Mexico - Part 2
Our journey from Puerto Vallarta to Mexico City was uneventful. It took about an hour by taxi from the airport to our hotel.
One thing that stood out was how the locals treat using turn signals as if it’s a luxury. The traffic was brutal, with an enormous number of cars. An ambulance was trying to make its way through the traffic jam with little success. People weren’t in much of a hurry to move aside, so the ambulance essentially moved with the traffic despite its sirens. There was a noticeably high number of dented cars, even the newer ones. Given the local driving culture, this wasn’t surprising. Red lights seemed to be treated as mere suggestions, with drivers often running them for the first 20 seconds. When they got stuck in the middle of intersections, drivers from the other direction would honk furiously. From a traffic perspective, I wouldn’t want to live in such a crowded place, though for other reasons too, but more on that later.
Once we arrived at the hotel, we unpacked, rested, and then took a quick walk around the neighborhood in the evening to get acquainted with the area.
On Friday, we went on a guided minibus tour. We were picked up at our accommodation and went to our first stop, which is known for a rather horrific event. More information on that can be found here:
https://24.hu/tudomany/2018/10/02/meszarlas-verengzes-olimpia-mexiko-1968/
At the next location, we learned more about cacti, including the various ways they can be used. For example, there is a part of the cactus that consists of multiple layers, which can be carefully separated and used for writing.
We had the opportunity to taste various cactus-based drinks. Some were particularly enjoyable, while others had a rather strange taste to me. After receiving all the information, we had the chance to shop at the gift store. There were plenty of items available, but I didn’t want to spend money on more dust collectors, so I opted to take pictures of some of them. Only after I was done did I notice the sign that prohibited photography in the store. 🙂
From there, we went to the ancient city of Teotihuacan, which you can read more about here:
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan
The tour guide talked for about half an hour, and then we had roughly an hour and a half of free time.
Because of the virus, the pyramids could not be accessed except by the workers working there.
We finished the local part of the tour and then went to lunch.
From here we headed towards the last station. This was the Basilica of Guadalupe and its surroundings. More info here:
They were having a wedding when we were there.
The guided tour concluded, and we were taken back to the hotel. After a short break, we went out to explore the city. We visited an observation deck in a skyscraper. Since I didn’t want to carry my full-size tripod, I only had a gorillapod with me. While I was trying to set up and see what I could stabilize with it, a security guard approached and informed me that photography was only allowed with a phone. This didn’t make me very happy, especially since I had only managed to take one photo, and even that one was blurry.
The view was consistent in every direction; as far as the eye could see, there were the city lights. I knew that many people live here, but I didn’t have an exact figure. Currently, they estimate around 22 million residents. It’s staggering to think that a single city has nearly two and a half times the population of the entire country of Hungary.
After the skyscraper, we continued on.
Then we came across a street festival with dancing.
We watched them for a few minutes, then started looking for a place to have dinner. Due to last year’s quarantine, I was not used to large crowds, downtown was packed.
After a long search, we found a good place, had a nice meal, maybe had another beer in another place, but we were very tired. So we decided to rest up for the next day.
The final part is coming soon.