Mexico 2009

Back at the hostel again. When we had managed to get our self back to the city, we walked around a bit looking for food. Obviously Mex City, even though its a 20 million city, can be really dead at Sunday evenings. Especially when the locals eat a bit later than 5pm, and all the restaurants would open later. Eventually we ended up to the same taco restaurant as yesterday, not that it would be a bad thing..

Some delicious and spicy tacos, a walk back to the hostel and a really refreshing shower after the sweaty and hot day. Now its once again time for some photo editing, beer and chilling out at the hostel.. Tomorrow we will be flying to San Cristobal de las Casas, and the flight takes off around 10am, so I guess we shouldnt be up too late.

We even managed to find a power plug splitter to be able to power up both laptops at the same time ( theres only one plug in the room.. ) and some moisturizing lotion for my sunburned hands and face.. :)

Btw, damn I love the Panasonic DMC-LX3. All the pictures on this blogentry are shot with it, its doing really remarkably good in low light conditions without flash to be a compact camera. Also the night time street videos look fabulous. Not to mention the metallic construction and the SLR-like controls :)

The queuing took about an hour, and then we could start climbing to the top of the pyramid. The task wasnt the easiest one without water in these temperatures ( for some reason there were no water for sale nearby, probably because the place was an archeological site and selling food etc was forbidden.. ). The view from the top was well worth it though :)

Unlike most of the people who climbed up the pyramid at the Aztec times, we returned alive down the pyramid after taking the necessary tourist photos, bought some souvenirs and managed to catch a bus back to Mex City just in time. Something eatable would be greatly appreciated, only breakfast doesnt exactly do it for a whole day...

Finding the bus was even easier I expected, and the bus was remarkably comfortable. The openable window next to our seat made the one and half hour bus trip enjoyable.

I would never have guessed there would actually be 500m queue to the top of the pyramid, but obviously it happens, we are standing on the quite fast progressing queue right now. The entrance to the site is free for Mexican people at Sundays, that probably explains the queue. Almost everyone seems to be local.. The pyramid of the sun is impressive in its size, standing next to it and looking up..

The sun is much brighter outside the city as the smoke is gone, and the temperature is scorching hot. Probably around 30c and the bright sun burns.

And back alive again around 8am local time, after pretty good sleep. Today our first destination will be Teotihuacan, an Aztec archeological site one-two hours away from the city centrum. There should be a bus line running between the northern railway station of the city and the site. Lets see if we actually find it..

Once again the hostel breakfast made the morning much better, nothing beats a big cup of hot coffee. Even Timo looks distinctly more alive today than yesterday :)

I will be uploading some videos to http://stnz.fi/mexicovideo. They are directly from the camera without any edit, so dont expect wonders.. :)

For now theres just video material from the El Chopo alternative music market, maybe something else tomorrow. Now it would be bedtime I guess, 00.30am and we should wake up early tomorrow.. We took a short nap earlier though.

Heh, I have been walking less in the past 2 months combined than today I guess. After having a short break at the hostel we went a bit further looking for the city zoo. We found the zoo quite easily ( Well, riding one metro line, jumping out of the metro, walking a bit around the station and accidentally ending up into the same metro doesnt count... ) but it was already closing at 5pm. So, we just decided to walk around the park and find a metro station there. The walk ended up being 7-8 kilometers :)

On the fance of the big park there was a photo exhibition of Norway, obviously sponsored by Statoil. Quite nice photos, and it was feeling somehow odd watching pictures of familiar looking Norwegian winter while walking around in the high temperatures of Mexico..

Back at the hostel now, just got a bottle of beer and I'm already feeling a bit sleepy.. It has been long day :)

After suffering all the cold winterdays in Finland this weather is pretty much heaven. Its around 25C now, not too hot but definitely warm enough. And the sun is shining :)

After having our refreshingly cold morning showers we headed to the El Chopo market, an alternative music market held every Saturday quite close to our hostel. Walked there for a while, bough some souveniers, just walked around the city..

The first experience of Mexican food were some tacos. Simply great, just like we expected them to be. The food is hot, just like its supposed to be, although not as hot as I would have thought :)

Mmh.. Full nights sleep, and Im feeling totally different than yesterday. Back alive again, and the light breakfast offered by the hostel is refreshing. Thank god these people know what coffee means, unlike most eastern countries..

And yep, Timo was a bit drunk last night. Actually a bit more.. He seems to be alive now, though:)

First morning in mexico city and i have terrible hangover. Eerik went sleep about 10pm and i decided stay awake couple hours more... so i went to hostels bar and ordered couple beers, unfortunately hostel had "wrestling night" and barkeeper made little competition with tequila...

But it's only 7am now and i should get shower and some breakfast after that. cya later

I dont really like flying.. But I like long-haul flying even less. The flight was long, boring and.. long. The day felt extraordinary long, because basically the clock was going slow motion during the flight. We left Amsterdam at 13 local time and arrived to Mex City at 17 local time.. So, the 12 hours flight "only took 4 hours" :P

Anyway, after many boring hours in a fully booked plane we landed to Mexico City. The border procedures didnt take too long, in about half an hour after the landing we were already looking for a way to get to the hostel from the airport.

After a while we found the metro station, and also found our hostel without any bigger problems.. Damn I'm tired. I have basically been up 2 days without sleeping. Now we are enjoying a few beers at the hostel and passing out to have a good nights sleep...

The Mexico City kinda surprised me. I was thinking it would be a "bit less south-American" city, but it definitely is looking like one. The feeling just is south American :)

The climate is wet and hot. I guess its only around 25C, but its still feeling very warm. I guess mostly because of high humidity.. The air quality is decent. It smells smoke, and the smoke fog can be seen, but in a few hours I have got pretty much used to it..