Mehico
We arrived in Mexico City with barely a smattering of Spanish. Lyn knew a few words from time in the USA, I knew a bit of Italian and Ang knew how to say “Donde esta el bano”.As advised, we caught a safe taxi from the airport and were quickly introduced to the Mexican style of driving, and the large cavernous language gap as our driver began gesturing and verbalizing in such a way that demanded a response. Anything. Three long blank stares and some useless attempts at communication later, he eventually found his way to our accomodation in the historical centre where, once settled, we realized a communist rally was in full swing in the zocalo. Not wanting to be recruited we walked carefully around the protestors on our way to the supermarket where purchases included the essential staple of muesli bars and the not so essential purchase of Mexicos healthy alternative to Oreos, “Lors”.
Dinner proved to be a near futile mission until the server in one small hole in the wall pointed out a young woman in response to my unsucessful vegetarian enquiry. Convieniently she spoke English and was able to translate a few things and we ended up with Enchiladas con verdes. Though Lyn had pointed out that verdes was a sauce, and I suspected it would have something green in it, I was unprepared to find my enchiladas floating in what at first glance was unidentifiable (though definitely green), but what I now believe to be green jalapeno sauce. I believe this to be so from the extreme temperature of my entire body after eating a plateful with no refreshment of an kind. Such was the effect that it required the purchase of a bottle of milk with a picture of smiling kids on the label from the nearest seven-eleven. The phrase “sin verdes” will forever be etched on my traumatized tongue in preparation for future meal orders. Our next days foray into the city included a visit to the Cathedral and a walk up to the bell towers. Our group guide was verbal and demonstrative and imparted a lot of information, most of which I think was about bells. And some guy named Juan. But I cant be entirely sure. We did see the bell-ringers ringing the bells however, which was cool. Our other main excursion involved a rather awkward encounter in a farmacia, where at a counter full of staring Mexicans one member of our trio tried to describe and eventually purchased certain items necessary to females at certain times of the month. Very conveniently these particular items were actually shelved in a long line above the counter and in plain pointing view. But that would’ve been too easy…..
Our third day in Mexico we took a tour out to Teotihuacan, an ancient city with two pyramids, one dedicated to the Moon and one to the Sun. The archeological site is believed to have been built in 100AD and predates the Aztec culture. Of course this all sounds terribly interesting and intriguing until one actually stands in front of each pyramid and realizes they are aptly named for the close proximity of their summits to the very high Moon and the extremely high Sun. And that one is expected to climb into Deep Space.
Of course the tour guides all know this ahead of time so they take you to see pretty sculptures and quiet churches and ply you with Mexican delicacies and liquors such as pulque and tequila from the Agave plant. So as to lull you into a false sense of easy effortless booze fuelled gaiety. Then they take you out in the hottest part of the day, stick you in front of a 70 meter pyramid, whack you on the behind and tell you to climb, dammit, climb.
Three hours later we stumbled back to the van with jelly thighs and cotton brains and some really good pictures taken from way up high. But it would be an extra hour before we left the archeological site, after a group head count revealed we were one short.. .. Though no one could actually describe what the missing person looked like, we remembered that he couldn’t speak any English or Spanish and that he was wearing either a green shirt, a white shirt or a black shirt, had either glasses or a cap and may or may not have had a moustache. After checking all the exits we had to leave. The van trip back was sombre, everyone’s mind on our poor missing teammate unable to communicate, probably curled up at the base of the pyramid fending off scorpions and rattlesnakes with either a cap or pair of glasses. Until we walked into the hostel and were greeted by our missing tourist wearing a blue shirt and glasses who explained in very comprehensible English that he had waited twenty minutes (at the wrong exit) then decided to catch a bus back.
The next day we left the bustle of Mexico City and caught an early bus to Cuernavaca where we found ourselves stranded in front of an unnamed locked gate, our supposed accommodation for the night. After a half hour sitting around outside, technical genius Ang identified a string leading to the other side. A natural engineer, she determined that pulling on the string did ring a bell on the other side of the gate. After another half hour of ringing the bell intermittently, our racket was finally answered by one of the occupants inside who helpfully pointed out the phone number on the wall to ring and then spoke to the person on the other end of the phone, politely explaining in Spanish that three “gringas” were waiting for their room, probably adding adjectives such as annoying, loud, pain in the arse, etc, etc.
Once our hostess arrived we dropped our bags in the room and took a taxi out to Tepotzlan, a village stretching out from the base of a cliff face, known for its temple which sat 2km up atop the cliff, and its icecream. But mostly known by us for its icecream. Having walked one hundred kilometres into deep space the day before we decided that the God of Icecream was due some worshipping, rather than the God of Things That Have To Be Climbed. Of course we could have climbed the measly 2km steep hike upward in thirty degree heat if we wanted to. But we didn’t. Just cos we didn’t want to. But we could have if we wanted to. Instead we visited two of the four icecream shops sampling their wares, including Tequila y Limon, Coco, Café con Leche, Yoghurt, no-one brave enough to try the Pineapple Chilli flavour.
After eating icecream and ignoring the temple for a while, we caught a 40 minute taxi for $15 back to Cuernavaca and sweated ourselves to sleep – or at least I did, while Ang and Lyn stayed up for eight hours chasing a mosquito around the room, eventually luring it into the bathroom and trapping it in a sheet.
Tags: 1
Em
Con Queaso?
¡sin queso!
The farmacia reminds me of back-country Spain where I had to give a demonstration of 6year old Lynda with vomiting and diarrhoeia. I must have done a good job: one dose and she was fixed.