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…