Mexico City

We arrived in Mexico City late on June 7^th and booked into a really nice hostel in the center of the city near the main square (Zocalo).  We were really excited to be in Mexico City.  With over 22 million people it is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, and the 5^th largest city in the entire world.  It also has one of the most vibrant cultures.  And….of course the food is legendary.  But more on that later.

I can’t continue without of course mentioning that yes, we’ve heard the all the horror stories regarding the crime in the city, and yes we added a bit of precaution to our explorations.  But after travelling through other big cities we’ve come to realize that most of these horror stories are greatly exaggerated.  By default, people are not out to hurt you or to rob you – regardless of what city they live in.   Most people are very welcoming to visitors and are genuinely interested in you and are thankful that you’ve come to visit them.  They are all very proud of their city.  Of course, if you walk around flashing money and other valuables you will be tempting people, but I really think that temptation would not be any worse in a city like Mexico City, or Rio or any other city with a bad reputation than it would be in the downtown of any city back home.  When crime does happen, for some reason the media picks up on it and makes it sound like the city is the most dangerous place in the world.  The reality is that there are millions of visitors who enjoy trips to these places and only a very select few are victims of crime.  And usually they are the ones stumbling down the street at 3am waving their wallets and iPads around attracting all kinds of attention.   But enough about that.

One of the main reasons we came to Mexico – and started in Mexico City in particular is because I had been reading a lot about Mexican food.  Those who know me, know that I’m really into food.  I really enjoy eating, cooking, and trying new flavors.  Mexico City, with its giant food markets and omnipresent street food vendors was the ideal place to come and experience one of the best food cultures in the world.

Walking down the streets of Mexico is a food-lovers dream.  When we arrived that first night we walked out in search of tacos.  Tacos are everywhere.  There are vendors selling them everywhere  and they have 100s of different fillings - mostly different types of pork and different salsas.  We came across one that had a list 15 items long of all the different parts of the animal.  Ribs, Stomach, Sausage, Tongue, Brain, Head, Breast, Cheek, Lips, Eyeballs, Throat, etc.  They had a giant pot with simmering animal parts.  You could order whatever part you wanted, and they’d bring it out of the pot, fry it on a hot skillet for a few minutes, chop it up and serve it to you in a freshly made corn tortilla.  Fantastic. Then you were presented with a number of different salsas and hot sauces and you could customize it and down it right there on the street.  I tried the head tacos, and Joh (a little freaked out I think) went for the ribs.  The head was really good.  Little bits of brain, cheek, snout, and tongue all fried up, and doused in salsa. Back at the hostel, I polished it all off with a Corona (of course) and came to the realization that yes – Mexico City was going to be awesome!

The next morning we went to visit the central market.  Markets are usually one of the first places we visit when we get to a new city.  You can learn a lot about a place’s culture by visiting the local market. The market in Mexico City is the largest I’ve ever seen.  Rows and rows of fresh fruits, vegetables, dried chiles, spices, herbs, and countless other food items.  We passed by vendors with massive displays of 20 different varieties of limes, and others with huge selections of chiles, tomatoes, onions, avocados, tomatillos, cactus paddles, banana leaves, or fresh tortillas. Each vendor had their display set up beautifully.  All the produce was extremely fresh and displayed in towers stacked up perfectly.  We’ve been in many markets over the past months and many of them smell pretty bad and are quite dirty, but this market in Mexico City was immaculate.  The only smell was of fresh produce, and everything was clean and tidy. It was a real treat to walk through this market.  I stopped at nearly every stand to fully take in the smells, tastes, sights, and textures.  Countless times, Joh ended up way ahead wondering where I was only to find me a few stalls back, holding a dried poblano chile in my hand, with a dreamy look in my eyes.  I got countless photos of these stands, so please feel free to ignore most of them in the following photo album.  The market also had a number of food stalls where you could buy a little cooked food.  We tried tacos with cactus paddles (nopales), green onions, roasted pork, salsas, and zucchini blossoms.  They were all extremely delicious. They also had fresh fruit salads, smoothies, and juices and they were a real treat as well. I could talk about this market all day long, but to save you all the tedium of that I’ll end here and just say that yes – our time in Mexico will be filled with delicious food and we will likely be a few pounds heavier by the time we’re done.  That’s fine by me.  I think we’re both getting a bit too skinny anyways.

On one of days we went to take a tour of the Teotihuacan Pyramids.  It is a huge archaeological site near Mexico City that is the remains of a city from approximately 2000 years ago.  The main features of the city are the pyramids.  They are quite big, and really interesting.  You can climb to the top of them to get a great view of the surrounding city.  It was a really great tour.  The only downside was the after effects of the buffet restaurant beside the site.

After days of street food and market food, it was a restaurant that finally gave us the bug.  We were expecting the infamous Mexican stomach problems from the food right from the first day, but we were fine up until the supposedly “safe” tourist restaurant next to Teotihuacan.  The bug put us down for a few days.  We couldn’t go more than 10 minutes away from the hostel’s toilets without feeling a little worried.  We ended up spending a lot of time sitting around in or near the hostel taking it easy reading books and doing travel research.  After a few days or rest and some meds it’s all pretty much fine now and we’re off eating whatever we want again.  We’ll just stay away from the buffet restaurants.

After a week or so in Mexico City we got a ride to the city of Puebla which is a couple hours south-east of Mexico City.  We’re here for a day or two and then we move on to Oaxaca.  We’ll likely be staying in Oaxaca for a week or two.  We’ll write about our time here in Puebla in the next blog post.  Hopefully sometime in the next day or two.  Stay tuned.

Mexico City

Teotihuacan Pyramids