Two On Tour

It’s vast. Where to even start?

Friday April 10

Three a.m. Less than three hours’ sleep, but it’s time to leave Guatemala. Everything goes like clockwork and we’re at our gate an improbable three hours before departure. I assemble a Facebook post from the week’s adventures, then we hunt for breakfast.

Full flight. I’m in an aisle seat a row behind K, starting Mexico: 500 Years of History. Heavy going after insufficient sleep. Viewless, I can only judge by the changing pitch of the engine when we’re about to land.

Mexico City airport is efficient. The online information I’ve read is wrong: there are no forms to complete. I fumble immigration. We’re asked if we prefer Spanish or English. We’re tired and in an unfamiliar environment. I request English, but we struggle with the officer’s heavy accent. She’s hardly friendly and I’m relieved later to find we’ve both been given the full six-month allowance. (Immigration officers apparently have wide discretion regarding how long to let foreign visitors stay, although that information could be equally wrong.)

I compensate for fumbling immigration by managing to change money and book a taxi in Spanish. Unlike Costa Rica or Guatemala, here it seems pretty much assumed you can speak Spanish. This must be how nervous non-native English speakers feel arriving in London or New York. Our taxi turns out to be a minivan, and we’ve paid twice the maximum I’d researched. But we’re punch drunk tired and it gets us to our hotel, the same Ibis chain we used in Malaga. It’s reassuringly familiar: no thrills, but friendly and colourful.

We need lunch. Google Maps throws up a ramen joint five minutes away. Pricey, but we could both murder a bowl of ramen. It’s staffed by locals, but otherwise it’s full-on Japanese: order on a screen at the door (Spanish only), told to return in thirty minutes, then greeted in Japanese by the whole staff when we finally enter.

We’ve already parted with more money than planned for the taxi, so I’m non-plussed to find the restaurant uses dynamic currency conversion, charging us automatically in Hong Kong dollars at their chosen rate. Semi-scammed twice today already. We can only breathe deeply and be philosophical. The ramen, at least, is excellent.

Back to the hotel to see out a thunderstorm that’s brewed while we were slurping our noodles. We could both sleep the rest of the afternoon but need to stay awake. Once the storm passes, we head back out to explore.

Mexico City smells of pollution, cigarettes, and fried chicken. Almost no one smoked in Costa Rica or Guatemala; here, like in Spain, smokers are everywhere. On the run in from the airport, the air was tart with pollution. For now, the rain has washed it clean, but the smog will doubtless be back.

We loop around busy Roma Norte and into leafy La Condesa, where we locate the Airbnb we’ll move into tomorrow. The jacaranda trees are still in bloom here, and splashes of bougainvillea brighten the streets. We stumble onto the Angel of Independence and a colossal monument to those who lost their lives in the Mexican–American war of 1846–48, an event I’m only dimly aware of. I’m still on Chapter One of my book.

Exhausted, we keep dinner quick and simple. A taco joint around the corner from the hotel suits us fine. The menu is a bewildering selection of taco sizes and fillings, but our lovely, rather geeky waiter is keen to help. We bumble through in a mix of Spanish and English. He takes time to ask where we’re from and welcomes us to Mexico. Sweet. We order three small tacos each. K has a mojito, and my beer is two-for-one. It costs half what we paid for ramen alone earlier.

By eight-thirty, it’s chilly. We’re over 2000 metres up here, and it cools down fast after dark. Enough for our first day in Mexico. Back to the hotel to sleep early.

Saturday 11 April

At last, we’re back in our ‘own’ place. The constant moving around since we left San Pedro, living in hotel rooms and eating every meal out has been exhausting. It’s good to have a flat again.

It’s far from perfect, but expectations weren’t high. The wood-plank balcony looking over the quiet leafy street is the main pro, with the king-size bed a close second. Less endearing is the cleaner’s lack of attention to detail: the runners on the sliding balcony door are filthy, and the windows grubby; the bathroom door and walls are splattered with specks of toothpaste; the coffee carafe is encrusted with dried coffee grounds; and the plants on the terrace outside the bedroom all died some time ago.

The local Walmart Express is the size of any regular supermarket elsewhere. We stock up, enjoy home-cooked food the first time in almost two weeks, and settle down to watch Match of the Day.

Sunday 12 April

A day at ‘home’. I’m about to get out for a stroll shortly before sunset when a thunderstorm intervenes. Still, the balcony is sheltered. I sit outside and battle to the end of Chapter 1 of Mexico: 500 Years of History — only 499 years to go.

Otherwise, a day of chores. After sending our Airbnb host photos documenting the grubby condition of the flat, I get to work cleaning while K snoozes late. By the time our host replies offering to send the cleaner back, I’ve already finished.

We have a huge pile of laundry, but the back door leading to the washer dryer is locked. More back and forth with our host. We go downstairs again. The door is still locked. I’m getting crotchety now. Our host suggests cancelling our reservation for a full refund. He probably means well (or just wants rid of us), but this doesn’t suit us at all. We’re finally in a flat again. We just want access to the facilities advertised — radical, I know. When we go downstairs a third time, the door is finally open. Hurrah.

After dinner: Neil and Sarah’s YouTube videos from Mexico at the very start of their travels in 2021. They’re some of the only 2GoRoam videos we haven’t seen, having picked them up in Greece a few months later. They were surprisingly on‑the‑ball for YouTube beginners. One video reminds me that staying home today to recharge meant missing the weekly Sunday traffic shutdown on Avienda de la Reforma. From morning until two, the avenue is given over to pedestrians and cyclists. We’ll make a point of sauntering up there next Sunday.

Monday 13 April

This afternoon’s plan is to wander through enormous Chapultepec Park, Mexico’s City’s prime oasis of green. We arrive to find the gate locked. It’s not only the museums inside the park that close on Mondays, it’s the park itself.  We U-turn and head for modest Parque Mexico instead. And everything turns out just fine.

Sunlight flits through towering trees as kids play on climbing frames and young bookish types read on sheltered benches. Impossibly white-teethed American expats dart by in pairs. I keep my lips firmly closed. We find a café, order espresso tonics, and settle down to read.

Mexico City is so vast and unknowable. There’s much pleasure simply in sitting at a café in a leafy neighbourhood with a coffee and a good book. La Condesa is a charming base. It’s going to feel hard work just getting out of it.

Tuesday 14 April

It’s time to explore Mexico City, in front-row seats on the top deck of the hop-on-hop-off bus. The bus is almost empty in the middle of the day — not surprising as it’s pretty exposed up there. We’re protected by a sliver of roof at the front, just enough to avoid sunstroke.  Behind us there’s no one until the rear two rows, which are also covered. Once we’ve hopped on, we stay on until K demands a lunch stop.

The bus whisks us through leafy Chapultepec Park, with its museums and boating lake, then through plush but congested Polanco (LV, Dolce & Gabbana etc.) before heading back towards the historical centre.

We hop off on Aveinda Juárez. Five minutes later we stumble entirely by chance into Chinatown, where we share a welcome plate of cha sui fried noodles. Above my head, Liverpool are a few minutes away from exiting this year’s Champions League to PSG.

Fed, we pop round the corner to locate the Teatro Metropolitan, where we’ll be seeing Belle and Sebastian next month. Tonight it’s hosting a K Pop concert, and the pavement outside is already thronged with excited locals with complicated hairstyles forming an orderly line.

A half-hour amble brings us to the vast Zócalo, the historic central plaza and former site of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire. We’re here to see the open-air ruins. Given how thoroughly the Spanish razed the city, there are limited sights to see. But this is precisely what makes the ruins so poignant. A museum is attached. I’m sure it would be fascinating, but by now we’re hot and thirsty, and ready for an iced coffee.

By the time we’ve finished our coffee, sunset isn’t far off. With evening closing in, the hop-on-hop-off bus is packed as it leaves the Zócalo for its last loop of the day. We ride as far as the Angel of Independence and hop off to walk home.

Meanwhile, Julie will be moving out of our Portsmouth flat in a few days. Finding a decent letting agent to take on the flat has been frustrating. Mum’s rolled up her sleeves to help, but today there’s a professional and reassuring reply from the company that bought out our former agent. It sounds promising — though I’ve thought that before.

Wednesday 15 April

A visit to the Museum of Modern Art inside vast Chapultepec Park. I vaguely recall Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo — the museum’s big draws — from my student days, but haven’t really thought about either since I was twenty-one. Frida Kahlo strikes me as the art world’s Nick Drake — largely ignored when alive; glorified to the edge of sainthood in death. (She was doubtless more flawed than her impeccable reputation as an icon of progressive causes allows for.) The museum is diverting enough for an hour or two, although its best feature is arguably its large sculpture garden — not usually my bag at all.

Dinner is at an artisan pizza joint called Nosferatu, just a minute round the corner from the flat. Street seating. Pizzas featuring fresh ginger and pistachios. Craft beers. A little upmarket compared with our normal fare, but the food, drink and ambience are all excellent.

Thursday 16 April

A low-key but busy day. In the morning, a video call with the letting agent I’ve decided to appoint to relet our Portsmouth flat when Julie moves out next week. It’s been a frustrating few days trying to locate a letting agent I feel comfortable with, but this one —  Soane Property Group — project a reassuring air of professionalism. We’ll see.

For the first time in several weeks, I have a significant amount of work. A two-edged sword, for sure. In recent weeks, I’ve become used to days of relative leisure. A bit of extra pocket money will be welcome — April has been expensive so far. But sleeves are being rolled up somewhat grudgingly.

When we do get out, it’s simply to stock up on enough groceries to see out our remaining days in Mexico City.

Friday 17 April

An afternoon at the National Museum of Anthropology. Certainly an education, given how little we know about Mexico yet. But for the same reason, a little overwhelming. We come away with a broad sense of Mexico’s cultural regions and the pre-Hispanic civilisations that thrived in them. But with little English supporting text and our clunky Spanish reading speed, we could be there all weekend and not be much the wiser. Once again, it’s fascinating to see how insular the Hispanic world can be. Not a criticism, coming from the Anglo world. Just another reminder of how vast and self-contained the Spanish-speaking world is, and how limited my Spanish still feels.

We’ve been in Mexico City a week. I’m noticing I get out of breath quickly here. By late afternoon, I’m shattered. Every day. I assume it’s the altitude — we’re over two kilometres up and the air is thinner. I expected to acclimatise after a couple of days. I guess I just have to accept that I’m 57, not 17.

Saturday 18 April

After a day of museuming yesterday, we’re happy to nestle quietly for most of the day. By lunchtime I’ve completed some work. I’m free to while away the afternoon on the balcony reading and studying Spanish.

Towards evening, we head out to explore the neighbourhood further: more leafy streets lined with cafés, restaurants and independent shops. By chance we find a spacious bookstore in a handsome old Bauhaus building on a street corner and both buy miniature Spanish paperbacks that recall the mid-nineties Penguin 60s collection. Mine’s about the public response to the 1985 Mexico City earthquakes; K’s is called New Tools in Astronomy. Our aim: a page a day for the next two months — ambitious, given our track record, but something to strive for.

Before the bookstore, we passed a pho joint, whereupon K decided Vietnamese was on the menu tonight. We wander back and tuck into an early dinner.

Sunday 19 April

Just for once, K disperses with her mantra of “I don’t step outside on Sundays”. Mexico City closes its showpiece main drag Avenida de la Reforma to motor traffic until two every Sunday. Anyone can bike, jog, scoot, or simply stroll in the road. We wander over to take a look. It’s a borderline carnival atmosphere. Perhaps Mexico City is ideally suited to such a gesture: never too hot, never too cold. But still, more cities should do this.

We wander back through Chapultepec Park, thronged today with families. K has her heart set on feeding a squirrel or two. We’ve brought my trusty supply of nuts, seeds and berries, but with so many people about, squirrels are quite literally thin on the ground. We eventually spot an empty corner of woodland and, yes, there’s a squirrel who looks up for hazelnut, or maybe even an almond. He is. We strike a simple deal: nuts for photos. He concurs.

That’s it for Mexico City — until Belle and Sebastian drag us back next month. For now, we head southeast to Puebla.