Mexico City and Costa Rica
Last location: Caracas, Venezuela
Current location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Next location: Brazil or Norther Argentina (on Sunday)
Our website: http://www.discosuperfly.biz/travel
Our gallery: http://gallery.discosuperfly.biz
Its been a while since our last update, actually its been 4 countries and 4 capitals! Our original plan was to only have short stopover in Mexico City, but we decided to fly in earlier, making it 3 days. At first we had our doubts about Mexico City, mostly because of old rumours of heavy traffic and crime. Once in town we settled at the Hostel Mundo Joven, which is a nice and very social traveller’s hostel in the centre of town, Centro Historico. The hostel was cheap, clean and its guests were from all over the world.
First day we joined two americans from our dorm on a day trip to the ancient pyramid city of Teotihuacan (40km outside Mexico City). Before we got to see the pyramids we saw several smaller sights downtown and visited a canteen/ranch were we got a insight into local art, food and drinks (yes, Tequila). The remainders of Teotihuacan depict a very mysterious image of the people that used to live there. At one point in time, the city was considered the largest in the Americas. Basically, the city served as the capital centre of the ancient civilization in Mexico. The city consist of the Avenue of the Dead, that runs from the Pyramid of the Moon (in the above picture) throughout the city, ending at the foot of the larger pyramid, the Pyramid of the Sun. Teotihuacan was home to a population of approximately 200,000.
The view from the top of Pyramid of the Moon.
Once we returned to the hostel, the trip guide, Moncia, arranged for all of us to join her and her friends on a salsa club downtown. After a few hours and a decent meal we headed into the first night out in Mexico. To our surprise, our nordic stiffness and motoric movements did not scare away the local girls, it must have been the way Tommy communited through the extensive usage of his LonelyPlanet Spanish Phrasebooks. I guess the girls found it extraordinarily charming when he approached them, book in hand….asked them to dance - literally reading from the “Social” section of his language bible… (I must say though, just two weeks into South America, his spanish is really improving.)
A police officer in Mexico City…
The next days were spent strolling the streets of Mexico City. To my surprise the city has a very nice feel to it, compared to Caracas it feels much safer walking around as a tourists. People are very friendly, there are a lot of police in the streets (maybe too many??) and the city´s age and size makes it even more interesting. I wish I had more time to see more of Mexico though….Will definitively go back in the future.
Leaving the country I thought I had lost (it was in my backpack) my immigration card (the one you get once you arrive…not a big problem really, as the immigration office can issue one on the spot. But when your flight leaves at 06:50 and the office opens at 08:00, then there is really not much help to get. After a bit of chatting with the check-in-counter-guy I was told to go through the security control and once inside the departure terminal, approach a guy on the immigration desk. At first the man was not willing to help me out, it was difficult to understand his Spanish - as most of his teeth had fallen out…but after a bit of talking I understood this; ” go to the bathroom, put $50 in your passport and give it to me”. On the verge of doing something that in most cases would be considered criminal, I was nervous as I did not know what consequences this could bring me, if caught. Seeing as I did not want to stay back for a later flight, I did as he asked and once airborn, nobody had even checked me for this silly expensive immigration card! I guess that was a lesson learned…
Tommy in one of the empty dodgy streets of San Jose.
The next day we had a 24 hour stop-over in Costa Rica. We caught a cab to the capital, San Jose..had lunch and basically returned to the airport a few hours later. San Jose was not that interesting, a bit dodgy perhaps and it was not comfortable walking around with all our luggage. Next morning we flew to Caracas. We havent got around to upload the Venezuelan pictures yet, so expect another update quite soon…
The football team of Trinidad and Tobago was on our Caracas flight, this guy was obviously embarrassed about the match the preceding day (they lost 4-0 to Costa Rica)….hehe.
Our gallery is updated with pictures from Mexico and Costa Rica, http://gallery.discosuperfly.biz
take care,
Martin
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