Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 30

Our flight from Oaxaca to Cancun (via Mexico City – the very round-a-bout way) was at the unholy time of 7am – so we had to get up at the even unholy-er time of before 5am to get a cab to the airport to catch our flight. The airport was a bit of a fair distance from the hotel – and we paid about $10AUD for the privilege.

When we arrived at the airport – there was a big long queue (Canberra Airport-esque) to check in. We were flying with Click Mexicana (pronounced “Klee Meh-hick-cana”) which was the “low-cost” equivalent of Mexicana.

Even though we were the first flight out of the airport – we were late by more than half an hour. This wasn’t all that good because we had a connecting flight from Mexico City to Cancun – and only a 50-minute gap between flights. We raced from the plane across to the other side of the airport – where surprisingly – our plane was still at the gate (we were both convinced that we wouldn’t make the connection). We were one of the last people to board the flight (everyone else were sitting down).

Although we made the flight – we were a bit sceptical that our bags were going to make. Speaking of which – we spotted my bag sitting outside the plane – a couple of minutes before we taxied off to the runway. I asked Ant – “Do you think it is going to make it??” and Ant replied – “No…”. Yay… And upon arrival to Cancun – the luggage carousel sin bags confirmed this. We rocked up to the lost luggage counter – where there was this super-mad Mexican – shouting expletives en espanol to the Mexicana woman. She seemed to be doing a rather good Ren impersonation (of Ren and Stimpy fame). We were a bit more pleasant to deal with because we understood why our bags didn’t turn up and felt pretty confident that they would just turn up on the next flight to Cancun (this afternoon).

We left our bag details with the luggage counter – and bypassed the “USD 50” taxi to the city booths (what a rip off) and caught the ADO $3.50USD bus ride to town. Although catching the bus - I could understand why it was so cheap - because they subject you to "Mexican Movie Torture" - aka making you watch High School Music 2 en espanol. It is bad enough watching it in English or on "Ice" but watching a badly dubbed spanish version takes the cake.

After about a 20 minute bus ride - we arrived at the ADO bus station in the middle of downtown Cancun. We were feeling a bit peckish and because we were in Cancun (a quasi-American city in Mexico) - we went to Mc Donalds for lunch (...when in Rome...). We both ordered Mac Nifica meals (sort of like a Mc Feast) - Ant got his straight away - but mine took about 15 minutes (true Mexican Mc Donalds experience). I was loitering around the front counter and they kept shouting in the kitchen "Mc Nifica! Mc Nifica!". I was sort of getting the feeling that they were bagging me out (Mexican Clown style).

To be continued... XO XO - you know you love me... Gossip Girl...

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 29

Another day at Oaxaca – another bread roll and drinkable yoghurt for breakfast from the Super Mercado… Hey – it at least it was relatively cheapish…

We decided to check out the mega-market which was just beyond the bus station from where we had caught the bus and it was a huge market indeed. Probably a whole lot less touristy than the other market we had went to yesterday – but probably about 4 times bigger. It’s always fun wandering around markets in a different country and checking out the different types of produce and see how much we get ripped off in Australia for fruit and veg prices (you get about 10 avos for 10 pesos here in Mexico). The market also had the requisite pirated DVD section - which we both had a little mosey but didn’t buy anything.
We both picked up a big plastic cup of fresh pineapple and (gawd bless) rockmelon (“you can’t elope kimmy!”) for 10 pesos each.

The market was sort of broken down into sections – so all of the zombie chicken sellers would be in one area, the carne in another, the tacky touristy stuff in another, and the horse-riding equestrian gear in another… and so forth. I was on the lookout for cheap touristy gifts which I could bring back home for gifts for work colleagues. I had about 40 requests for stuff from not only Mexico – but Cuba as well (felt like I had to bring an extra bag just to bring back all of this stuff). I tried my hand at bargaining with a guy who didn’t really speak English – but what he was trying to sell was a bit of a rip so I passed. Although Ant got some enjoyment watching Drawn Together En Espanol on the guy’s TV while I was haggling.

Ant had an idea to go back to the other market for lunch at one of those meat selling/cooking places at the other market. This was a good idea on paper – but in reality – I started like I wanted to throw up everywhere like Linda Blair in Exorcist One. After wandering around the other market for about 20 minutes trying to find the “carne” section – I finally came clean about my vomit tendencies to Ant and we thought it was best to rest back at the hotel.

I had a bit of chill at the hotel (maybe it was our dodgy hot dogs the other night that was making feel like Linda Blair) – and Ant did a bit of reading. So much reading – that he had finished all of his books and needed to get some more. I actually started to feel a little better – so we headed out in the direction of the (LP alleged) “Best. English. Bookstore. In. Mexico” – which was near that cathedral from the other day. When we found it – it was closed so we went to the nearby Oaxaca Cultural Centre (which was next door to the Cathedral). It was about 40 pesos to get in and everything was en espanol – but I think it was worth it. It had a few temporary exhibits including one on Mexican “Day of the Dead” artwork (I love those wacky Mexican skeletons in drag), a “ye-olde” book and illustration exhibit – and a “ye-olde” map exhibit (Ant hearts “ye-olde” maps). In the permanent collection – there was heaps of stuff on life in Oaxaca – including pre-hispanic – and Spanish colonial stuff. The Oaxaca Cultural Centre is housed in an old Dominican monastery – which is all really neecye in a Jennifer Lopez latino video clip sort of way. On the grounds were the Oaxaca Botanical Gardens which was full of guurgezzsly manicured catci (or is that cactcus??). Although it was visible from the top floor of the museum – it wasn’t accessible to tourists today which was a bit of a disappointment.

After the Cultural Centre – we headed back to the English bookshop which was open this time. I bought a Mexican Cookbook – which was smallish – but looked great in replicating actual Mexican food (not the tex-mex variety). We had seen it at the Monte Albon giftshop – where it didn’t have a price. When we asked at the front counter – they said “350 pesos” (aka $35) which was more than a price for a Donna Hay cookbook. We said “no way joe-se” – but luckily – the same book was at the English Bookshop – but with a price of only 79 pesos (or $8ish AUD). Me thinks the Monte Albon giftshop people didn’t really know how much it costed. Ant also bought about $70 worth of books (he was becoming desperate) – but all of which were on Mexico’s history.

We dumped the books back at the hotel – and headed for another one of Ant’s patented “death march” walks around town. We walked out of the historical part of town and into the more grungier non-UNSECO world heritage parts which was interesting. Did I mention that we spotted our favourite Mexican woman’s fashion shop – Liz Minnelli…? Liza should be filing a litigation suit as we speak.

When we headed back to the main piazza – there was a local ye-olde bandstand band and several old Mexicans dancing like a comatose Gene Kelly in Xanadu. All of the old people had probably escaped from the local nursing home and all had probably missed their meds. There was an outlandish couple dressed in purple – the guy dressed like a 1930s purple pimp (sort of looked like Gene Kelly from Xanadu).

Despite it being a couple of weeks into January – a lot of Mexico still had all of their Xmas decorations everywhere. Although tonight – the locals were finally pulling down the main piazza Xmas decorations. Ant had calculated that it was 12 days after Xmas – but I always thought the “12 days of Xmas” were the days preceding xmas…?

We decided to have dinner again at the piazza – this time in a restaurant which was super close to our hotel. This restaurant was actually pretty good and probably one of the best meals we had in Mexico. And despite the prime location (and mariachi band playing at the restaurant) – the prices were fairly reasonable – and the service was pretty good too (the trifectta).
After dinner – I was doing my last minute dash to buy some more cheesy Razzie movies. Stuff that I got included the Bodyguard, Indecent Proposal and amazingly – “Roller Boogie” – I couldn’t wait to watch it.

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 28

For breakfast – we decided to go “up-market” and buy a bread roll, a banana and a drinkable yoghurt from the Super-Mercado down the street from the hotel. We were on a bit of a mission to go to Monte Albon, a nearby archaeological site which involved getting a 15-minute bus to the site. Ant found the LP bus station but it was sin staff… We happened to get touted a couple of minutes later by a couple of Mexicans… One was offering us a price of 60 pesos with a guide, the other 40 sin guide – we went for the latter – not because we are tight – but we kinda get pretty bored with guides that go on and on and on about stuff that you probably won’t remember or care about.

We got our tickets and about 10 minutes later – we were on our way. Like many buses in Mexico – this tourist bus seemed to pick up random locals at non-bus stops and would drop them off along the way – all of which didn’t appear to pay anything to ride the bus… which makes you sorta pished about paying top dollar for a non-express clapped out bus. The bus ride up to the mountain was a little reminiscent of our Culca Canyon bus ride with Elvis – however this bus driver enjoyed accelerating into corners with steep cliffs on one side of the road. LP seemed to make the daft suggestion that you could walk up to Monte Albon – but:
a. there were no footpaths;
b. there were heaps of slum parts along the way which wouldn’t be all that safe for Gringos to walk around; and
c. it would take you half a day to walk up there…

We survived our ride up to the Monte – and bought our tickets for about 50 pesos. Monte Albon is another one of those UNCESO World Heritage Sites which we could tick off. I had Ant take my picture in front of the sign just for some proof on file. Also of note was the “No-Carbonated Sugar Based Drinks” rule at the site. Although – technically – I think Diet Coke by-passes this rule (there isn’t any calories) and I had smuggled a couple of bottles in.

Monte Albon is a fairly big Aztec site where the top of the mountain had been completely excavated to build the site. There was an impressive ball court (where they used to play gladiator-esque ball games), a few pyramids (a couple of which you could climb to the top) and plenty of stealthy touts who were playing it rather low-key due to the rules on the site not allowing the selling of goods or artefacts. We also spotted our nemisises – a couple of british tourists who were on our bus from Pubela. We had spotted them yesterday outside the cathedral in town – and again here at Monte Albon. There was also another couple (an American girl and british guy) who were on our tourist bus here – who strangely reminded us of some friends we know back at Oz (American girl, Australian guy… and a pizza place). We were a little disappointed that the tombs at the site were closed – Don’t Know said that “Tomb No. 7” was a highlight – but all you could do was walk on the top of the tomb – not go underneath. We weren’t sure – but we sort of got the feeling that the tombs were permanently closed and that Don’t Know was now out of date…

Our bus back to town didn’t leave till 2pm – and we had pretty much finished the site around midday. So we decided to eat at the overpriced touristy restaurant at the museum next to the entrance. And to kill some more time – we ordered three Coronas each (as you do). Our british nemsises were there at the restaurant – as well as the loud American girl/quiet british guy couple – I think everyone was killing time until the bus arrived to pick us up.

After paying our bill at the restaurant (or La Quanda) – we headed back outside where the bus had left us. It was really pretty hot and not much shade – so it was a little bewildering being out in the sun after knocking back tacos and three beers. And there was some freakish European couple who kept hogging our bits of shade.

We caught the bus and decided to jump out early (due to the really slow Oaxaca traffic jam) and headed to a nearby market which was absolutely amazing. It was quite hot outside – but when you enter the indoor market – there was this big rush of smoke and heat – and a truck load of people selling and cooking meat on charcoal hot plates. I hadn’t really experienced anything like it before and had started to wish that we hadn’t had lunch back at the restaurant. The rest of the market was pretty cool too – you could buy heaps of fruit and veg, bakery stuff, chickens (all of which had a “yellow-zombie” look), aquarium fish (!), junky market stuff, piñatas, clothes and everything and anything else. I was rating this place as one of the better market experiences in the world.

We were being a bit slack and decided to chill out at the hotel room for the rest of the afternoon (given that we had drunk 3 beers in the heat at Monte Albon). Ant and I did some more unnecessary facebook updates and I did a bit more blogging.
When it was dinner time – we headed out to the piazza for dinner. I had spotted a Gringo-couple at one of the touristica restaurants drinking Maragritas. I usually associate Mexican food with Margaritas – and for this trip – it was completely devoid of them. So I dragged Ant to the restaurant – where I ordered some Tostardos (tortillas with salad and chopped up sausage on top) and Ant had some tacos (non-tex-mex style). I of course ordered a Margarita – but Ant instead had a beer. I was a little worried about the food and drink (lettuce and stuff in the dish which probably involved washing it in water and ice in the Margarita – which I thought was a sure-fire way of losing 7 kilos in 4 weeks) but I think it was OK. Because we were in a prime-position at the restaurant to get touted – we did – about 7 times including by a tone-deaf girl with piano accordion who might last two-seconds on “Mexico’s Got Talent!”. Both Ant and I were dumbfounded to see people paying her – which only encouraged her to play more excruciatingly bad “music”.

Speaking of bad – I settled back at the hotel for another bad movie – Jean Claude Van Damn in “Wrong Bet”. You know you are in for a bad movie when you see “Story by Jean Claude Van Damn”. My favourite scene is where Jean Claude’s brother is doing a coke deal on the mean streets of LA where he announces in a bogus French accent “Hey Man! This s### is sugar!” before he is doused in petrol and set on fire… LOL.

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 27

We had to get up-and-at-em fairly early as we had a 10:30am bus from Pubela to Oaxaca today. We got dressed, packed and headed out to the main square where Ant had some evil idea to have Mc Donalds for breakfast. Mc Donalds appeared to be setting up when we went past – so instead – I had an evil plan for “Hot Cakes” at the Cow restaurant where we had the chilli-con-carne hot dogs the first night here. Although we were the only customers, and there was about 5 employees for each of us – they seemed to take an eternity to take our orders (traditional Mexican service). The menu was en espanol – and there was a half page section on Hot Cakes in the menu. I thought I was going to be ordering something crazy like hot cakes and bacon – but instead – we ended up getting hotcakes with cream and maple syrup… which hit the spot somewhat but was a bit Mc Donalds-esque.

We grabbed our bags from Hotel Noisy, checked out (the front woman sort of spoke about 2 words of engrish) and grabbed a taxi to the Autobus Terminal. We were a bit spoilt by our last bus from Mexico City to Publea (was “Ultimate” class or something) – but this time we had only on “First Class”. The leg room was a little tighter – Ant did the whole “red-hair-banging on the seat in front when a woman reclined her seat” – but that didn’t seem to make much difference as she had it fully reclined the whole 3 hour trip.

The bus ride was very scenic to Oaxaca… so much so that people who had their curtains pulled down for some bits – had to pull them up so they could see the spectacular view. Everything was a little bit like the Grand Canyon, but without Americans. The area was quite arid, there were plenty of eagles (unlike the Culca Canyon) and I had a good time looking at the views. ADO continued in its tradition of playing bad American movies (en espanol). They played the Denzel Washington/Jerry Bucahemier (class act with a K) film Déjà-vu – but I was getting a distinct feeling of Déjà-vu of watching this the first time and falling asleep through it.

We arrived at Oaxaca (pronounced Wah-Haw-ker) after lunch at the ADO “First Class” terminal – which was so new that the LP didn’t know where it was on the map. Feeling a bit bewildered and not knowing how much a taxi ride would cost – we hopped on a local taxi to take us to the Hotel Gala which was right next to the main piazza in town. I have a bit of a rep of getting Ant to do all of the hotel bookings and flight arrangements… Ant was stressing out about the Oaxaca hotel booking – so I did it and had booked the Hotel Gala (a 3 star) which had somewhat mixed reviews on Trip Advisor – good ones if you had a room facing the street – and bad ones if you had an internal room (which were apparently noisier than the street rooms due to the guest noise).

After paying the taxi driver double the value of the taxi ride (I need to practice my Spanish numbers) – we had to lug our bags a block (down the pedestrian only road) to the hotel. The lobby was fairly impressive (in a 70s sort of way) and amazingly – the hotel reception dude spoke pretty good English. Thankfully – we had one of the better rooms (facing onto the street). According to LP – the rooms facing the street were more spacious – although – you really question whether the LP authors had stayed in the hotels they write about – let alone even visit them.

What was a bit more apparent about Oaxaca was the number of gringo tourists in it. Pubela (and for that matter – Mexico City) seemed fairly devoid of tourists. Although Mexico City had a high number of tourists in museums or art galleries – you didn’t really spot them outside – and Pubela only seemed to have a handful of foreign tourists. But Oaxaca felt like a 10 fold increase in the number of foreign tourists (which was a bit of a pain in the arse). The piazza was almost like a double piazza – with two squares situated opposite one another. There were the requisite touristy restaurants adorning the sides of the piazza – and the world’s tackiest nativity scene – complete with a tourist path – where you could get a bird’s eye view of the nativity action – almost 10 days after the fact. Give it up people – pull down those xmas Christmas decorations on Xmas-eve – Guilin Sheraton style (those Chinese really understand xmas decorations and the punctuality of pulling them down).

We found a little “fast food” taco place which was about 3 blocks away from our hotel. It was fairly cheap – under 50 pesos for a meal deal including 5 tacos and a soda-pop. It was good, cheap and did its job effectively.

After lunch – we wandered down to one of the town’s biggest drawcards – the Oaxaca cathedral. No one does over-the-top excess than the Catholics – and this Cathedral was fairly O-T-P in terms of its excesses – just about the whole cathedral was decked out in gold. It was pretty amazing and we could tick off another item off the “Don’t Know” front cover of Mexico – some golden statue thingy in the cathedral. The outside of the cathedral was also pretty impressive – it was a big sandstone Spanish-mission style cathedral with a beautifully presented garden (sort of in a dry Mexican arid way). The garden also seemed to be some sort of Oaxaca gringo-Mecca – as they seemed to be a lot of back-packers and flash-packers hanging about.

After the cathedral – we made our way through a “Gringo” market – with all products (eg: tacky souvenirs) appeared marketed towards non-Mexicans. We then did a bit of an “off-the-beaten-track” stroll through the non-touristy bits of Oaxaca. Everything was old (and probably UNSECO sponsored) and colourful – with a lot of houses painted in bold, different colours. One thing noticeable was a complete lack of convenience stores (unlike Pubela and Mexico City) which made buying coke a little difficult. Also – a lot of stores in Oaxaca seemed to subscribe to the “Latin America” school of business – where there were about 10 refrigerator stores in the same spot. We did manage to track down a super-mercado about 3 blocks away from our hotel where we could get our usual supply of diet coke (aka “Coca Light” in Mexico) and bottled water.

It was starting to get dark – and we decided to chill for a bit back at the hotel (with free wireless internet and Mexican “Lucha libre” wrestling on TV – which sort of felt like WWE but a lot more athletic with added gimp masks). After the Mexican wrestling – there was WWE but en espanol with a mexican host and a fairly strong emphasis on “Mysterio” the Mexican wrestler in the American WWE.

After a chill out and about 50 facebook updates – we headed out to a nearby street market - which was chock-full of people (mostly locals). Of course – there was the usual mish-mash of bad developing country clothing (think worse than “K-Mart”), illegal pirated DVDs, porn and MP3 CDs, toys (which were probably banned last Christmas by the NSW Office of Fair Trading) and various crap. Speaking of crap – I was becoming a little obsessed with tracking down all of the bad movies from my Razzie book of Best Bad Movies. According to the book – one of the best is “Exorcist 2: The Heretic” – which I managed to track down and purchase for about 15 pesos (or $1.50AUD). Ant bought a couple and I bought another few (including what was 4 Chucky movies on the same disc – which sounded highly dubious).

Also highly dubious was the food cleanliness of a street hot-dog seller. Despite the apparent lack of cleanliness and hygine (and refrigeration for the meat) – Ant and I had a hot dog Mexican style – which was pretty good (bit on the spicy side with some jalapeños garnishes). We will have to wait and see if we would lose 7 kilos in 4 weeks after eating them…

I was keen to check out the quality of the movies on Ant’s laptop – and we raced back to the hotel – where the Chucky Movie disc appeared to play bad Salsa music accompanied by pictures of dolphins and beaches and cliffs and stuff… que?!! Anyway – we headed to bed – where I started to watch Exorcist 2 – which seemed pretty amazingly bad. The first scene had some woman from the Middle East who was possessed where she screams in a normal non-demonic voice “Why me??? I only help feed the poor!!” before she catches on fire and dies a horrible death – only for the movie to cut immediately to Linda Blair tap-dancing (who might have lasted two-seconds longer on “Mexico’s Got Talent” than the tone-deaf piano accordion girl. Strangeness indeed. Also – I’m not sure what was more demonic – the Middle Eastern possessed woman exploding or Linda Blair tapdancing.

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 26

We each had a pretty bad night sleep. Our hotel room is not only facing the street (which has a pretty loud market nearby complete with buskers playing suicide music) but the hotel restaurant next door and lobby – where they play really bad muzak until 11pm at night (which comes right through our hotel door) only to start it up again for breakfast at 6am. It sort of feels like the international economy Qantas of hotels. It sort of feels like we have been given a pretty crummy room in terms of sound.

We didn’t have breakfast included at the hotel and had read over the internet that it was pretty bad at the Hotel Colonia. We decided to brave it out on the street but alas the best we could do was a little bakery which only sold super-sweet custard-y cakes. We made the best of a bad situation and bought some (I was starting to wish that a bad bout of South American gastro would kick in by now so we could lose some weight). We headed back to the piazza – where we both bought some drinks ( I had bought some overpriced tomato juice to wash down my sugary cakes… strange combo). We sat down in the park (amongst the millions of copy-right infringement balloon sellers (Disney would have a field day suing these people) where we consulted Don’t Know in order to work out what we wanted to see.

We decided to check out Museo Amparo which was supposed to be a highlight of Puebla according to our almost 10 yr old copy of LP (was published in 1999). It was down a quaint street off the main square (where the local council appeared hellbent on ripping up perfectly old cobblestone paths) and there were a tonne of shoes hanging from overhead powerlines (maybe there was a drugdealer at the museum). Although all of the displays in the museum were in en espanol – at least they had these plastic cards which were in Engrish which attempted to explain many facets of pre-columbian culture in the Puebla region in fairly gory detail (with some mangled translations into Spanglish). One thing I’ve noticed about Mesoamerican art is that it is quite varied – some stuff looked Egyptian, some south American. There was also a temporary art exhibit with some Mexican artist who liked to do crazy stuff with VW beatles and vans which was pretty good.

We then wandered to the other side of town to the Museo Regional de la Revolution – which was the site of a massive shootout/siege back in 1910 when a band of revolutionaries were killed by the fascist dictator – Diez. Absolutely nothing was in engrish – but it was fairly interesting and LP did give a bit of a gist of what happened – a husband (Aquiles Serdan) and his wife (and 17 others) were held up in the building. Most were killed – but Aquiles and his wife stayed hidden in a hole in the house for a couple of days before his coughing gave them away – and he was arrested and executed a bit afterwards. The Museo was a little bit like a Mausoleum with lots of memorabilia of Serdan and the siege and the bullet holes around the front of the building were still evident,

We had lunch in a little restaurant which was bright and quaint – Ant ordered Mole Puebla (which was the famous dish from Puebla) and I ordered some enchiladas which were nice. We also did some guacamole with tortilla chips which is way tastier than the kind you get back at home. Although the typically bad Mexican service was extra and free…

After lunch – we made tracks for what LP called the “Museo Poblano de Arte Virreinal” which was a “top-notch museum” (LPs words not ours). It appeared that the museo had changed hands since 1999 when LP was written – and it was a fairly half-baked concoction of “ye olde hospital” exhibit (all of the stuff which was on display was either a facsimile copy, a photo-copy or a (Ant’s favourite) diorama), a bad contemporary art display, a bad contemporary rug display and a bad ancient tapestry exhibit (where it was completely empty of tourists – yet completely loud and bewildering thanks to the 28 flat screen TVs all playing really loud at once different things – sounded like you had a bout of Spanish schizophrenia). I wrote all of these “hard but true” things in all of the visitor guest books including “I wouldn’t use these as rugs in my home let alone hang them in an art gallery” – signed under my pseudonym – “Nikky”.

After the somewhat underwhelming experience at “Museo de Crappy” – we headed back to the world’s. loudest. ex-Jesuit Church. Hotel – “Hotel Colonia” (note to self – never take any hotel suggestions from my mum) – we checked out the hotel’s laundry which was located on the top of the hotel. After climbing the somewhat Escher-stairs – Ant did a load of washing (Ant just can’t stand washing his clothes in the sink) whilst I had a bit of a chill in the somewhat noisy hotel room.

We headed out of the hotel around dusk where I showed Ant the “World’s. Lamest. Mall.” in all of its lamest-ness. Ant too concluded that it was fairly lame – and we made an exit for some nicely landscaped gardens right next door to the mall. It had all felt like the mall/gardens/conference centre district was all new and part of the same development – but because the economy could be falling down the toilet could be the reason why the mall is fairly lame.

We headed to a nearby mountain peak – where both Ant and myself were the butt of someone’s insult (en espanol) – but it wasn’t a clown – rather it was some guy in a hotted up 1982 Ford Laser hooning past. Well my 2002 Pulsar beats yours any day of the week… It felt a whole less touristy (even though Pubela wasn’t exactly chock-full of tourists). There was a strange looking hotel (which even had a write up in LP – saying that it had “well landscaped gardens”… but in a zombie-apocalyptic sort of way) and Pubela’s “World Trade Center” which looked like a couple of conference rooms in a deserted two-story office (circa 1980s). Also of interest was the local mayor’s house which looked way more like a drug baron compound complete with hired goons… ahem I mean Mexican police. Anyway – Mexican mayor – drug baron – aren’t they the same thing?

At the peak – we had a somewhat nice view of the sunset over Pubela (if you could see it through the Bejing style smog) and there was some military fort thingy where most Mexicans were tippy-toeing over the front gate (because they were too short to see over the 5 foot fence).

We decided to make a break back for town because this wasn’t the sort of place you would want to stay around after dark. We toured around the main piazza on the look out of some dinner. There was a place chock full of locals on the piazza – but we were being heavily touted to go in. At first we avoided it – but decided that it might be the best bet (after having a big lunch). Also – most other restaurants on the Piazza had the acid xylophone thing going on.. (Note to Pubela – the acid xylophone thing is highly annoying).

When we went back to the local touty restaurant – we had to wait (unbelievably) to gain someone’s attention to get a table. We were seated towards the back and were each handed a menu (en espanol) – which seemed to have a lot of the same thing (eg: tacos) but we couldn’t really decipher what all the meats were. I mean – we understood what chicken (pollo) and beef (carne) was – but nothing else made much sense. We ordered a couple of Sols (those Mexican beers you can find at Aldi) and also ordered the English speaking waiter – who explained what most things were. We decided to have a 30 peso plate each of beef tacos with cheese. The plate was fairly small – but it hit the spot. You got some beef with melted cheese on it and about 5 tortillas which you wrap the meat in. At every Mexican restaurant – you are always given about 4 or 5 different sauces or salsas. Some are fairly mild – and some can be pretty hot (but rarely are they pretty hot – most things in Mexico are definitely in the mild range).

After dinner – we headed out to the main Churro restaurant for some dessert. After only ordering a 2.5 peso churro last night (which was the size of a baby penis) – we decided to order about 10 each for 25 pesos (or $AUD2.50). It was neccye, different, and unusual. We also got a couple of bottles of water from a nearby convenience shop (Pubela was full of them). Although after dark – they go into “lock-down” – where there is a front window you can order things from (a bit like a petrol station in Australia after midnight). Although it would be pretty hard trying to hostage negotiate with a 7-11 clerk who doesn’t speak any spanglish.

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 25

This was our last day in Mexico City – and we had a fairly relaxed morning. We got up, had our final breakfast at the hotel, packed and got a taxi to another one of those big bus stations (this was one a circular dome thingy which was pretty close to the airport). The taxi ride was only about $10AUD which was pretty reasonable. We had a great time in Mexico City – it is one of those places where you could spend an extended time there and not run out of things to do or get bored. Ant was comparing it to a Mexican version of Tokyo (eg: huge and massive). It was great too – spending our time in a nice hotel (it was allegedly 5 stars – but I think it was probably a bit too small and featureless to be a 5 star – even though the hotel rooms were really nice). Maybe the dodgy thing about the place was the cartel of maids who would hog the hotel’s only lift. Even if they saw hotel customers wanting to use it – they would hold it up for themselves and not give it up if they were inside it (I thought it was a hotel law somewhere for the maids to exit the lift if guests were wanting to use it…?).

We were on our way to Pubela which was about two hours away by bus. The bus terminals are huge at Mexico – they almost have an airport quality feel to it. We wanted to take the “premier class” bus to Pubela which was supposed to be even better than the 1st class bus. LP said that it was advisable to catch the first class buses from a security point of view – because they are more likely to not stop and go through toll roads than second class buses (ie: less likely to get your bags stolen or get hijacked or something). We booked ourselves on a bus (which costed about $15AUD – pretty cheap for a classy bus). The bus was pretty luxurious – upon arrival – you are served a drink (non alcoholic) and a bag of snacks (including nuts and cookies)… You also had to go through a metal detector which no one there seemed to pay much attention to if you set it off… The seats themselves where quite wide (I think the bus aisle was a bit smaller than normal to compensate for the wider seats) and the leg room was massive. The driver had some “bus DVD” thingy where he played Qantas-like intro videos to Pubela and played some stewpid Little Red Riding Hood Shrek-like movie with some snowboarding bungee jumping grannie (not sure what drugs they were taking when they thought up of that). We very much liked our first proper Mexican bus experience – they do buses a whole lot better than anywhere else on the planet.

We arrived at Pubela about 2pm. I diligently guarded our bags whilst Ant sussed out our next bus from Pubela to Oaxaca (pronounced “Wah-he-aka” in case you were wondering). He bought a couple of first class tickets (as the premier class was leaving at the non-latino functioning time of 7am) for a few days later. The Pubela bus station also had the whole “regulated taxi” system (a la Mexcio City) – where it was a flat fee to get into town.

We had booked into a hotel which my mum had stayed at when she went to Mexico – Hotel Colonia – which was a former Jesuit church – now a hotel a few stone-throws away from the main piazza. The taxi dropped us off near the corner (as the hotel was located on a pedestrian plaza – where the taxi couldn’t do a “Crazy Taxi – Take me to the Fila store” drive through the pedestrian mall…). When we arrived at the front desk – we were a little surprised to find that the people there were all speaking En Espanol and didn’t seem to be able to converse at all in engrish. Ant managed to check us in (we had made the reservation the old fashioned / 1999 way – by emailing them direct)….

We were staying in a double (eg: two double beds) room which was right on top of the front door into the hotel. It was a very characteristic room – a little old but neecye, different, unusual looking… and quite large for a hotel room. I did a bit of super fun happy laundry time - here in Pubela at least the sink was more than a one inch sink (unlike the very modern sink in Mexico City which looked nice but was as practical as a turd on fire). Ant had switched on the TV and the Fran Drescher movie “Beautiatian and the Beast” was playing (on the Film Zone – simpre mass! No less). I thought the movie had some really depressing soundtrack – but there was an outside busker playing suicide music.

We headed out to the main piazza of Pubela. Mexico City was missing one of these old style – Latin America piazza (we thought) and this one reminded us a lot of Peru. There was an ABC f##koff sized church to one side of the square (which also appears on the 500 peso bill according to Don’t Know). There was also a line (or two) of shops including ye olde Mc Donalds – and these restaurants that played all of this terrible “Xylophone on Acid” muzak for customers – it sort of felt like Mexican Xylophone torture. We wandered down the main shopping street of Pubela which was hella busy. It wasn’t helped that most of the narrow path was blocked by these giant balloon sellers who would had a big bunch of (copyright infringement) balloons for sale.

We checked out what could have been the free world’s lamest mall (we were on the search for lunch and this place was just selling nachos and popcorn). We stumbled on a VIPS – which is a Samborns-esque clone – but without the DVDs, CDs and TVs for sale out the front of the shop. We both managed to navigate through the En Espanol menu – and we had ordered some Mexican cuisine and a couple of cervezas which was neccye, different and unuuusual.

We headed back to the square (it was mid-afternoon now) and we checked out the big f##k off church which was probably more impressive on the outside than on the inside. There was a couple of Mexican clowns congregating on the outside of the church with a large crowd in tow. We decided to carefully avoid them (in order to not be part of a joke a la Mexico City) and headed back to the hotel.

Ant decided to rest for a bit – but I had decided to attempt to check out the mall which was just outside of the “old town” area which I had seen from the cab on the way to the hotel. It was a shortish walk (15 minutes) – and upon arrival I soon discovered that this was probably the lamest mall I had been to on the planet. It was a brand new building and it had a Krispy Cream Donut shop at the bottom as well as a couple of take out restaurants (eg: Subway). On the middle floor – it had all of the shopping you would ever need like a Swiss Army Knife shop and an overpriced furniture shop (that was it..) and on the top floor was a Cinemex movie theatre – which was playing all of the same s#ite from Mexico City. Most of the mall had empty shops which had never looked like they had anything in them ever… Good old GFC.

I headed next door to check out the adjoining building (which I had assumed was a continuation of the mall). However – I soon discovered that it could have been Pubela’s conference room centre. I was about to walk into a Kiddie’s Toy Fair and thought it would be best not to – in order to not look like some kiddie molester. I got a bit bored – and headed back to the hotel (con Diet Coke from a quickie mart).

Our hotel in Pubela seemed to have half-decent TV (not one but two “The Film Zone – Simpre Mass!” channels) and free wireless internet – which helped us both update our facebook status and the blog. We chilled out for quite a bit, watched one too many episodes of “Gossip Girl” and headed out for some dinner.

We had wandered around the square but thought everything was a little touristy or touty. We wandered around for a bit more (and then some) when we finally decided to go to a restaurant with a “Cow” for a logo. We both weren’t all that hungry (had big lunches) – so that’s why we each ordered a foot-long chilli-con-carne hot perro (or dog). It was strange and weird but neccye – and the service was the traditional “try and conduct telepathy with the waiting staff to get them to do anything” Mexican service.

We headed back to the square and bought a couple of Churros (eg: doughy-donuty sticks of cinnamon) which appeared to be a Mexican/Disneyland speciality. We ordered one each for 2.5 pesos (or 25 cents AUD) – not realising they were quite small and that you probably could have ordered 10 times that amount for a decent dessert.

I had spotted a couple of gay pride flags around the place – and this had Ant intrigued. There were a couple of gay pubs around Pubela - but one looked like it was shut (or divey enough to look shut) and the other one was just a dive so we gave it a miss. Mexico seems to be a fairly progressive country (despite the large catholic population). According to Ant – both abortion and gay marriage were legalised by the government on the same day just recently (are they trying to tell us something here??) which is way ahead of where Australia should be. Until next time – xo xo…

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 24

I did one last solo ride - the Vudú - which was sort of like the old HMS Endeavour (at Wonderland... again!) mixed with a graviton on speed. You are harnessed in (like an upside down rollercoaster) - but you are swung from left to right (almost horizontally) and around in the circle at the same time. Sort of like a washing machine for your stomach and lower intestines... Neeccye.

Ant was being a real trooper - hanging in for me - and waiting patiently after each ride. It was very much appreciated and had felt like I had my own personal cheersquad at each of the rides... So I felt like doing something together - the ye old cars (a bit like the Antique Autos (at Wonderland!)... where you drive an old antique car around a fixed track. Since I did the driving at Autopia at Disneyland - I decided to let Ant do the driving today and for myself to take the backseat. We were attempting (in vain) to ram our car into the car in front of us (who were driving like "Driving Miss Daisy" on a downer) - but there was some weird strange magnetic force field which prevented us from doing so...

After that - we caught the ending of the most strangest show we had seen for a while - "Show de los Looney Tunes - Feliz Navidad style". It was a bunch of people dressed up as princesses and elves (the elves probably wished they were princesses). They were singing along to those Xmas classics including Wham!'s "Last Christmas" (not really sure if that is a real xmas song - Last Christmas I gave you my heart.. The very next day, you gave it away... etc). Most of the elves spent most of the show dancing like fairies and molesting toy soldiers (who all seemed to enjoy it). Twas the gayest land in the world.

We rushed over to the other side of the park - where we watched the "Presentaciones educativas del Mundo Marino" (aka the dolphin/seal show). When we arrived into our VIP seats - it felt like a nightclub with pounding techno music, people waving glo-sticks and a guy in a wetsuit/tutu dancing around (as you do). He was getting the crowd geared up by chucking a beach ball into the crowd and letting them bounce around. Whenever someone chucked the ball into the pool - the music was switched off and he gave them the evil mexican look. Alas - there was no mexican waves at the show... The show itself didn't really appear to be very "educational" - it was more like the seal/dolphin people making arses of themselves and riding the dolphins like they were surfboards... Another wikipedia fact - this themepark was where they had shot "Free Willy" (not a porno) - and the Orco who was in the film used to live here until animal rights activists protested against the treatment of Keiko - who was then probably smuggled out of the park by Moe from the Simpsons or something...

We then did the lamest of lame rides - Le Grand Carrousell - which was a double decker merry-go-round. We each got our own rocking horses - then I did the whole "ride-the-mechanical-bull-like-a-slut" look for the entire ride - with Ant taking pictures. Ant said I was getting some disturbed looks by people waiting in the queue with their tots...

We ignored the constants announcements for the 8:30 Magic Light Parade (hello - Disney copyright infringement!) and did one last ride on the Superman rollercoaster. As it was getting late and cold and dark - this ride was completely fantastic at night. It was sort of like a "Space Mountain" ride on speed - as you were plummeting through darkness at breakneck speeds. Ant liked it better in the dark because he didn't know how far we were off the ground (fear of heights thing). This ride was definitely my favourite (up there with the Tsunami ride). This themepark was a first for me in the way that almost 90% of the rides made you exit them through a gift shop or restaurant. The Batman and Superman rides obviously led you through to a Batman/Superman themed shop. The Boomerang led you through to the Dominio's we had lunch at (?!!!). Even the crappy Ferris Wheel had its own shop for christ sakes...!

We felt like it was time to head back into town (as the trip out here took a while - because the metro seemed to be having problems today). We had a look through the gift shop on the way out and there were tonnes of Speedy Gonzales toys. We would of got one - if it didn't look like a giant evil rat. There was some "Day-Glo" 6 Flags Mexico t-shirts in the style of those Supre "Choose Life" tees - note to 6 Flags - the whole fluoro thing died after Parklife in 07. Getz with the program! Ant was after something (other than a fluoro tee) that was 6 Flags Mexico specific (just to say that you have been) - but everything was more geared towards the cartoon characters than anything else...

We got on a more expensive 10 peso bus back to the Uni Station. We had flashbacks to Vegas - waiting for more customers to arrive in order for the bus to leave - but they were filling this bus to capacity, and then some. I was getting a feeling that the bus driver was thinking about getting people to catch it on the top of the bus - India style. Probably not a safe thing given the quality of the mexican driving here... Ant was sort of under the impression that this was an "express" bus back to the metro station - because it was newer (no bullet holes) and was more expensive. However - that theory went out the window when the bus driver would pull up at random places - pick more people up and be completely in excess of the maximum passenger number by 50%.

Our metro ride back was pretty slow - and was a bit of a sad way for our last ride on the system - given that it has been really good to us over the last week. The train kept inexplicably stopping in random places for inordinate amounts of time. We were just about to give up on the train (when we were a couple of stations away from Insurgente) when it finally took off.

For dinner - we did the whole street taco thing where I had gone for a greasy snack at our 5am session at the Papi Fun Bar a few nights before. The guy who worked there recognised me (just like "Cheers") and was happy I was back. We had a couple of tacos (un-fried tortillas - with delicious marinated chicken, onion and a little bit of pineapple!) and a Corona each. We were naughty afterwards and bought a 4 pack of Sol beer at a nearby 7-11 clone (OXO) and watched a bit of South Park DVD back at the hotel room... Until next time...

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 23

We woke up a little earlier in what would be our last full day at Mexico City on this holiday. We had a bit of a plan... We were thinking about going to Six Flags Mexico earlier in the week - but Ant wasn't really phased about going to another themepark this trip. He had found out how to get their via public transport - but I was too scared/crazy/confused to go by myself - so we shelved the idea.... until today.

We had extended our booking at the Eurostars Hotel by another day to allow us to visit Six Flags (thanks Anty!). We had this crazy glass cupboard door - which had a crack in it on our first night here at the hotel. Over the week - the crack in the glass had progressively gotten worse. We had no idea how it was cracked in the first place - and we were a bit afraid that the hotel might charge us to replace the door. Luckily - when we extended the hotel booking by a night (over the internet) - they never mentioned anything about the ever-expanding crack in the cupboard door - and they let us keep our bling bling room for an extra night (didn't have to move rooms).

We caught a metro out to the Universidad station (aka University). The train was full of its normal eclectic mix of crazy touts (there had been this beggar dude who repeatedly smashed his face against a bag of glass for cash... as you do. The train for me got a little iffy towards the end when there were a couple of young guys who seemed to be acting up on us (whistling and acting moody) - but it was just nothing.

From the Universidad station - we had to catch a bus to Six Flags - but this is where our journey got a little hard (and I was thankful that Ant was here to help out). We got out of the metro stop at one side and walked up and down a 300m stretch of road - where it had seemed like there was only one bus which stopped along this road. Ant noticed a number 64 bus which had a "Six Flags" sign on the front. But we couldn't find any 64 stops... Getting a bit desperate - we went back to the station and exited along another stretch of road - this time it didn't seem to have any stops at all (just offloading of passengers). After the super efficiency of the train - it was a bit of a kick in the teeth to find that the buses were super hard, difficult and chaotic. We headed back into the station - and onto another bus platform - where we finally found a Six Flags bus stop. We climbed onto the bus - and paid an 8 peso ticket. The bus was a little bit ghetto - it looked like there were bullet holes in the front windscreen - and it looked like it had come direct from the 1960s.

The bus ride took about 20 minutes - and it passed through what looked like the Tuggernong of Mexico City - but it did have some really big f##k off malls (where "Sears" appeared to be the premier store... cough).

Six Flags Mexico City was apparently a Mexican-run themepark until a couple of years ago - where the Mc Donalds of Themeparks - Six Flags - bought it out and changed it to a 6 Flags (I did my research before we left on wikipedia). When we arrived - there appeared to be hordes of locals queuing up out the front... I was at this point getting flashbacks to Knotts Berry Farm and that darn Toys for Tots promotion. Ant and I just headed for the front of the park - where we found a relatively short queue to buy tickets. Again - most people seemed to be conducting hostage negotiations with the ticket office people - getting them to explain every single ticket combination and permutation. Admittedly - the tickets seemed a little confusing. There was a "General Admission Ticket" - at about 310 pesos (or $30AUD - now can you see why we wanted to go??!). There was a "Annual Pass" at a steal-esque price of 510 pesos (or about $50AUD), a Flash Pass for three rides for 100 pesos (or $10AUD) and a VIP Pass for 590 pesos (almost $60AUD) which was, at the time, inexplicably more than an annual pass. Ant and I just went for the general admission tickets and were on our way through the front gates.

Six Flags had a little bit of a "Main Street Mexico" theme out the front of the park - as opposed to the warped-Main Street USA at Disneyland. We decided that we thought it was a good idea to not go on the wet rides at the end of the day (like we had done at Disneyland) - so we got in the biggish queue for the "rocky river rampage-esque" ride (you know - those big tube things that go down rapids and stuff and you get wet). We had to wait for about 30 minutes (which is no good for the both of us since we are so damn impatient). We had noticed the "Flash Pass" queue - which was completely empty. If someone entered into it - they immediately bypassed the "regular" queue and hopped onto the next available ride. During our time in the queue - we came to the opinion that if got a "VIP Pass" - it would include an unlimited "Flash Pass" queue ticket (instead of just the three rides you get with the Flash Pass at the front gates) - and Ant was adamant that there would be somewhere in the themepark where you could upgrade your regular admission ticket to a VIP ticket - because themeparks always want to upsell stuff to you.

The "Rocky River Rampage" or the "Río Salvaje" as it was called got us all wet (as a good wet ride should). Ant commented at the part of the ride where there were statues with running hoses aimed at tubes "What sort of sick sadist came up with this idea!~".

After the Rio Salvaje - we went to the location where there was a "VIP Pass" symbol on the 6 Flags Map (the map was completely En Espanol - as to all of the signs, attractions and shows at the park. There was an office (yay) - where we both upgraded our passes for 290 pesos each (which was probably more expensive than just buying it at the front office). We were both given this yellow felt wrist bands with the words "V.I.P" in big bold text. Wow - I felt like Britney at Las Vegas ritzy night club...

We then put our passes to extremely good use by "by-passing" the entire long big queue to the Superman rollercoaster (or "Superman El Último Escape") and went straight to the front of the roller-coaster loading dock. I felt sort of bad for jumping in front of so many people (sort of felt like a middle-aged Chinese woman) but hey - I payed the extra money so I want to avoid the queues. The Superman rollercoaster was a giant, non-upside, coaster which was really really big and tall and had a huge big drop. It was fun and fast (and made Ant a bit squrimish because of the heights involved) - but we enjoyed it. I was a little anxious about our bag because the attendant took it from us and just left it above the lockers near the ride's exit - but it was still there when we left.

We did something a bit more tamer next - the Haunted House of La Llorona... but maybe it was a bit lamer instead... We had no queue whatsoever. There was a VIP gate at the entrance to the ride - so we probably by-passed a 15 minute queue. These VIP passes are sort of like the "Qantas Club" of 6 Flags... The woman at the front took our bag off us (they seem to have this phobia of taking bags onto any ride whatsoever here) and we got on a "on-rails" ye olde ghost train which was completely En Espanol and we couldn't make heads or tails out of any of it... Maybe we needed some drugs to help us...?

We started to notice that 6 Flags didn't really have any distinctive themes in it. The layout was quite confusing (for those trying to interpret a en espanol map which is not to scale (or has any resemblance to reality). They seemed to have some sort of tie-in with both Warner Brother cartoon characters (eg: bugs bunny) and Hanna Barbara characters (eg: the robot maid from the Jetsons). I was a little shocked to find a "Speedy Gonazles" Hamburger shop - thinking that Mexicans would find that character offensive and stereotypical. But you saw people buying giant Speedy toys and stuff...

Ant and I chowed down on some Nachos (which were about $4AUD and fairly plentful). We were thinking we where heading in the direction of the "Splash" ride - another wet ride which we could bowl over early in the day. But instead we found ourselves to be at the opposite end of the park at the wooden ""the beast" rollercoaster ride (aka "Medusa"). It was a big f##k off rollercoaster (bigger than that old wooden one at Wonderland - RIP - never forget... sob) and I'm sure we probably would have void any claim we could make on our travel insurance by going on it. According to the official website - it goes more than 80KM an hour. It was pretty violent and aggressive ride - Ant and I were bouncing all over the carriage (with the arm rest banging on our legs) - I was a little surprised that I didn't end up with extensive bruising on my legs. Both Ant and I got a really bad back and neck out of it... Ant was saying "do you want to do that one again" - I just looked at him with disgust...

We then went on something a whole lot more tamer - the ferris wheel (aka Rueda India) which was trying to out-racist Frontierland at Disneyland - with lots of hokey Red Indians everywhere... Our VIP "I'm a celebrity - get me out of this queue" pass again avoided a 20 minute queue - and we just strolled up to the front and they let us on the first available carriage. The load took about 15 minutes (to load and unload everyone) - but once we got off (in a non-blue sense) we got some neecye views of the park and surrounds. We noticed that it was quite bushy around the park (flammable).

We then finally worked out how to navigate our way to the "Splash" ride (and no - I don't think the ride had any relationship to the "Splash" movie with Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah and that dad from American Pie). It was like a four-abreast ride which could seat up to about 20 people. You get lifted up a ramp, you go around a curve and then you splash down and not only do you get horribly wet - but you also drench the people who are crossing over a bridge and are making their way off the ride to the exit... Talk about sadistic. I thought I might as well brave this one - Ant sat out on it - thinking that he might pick up some cholera from the ride. I got to bypass the queue (again) and I got first dibs on a front row seat. When we landed - there looked like there was a 8 foot wall of water in front of the flume thingy - and yes - everyone got drenched completely... so much so - I had felt wet for pretty much the rest of the day. Although at this themepark - we were smart enough to leave our passports back in the hotel safe. On one of our pre-blog trips - we went to the Wonderland-sister themepark in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia - where we went on not just one wet ride - but two - in a row - with our money belts on.... We spent the next 40 minutes trying to dry our passports under a toilet hand-dryer. I don't think my passport has ever really recovered since.

We had lunch at (the shame continues...) Domino's. Here at 6 Flags - it seemed like that they have outsourced all of their restaurants to other companies to do - so instead of getting one of those fantastically underwhelming burgers at Tomorrowland Disneyland - you can get a pizza from Domino's or a hamburger from Johnny Rockets. We ordered a large pizza to share between us and a couple of "super-size me" drinks. The pizzas were cooked fresh and were OK - hey it beats the Tomorrowland Burger Cafe thingy.

We quickly finished our lunches (in a rather "my mum would disapprove at the speed at which we are eating" rate) and headed over to the VIP section of the Batman Inicia Stunt Show (or "Batman Begins"). The VIP section was a roped off section at the front of the theatre. No hanging around waiting forever for a show - bagging the good seats... You just flash your pass and the attendant lets you through (just like Paris at a nightclub!). The show was pretty hokey (as all themepark shows are). I think it was loosely based upon the "Batman Begins" movie and I'm sure if you hadn't seen the movie - that none of it would make any sense whatsoever. Everybody spoke En Espanol - but you could sort of work out who people were and when cars should explode. Everyone was lip-sync'ing the words (a la Milli Vanilli) and there were "added" sound-effects to the punches and kicks which made it completely hilarious when it was super-obvious that none of the punches were connecting.

We then checked out the "Boomerang" ride - which was a bit like the old "Demon" rollercoaster at Wonderland (is this a recurring theme about 6 Flags Mexico) - which is like a single-way track rollercoaster (not a loop) and when you reach one end of the track - you go backwards. There were a couple of loop-de-loops and Ant pretty much freaked out after this ride. He had very sweaty palms over this ride and had these giant marks on his hands from his fingernails... I promised Ant not to disclose this information on the blog - but hey - what are you going to do about it?? Log in and delete it??! Ahem - don't do that Ant!

We then went on the Canoa Krakatoa - which we thought would be a bit tamer than the Boomerang. It was one of those swinging pirate ships (like the Bounty's Revenge at Wonderland!) but this one didn't go upside-down. We again by-passed the queue (those suckers!) and we sort of felt a bit nauseous after this one. Maybe it was something to do with the ride lasting about 5 minutes. Anyway - if you did spew on it - then you would only spew into the face of someone else... klassy...

Anyway - I then checked out the Batman: The Ride (in english) which was one of those inverted roller coasters where your legs stick out (like the Lethal Weapon ride at Movieworld). To be honest - maybe I was starting to feel a little queasy after the Canoa Krakatoa - and this ride wasn't make the situation any better.

We then checked out the "Kilahuea" which was sort of like Anal Probe 7 at Wonderland - except you went upwards really quickly and bounced at the top - before being flung to the ground - only to bounce for a bit a the bottom. I had some solo fun on it (Ant hates heights and decided to give it a miss).

In order to lift Ant's spirits - we decided to BUY SOME ICECREAMS...! Although the place that we got the icecream had that distinct Mexican "lack of staff and service" feeling - where it took about 10 minutes to get a cornetto (for me) and a giant ice cream for Ant (try logging on and deleting that !).

I was still eating my cornetto when I was in the queue to the Catapulta ride (which is sort of like the Wipeout ride at Dreamworld - only that it doesn't twist around rather it goes forwards/backwards and upside-down. I had barely finished eating my icecream when I was strapped in on the ride and was flung upside-down about 10 times - whilst doing poses for Ant who was madly trying to take some kodak moments. As soon as the ride was finished - I raced back into the VIP queue - where I made it onto the next ride... yay... Strangely enough - I didn't feel like vomiting after that one.

Straight after that I did the sister ride - the Curandero (which was sort of like Bounty's Revenge at Wonderland). Although this ride wasn't such a hot idea because you weren't strapped in as tight as the Catapulta and you had this distinct feeling that you were going to slip out of the ride whilst upside-down (sometimes for about 10 secs or more). Also - being in the middle of the ride was probably worse than being on the outside - because there was less speed - and thus you were not sticking to the ride as you should have been. I had felt a little sick after this one. To be continued... xo xo

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 22

We woke up pretty late (again) as we had been out till about 3:30am. I managed to get downstairs to breakfast before it shut. Again - I was feeling a whole lot more functional than Ant - who was having a bit of a chill in our hotel room.

I think we managed to leave the hotel after midday - and Ant needed a bit more grease in his diet in order to function properly - so we headed to... (cue dramatic music),,, Mc Donalds at Zona Rosa. Well - I guess it has been a bit of a recurring theme in Mexico of poor, slow servicio. Our experience at Mc Donalds managed to win our dubious award of "Worst. Service. Ever.".

We ordered a couple of meals - I did a Big Mac meal (the shame - I hadn't eaten a Big Mac since... well I can't remember) and Ant ordered some Mexican equivalent of a Mc Feast meal... OK - so there was nothing abnormal about our order (no burgers less meat or cheese requests) - just a burger, a coca light and some chips. Mexican Mc Donalds have this crazy set-up where there was one person serving the tills and customers, one person cooking the food and one person mopping the kitchen floor. When you order - you pay and get handed a receipt. Then you have to wait about 10 minutes before your luke-warm Big Mac appears with a Coke. They just sit the burgers out on the counter (sometimes with fries) so they get really cold really quickly. The woman tried to serve me some fries which had been sitting out on the counter for about 10 minutes. I refused to take them and did some "sign language" to try and explain that the chips were as cold as Heather Locklear's heart. She sort of gave me an evil eye - and eventually took away the chips. I sat down with my lukewarm burger (despite it being cooked fresh...?) and diet coke - ate the meal and then loitered around the counter waiting for my chips (this was about 15 minutes after I had paid for my meal). She gave me another death stare and said something in Spanish mentioning that she would grudgingly bring the chips over when they were ready. Meanwhile - there are customers everywhere and only three staff in the restaurant (with one of them still busily mopping the kitchen floor). The woman serving customers was still walking around the front of the shop at a snail's pace - not really seeming to care about anyone's predicament or food.

I sat back down at the table with Ant and began plotting my revenge. I was thinking - maybe I could throw a few gurkins at her on my way out... or I was thinking about pouring my drink everywhere (but that would mean the innocent mopper lady would take the flack - not that beetch behind the counter). But finally - about 20 minutes after we ordered our meals - we finally got the chips... Yay... cough.

We head to the metro for what was a huge long trip out to the sticks. It also involved a separate tram trip (which was 20 pesos a ticket) and about 40m touts on the train. We were heading out to the "Venice" of Mexico City - Xochimilco (there is no way in hell I want to attempt to pronounce that!). We get off the tram (sort of out in the sticks of Mexico City) and it felt a little touristy with touts on bicycles trying to court our business. We ignored them and attempted to interpret the LP map so we could make our way to the "canal boat terminal". LP said that you need not pay more than the signposted prices - which read "160 pesos per boat per hour not per person". Although the sign was En Espanol - I could still read it (despite me not taking a lesson in Spanish). We then had boat operators attempting to sell us a boat for 200 pesos for an hour per person... Que?! This all felt like our first holiday rip off - and although we aren't talking about heaps of money - I think it was more the principle than anything else. We were about to hop on a boat when the guy said 160 pesos - but then we realised he was going to rip us off and charge us for 2 lots of 160 pesos. We walked away - only to be touted by another guy who went down to 200 pesos for the boat not per person. We were getting ripped by 40 pesos - but we didn't want to come out all this way (90 minute train/tram ride) all for nothing...

We decided on a 60 minute ride (which ended up being plenty enough). The canals of Xochimilco are a little swampy/Disneyland Critter County - but they were filled to the brim of these ramshackle boats with big styrofoam front thingys. Each boat has a "gondola" driver person who rows the boat - somewhat unmerrily down the stream. The traffic on the canals were some what unbelievable. Being NYs Day - I think every man, woman and child were out here hiring boats and having picnics. The driving ability of the gondolas felt a bit like the driving ability of taxi drivers here in Mexico - pick a lane, any lane - and don't bother sticking with that lane for too long. There were even these little boats who would tout you food, beer, cocktails, flowers, toys and anything else you could possibly not want. There were even floating Mariachis...

Anyway - by the end of the trip - I was happy that I had experienced this - but also happy that we didn't book the boat out for 2 hours. There was a sign on the boat (well it was just written on the side with a magic marker) - which roughly translated into "Bribes please 50 pesos". We think it had meant "gratitude" not a "bribe". On one hand we felt a little ripped handing over more money after being ripped in the first place - but then we felt a bit sorry for the driver (who probably doesn't make much of a cut out of the money) - so Ant gave him the 50 pesos.

We headed back into town (again on the tram and train). We both managed to score seats on the tram on the way back. On the way to Xochimmilco - I had felt a bit guilty about taking a seat when there were lots of pregnant woman standing up... but there were all of these precocious obese woman who didn't offer up their seats - so I didn't feel all that bad. On Mexican public transport -there doesn't seem to be much in the way of rules (other than no big bags or no fumar) - kids seem to freely occupy seats when there are old decrepit people still standing. Speaking about no fumar - the no smoking in restaurants, bars and public areas is pretty amazing in Mexico. We were expecting to be stinking of it everywhere - but you can go out to a club in Mexico and not smell like you have made love to an ashtray afterwards.

I really wanted to go see a movie in Mexico (just to see what it would be like) - and all adult movies (not the blue ones) are in Engrish - only kiddie films are dubbed. We checked out the listing at the cinema at the Reforma 222 plaza. The ticket prices were cheap (about $5AUD) and I had decided to go see some Keanu Reeves alien movie - but Ant didn't feel like coming. Before the session - we both had Dominos at the food court (the additional shame) and I went to the cinema. It was "Cinemex" and it all seemed brand spanking new. The seats were relatively comfortable and the theatre was moderately full. When the trailers started to show - I was a little bit anxious because they were showing a trailer for "Marley y Yo" which was dubbed... However - that must have been a kids movie because the rest were subtitled.

The movie was OK - it was a bit of a message movie about global warming (I think?) but it was a bit predictable with a dumbish ending. Not to mention that Keanu was well type-cast - playing an alien sin emotions...

When I got back to the hotel - Ant's "I don't want to see a movie" mood had changed and he wanted to see the latest Woodies Allen movie. I was mentioning that he might be at risk at seeing a movie that could be 'En Espanol" - but he went anyway. Although it was a western movie - there were scenes in it that was "En Espanol" with sin engrish subtitles - so Ant found it a little confusing in parts... but it wasn't really his sort of film. xo xo gossip girl.

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 21

This is becoming fairly formulaic but we got up at our normal un-gringo time for breakfast (10:50am). Today was NYE - and we were going to be spending in Mexico City (yay!). On Reforma Ave - right outside our hotel - the government had been setting up Mexico City's big NYs celebrations. They had been closing off a lane by lane over the last couple of days - and by today - most of the lanes had been closed with most traffic diverted off Reforma Ave. There were big screen TVs being set up as well as big marquees. We had sorted of been rather lucky with our location - not only that it was super close to all of the gay nightlife in Mexico City - but it was also just a stones throw away from the major NYs festivities.

We caught a metro out to the Coyoacan area which appeared to be very sin tourists (well... most of Mexico City seemed to be rather sin Gringos and overseas tourists - with the majority of tourists being local ones which reminded me of China a bit). In fact - I think we were the only "gringos" for about an hour until we reached the Frida Kahlo museum. On our way from the metro stop to the Frida Museum- we checked out an ABC (another bloody church) and a neeocye little piazza. Everything felt a little more richer here than other parts of Mexico City. All houses were fairly fortress like (eg: massive walls, security cameras, armed guards) - maybe it was the drug baron district, and everything was fairly leafy north-shore-y.

As I hinted out before - there were in fact gringos at the Frida Museum. The Frida Museum (or Museo Frida Kahlo) was the bright blue house where Frida lived for a lot of her life (and died there too). Another occupant of the house was her on-again-off-again lover Diego Rivera. The museum is a mixed bag of art work (by Frida and Diego) as well as artifacts from the house and furniture and stuff. Another famous part-time occupant of the house was Trotsky (of communist Russian fame or infamy?).

Speaking of communists... we then checked out the "Trotsky Museum" - which like the Frida Museum - was the house that Trotsky lived in for his last few years (before getting "capped"). Like other Mexican museums - everything was "En Espanol" - and the museum didn't really cover much of Trotsky's life in Russia - rather it covered his demise in Mexico. Trotsky himself was a russian red revolutionist (Ant can critique my crappy history lesson later) but he was part of the Lenin posse and when Lenin died - I think there was a power struggle or something with Stalin which led Trotsky to like leave Russia and go into exile (like Princess Ulladulla and Master Yoda in Star Wars or something - jedi style beetches). Anyone - after globetrotting around the world - he was granted exile in Mexico in the 40s and there were a couple of attempts on his life. On the second - he was "popped" off (with an Ice Axe to the head - very Sharon Stone Basic Instinct). The museum bit was a little small - but the house was really interesting and was basically left as the way he was living in it back in the 40s. Trotsky was on-again / off-again friends with the on-again/off-again lovers Frida and Diego (which sort of explains why Diego's art is a little on the communistic propaganda side of things - or should that be socialist realism for all of you art buffs). Well - I know who killed Trotsky - it was Ramon Mercader aka Professor Plum in the Study with the Ice Pick...

We continued our trek around the suburbs sin gringos and had lunch at another "Asian-bakery" style Mexican bakery - where nothing was quite what it seemed..... We eat our bounties in a nearby park (with completely no gringos in sight). I thought we were going to be raped by a pack of marauding small rabbies dogs whose owner had let them all of the leash and they were all a bit crazy).

After our near death experience with the pack of small rabbies dogs - we headed to a nearby military museum - only to find out that the place was shutting early on NYE (3pm). It had seemed like a lot of stuff was shutting early today - the Frida Museum had shut at 1pm - and we sort of came to the conclusion that maybe we should head back home to the hotel to rest before our big NYEs.

Back at the hotel - I did my final gyme session for the year (thank god most of the hotels have gyms - apart from the Luxor - which was going to cost us $10USD to use the gyme once - rip offf...!). We headed out to the streets around 9ish and the crowds weren't really happening along the Reforma Ave. The police had completely closed off all traffic and had this "facade" of security with metal detectors (most of them were switched off or the police were occupied elsewhere) and fences everywhere... But there were so many holes to their security (not to mention that you could plant a bomb before they installed the security measures- or you could just come through to the Reforma on the side of our hotel - where police were just letting people through the fence without being metal detected...

They had a big stage in the middle of the reforma playing all of your favourite latin american bands and performers.... cough. For all of the effort that the city has put together the NYE bash at Reforma - the crowds were a tad disappointing (considering there are 22 m or so people living here!!).

Anyway - we had dinner at "El Dragono" - a Chinese restaurant - which was the only Chinese restaurant in the free world (or not so free world) which didn't have any boiled rice... And it could also be the only Chinese restaurant to serve its short/wonton soups with massive amounts of soy sauce... More Confusion than Confucius. We had to make do with just having Oyster Beef and Chilli Chicken sin rice. The guy who worked there (a Mexican) had spoken some of the best english we had heard all trip (including the States). We sort of befriended each other - and he was wanting to go home to be with his family for NYE - and he gave us a free corona. Yay...

After El Dragono - we headed back to Reforma to check out if the crowds were getting bigger. They were - but still felt a little disappointingly small. We headed to the gay bar in Mexico City where everyone knows your name - Papi Fun Bar - which was packed. We had a couple of drinks but our friends from the other night were meeting up with relatives on NYEs so it was sin friends. The music was a little strange that evening. There was a lot more latino music than the previous night (the previous night it was non-stop beyonce and britney). They also had some cheap plasticy necklaces and ballons - which the bar staff where handing out to customers (sin Ant and Nick - sob!). We were still at the Papi Fun Bar at midnight - where there were a couple of party poppers popped and we saw the Mexico City fireworks live on TV. After midnight - the DJ (who really wasn't a proper DJ - just someone picking songs off winamp on a laptop) played only latino music - which was the straw that broke the camel's back.

We headed off to another club (Londres something) with the German couple. This was more of a club club - with a 100 peso cover charge and a free sugary horrible red mystery drink. There were a couple of shows - including a drag show - where the drag queen jumped off the stage and into the DJ booth - giving what was the best mix that we had heard all trip (which wasn't too much of a stretch). Anyhows - the story gets a little blue from here (my mother reads this)... Let's just say that this NYEs is going down in history as one of the best and wackiest NYEs ever (more so than the Brazillian threesome offers). Until next time.... U know u love me. Xo Xo

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 20

We woke up (lateish again). Ant was up before I was (shock) - and we headed down to the hotel breakfast for our traditional 10 minutes before closure breakfast.

After we got back to the room - it was a bit "downhill" for Ant who was suffering a bit from a late night out last night con alcohol. I really wanted to do more sightseeing so I was sin Ant today...

I headed out of the hotel after midday and walked down the Reforma Ave down to "Bosque de Chapultepec" aka Chapultepec Park by myself to visit both the Castillo de Chapultepec (aka Chapultepec Castle) and the Museo de Arte Moderno (aka Modern Art Museum).

Ant had assured me that I wouldn't get lost finding these places as they were signposted - but alas I found the back of the Modern Art Museum (which looked like a closed down ride at Disneyland's Tomorrowland from the 60s) - only to realise that the entrance to the museum was on a major road next to the park - not in the park (thanks Don't Know for nuthin). The entrance fee was pretty cheapish (35 pesos aka $3.50 AUD) and the permanent collection was a rather impressive but small collection of modern Mexican art including a couple of Rivera's and Frida Kahlo's famous "The Two Fridas" (or is that "De la Does Fridas"?? - My spanish suxs). It had lots of blood and guts and stuff which was kewlll... There were a couple of other exhibits including this interesting glass/surrealist/art nouveau exhibit all rolled into one, a exhibit on the art of the 1968 Mexican Olympics (which according to the exhibit was the first cultural olympics) - it had lots of inflatable Mexico 68 balls and woman dressed as if they were extras out of an Austin Powers movie, and a somewhat freakish exhibit on human interactions with animals (my favourite was the video art of some guy tap dancing with chunks of meat whilst getting attacked by rabid dogs. Neecyce!). As I mentioned before - the building felt like it belonged at Tommorrowland - an almost lil' sister to the archeology museum that we visited yesterday.

I then got lost again trying to decipher Don't Know and the signs of the park in order to find the Castillo de Chapultepec - but I managed to find the locker area - and subsequently the road leading up to the Castillo. There was a Disneyland-esque train for fat Mexicans/Gringos - but I chose to walk instead. The Castillo sits on top of a hill in the middle of the park and has excellent views of the City. The castle itself is an 18th century castle (with fantastic gardens or "jardins" and great mexican murals (including one featuring a man falling to the pits of hell... rock n roll...!)) and it housed the National History Museum - which like a lot of things here in Mexico - was en Espanol only - so not much made sense (maybe they don't want outsiders to understand the history here??!).

I saw from the top of the castle what looked like to be "6 Flags Mexico" - a themepark where we had seen a brochure for in the hotel lobby which we were toying with the idea of spending a day there - but I was mistaken... it was another themepark (Mexico City has two).

I headed back to the hotel to see how Ant was doing and I surcummed to my first dodgy 7-11 microwave junk food experience. I had bought a coke and microwave burrito for about 15 pesos ($1.50 AUD) and had this big fight with the cashier when I tried to get a Coca Light instead of a Coke. He refused and took the can off me, walked around to the back of the shop and gave me a full-strength Coke. It was yet another international diplomatic incident - but I think I sought of made an "honest mistake" - the price of Coca Light (aka Diet Coke) is marginally higher here in Mexico than the price of Coke (only by about a peso usually)... So I swallowed my pride (and swallowed the full strength coke and attempted to digest the somewhat dodgy microwave carne burrito) and headed back to the hotel - where Ant had already left and was booking additional flights for our holiday. We had plane tickets leaving Cancun for Cuba - and had to get there - but that would involve a 24 hour plus bus ride (which didn't sound all that palatable).... So Ant headed down to the Mexciana (best. airline. name. apart. from. Cubana.) office and got some cheapish tickets from Oaxaca to Mexico City to Cancun for a couple of hundred dollars each.

I went back to the gyme (needed to exercise as most of the food on this trip is high in carb/fat/sugar/bad stuff except for the diet coke which is high in carcinogens). Don't you hate it when you go to a new gyme and there is all new equipment that doesn't do the "hill thing" program that you like on your regular cardio machine. I couldn't get used to the crazy programs the other day so I just set it to el manuale and controlled the strength myself.

Ant and I had a bit of a chill at the hotel - Ant was really getting into the "Drawn Together" DVDs that I had bought in the States. There were some funny references to Speedy Gonzales - who would be up there in terms of the most racist cartoons of all time (think of those slow and lazy Mexican mice sitting around everywhere in those cartoons). I like the Drawn Together take on Speedy - who seems like he has just taken a bit too much "Speedy" and "Coca Light" if you know what I mean... He ends up threatening a character with a switch blade if he "touches his stuff" and then has a blood nose and retreats to the bathroom... Klassy...

We headed out on the Metro to the stop where there are a tonne of Mariachi play. If you don't know what Mariachi are - they are Mexican guitar players (now with brass) who have big guns in their guitar cases and blow s$$$ up.... Well maybe not the last part... When we arrived - it felt a little bit early as most were just sitting around instead of playing. We decided to head into the middle of town to check out the "Latino Americano" Tower - which was about 40 or 50 pesos (cheapest. tower. lift. prices. ever). The Latino Americano Tower is the tallest tower in Latin America - which isn't all that tall (44 floors). We had to line up for about 10 minutes for our quick ride up to the top. Once there - we were greeted with a cafeteria with the same ambient lighting as a 7-11 - which made it really hard to see outside (due to outside being dark). We quickly passed through a pretty lame museum about the building - the only interesting part was some photos on the structural damage done via earthquakes...

We headed up a second lift (where I kept getting off on wrong floors embarrassingly) and headed outside to the "observation deck". The pollution wasn't too bad today - maybe it was something about it being almost a public holiday and less traffic on the roads... and the view was prwuddy...

There were a couple of annoying mexican couples who kept hogging all of the "situational signage" along the deck - Ant and I thought we might throw a couple of them off the ledge - but it might have been a more serious international incident than the "burritos and diet coke" incident.

We headed back to the main plaza (where the ice skating rink was) but we were in serious danger of getting impaled by children throwing 6 ft spear-like balloons with pointy ends. In order to avoid injury (which wasn't probably covered by our insurance) we headed back in the direction of the main Sanborns which was in an neecye old colonial building for dinner. We were seated on the second floor and had some neccye mexican food. Alas - we had to wait about 20 minutes to receive our bill and thus ruining our neeccye dinner. They had some over-complicated system where the waitress didn't actually deal with any money - rather there was a single cashier who would occasionally come out with bills and provide change... Mexican efficiency...!

We headed back to the Mariachi district (past a sleazy area which LP suggested not to go after dark) where the Mariachis were in full swing. You pay them $10US and they play you a serenade or two. There were even people getting "drive through" serenades with the Mariachis playing to couples or families in their big pick up trucks. Ant really wanted a song (La Cocaracha to be exact) but I thought that sounded a bit racist and we were too shy to request a Mariachi band to play with us - so we headed back to Zona Rosa via the metro...

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this but the Mexico City Metro system is a fabulous opportunity to shop! Crazy random people will board onto a train at a station and play a mexican CD cranked up to eleven (with big f##k off mobile speakers in their backpacks) and were selling them for about 10 pesos. You could buy all sorts of crazy crap on the train including oversized novelty pens, bad 80s disco CDs, karaoke DVDs, pocket torches, chewing gum... and a lot of the time - you could catch a train and get about 6 touts in a row... I think our record was about 12 on one trip. Until next time...

Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 19

We woke up (really late again) and struggled to get to the hotel restaurant for breakfast before 11am...

Ant had made a bit of a snap decision and decided that we should check out "Teotihuacan" (lordy don't ask me to pronounce that!) - which is a huge pre-Aztec pyramid city thingy about an hour and a half out of Mexico City. Because the day was almost half-over - we made a dash for the nearest metro stop (for us it was "Insurgetntes" (which I kept thinking it was about "insurgents"..?) which was just at the other end of the Zona Rosa to where we were staying.

We headed out to one of Mexico City's big f##k-off bus stations (they are sort of like the wicked which of the west/north/south/east - because I think there is one for each in Mexico City). It was almost like a (run-down) airport - with heaps of gates and stuff (even with the same hokey security as in some of Mexico City's tourist attractions). We managed to find the bus company who operated over 30 trips to Teotihucan and we bought tickets (which were about $4-5AUD each for a 90 min bus ride - bargain) and the next bus was leaving in just 5 minutes.

We made a dash for the gate (which was relatively easy to find) and a guy pulled us over and plonked us on the right bus. There were a fair amount of gringos on the bus (not surprisingly as this is one of the big tourist attractions in Mexico). The bus ride was initially slow at getting out of the city - but once we were on a freeway - it was really interesting seeing a bit more of Mexico. Parts of it felt a bit like Peru (eg: poor areas with cookie-cutter house square thingys) but I really digged all of the colourful ads along the side of the freeway and houses. At first - I thought it was all Mexican graffiti but upon closer look - they were all giant colourful ads painted onto the sides of walls and the freeway.

After our bus ride - we arrived at one of the four entrances to the Teotihucan ancient city doh-dad. The entry prices were a complete steel (at under $5AUD a pop) and there was a free loo which was just beyond the front gate. You probably seen all of those crazy "American Standard" toilets all through the states (with the 87 liters of water spewing out of them upon a single flush)... Well at these toilets they had the "Nigerian Standard" urinals - which seemed to have 87 liters of urine in each urinal just sitting in there -waiting for you to pee into it and splash it around everywhere like a p### party.... Neeocye...

Teotihucan was an ancient city, which was "re-discovered" by the Aztecs who believed it was a sacred site. The site remained hidden from the Spaniards until the 16th century and according to Don't Know - there are still archeological digs around the area unearthing things. There are several huge "f##k-off" pyramids and the Pyramid of the Sun is the third biggest pyramid on the planet (although it is only half the height of the pyramids in Giza). There is another impressive pyramid (Pyramid of the Moon) where you can get amazing Kodak Moment shots (maybe that Kodak sponsored - Honey I Shrunk the Audience has rubbed off on me ?) of the complex. This was the first tourist site which had plenty of Gringo tourists (everything yesterday was filled with Mexicans). Not only was it filled with tourists but also filled with really god-f###ing annoying touts who had these gimmicky flute things which sounded like eagles or pumas. I had seriously thought about getting out my Ipod and drowning out all of these a##holes with it.

Ant and I first trekked up the Pyramid of the Sun where we noticed that many of the locals and tourists are big, fat and lazy and couldn't really handle climbing up the pyramid with taking excessively long breaks... Come to mention it - it felt like a lot of Mexicans had inherited the "fat genes" from Americans because a lot of them were fairly portly. It had only taken us about 5 minutes to climb to the peak (it would have been shorter if they hadn't been big queues to get up to the top).

We then walked down the "Avenue of the Dead" - which the Aztecs had mistakenly thought that all of the mini-structures around the street were tombs... We were going to rename this avenue - the "Avenue of the Touts"...

We climbed up the smaller Pyramid of the Moon (which you were only allowed to climb half way up) and got some great shots (touch wood) of the city. There were a couple of smaller structures that we had explored including a palace which had pre-hispanic murals (must have been in their genes to paint murals).

We headed down to the less touristy end of the complex (where the touts were thinning out...) and checked out a small temple/pyramid on the south side which had some awesome/still intact sculptures.

We headed to the general vague direction to where LP said there would be a bus. Luckily - there was a friendly local who helped showed us where the "Autobus" stop was. We only had to wait 5 minutes before the next bus arrived. It was a much shorter trip back to the Bus Station in town (less traffic on the roads maybe??).

We were dead hungry (was about 4pm and hadn't eaten anything since breakfast) - and I stumbled across a quasi-asian style bakery - where you grab those trays and tongs and pick random bread rolls and cakes which might be filled of pig's testicles or something. Luckily - the Mexican version wasn't too extreme - and we settled on some breadrolls and donuts for lunch (mmm.. nutrition).

We had a chill/work-out back at the hotel - where Ant chilled out and I went and made use of the free gym at the hotel. It definitely wasn't the american standard of gymes - but it was probably better than most hotel gyms back in Australia. Plus - our hotel gym had a pretty good view of the city and the neeeoyce sunset (if you could see the sun through the smog).

Again we had a latino-time dinner. Instead of going to Sambons again - we decided upon a strange "Argentinean/Mexican" fusion restaurant which was more like Latin American confusion.... We both had some steak tortilla thingys which were OK and a couple of beers. Again - we had to use our ESP powers to call for the waiters to give us our GODDAMN BILL!!!! Does all restaurants in Mexico want you to occupy their tables in restaurants for extended periods of time so they don't make as much money as they would giving people their bills faster so they can pay and vacate the premises only for new customers to take their place... or something.

We decided to have a bit of explore of the Zona Rosa nightlife - and decided to go to a gay bar which was a total mistake (some freakish old man walked up to Ant and I (about a foot away) and didn't stop staring at us... At that point - I quickly finished my $2AUD beer and we headed to the "Papi Fun Bar" which could have been one of the world's most smallest and visible gay bars (all in a space no bigger than my living room and everything has big glass windows so you can see what is happening from the outside. We had a drink or two and befriended a group of Mexicans (Edgar, Diego and Marco) - who were all super friendly.... Edgar was a super keen Kylie fan (who knew her old 80s stuff) and was a part-time x-dresser... Marco was easy to fire up on any topic (eg: BA in Argentina is europe like, Britney suxs) and Diego was a little rusty at the old engrish but nice enough to leave us with his hotmail address. After a couple of drinks - it was 5am already. We exchanged facebook profiles (Edgar and Diego are now facebook friends with us)... and farewelled each other (outside the American Embassy where Marco mooned the embassy guards...) and we headed back for a bit of shut-eye at the hotel... Until next time...