Mexico 2011

We met Saija again at Madrid airport, she was returning home from Guatemala and had the same Finnair flight to Helsinki as we did. The flight to Helsinki was also relatively painless, although time difference started to make us kinda tired..

200km by car to Turku from Timo's place, and we are now home again. Being back in Finland feels somehow strange, everything seems to be totally from a different world compared to Central America. Good three weeks is already enough to get adapted to a new place, and returning back also requires some time for orientation.

We were hoping for all the snow having melted when we return, but that hasn't happened, there is still plenty of snow in Finland. Much less than used to be, though. The weather is decently warm +7C, compared to -20C when we left and spring is clearly progressing. So, I count this as success, we managed to skip the remaining winter, it's spring already.

Having a proper warm shower (not ice cold, constantly changing between boiling and ice cold or being just a pipe on roof) was great for a change. :)

Anyway, thanks for following the blog. Next destination will probably be either Asia or South America, maybe late in the fall or at the same time next spring. This was a great time to have summer holidays, so I might as well do the same thing next year, work all the summer and have holidays during the quiet (and cold..) first months of a new year.

The first flight from Mexico to Madrid was surprisingly painless, at least compared to the earlier Madrid->Mexico flight. Time went rather quickly watching movies on laptop. There were thunderstorms over the Atlantic ocean, which combined with severe turbulence made the flight a bit scary at times. Knowing that the nearest coast is 2000-3000km away didn't exactly make us feel better. :)

Anyway, the thunderstorms calmed down and we eventually reached Madrid an hour late of original schedule, mostly due to the plane departing Mexico later than scheduled. That destroyed our plan of going to have breakfast in the city, so now just waiting for Finnair flight to home.

Blah.. It's time to start our journey towards home. :(

We just packed all our stuff, checked out of our room and are waiting for our pre-booked taxi to the airport to arrive. Then it's a ten hours flight to Madrid and 4.5 hours more to home..

Timo was consuming excessive amounts of tequila last night, partly assisted by our hostel bartender who likes to pour tequila directly to people's mouths randomly..

As the result, Timo was suffering horrible consequences in the morning and was not exactly able to move anywhere. Me and Laura didn't feel like laying all day inside, so we went to check out the National Anthropology Museum, which is one of Mexico City's top tourist attractions.

The museum is huge, easily comparable to for example British Museum and going through all the collections took basically all the day, we returned back to the hostel after sunset.

Damn these people have been busy creating small clay dolls.. After a couple of thousands of them I exactly didn't want to see any more..

Blah, Xochimilco wasn't worth it. Xochimilco is a part of Mexico City, an hour away from Mexico City downtown by metro and light train. Before Mexico City was built the area was full of canals and lakes. Now the only remaining Aztec-era canals are in Xochimilco, and they are a well known tourist destination. Floating around there in boats is supposed to be a popular activity among both tourists and locals. Xochimilco is also an UNESCO world heritage site.

Well, after briefly visiting El Chopo, Mexico City's alternative music market held every Saturday we took the train to Xochimilco, finding a pretty empty town with over-expensive almost sinking boats, over-anxious boat drivers and a stinky canal.. Didn't really feel like taking a boat trip down the canals, and seems like we are not the only ones that think Xochimilco is a bit overrated nowadays. Has been better in the past, at least according to many sources..

Coming back from Xochimilco we visited a Walmart market buying some chili sauces and other souvenirs and just rested in the hostel for a while.

Our dinner place of choice today was La Opera, a traditional Mexican restaurant. On the roof of the restaurant there are still gunshot holes, shot accidentally by Pancho Villa during the Mexican revolution in the early 1900's. Good and slightly expensive arrachera steak, although not as good as in the small grill pub in Cuernacava a couple of days ago.

Second (or last) day in Cuernavaca was spent pretty much like the first one, being lazy and seeing around the city a bit. We visited Chapultepec ecological park, which was supposed to be some kind of a zoo.. Well, it really wasn't, just a park with a couple of animals.

Bus from Cuernacava to Mexico City took a good hour and in Mexico City we checked into Hostel Amigo again, having the same great three person room as we had in the beginning of the trip.

Timo shopped a new Nikon battery charger to replace the one which was stolen while flying to Merida and in the evening we had dinner at Plaza Garibaldi. That is the place where local Mariachi bands hang around at evenings, looking for a job or just playing for fun. Laura got a Mariachi serenade, check out the video. :)

First, I just had probably the most delicious beef I have ever eaten. We were looking to have a dinner in some Cantina recommended by Wikitravel, took a taxi there and found out the place had quit. We continued with the taxi to downtown and started looking for an alternative restaurant, finding only some small bar with a couple of tables and an open coal grill. The place was the only one nearby, so we though it would be sufficient even if the arrachera (Mexican flank steak) was a bit expensive, $135 pesos, 8€.

After eating the indescribably delicious half a kilogram steak we were thinking it could have cost double or three times more.. Or we could have eaten an another one. I have never had anything that smooth and good in any restaurant around the world. Totally satisfied we left a double tip to the restaurant owner guy and will return tomorrow to try their hamburgers made with the same meat.

In other news, there isn't much. We were originally thinking of visiting Xochicalco archeological site today, but the site is well outside the city and surprisingly difficult to get to.. So, we just walked around the city, visited a state history museum located in the former residence of conquistador Herman Cortez and a waterfall near the downtown and that's about it.

Another travel day is behind and we have arrived to Cuernavaca. First we took a taxi to Tuxtla airport, then a flight to Mexico City and finally a bus to Cuernavaca. Everything worked smoothly, so not much to say about that.

Between San Cristobal and Tuxtla a pickup truck loaded with a pile of wooden boxes passed us at 140kmh and we commented something about properly securing the load.. One minute later the road was full of flying wooden boxes and pieces of them. Luckily we were a couple hundred meters behind at that point..

Cuernavaca looks ok at the first glance, although it's bigger than we thought it would be. Not that it would be a bad thing. The hostel is great, we have a swimming pool, palm trees and a spacious four-bed room for us. We just hunted some food and now it's time for a couple of beers before going to bed..

How difficult it can be to get to the airport.. There are like two or three daily buses to Tuxtla Gutierrez airport from San Cristobal de las Casas, none of them suitable for our flight schedule. From Tuxtla Gutierrez there is only one bus in the early morning and no bus from the airport to Tuxtla.

All other transportation between the airport and the nearby cities is run by goverment-created taxi cartel, for ridiculous prices. Normal taxi from San Cristobal to the airport is like 600-700 mexican pesos, that's around 40€ and even if it would be normal for Finnish overpriced taxi services it's totally out of scale in here. For example, the 10 hour and 500km shuttle to Guatemala is 300 pesos and taxis inside the city area like 20 pesos. Seems like somebody thinks the air travelers have money and can be charged multiple times more than other local passengers.. And that sucks.

Well, our hostel offers transport to the airport for 450 pesos (27€), which is almost reasonable divided to three.. Waiting for the driver now, ready to fly to Mexico City and continue to Cuernavaca which should be great.

Today was a bit slow day also, not much to write about. In the morning we took a horseback riding trip to a nearby mayan village, San Juan Chamula and after that have just been chilling down at the hostel.

Horseback riding on the streets was a bit boring after the riding up the steep volcano hills in Guatemala a couple of days ago. Two years before we did the same trip with Timo, and as it was only us and a guide we got to ride through forests and so on.. This time we had some other people with us and the guide guy choose to only ride on paved streets.

In addition I probably had the laziest horse in the world, couldn't find the throttle pedal.. :p

As a side note, one of the hostel cats is still living with us. It even slept whole night under Timo's blanket and only leaves the room to eat..