisian mezcal. Oh boy were we in for a treat! Everything about the meal was impeccable. Unfortunately our stomachs capped off the experience, but we both left flying high from another amazing meal.

Back out in the real world, we started heading to the main plaza, not sure what to do. But, an about-face, and we were headed to Plaza Garibaldi. On the way we witnessed a really cool ritual-dance on the plaza next to Templo Mayor.

It was a pretty short walk over, and once we got there, we saw a ton of mariachi dudes hanging out. It definitely fit its name of Mariachi Plaza. Pretty unreal seeing so many of these well-dressed music men just mulling about.

We walked around for a hot second, as we weren't sure where to grab a beer. There was a place that was extremely busy, so we went one door down from that. Fun surprise, it just ended up being the side entrance to the busy place (Salón Tenampa, which we learned was one of the cornerstones of the mariachi sub-culture).

They ushered us to a table upstairs, past the massive hullabaloo that was going on downstairs. A couple of Negro Modelos made their way to our table, as we got to watch a dude across us get serenaded by the band upstairs. Serenaded doesn't quite represent it, because he was singing along pretty fervently with half of the songs. We weren't sure if he was just a really beloved local, or just that deep into mariachi life, but he was soaking it in.

It was really quite the spectacle up there. Eventually, a big party of folks made their way behind us, the one guy was done with his band and they started moving to different tables, one more band came upstairs, and then another too, and the place was just bustling. A couple tequila gals came over to our table and we ended up getting a free shot each as we got to admire the madness.

As we were leaving, we had to go through the hullabaloo that was downstairs. Not quite sure what it was, but it felt a bit like a battle of the bands kinda deal, with a ton of people packed into a tiny space, and a band up on some kind of makeshift stage getting lots of love from the pretty big crowd. That was the place to be for a raucous time.

From there, we hit the train and made our way back home. Another day in the books.

Day 3 - Chapultepec

A slightly more laid back day, we got up and ready, and walked over to a corner restaurant a couple blocks away from the hostel. It was a pretty chill block, and we were the only ones that ended up sitting at the tables to start the day.

It was a beautiful and fairly fresh morning. The spot was pretty low-key too, with a number of people shuffling by to start their days, and some people getting their morning errands/duties/whatever done as we sat and watched it all go down. Eventually, our amazing breakfast came out, which consisted of some fresh orange juice (I think all OJ is squeezed fresh, and it's fantastic) and chilaquiles with arrachera. I'd never heard of arrachera before this trip, but holy shit is it delicious!!!

Seriously. That was one of the best breakfasts from the whole trip... A little spicy, the meat was tender and juicy as hell, and there was a little bit of queso on top. Whuh. That, the oj, and the small little coffee, such a great way to start the day!

Breakfast complete, we started our adventure by heading over to Chapultepec. We were pretty close to begin with, but the entrance into the park was pretty cool. Right on the edge of the big skyscraper district, and a little gritty getting through the crazy bus stop and highway interchange, it was an abrupt transition from that to calm, quiet, and green.

The main entrance led right to a large memorial. I think it was to the six youth defenders of the citadel from the Americans (circa 1800s?), but the statue was really beautiful, with white marble blanketed by black iron eagle statues on pillars. Really a cool design.

The path then kept going through the park, with a number of vendors already set up and offering their goods. Eventually we veered to the right and ended up passing the zoo, which we found out, was free! Dropped the bag and went in. It turned out to be quite a cool zoo as far as zoos go, with wolves

Giant Pandas!

Lemurs, I mean Zoboomafoos

Prairie Dogs

Giraffes

Bison

Toucans, and more!

Animal'd out, we slowly made our way over towards the Museum of Anthropology. A little thirsty, we grabbed some flavored waters and sat down as we sipped on that drank.

As we were sitting down though, there were a few guys in some colorful garb and funky hats hanging around this giant, painted telephone pole. We were intrigued, so we continued sipping and started watching them.

All of a sudden, after they twirled some ropes around for a bit, they started climbing the giant pole. No harnesses, no tie-ins, nothing. Just straight on up, all four headed towards the top. Now we were hooked.

Eventually, the four guys got to the top, sat around the square thing, and twirled some rope around the top part of the pole. Once the rope was set, they tilted backwards and started to spin.

We had no idea what was actually going on, other than watching four guys with a rope looped around their waist, hanging upside down twirling around a tower slowly making their way back to the ground. And one of the dudes was playing some kind of fluted instrument the whole way. What.

They twirled around at a pretty slow pace, and it was all extremely impressive. Hanging upside down for that amount of time would be hard, but that all while spinning around with just a rope looped around your waist must be pretty unnerving. But these dudes made it look easy, and really cool.

All four of them made it down to the ground, and were somehow able to walk right away. That must've brought on some mad bloodrush to the head, but it didn't seem to phase them. Quite the impressive display!

That was a well worthwhile pause, and with that, we were ready for the Museum. We wandered through most of the rooms on the first floor, and I was in my usual 'look at the pretty things' mentality, and didn't read much of the signs but stuck to the many impressive artifacts and beautiful art that was on display.

I wasn't in the mood for an extensive museum jaunt, and neither was Zack, so that worked out well. We saw some pretty cool stuff, but made our way back out after a seemingly good amount of time wandering the halls.

Back into the park, we found a nice grassy spot off of the main pathway. This was a well needed respite from our feet, and I knocked off for a good bit for a lovely nap under the trees. As always, naps are the best. The shut-eye helped a helluva lot to get me back up and walking. Hunger hit, and we were off to one of the places on our list.

El Tizoncito, supposedly the creators of Tacos al Pastor. It was on our list as a staple of the food establishments in Mexico City, and we were pumped to try it out.

We sat down, put in our order, and sipped on some delicious cervezas as we waited for the renowned originals to show up. Not long after, we had some tacos al pastor sitting right in front of us, ready to be devoured.

Not breaking from the trend, they were delicious. We had a good number of tacos each and savored each one. It was a nice spot for some cheap and delicious eats, and ended up really impressing Zack.

Stomachs full and content, we headed back to the hostel for a good little break. I took a nap and read and such, and it was nice to hang out for a bit after another good bit of walking during the day.

Despite being in a foreign country, we both had an itch to watch the Stanley Cup Finals. I searched for sports bars in the area, and with that we headed out to find a spot we could watch. Weirdly enough, all of the places were either closed, wouldn't/couldn't turn the game on, or were no longer in business. That was a little dejecting, so we ended up just going into a random trendy-looking beer garden we stumbled upon.

That choice ended up being great. The beers were plentiful and delicious, and they had free wi-fi. Thanks to a little internet kung fu, I was able to pull up the game on my phone and we ended up looking like a couple freaks huddled around a phone watching some game on a sheet of ice. It was pretty exhilarating though, as the Caps won and Ovechkin finally got his first Stanley Cup!

While watching, we got to share the world of hockey with a few millennials that were sitting at the table next to us. As we kind of expected, they knew next to nothing about the sport, but seemed somewhat interested in learning a little bit about this weird sport played on ice.

I think we went to another bar and had a margarita after that brewpub, but I don't remember it. And not because I was drunk, I just don't remember. So, after that, it was bedtime.

Day 4 - Communism and Markets

Plan for the day - head down south and check out a couple of museums. First, however, in rare fashion for a trip, Zack and I went on a run around town. It was pretty damn hot and sweaty despite the morning earliness, but it was pretty gorgeous running through Chapultepec and then down the big main avenue of town to start the day off. Afterwards, we stopped by a bakery for a quick breakfast, and then started the rest of the day.

First idea was the Frida Kahlo museum. But, knowing it could have a HUGE line, we weren't dead set on it. There was enough to do down there anyways. Plan in place, we were off.

On our way down, we walked a bit of a different route headed for a new train stop. It was (as always) nice to see some new stuff. With it being something initially pegged as a place to go, we walked through a really trendy Mercado Roma and got the vibe it'd be a cool place to go back and check out for dinner (we didn't, but I would've loved to). Quick enough though, we were in the train station headed down to Coyoacan.

The train stop was quite a ways away from the museum, but we got a nice walk out of it! Past some busy thoroughfares, a big construction complex, we walked through the local theatre/film school/I don't know, and eventually made it down to the museum. Zack was really pumped to go in, but as we looked at the main door, the line was gigantic. That put us both off, so we said no and dipped. But not without picking up some consolation churros. They were fantastic.

Thankfully, there was something there a little more under the radar but a little more in line with our travel history. Just a few blocks away was Leon Trotsky's house where he lived in CDMX. As I said, a little more our style.

The museum was pretty neat. I wasn't in a reading mood, so I brushed through a pretty thorough history, which paralleled activities in Communist Russia, The World, and Mexico, highlighting the life of Leon and the background for his activities. It was pretty damn crazy how he was exiled there and holed up in his little house for so long. And the fact that he was assassinated with a damn ice pick. Nice to have Mr. Herhold along to help clarify some points and help me get a better understanding of what went down.

From there, we weren't too sure what to do. Nearby was Plaza Hidalgo, so we wandered over there. Luckily enough, that place was pretty cool. Tons of people and activity on the plaza, walking around and hanging out. It reminded me a ton of Cuba, and in Santa Clara specifically. We made a lap around the plaza, and then plopped down for a bit of a lunch break.

I was feeling a little bit sick, with a slightly scratchy throat, so I stuck to something light with OJ while just enjoying the view. We started playing cards, and after I'd gotten two shuffles in, the waiter came over and told us we weren't allowed to play cards. Likely to do with some kind of gambling ban, but weird nonetheless. After a quick nip of food (I think we had some delicious ceviche), we headed off. Where to? Somehow we came up with the idea to head to the monolithic Estadio Azteca - Mecca of Mexican Football.

We tried to take a cab to get to the train a little quicker and to save our legs, but the traffic was so bad it felt like I was back in Manila. We toughed it out for a bit, but eventually we got out and finished the trip on foot. We got to what I thought was the right train station (now a separate system than the CDMX Metro), but the first two trains that we saw went right on by. That was weird. Then, the first train that actually stopped on the platform was stuffed to the gills with people. Everyone on the platform was trying desperately to get in.

We nope'd out of that, and took the train one stop back to the start of the line. We rolled into the main station, and saw an insane line of people trying to get into the train. No idea what was so crazy about this line, but it was busy as fuck. Because of that, we called an audible and changed up the plan for Mercado La Merced. Estadio Azteca would have to wait.

The subway station was at the same stop, so we made our way over to the platform. I was super lax getting into the subway, but I was nearly pickpocketed on the way. It freaked the shit out of me. There was a fat bastard next to me as everyone was pushing into the train. I thought nothing of it until I felt a hand enter my pocket. I snapped back into the zone and made sure I still had everything, and one dude ended up backing off the train - the fat fuck who tried to take my wallet.

Needless to say, I was really shaken and shocked after that. That was the first time in all my travels (surprisingly, knock-on-wood), that I've had any sort of scare like that. Lucky that that was the first, but it still freaked the shit out of me. But, as I said, everything was intact and accounted for. With that, we made it to Mercado La Merced amidst the ridiculously full trains without further issues.

Little did we know, we were in for an experience of a life time. Like normal, we exited the train and headed back to earth, but the stairs led right into the heart of a market. It was packed, cramped, crazy, and hectic, and we explored the shit out of it. Rather than bore you with details, here were some of the many highlights:

• Dude dragging a goat
• Fully open-air meat section, with rancid smells, brains hanging out, and all
• Time-warping Manila sewing machine salesman
• Full pet store (no pictures allowed)
• Giant trucks trying to drive through the place (some serious driver skills)
• Onions for $0.25/kg
• Literally anything you can think of was on sale
• More shoes than I'd ever seen in my life (a common theme through all of the markets we'd seen)
• Pure insanity

Seriously, this place was absolutely insane. I don't know for sure, but I think it covered a good 6 square city blocks. And there were passages leading all over the place, no real way to quickly gather where the hell you were, and the sensory overload was truly unreal.

Honestly, we were both pretty tired just from that experience. It was full of shit to watch out for and witness, we both highly recommend any trip to CDMX include a walk through Mercado La Merced. After that though, we needed a little bit of time to head back to the hostel and chill.

While chilling, we were waiting for the big event for the night. I got hungry so we wandered around the neighborhood for a bit as I snagged a few more mouth-watering tacos from El Gato Volador, and we snagged a couple beers to head back to the hostel and drink. We met Pedro, an awesome Brazilian dude, while playing some cards and sipping and ended up playing some 13 (card game) with him.

The big event we were waiting for was Lucha Libre. Unfortunately, we tied ourselves to the hostel event, and the lady that was supposed to walk us over there was late. We snagged Pedro to come with us, and on the way over, there was a HUGE downpour that hit. I'll admit, that pissed me off, because if that lady was there on time, we would've made it in the building without getting soaked. But, what happened, happened.

We made it to the arena, and started haggling. The lady from the hostel tried to start, but was pretty terrible, so we took over and found a lady selling tickets. Snagged three for the group, and headed in. BOOYAH!!! Not sure any of us knew what to expect, but we were not prepared for the craziness we were about to enter.

Yes, that's Zack eating Cup-o-Noodles in an arena. He was giddy like a child.

We got in, found our seats, and ended up sitting next to a really friendly Canadian, who joined us in taking in this weirdly cultural spectacle. In summary, it was pure ridiculousness with some incredible acrobatics sprinkled in, but really, it was pure madness.

There was a full docket printed out of the matchups, from bottom to top, increasing in supposed highlight-factor. To make it a little more interactive, before anything got started, we all picked who our winners were for the night. Unfortunately, I went 1-4, whereas Zack pulled some kind of crazy voodoo-shit to go 5-0 on the night.

It was a crazy fun experience. Emphasis on the crazy. All of us were getting a kick out of the ridiculous stunts, the to-be-expected showboatiness and then destruction of each wrestler, and the overall hyped-up atmosphere. It was an awesome time.

The flood gates opened as the event was over, and it was pretty crowded getting out of there. We were supposed to meet up again with the hostel lady, but me being an asshole, we ditched her and went out for drinks. First up was La Pulqueria, for some drinks and a meh-burrito. The company was fantastic (we'd made some travel friends!!!), the activities were scripted, ridiculous, and funny as hell, and overall we had an amazing night.

Day 5 - Xochimilco

Plan for the day, another venture to the south part of the city. Estadio Azteca was the first stop, so we could retry the audible from yesterday. And then after that, due to some recommendations for the "Venice of Mexico", we'd head down to Xochimilco and check out the canals and colorful boats. Standard start to the morning, and an easy, efficient train ride, and we got to Estadio Azteca with no problems.

Quick Thought - One thing the US does right is the lack of inefficient work and jobs (gas pumpers in Oregon being a HUGE exception). In comparison: Russia - people watching the stairs in the subway, Mexico - microeconomies thing, people carrying goods to/from the market, guy sitting at the train track there to manually flip the lever to switch tracks. America is pretty good at cutting redundancy in the job market compared to other places. (We do something right? Surprising, I know...)

On the train ride down, I saw the cutest little kid. He was swaddled by his grandma, with his mom standing right next to him. It's always adorable seeing little kids do their thing. And also, that was true family right there. That's another heartwarming thing that's always a pleasure to see.

We got to the stadium, and damn! That's a huge place. There was a bit of a crowd in the plaza, with booths and stuff, but we thought nothing of it. The signage wasn't too clear, but we walked around to a couple gates and eventually found where the tours took place. Dun, dun duuuuun. No tours that day. The activity in the plaza was for some religious march, and because of that, no tours were being held. Talk about a bummer.

Well, that was a bummer. But not to be let down for too long, we jumped back on the train and continued further south. Xochimilco was at the end of the line, and that's where we were headed. We got there, and nothing too out of the ordinary happened, so we started walking while getting the standard inundations by guys trying to get us to come on their boat.

We kept walking, and eventually noticed that were continually getting harassed by the same dude at every corner. What the fuck. Well, long story short, this was easily one of the sketchiest experiences we'd had in a while. This dude (see the dude on the bike in the white shirt with the dog in the next pictures) saw us at the train station, and followed us on his bike. He’d ask us to get on his embarcadero (canal boat, think Venice-ish), we'd say no, then he’d pedal up to the next street corner and do it again. It was so bad, that he pedaled off once, and we took a different route to try and lose him. But lo and behold; he doubled back to keep at us. Seriously, what the fuck.

Not only him though, the entire route we walked there were people asking us to get on their boat. It was extremely off-putting. Eventually we walked past an entrance to the canals, so we poked our head in to see what's up. Both of us were surprised at just how many boats were sitting there. It was insane. And with that many people pushing you to get on one, there were more little embarcaderos than would ever seem necessary.

One guy approached us and showed Zack this big picture board of all the cool stuff we could see on the trip. It looked interesting and all, but said he 800 pesos ($40) for 45 min. Fuck that. A little bit of tourist price gouging. We left that spot extremely perturbed and were quickly losing any interest in Xochimilco that might’ve been hanging around.

Continuing up the street, there were more embarcaderos to be ridden and waiting desperately for any customers, but every corner, and seemingly every boat, had a swath of vulture dudes aggressively trying to get us to be their next customer. Not my jam. The weird part of all of this was that this was supposedly a pretty touristy place. But weirdly enough, we felt like and were treated as if they’d never seen a foreigner.

Our walk took us to another boat launch, were we took a look around, and became pretty fed up at all of the constant pestering and propositioning. We turned around, and started walking to town, ready to give up on the whole place.

Once we got closer to the town center, things totally changed. There weren’t people trying to sell us a ride, but it was a normal town center. Relaxing, full of life, and with a little market that sprung up into the middle of the main plaza. That was definitely more up our alley.

We walked through the market and marveled at some of the fares. Out of character, I ended up buying one of those safety rope bracelets from a guy. In the process, I started talking to him and he mentioned that his wife and kids are in Amarillo, TX. From that, and a bit of other chatter, we both agreed that the people in the south can be a lovely but strange group.

Once all of the many booths were checked out, we wandered over and took a seat on the pavilion steps and just hung out for a bit. I always love those points in time. Watching the world go by, people going along with their busy day, and just taking a bit of time to relax and soak in the moment.

After a good bit of sitting, contemplating, and just enjoying the views and passersby, the walking continued. We eventually made it over to another embarcadero area on the other side of town, and what a monster of a difference. There were no vultures, no creepy dudes following us, it was just laid back, some people/families hanging out, and so much more laid back. There were tons of colorful boats, and just a lot more low key and 'local'-feeling. If we’d hit that first, our impression of town would’ve been totally different.

But, due to the shitty first impression the other area of town gave us, we weren't completely sold on the place, so it was about time to head back to town. But, we’d agreed to meet up with our friendly Canadian friend down there, and hadn’t heard from her yet. Because of this, we walked back to the train station in hopes of seeing her, and posted up at a café along the main drag for a bit.

We posted up at a little cafe, and had some coffee to go with our games of cards. Again, another delightful time just sitting around, doing something low key, and soaking in the environment. It was, as always, great to sit and watch the world roll on by.

Eventually though, in the interest of not losing a day in wait, we jumped on the train back to town, bummed our rendezvous fell through. The way back to town took a really long time. It started down pouring while we were in the train, and the train rolled at a crawl, which was quite unfortunate.

We made it back to the neighborhood, thankfully somewhat dry and in good spirits, and headed to another food recommendation close by - La Burguesa. As you can imagine, they specialize in hamburgers. Turns out, they were absolutely delicious, and our waiter, Alex, was super laid back and helpful. Bleu cheese makes the world go round.

Our bellies were superbly filled at La Burguesa. With that, we headed back to the hostel to chill, and chatted up our foodie hostel guy, who we crossed paths with along the way. Once back, there was time to chill. Hanging out in the common room got us in contact with a couple Brits and a German, so we had some beers with them.

Plan for the evening was to redeem ourselves with another rendezvous attempt with our Canadian friend, Miranda. Licoreria Limonteca was the first stop. We rolled up and it was a bit packed and first thought we had a spot on the patio, but got shuffled around to the bar. I'm not much of a cocktail guy, but we rolled the dice/splurged and hot damn they put out some killer cocktails. I can't really remember what I had, but all I can say is that Mezcal and Tequila mixed with citrusy stuff is absolutely awesome.

While chilling at the bar, shooting the breeze, and digging our awesome drinks, the dude next to us started chatting with us. Turns out Noah was some American who's done a ton of traveling and I can't quite remember his shtick, but he was a pretty nice dude. Miranda showed up, we had a drink there, and then we headed over to another cool joint.

Piconteca was next up (also recommended for a pretty cool vibe), and we grabbed some beers to continue some fun conversations out on the 'patio' (sidewalk). There's nothing like the combination of cheap drinks, great people, and fulfilling conversations. That was the theme there.

As one is wont to do, after drinking we headed over to our lovely neighborhood taco joint (El Gato Volador), for some ever-amazing tacos. I really can't rave enough about this place. Just amazing. But, after a good bit of food and spiciness in their lovely establishment, it was back to the hostel for a little shuteye.

Day 6 - Main Street

After such a fun night, we woke up in a relaxed manner before getting ready and heading off to breakfast at Lalo's. But we walked over to Lalo's, and for a second I was worried it was going to be the classic Portland setup of wait an hour before maybe getting a table. But, we put our name in, and five minutes later we had a schnazzy little table!

I can't describe how lucky we got with all of our food recommendations, and thankfully we had an endless list. This place was really hip and bright, and another vibe we could dig. As anticipated, the food was absolutely fantastic too. We got seated, got a fantastic pastry (chocolate and vanilla dough with chocolate icing on top, whuh), and of course ordered up a couple Bloodies. Oh yeah.

My order was the huevos rancheros, as it was something on the list of must-eats. Holy shit it was unbelievable. The sauce was phenomenal; everything about it was fantastic.

Another killer meal. Seriously. Mexico is all about the food. Well, we finished up our meal there and waited for Miranda. But, she ended up heading to the other Lalo's, so we really suck at rendezvous'. From breakfast, we put on our walking shoes.

First place in mind was Mercado San Juan. It was a decent stroll on the way there, and we were surprised to find someplace worlds away from Mercado La Merced. San Juan was way different, and much more like North Market in Columbus, and probably some place in Portland. Essentially, it was a farmers market-type place, and much more walkable.

There was a shitton of good looking food everywhere. And despite having an amazing breakfast, we started to salivate at the many delicious sights. We made a lap or two through the place, and Zack had the fantastic idea of plopping down to try some wine with a few bites of cheese. I'm always game for that.

We plopped down and got some free wine and cheese, then ordered what I thought was some bite-size stuff. Bite-size turned out to be a sammich. Whuh, only got to half of it after such a good breakfast. But free wine and cheese. So baus.

Feeling classy after our unexpected fill-up in a fantastic little market, we headed back out into the world and got our direction pointed towards Mercado Ciudadela. It was a pretty short walk over, and we were welcomed with endless amounts of crafts and souvenirs and everything. There was a ton of shit there. My favorite piece (the one with the G):

We'd done a good bit of walking through the day thus far, and market/museum/slow walking takes a lot out of me. Zack continued in the market, but I went over to the park next door, found a nice concrete bench, and laid down for a delicious little nap while Mr. H kept exploring.

He eventually was done too, wandered over and woke me up. We were both pretty pooped, but kept our feet a-moving along. From that park, we hit up some back and side streets, wandered through some non-touristy spots, and slowly made our way over to the Paseo de la Reforma. That's the giant street/parkway that runs pretty much right through the core of downtown.

We stopped a couple of times along the Paseo to take in all that was there: a free hotel bathroom, some art pieces that were showcased along the walkway, the Deloitte building to see if I could get Peewee a job there ;-), a giant tower that reminded us a bit of the Siegesäule in Berlin, the newest tallest tower in Latin America (couldn't go to the top. Booooooo), and a really tall, tiny building that we weren't sure what it was leading up to it, but found out it was a bell tower with some more artwork installed there too. Pretty cool.

But, you can only go so far in that direction until you reach Chapultepec. Not a bad thing though, because it was another beautiful day in the park! We retraced some of our previous steps through the park, but then made our way over to the Citadel. Didn't know we had to pay to get in, but we did anyways, and were lucky to find an awesome view of the park, downtown, and the whole city from the top.

After all of the walking, we were a little hangry and tired. Because of this, we kind just breezed right through the museum up there so we could get to the views (which seemed like the right call either way). Due to the tiredness, we didn't hang out at the top for too long before walking back down to the rest of the park.

Good thing we both still had a half a sammich from the market. In a rare move, we stopped by one of the kajillion market stands, picked up a 7-Up, and found a spot to plop down, eat, and rest for a bit. We picked a pretty sweet spot next to a gazebo and chilled. Definitely awesome.

Luckily enough, we also had some free entertainment across the way. There was some kind of street performer with a mic on who was putting on quite a show; there was a gigantic crowd around him and everybody seemed to be pretty into his deal. Once we finished our snack, we walked past on our way out. He was in the middle of some thing with a bunch of little kids, and from the looks of it, everyone was getting a kick out of it. It was actually really adorable and fun to watch this guy get everyone into a good mood and having an enjoyable time! And hearing little tiny kids talk in spanish just added to that.

From there our journey led us out of the park again and off towards a little bit more food. Unfortunately, we learned quickly that our dinner plans were about to foiled. Pretty much everything closes up Sunday for dinner and on Monday, so we had to call an audible on our first two plans.

A little defeated, we headed to a place around the corner from the hostel for coffee and got a cappuccino (which wasn’t good) and then a few beers as we played cards, had some cheap beers with chips and salsa, and watched The Core. It was lazy, but pretty damn enjoyable.

Still a bit tired, we decided to chill at the hostel for a bit before going to find some dinner. In that downtime through, we ended up befriending Ruben from Sacramento, then a trio of gals from Austin and Lauren from Sydney, and we all went over to meet Noah at dinner.

It was a quick walk over to our square for dinner, but we were quickly reminded of the joys of dealing with a large group. We picked a spot and had a good time just chatting it up with everyone. It went by pretty fast, and the food was pretty meh, but we stopped by an ATM on the way back to the hostel and then called it a day.

Day 7 - Puebla

For some reason we're really good at doing this to ourselves, but we had another pretty early morning to get ready, packed, and off towards the bus station. The metro ride over was easy, and it popped us out at just the right station. We almost entered the wrong spot once, but once we found the real entrance we got in, bought our tickets there and back, bought some water, and were parked at our door waiting to board. All in about 10 minutes. Pretty cool.

Quick Thought - The mexican bus system was pretty impressive from our short exposure to it. The bus terminal in Mexico City gave off the vibe moreso of a third-world airport than a nice bus terminal. It was impressive, extremely clean and large, and pretty well organized too. I don't think either of us were expecting that, but were extremely pleased by it!

The waiting area was pretty dope, and we had VIP-ish tickets, or something like that. But we got on board in due time and were setup for a pretty plush ride. From our experience, it's well worth the extra dollar or two for the first-class option. Oh yeah.

Just like an airplane flight, there was a movie playing (Cinderella in Spanish), and we had a pretty gorgeous ride through the mountains on the way. The pass we took over the hills, at the top, gave us a pretty beautiful view of CDMX. Gotta love that!

But, weirdly enough, we had a really quick trip up and over the mountains to Puebla. It wasn't even two hours and we were jumping off the bus at the bus terminal. So, we got out and got our ticket for a taxi ride, then jumped in line behind everyone else trying to get to town.

Quick Thought - It was a bit of a weird system they had in place for their taxis. You had to go to a kiosk to buy a ticket for where you were going. Once you had that ticket, you got in line to get a taxi, and had to wait a good bit until you were called up. Once you're up, a taxi pulls up and hands his driver ID card (think laminated sheet of paper) to the dispatch. You walk up to the dispatch and hand him your ticket, which he scans with the driver ID card, which tracks who is riding with which taxi. Then you take your card to the driver, and you're off.

Despite the unique setup, we got our taxi and ended up having a great conversation with our driver, Miguel, on the way to our hostel. He was originally from CDMX, but moved back to Puebla a while back when he got laid off. There, he started driving taxi and it ended up taking him a while to learn the city. But through his new knowledge, we got some insider tips on places to go in the city, and max taxi prices to get there (which were helpful, but found out the buses are ludicrously cheap). Definitely a nice guy, from the bits and pieces I could understand...

We got to the hostel, dropped our stuff, and the wandering began! We weren't too sure what we wanted to do, but decided on heading to the main square. Good thing there were restaurants there, because we were hungry. A breakfast stop put us in a relaxed mood, filled our stomachs, and gave us a good chance to get a lay of the land.

Holy crap, that food was deeeeelicious. I had a Monterrey omellete, which was filled with some dope chorizo and some of the best refried beans I'd ever had. Whuh, a helluva way to start of the new city!

Once breakfast was complete, we walked around the main square and walked into the gorgeous cathedral. This one was pretty picturesque, mainly due to the sets of streamers running above the courtyard onto the steeples. But the whole thing was pretty cool, so we enjoyed it as best we could.

The church was on a pretty popular street, so we strolled down that in hopes of finding the tourism office to ask a few questions. It was a bit hard to find, so we asked a couple of cops. That felt pretty weird, but they pointed us back in the right direction, and we were off. It ended up being right next to the breakfast place, but we made it.

Zack had a nice conversation with the folks there while I just kinda milled and putzed about. No worries, but he ended up gaining us a better idea of what there was to do. Turns out we were a little screwed - a lot of stuff was closed on Mondays. Even touristy stuff, which was kinda weird. But we now had an idea of what was around, so we started wandering. Our end goal: the hill where the battle of Cinco de Mayo took place.

Along the way, we wandered through a market, saw some kind of TV show thing going on in the main square, admired some neat buildings, and had a lovely slow stroll through town.

I wasn't feeling too hot all day, which kinda sucked. My nose was congested to death, feeling like I had to sneeze every ten seconds, and lethargy was killing me. But, Zack was suuuuuuper patient with me as we wandered around.

We made our rounds through the inner part of downtown, and then headed out to a main street and waited for the bus our hostel lady told us would take us to the top of the hill. A couple minutes later it came, and we paid all of $0.30 for a quick ride up the hill. Not bad at all.

While on the bus Zack made friends with a stranger who seemed to just want his hat, and kept asking him for it. Zack said no, so the guy got off the bus. Kinda interesting. The bus dropped us off at the top of the hill, and we were right under a giant cable car tower. To me, this setup was a little weird, as the cars just went from one tower to the next on top of the hill, and not from low ground to high ground, but just kind of across the way. Weird, and somewhat superfluous.

We started walking around, and quickly learned there was more to this hill than meets the eye. First up were some cool dioramas and sculptures, a lot of which looked like parade floats, and all of which had some clarification of local culture, art motifs, or the battle of Cinco de Mayo.

The walkway led us past an old army fort (which we didn't pay to enter), then a cool statue honoring the soldiers who fell during the battle, all in the shape of a wind-blown Mexican flag. Pretty awesome. Stopped and checked that out, then continued walking up the hill.

Up the way, and at a bit of a viewpoint, we found a cozy lounging bench and posted up for a bit. We got yelled at by some out-of-nowhere security officer for taking our shirts off. Apparently it's illegal to try and even out a farmers tan.

Close to the top of the hill was a fountain playing all kinds of random music, with a big 'ole statue behind it, and a large plaza in front of it. We dipped into it but continued up to the fort at the top of the hill. Once there, we were impressed. What a beautiful view of the city! It was a pretty clear day, and we got a pretty great look at the fourth largest city in Mexico!

The path led behind the fort, so we kept on walking, and eventually circled back to the fountain plaza. Our stroll was nice and slow, but we were enjoying it. At some point, we realized that the cable car was in fact working, and despite the seemingly superfluous setup, we definitely had to do that.

Our walk to the cable car led us through a convention center plaza, which had a bunch of placards about space and the solar system. But at the cable car tower, it was pretty deserted, but open thankfully. We headed up to the top with one other guy, and gained some more beautifully panoramic views of the city. Twas really a gorgeous ride. Unfortunately, all of the mountains were shrouded in either clouds or smog, but you could make out the base of some of them.

As we neared the other tower, we could see a large swath around it covered in a similar blue and white painted pattern. This was really unique and cool, as it was so consistently done over a large area of land. Neat!

From the tower, we walked back into the park and over to a lookout. There were a couple of shops close by, so we snagged some delicious ice cream. I made the right call and got the Oreo variety, and it was delicious.

To keep the blood flowing, we opted for the walk back to town rather than trying to find a bus ride, and in doing that we ended up walking down part of the main drag and then cutting off onto a shop area. In that spot, there were an absolute ton of soccer jersey stores. Seriously, a ton. One of them was actually pretty cool, as there was a mannequin of a dude in front of a goal as the storefront, but to get in the store, you had to go behind the dude and through the goal.

There was another market that we passed by along the way, and then a street that was just filled with candy. That was impressive. But, we were a bit pooped, so we headed back to the hostel. I powered down for a nice long nap once we got back. I really needed that. After the lounging though, Zack and I chilled at the hostel and chatted over a beer.

Quick Thought - Mexican shopping districts seem to be very zoned. The soccer jersey section, seemed to house all stores with soccer jerseys in the entire town. Candy, specific to that area. Things seem to be very grouped together and those stores selling similar products seem to be then in one area. Not sure if that's true or not, but the impression we got was that everything was split into specific commercial zones.

As always, the pangs of hunger eventually hit us. Zack did some research on where to go, so we headed back to the main square to start from there. First on the list was Mural Poblano. He'd read some good stuff about it, so we headed over to check it out. We were a little taken aback at how fancy it was, and were kinda on the fence if we should stay or not. But, we ordered drinks and were committed.

Well, turned out to be a fantastic decision. Our starter wine was paired with some delicious bread and some amazing salsas. One of which being onion habañero, which provided a helluva sting for a good long time. Zack eyed something another table was sampling. I was under the impression I was going to be mad full, so kinda put the kibosh on it. But Zack asked the waiter about it, and that changed my mind. So with that, we had some chalupas on the way.

Chowed down on those delicious little things. Then, the main course arrived. And woah. I had some shrimp with an amazing dry rub with potatoes and some kind of green paste. He had a variety of cooked fish that was tender as all get out. Both dishes were phenomenal. As we were splurging hard core, we figured let’s go big. Along with our dessert order, we figured a little mezcal would go well with it too.

Little did we know, our waiter ended up wheeling an entire cart of mezcal bottles over to the table, and gave us a food run down of mezcal varieties. Here's what I remember of what he shared with us:

• There are 60-something plant verities that can be used to create mezcal
• Bottles are categorized according to the plant they were generated from, but that doesn’t mean they taste the same
• I.e. one bottle can be smooth (distilled once) and another can be more smoky (usually means another distillation)
• Similar to tequila, they have the reposado and añejo varieties, but the traditional mezcal is blanco (clear)
• The flavor of mezcal really stems from the type of barrel it was aged in, which is usually why a lot of mezcal can be compared to whiskey and such, due to the woody/smokey flavors

Well, this guy did us a huge solid, and was really informative in sharing mezcal with us. We both picked a variant that suited our tastes, and sipped away. The guy even came back saying that it’s best when drunk slowly and sipped, and provided some orange slices with some spicy salt for us to use to clean the palate between tastes. Not long after, our desserts arrived, and they matched everything else for quality and deliciousness.

No matter where or when or how, molten lava cake is sooooooooo fucking good. The warm molten chocolate, with the cake, and the ice cream, it's a perfect combination of sweet goodness. That was the last piece to an amazing puzzle, and we really hit the nail on the head for another amazing meal. It was damn good. And, despite all the fanciness, good food, and exquisite drink, it came out to about $100, which is way fucking cheap compared to a similar meal in the states. And to top it off, we each got a little shot of liqueur to wash it all down and finish off an amazing meal.

Unfortunately, I was still feeling a bit under the weather. I was ready to call it a night after that which we did. Back to the hostel and time to hit the sack.

Day 8 - Cholula

A late rise was a big plus. I woke up a few times, but snagged a clutch morning nap to start the day off right. We started the day with the meager hostel breakfast, and then headed off for the bus. We weren't so sure of where the stop was at the outset, but we walked a little further down from our initial thought and boom, we were there.

Twas an easy-peasy ride over, and cost all of 7 pesos, to Cholula. Only about a half an hour, and we got dropped off at the outer edges of the central town center. Not bad. We walked through some streets to end up in the gorgeous little central plaza, and wandered around for a hot minute.

While wandering around, we were approached, well attacked, by two guys with buckets full of fruits and insects. In a pinch, we obliged, and I tried some of the insects. They were good, but super salty.

Across the street was a church pavilion, where some of it was under construction. It was quite a spacious and gorgeous pavilion, but it was pretty empty. Still seemed to be a little work to finish.

Just a couple blocks down from there was a main drag. Sauntering down that we passed a bunch of small shops and restaurants, and a good number of random stuff. We eventually made it down to another pavilion, but doubled back up that street to go find some food.

Zack snagged some tostadas, which were fantastic, and I got a cemita. It wasn't quite how I remember the taxi driver describing it, but it ended up being a delicious sandwich. We snagged our food after waiting in the tiny, dingy 'restaurant', Zack had the brilliant idea of snagging a couple coca colas, and then walked to the pavilion where we plopped down on a brilliantly placed bench to enjoy our fantastic food.

That coke-cemita combo put me in a very relaxed and satiated state. From the bench, we walked into the adjacent pavilion where there was a little market set up, but continued on with our plan to head up to the church on top of the buried pyramid (more on that later). The walk up the hill was pretty quick, and by the time we got to the top, we were treated to some amazingly beautiful 360-degree panoramas of the area, although it wasn’t extremely clear out.

At the top, we got to walk all around the peak, which was a pretty scenic church. The plaza in front of the building was strewn with the same type of flag that was in front of the main church in Puebla (there's something about that setup), which made it pretty picturesque. That, and just walking around the building was pretty neat just to get a view on the local landscape. Kinda flat, but beautiful nonetheless.

While we were up there, there was a strange amount of artillery fire off in the distance. We ended up posting up along the rampart and watching the hills to see if we could find something and ended up getting a look at a number of timed puffs of smoke, which I assume confirmed our suspicions.

The views at the top were pretty great. It was nice to walk around and slowly take in the region. That, and I got a souvenir coin to add to my collection too! Hot damn!

The walk down was pretty quick, and from there we decided we had to hit up the pyramid. Well, as I mentioned, that church was on top of one of the largest (supposedly THE largest) monuments by volume in the world. The crazy part is, it's almost completely buried underground. To get in we had to walk all the way around from where we were, so that's what we did.

The entrance to the monument/museum was just built into the side of the hill, which led us straight into the interior tunnels within the pyramids! How cool! It was a pretty regimented pathway, which was kind of a bummer because there seemed to be a TON of other pathways that were just blocked off. I would love to see a 3-D rendering of what tunnels are present and where inside the monument. That'd be pretty wicked to dive into!

After a seemingly good bit of walking underground, we were spit back into daylight and the world. Bummer, I could've wandered around underground for a good bit longer. But the spot we were spit out at was the start of a walkway around the rest of the monument/archeological area, so we kept on walking.

Along the way, we noticed an artist working on a piece just along the side of the path. This wasn't your typical artwork, so we stopped and took a look. The artist was in process on a piece, so we got to see him at work, and I was thoroughly impressed at both the skill and the beauty. It wasn't drawing or painting, or anything like that, but the guy had numerous pieces of very tiny but vibrantly colored straw. With this straw, he glued them to the background and broke the sticks off at the desired lengths to create beautiful landscapes. That's a terrible description, but it's absolutely beautiful.

Uncharacteristically of me, I ended up buying a small piece, and I'm super happy I did. You'll just have to come over and take a look at it to see what I mean!

The path kept circling around the back of the monument, and there ended up to be a ton of the monument and grounds left to see. The path zig-zagged in and out of areas that had already been dug up, but for me, it was hard to really understand the sheer size and layout of the place. But it was definitely impressive. There was even an infant sacrificial cavern (weird), and a few squirrels running around the place.

After walking around the ruins on the grounds and reading most, if not all, of the plaques, we ended up at the stairs to one of the main altars. Of course we climbed up and did a little bit of chilling and chatting while overlooking the market plaza from earlier. Another sweet ruins site explored.

The exit was right at the bottom of the stairs, which put us back in the market plaza. But at that point, we were on the hunt for a place to sit and chill for a bit. We thought about and passed by a couple of coffee shops, but ended up settling on a beer bar at the train station plaza. The natural choice, of course. Yes, there's a train station in town that runs between Puebla and Cholula, which I know you're thinking we should've taken. But it conveniently only runs three times during the day...

But, bar selected, we headed upstairs and were the only ones to there annoy the staff. So that's what we did with some fruity IPAs, some amazing guac (two orders, hell yeah), and some delicious tostadas. Money win. We ended up getting up to the bar to watch the lady make the guac, and it was super simple, way more simple than how we do it in the states, with just avocado, onion, salts, and lime juice.

That was a pretty cool place to hang out. The food was fantastic, the beer cold and yummy, and we got in a good few rounds of cards amidst our conversations between ourselves and the super friendly wait staff on hand. Quality break.

With a fantastic day of wandering around the little town of Cholula (no, sadly not where the amazing Cholula hot sauce is made...), we were headed back to Puebla. Thanks to a friendly stranger on the street, we got pointed in the right direction, and eventually jumped on the bus we needed.

Slam. Super uncomfortable seats. My legs would literally not fit into the row. There was some shuffling around, and Zack lost a pretty cool odds-are to sit up front. Thankfully, the ride went by pretty fast, and with that we walked over to the food market to look at dinner options.

The market ended up just being a food court, and we were both still pretty stuffed from our afternoon session at the beer bar. Across the street was more of a goods market, so we wandered through that, but weren't too impressed. From there, it was back to the hostel to chill.

True to form, I plopped down for a nap and got in a pretty good one. It's always a pleasure to be successful in such an enjoyable endeavor. I rolled around for a bit, not wanting to get up, but eventually Zack woke up too so it was time to do something.

Neither of us were hungry, but there was a little vendor down one of the streets who was selling super tiny pancakes. That was a must-do. We walked down to the main square in the drizzle, where we got angrily called out for being gringos, but snagged our tiny pancakes to make up for it.

The smell of that place was super insatiable and delicious, but I was personally not too impressed by the taste. They had a super sweet finish, but overall weren't too extravagant. Oh well.

Neither of us were sold on what we wanted to do then, so we started making our way back to the hostel. But, along the way, we saw an Al Pastor joint, so we headed in.

This place ended up being a pretty cool spot. We got two tacos each with a beer, and were really digging it. There were a ton of people around, so that was the main activity. The people behind the counter were the main attraction, where the dude would shave off a slice of pineapple and toss it in the air to catch it in a taco, then throw the meat and such on top. It was pretty theatrical.

The tacos ended up being pretty damn good too. So good, Zack even said they beat the founders of the Al Pastor taco in CDMX. Now that's saying something.

Another successful grub excursion, we packed it up and headed home for the night.

Day 9 - Back to CDMX

Another morning, another basic breakfast, another cup of coffee, another shower, and this time with a spot of rain. We were thinking about doing something before heading back to CDMX, but opted to just head to the station.

'Twas an easy bus transfer from the hostel to the bus station, and when we got there, we got our tickets on the next first class bus headed back thataway.

Quick Thought - I gotta say, I'm extremely impressed with the Estrella Roja bus service. The bus terminals were super easy to manage - open and very unchaotic. The buses were super clean, efficient, timely, and quite spacious. And overall, the experience felt very much like an on-the-ground airport experience. It was really good stuff, even though I'm overall not a fan of buses. Good on ya, Estrella Roja.

The ride was pretty easy on the way back. I got a bit of sleep, but ended up just staring out the window for most of it. Back at the CDMX bus station, we started the journey to our next hostel. Rather than picking the same spot as before, Zack urged us to find somewhere in a different part of the city to get a taste of a different neighborhood, which was a truly fantastic idea. The new place was really close to the main part of the city, so off we went.

The transfer at the bus station took us to this really space age-y looking metro station, but a few stops on from there popped us back out onto the earth. Weirdly enough, as soon as we got back to the world, we were right back into the thick of another huge market. That was something we didn't expect.

In order to get to our next hostel, we had to walk straight through the market, and it was yet another intense market experience. Well, we got through it all and reached our hostel. Thankfully, our room was ready, and we had a huge place to ourselves this time. Money!!! We put our stuff down, got situated for a second, and jumped right back out into that market to continue the adventure.

Rather than get too into it, here's some of the stuff we saw and did in this place:

• Ate tacos dorados, aka taquitos
• Ate another fantastic taco
• Ate an empanada
• Saw, again, so many fucking shoes. Never have I ever seen so many shoe shops in one country, shoes seem to be the one location-agnostic item, whereas everything else seems to be zoned by regions. But shoes, oh no. That shit's everywhere.
• Saw a shitton of hotwheels plastered on a wall
• Tons of cars, motorcyclists, and bicyclists just pushing right on through throngs of people. It was jam-packed.
• Got wrapped up into but survived another hectic market

The highlight of the market, at least for Zack, was his investment, and apparent fulfillment of a life goal, in some slick (his opinion, not mine) blue adidas track pants. He thinks they make him look "cool". Don't tell him the truth, it might do permanent damage to his psyche.

But, overall, it was a pretty successful romp through the market. Ready for something else, we continued walking around, and then slowly made our way to the main square again. With the thought of a break and a snack an appealing point, we sketchily made our way up to a mid-floor café to look over the main square and sip on some drinks while taking a postcard break. Win!

No surprise, but it all hit the spot. The beautiful view, the cold beer and hot coffee, the fun postcards written up to friends throughout the world, awesome.

From there, we stopped back by Limosneros so I could pick up a bottle of the fantastic wine I had the week before. Then, with drinking on the mind, we wandered back up to mariachi plaza for a hot minute. Why? So we could go to the Tequila and Mezcal Museum!

It started to rain out as we were getting there, so a little break inside was a welcome prospect. And we picked a pretty damn cool place to do it. We went through the museum and learned that Tequila is only made from the blue agave plant, whereas Mezcal can be made from all the other varieties. Pretty neat.

The best part of the tour, however, was the free shot of tequila we got on the rooftop bar! It wasn't great, but hey, a free shot is a free shot. The rain was still coming down pretty lightly, so we had some decent views of the city to go with our yummy indulgence.

From there, we headed to the gift store. I was in both a hunting and a splurging mood. Bad combo. BUT, I ended up finding what I think was the bottle of tequila that sent me off from my time living in Indianapolis. I'd thought since then that it was called "Cervada Señor". I asked the lady working there and she looked at me like an idiot, but then put forth that I could be thinking of "Reserva del Señor". Not wanting to lose so easily, I assumed that was it and huzzah!!! Lewis, if you ever make it out to Portland, we can have another go at it!

A bottle of mezcal, tequila, and some shot glasses in hand, we were set to go. Luckily, the light drizzle had just converted to a ridiculous downpour. Yay. Initial move was to grab an Uber. That was a mess (the driver had no idea where he was), so I canceled that. Then we thought about a taxi, but there was so much traffic we would've just sat in a car on the street. No dice there. Last move? Toughed it out and ran for it back to the hostel. Soaking wet.

But, since we got back under our own power, it gave us enough time to switch into some drier clothes, and head out for dinner. Again, perfect timing, because we lined that up perfectly with rush hour. Hooooot damn...

Well, as you could likely imagine, the trains during rush hour in CDMX are fucking insane. It's the only place I've been to that I could compare to Tokyo, but this city feels way more aggressive, dense, and hectic. There's just so many damn people, it's hard to believe that there's any movement among the masses trying to go in opposing directions.

Honestly, CDMX seems fucked when it comes to transportation. The infrastructure as a whole is pretty old. It definitely must've been perfect in years past, but growth has seemed to have made it way undersized. The trains are usually packed, the streets are always jammed, and drivers seem so crazy and erratic that it's almost a death sentence to jump on a bike there.

Thankfully though, we made it over to Polanco, one of the swankier parts of town in one piece. We had to walk a little bit, but before long we'd found our destination for the evening, 2-Star Michelin restaurant Pujol. Apparently one of the best restaurants in CDMX, which Zack was awesome enough to find and reserve.

Holy shit, we were not ready for this, but here we go...

Natural wine - didn't know that was a thing, but it was delicious. Tasted a bit like sour beer.

(Photo credit to Zack for these ones. I was too enthralled with the food...)

Got some Sotol to go with desert, which is like Tequila and Mezcal. Again, delicious.

The food. All of it. Absolutely unreal.

Mushroom with duck pico de gallo and avocado, to go with baby corn cooked and dipped in some insane sauce.

THE BEST octopus I've ever had. I don't know what they did to it, but it was other-worldly.

Softshell crab

Ox Tongue. Fuuuuuuuuuuu

And the best part, with every course we got a fresh set of tortillas so we could taco-ify everything. How dope is that!?!?!

Two kinds of mole as a warm-down

And then some kind of dope-ass dessert

Holy shit, easily the most exquisite dining experience of my life (we felt so out of place the entire time...), and definitely up there for one of the most flavorful and memorable. We were absolutely blown away. So many little high-end things though too that made us feel in an elite world:

• A waiter/waitress would always come over and fold the persons napkin if they got up from the table for a bathroom break
• There was always someone to fill up the water and wine, even if only a single sip had been taken
• There were trees literally growing right next to our table
• The host came to us at the start of each course and explained all the details and subtleties to us in English
• There was a damn wax seal on the menu
• Before we were done, the waitress asked if we wanted a taxi waiting for us outside
• After the fourth course, the salt plate was removed from the table
• Actual towels and paper towels, dealer's choice, in the one and only bathroom in the entire place

As I said, this was easily the most amazing and exquisite culinary experience I’ve ever taken part of, and most expensive too.

But, one more cool thing to come out of the night. During our experience I noticed that their music choice was pretty dope. There were a good number of songs (~3-5) on the speakers that were already in my Spotify library. I guess you can say I've got pretty exquisite taste in music, you know, matching a 2-star Michelin restaurant and all...

Needless to say, both of us were riding all kinds of high after such an unforgettable experience. But, it unfortunately did end, and we found our way back to our hostel via another very packed train ride. (I really wish I had this guys' jacket)

Stuck in the world of fabulous and high-end dining, we ended up watching Burnt on Netflix, which was an awesome movie, and then went to bed.

Day 10 - El Estadio y Tacos

Waking up was easy. It was slow, but between being so satiated from the night before and listening to the rain come down outside, it was a beautiful way to start the day.

At breakfast, we talked with a couple of Brits. Super interesting, as they were on a 6-month journey. To give themselves a crazy start, they decided to get that going in India, probably the most chaotic place possible. But, they said, everything since then has been pretty stress-free. Not a bad way to go.

The rain slowed down a bit for us, and contrary to the day before, that timing worked out well as we were ready to hit the streets walking.

Where to first? Some kind of TV!!! It was the opening match of the World Cup! After a couple failed attempts and not-so-appealing places, we found a nice café/bar with it on. Got in, got some food, and enjoyed the match. We were both a bit surprised by Russia’s dominance. But hey, that's what rigging the game will do for you...

From the cozy cafe back to the train south. It was time for take number three to get into Estadio Azteca. The ride went by quickly and smoothly. We got there, got to the gate, and the security guard told us to go to a different gate. We were a little pessimistic, as we'd been through this run-around before.

But, we got to that gate, talked to a couple really nice ladies for a second, and eventually got walked over to the tour office! There, we met our tour guide, Arturo, who had really good English skills due to playing Destiny with a guy named Kevin from Cleveland. How cool! We rolled up, paid the fee, and the tour started!

First up on the tour was the wall of plaques. Of which there were a number, including the Stadium Opening, Maradona's "Hand of God" game, Argentina and Brazil winning the World Cups hosted there ('86 and '70, respectively), and 1000 matches played in the stadium (that's nuts). But, my favorite, recognition of the first referee to give Maradona a red card, Mario Rubio, who was Mexican. Fuck yeah, this one was awesome.

The tour continued around the stadium to the field-level entrance. We walked through the journalist's entrance, but got into the field tunnel, where they had plaques for every team that had played there. There was only one plaque/team from the US (which no longer exists), and three from Germany. That was a cool little homage to the teams to see.

From there, it was over to the media booth. There was a catholic thing there too, which was apparently a common thing for whoever was in the booth to go to before their interview. But Zack and I waited patiently in line and snagged ourselves an official pic.

Next up, the home team locker room. Zack had slowly become a die-hard, life-long fan of Club America during the trip, and so this was pretty dope to get to see their locker room in their home stadium!

But from there, it was a quick spiral staircase up to the field itself. Hoooow cooooool. The pitch and the stadium itself were just massive. Capacity was at 95k, but it used to be 120k. A couple years back they swapped out the bench seats for actual seats. Lame. But even then, I could only imagine how insane this place would be during a match.

We hung out on the edge of the field for a bit to soak in the ginormous size of the place. From there, we walked back into the stadium and into a section of stands close to the field. There, a statue was in place for Club America's #1 fan, (Ignacio) Nachito. A few years back, the club set up a competition of who was the #1 fan of the team, where the winner would get tickets for life. Well, Nachito won by showing ticket stubs to every single one of the team's games over the previous 10 years. Now he's got four tickets to every game for the rest of his life. Hot damn.

While hanging out next to the #1 fan, Arturo pointed out two levels of white boxes that went all the way around the stadium. Well, these suites, sold to people at the time of the stadium's opening, are on a 99-year contract to the buyers, and whoever owns them can come to their box anytime they want for any event. Crazy.

But then for all of the plebes, he said that season tickets only cost 1500pesos/year, just around 75USD. Now that's dirt cheap.

That pretty much wrapped up the tour. I gotta say, that was definitely worth the three attempts at doing. The place was huge and clearly a cathedral and mecca for the sport.

Both of us were a bit hungry afterwards, so we stopped in at 7-11 to get some very unhealthy snacks. Our next thing was kinda on that side of town, so we jumped into a taxi to head on over. The taxi ride was easy, but the guy seemed pissed I told him to turn on the meter. Oh well.

The guy dropped us off at a train station, which we took for a couple quick stops before landing right in the neighborhood of our destination. We were pretty early, so we found a watering hole to kill some time.

After a couple of beers, some ceviche, and a few disappointed wait-staff (they assumed we were going big on food), we were off to go make some tacos al pastor!!!

I had no idea such a thing existed, but AirBnb, aside from providing options for places to stay, also now offers experiences at travel destinations. Zack found out about this, and booked probably the best possible one in Mexico City - a chance to learn how to make tacos al pastor from scratch. We rolled up to Chef Raja's home, and got straight to work.

After we got there, he gave us a quick tour of the setup and rundown of the plan. To get things started though, we had to head to the market. A quick Uber drive away was his really cool local market. It was clean, orderly, and full of stuff. Chef Raja walked us around to the many vendors, showed us not only what we needed to get, but what we should look out for in the process, and slowly but surely we had all the stuff we needed. Just some notes for me later on - Juajillo (pepper for the Adobo), Asilla, and Taqueria Cocuyos.

From there we uber'd back to his place, and got to work! Chef Raja and his lovely wife Pilar walked us through the whole process. We made everything for the meal from their awesome tutelage - the meat (Tacos al Pastor, pork shoulder skewered and cooked), green salsa, red salsa, adobo marinade, guacamole, and even tortillas. They were super patient, helpful, demonstrative, and clear in getting us to the end goal of an AMAZING meal. Really, it was absolutely awesome. Here are some pictures that Raja and Pilar took along the way!

As I said, it was all delicious, scrumptious, mouth-watering, and overall amazing. Chef Raja and Pilar were unbelievably hospitable, welcoming, and just lovely people! It was a pleasure to learn from them, and Zack and I are both super excited to try out the recipes at home!

We were both pretty K.O.'d from the food coma. Seriously, it was amazing. But we took the metro back to the hostel, posted up and watched some Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and called it another night.

Day 11 - Markets, Soccer, Tacos, and Fake Wrestling

Very untrue to form, I was able to sleep in a little bit, and it felt absolutely fantastic. we had a bit of a late morning, and there's nothing wrong with that! But eventually we got up, got ready, and headed over to our new local bar to watch the Iran vs. Morocco match. There we grabbed breakfast and, weirdly enough, I had maybe the best bloody Mariana (mezcal instead of vodka; name is patented by Zack and I) of my life. But then, we were off.

From there, we walked down one of the main streets. Zack dragged me into adidas, so he could parade around the store in his schnazzy new pants, making everyone (he thinks, at least) jealous of his new garb.

The wandering continued, and at that point we were on the hunt. Weirdly enough, neither of us thought it would be this hard, but we were having a bear of a time trying to find a post office or mailbox so we could send off our postcards. We weren't sure why they were so sparse, but, that's where we were. Thankfully enough, there was one downtown. We were pointed to it by someone, and eventually walked through the threshold, huzzah!

One mission accomplished, Zack threw another one on the table - find a matching soccer jersey for his nephew. Only one place to try that, so it was back to the market! Again, it was nothing but craziness and chaos. No surprise there.

After a while, I was a little over it and a little tired. I wasn't looking or hunting for anything in particular, so despite the craziness and action, I was a little tired. So, I split off and went back to the hostel for a nap. Always a good feeling. Eventually Zack came back too. We laid around for a hot minute, but then headed to the main square to watch some soccer!

They set up a huge World Cup viewing area in the Zocalo. It was awesome, and we knew we had to at least check it out. The big bummer with that though, we were going to miss a Mexico match. Could you imagine how insane it would've been to be there when they were playing?!?! We could, and were disappointed we wouldn't be able to experience it. But, we had to take it in when we could! So we got a glimpse of the Portugal vs. Spain game on the big screen!

We missed the first two goals, and we ended up leaving during halftime, which I was a bit bummed for both counts. A little about me, I'm extremely impatient and really like all types of sport. Despite that, off we were back to our neighborhood haunt to enjoy some beers, the game, and another good time.

Sidenote: Ronaldo is a piece of shit.

Unfortunately it was a tie. Oh well, onward and upward! Our wandering led us back a little south from the main part of the city. We had to head back to the Lucha stadium to get our tickets for the second go-round. For some reason, getting them this time was a lot harder than the previous time. We haggled and talked to a couple of guys, but ultimately found a deal that seemed ok. It was steep, but not too bad.

As a last hurrah, we were dazzled with some really shitty timing. During the haggling, a deluge of water started pouring out of the clouds. It was a serious rainfall, something we definitely don't get blanketed with at home. Dayum.

Initially, we booked it. Despite the downpour, we started wandering back towards the metro station. It was pretty damn relentless though, and we ended up doing the local thing and posting up along the sidewalk to watch the heavy rain pass by.

Quick Thought - Rain in Mexico City is pretty nuts. Every time (at least those that we experienced), it was a complete downpour. The streets flood up in a flash, and people just hang around waiting for it all to pass by.

To add to that, the cars and the streets seem to (which makes sense) get even more chaotic. With that much water on the streets, it's a mess. Naturally and scarily, it gets really risky being a pedestrian then, or really anything that involves being near or on a road. Total chaos.

Eventually the rain slowly petered down to a moderate watering, so we trudged through some puddles and lakes to get to the metro station not too far off. It was a soggy and humid ride, but a few stops away and were were on the hunt for a place to kill time before dinner at a place that Chef Raja recommended to us.

The corner bar ended up working out. It was a little swanky-looking, but it was dry and warm inside, so we popped in. We had some more beers along with some more great conversation and the whole time our waiter was really itching to get us some tequila. We passed though, despite the friendly offer. After that, it was dinner time.

Taqueria Los Cocuyos, the top recommendation for Chef Raja, was conveniently just around the corner (we planned that). Done with the corner bar, we were both pretty hungry, and little did we know we were about to step into the most delicious tacos of the trip.

WHuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut. These tacos are not describable. The savory flavor, the open book experience and show, and just everything about the amazingness. You HAVE to go there if you're ever in Mexico City. Easily the best tacos in Mexico from my very limited experience. The coolest part, all of the meats were just simmering in one giant pot together.

I went HAM on this stuff, and loved every second of it. First round - Tripa (intestine), Longaniza (like chorizo), and Lengua (tongue). So fucking good.

Second Round - Sesos (brain), Tripa, and Campechano (the leftovers of whatever was on the griddle. Then, Third Round - Tripa, Longaniza, and Lengua. As I said, the best tacos in Mexico.

By that time, it was game time. Aka time to head back to the stadium for some more Lucha! Again, we were a little bit early, so we found another place to kill time and a couple beers while getting ready for the action.

Just like last time, we made our way into the stadium. This time though, we got a little scammed by a lady who very proactively helped us to our seats. She walked us there and we said thanks, but then she hung around for a tip. I found that kinda bullshit. But, that's how it goes...

With our seats all set, we sat around, had a beer, and eventually the show got underway. Our seats this second time were a little closer than the week before. Consequently (maybe because of that, maybe not) the magic of it all seemed a little absent. Maybe it was a slow/off night, maybe the guys weren't hitting their cues of fakeness, but it just didn't seem the same.

That said, it was still a rousing show. And to boot, Zack didn't go 5-0 on his picks. Hah! One more thing, one of the referees definitely looked like David Bakhtiari.

After the show, we retraced our steps from right before, and wound up right back at Taqueria Los Cocuyos. Yup, still fucking amazing. Perfect timing too, because I was able to use up the last of my pesos on two final tacos from the trip. Now THAT's how you wrap up an amazing trip!!!

From there, we walked on back to our beds to sleep away our brief last night in town.

Day 12 - Regresamos

It was an early up and at 'em to get ready and go. But, this traveled duo was ready for it. Well. Oiled. Machine. We got to the airport with plenty of time, which is always a good idea to do in a new country.

We got dropped off near the baggage claim, and they had a few huge displays of transportation infrastructure in the country. All of it was really cool to check out. The kicker though, was a diorama of the new airport that they're building for the city. It's going to be HUGE.

Check-in was next, and it was a little disorganized. I got in line to check my bag and get my boarding pass, but had to go to a completely other counter in order to pay, then return to the original spot to finish the process. Then a big plus (thankfully we remembered it for them), the attendants neglected us on the standard “oh you’re entering the US so let’s ask you some more basic questions and put a fancy sticker on your passport". Eventually it was done and over with.

We got through security in some manner, and then got to the lounge so we could chill out and have some breakfast. Soon enough though, it was boarding time. Into the flying aluminum tube we went, and we were headed back towards home after another amazing trip.

Quick Summary

Overall, it was truly another amazing trip. First and foremost, I love traveling with my best friend Zack. A hilarious dude, full of stories and conversation; it's always a true pleasure to experience whatever comes with that guy! Even despite your endearingly annoying miley infatuation. :-)

Mexico, what a beautiful country. The people are super friendly, helpful, welcoming, full of AMAZING food everywhere, and ready to show you their home. The landscapes that we saw were gorgeous, with so much more to explore. And yeah, we only saw two cities out of a very diverse country and know we need to go back and see more. It's a beautiful place. Oaxaca is definitely on the list, as everyone we talked to said it is a definite highlight.

I really do look forward to going back. Primarily for the UNBELIEVABLE tacos that we had. Taqueria Los Cocuyos and El Gato Volador, put them on your must-eats. They're amazing. But the ability to brush off my Spanish, interact with some very welcoming people, taste some of the best food I've ever had, and know that I didn't even scratch the surface. It's definitely worth a few re-visits.

GBD

Back again with another installment of Good, Bad, and Different! As is tradition when I visit a new country, and stemming from the many things we learned through our CBYX program during my first time abroad in Germany, I like to take note of the things I see in that new country that I deem (very subjectively) Good, Bad, and Different. Here's what Zack and I noted down for Mexico:

GOOD

• Huge subway network
• Pretty clean for Latin America
• Strangers have been very helpful (finding places, pointing to the correct buses, warning about having my camera visible, pointing us in the right direction to the museum entrance as we were about to head the wrong way), very concerned and helpful
• Often times, when couples eat out, they will be seated on the same side of the table, rather than across from one another. I like that, it's much more romantic in my opinion. That and I would much rather cuddle up than not.
• Respect for elders: front of the taxi line and free, discounted bus rates
• Guacamole, all of its been amazing. And no tomatoes, might be a correlation?
• OJ is always fresh squeezed
• No check until it’s asked, no feeling rushed
• Cheap quick eats. Stand up, eat, and go. Similar to espressos in Italy

BAD

• Pay for public restrooms
• Can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet
• Apparently toilet paper is a hot commodity too
• Chairs are either a bit uncomfortable, or geometrically out of place with their environment
• Customer service people using their cell phone while on the job, very prevalent
• Chaos on the streets, no order. If a guy from LA says he misses the traffic in Orange County, you know it’s bad
• Thin sidewalks for the amount of throughput and size of the city

DIFFERENT

• Zero trash cans in public, really hard to find, just like Japan
• Women-only section in the subway, just like Japan
• Most people seem to wear their backpacks on the front, maybe due to pickpocketing?
• If you’re not on a main highway, there are speed bumps every 20m. Progress is slow as shit
• There is an inordinately huge amount of shoe shops all over the pace. I've never seen so many shoes in my life in one place.
• Sidewalks are sketchy places. So many changes in elevation, hidden curbs and bumps, it’s a little crazy
• All bus drivers are aspiring race car drivers
• Selling hardware tools a block away from the main square
• Goods are sold in zones, both within a market and within the city. Zack could elaborate on this one, but everything seems very subjectively and unofficially zoned.

Family Time

Right after I landed back home, I had a real quick turnaround. On the ground around 16:30, my mom and I were to be on the road right after she got off work to head up to my sister's place for a good 'ole-fashioned family get together.

The little one (Peewee) was in town, and we had plans to get together with some other family friends, so no rest for the weary! Not sure how I did it, but I got home, unpacked, repacked, and even fit in a nap, before she came and picked me up. With that, we were headed north. 'Twas a quick drive, and before you know it, we were all hanging out at Alicia's place!

Made a somewhat early night of it (I was a little pooped), and then on Sunday we got in a good bit of lounging before we headed to the festivities. And by lounging, I mean the standard kind of modern-day lounging we millenials do.... (see below)

Well, as you can imagine, it was a great time seeing everyone, and we had a great place to hang out with everyone. Our family friends have a fantastic home, with an amazing view of the Puget Sound. Some wonderfully cooked salmon, cold beers, great food, good friends, and all of that combined to a relaxing afternoon spent together.

Next Up

Well, I'm writing this well after the fact, and well after the next few posts in process, but I've got the rest of June, July, and August 2018 to write about. A good number of amazing adventures were had. And I'll get to them ASAP!

Original Publish Date: September 9th, 2018