We arrived into Mexico City on a Sunday at lunch time, and discovered a tent with family style seating and a guy serving lamb tacos and flautas set up directly outside our hotel. We went in to drop our bags, and went immediately back out for our first delicious Mexican meal. We ended up sitting opposite a half-Mexican half-British guy, who gave us a ton of recommendations for food, drink, sightseeing and wrestling shows. We’d arrived with no plan for what to do while here, so meeting this guy at lunch was a very helpful introduction to Mexico City, and we were excited to explore, and eat and eat and eat. That evening I saw on Instagram that a friend we’d travelled with 3 years ago in Colombia, Hannah, was also in Mexico City. I reached out and we immediately made a plan for several days throughout the week.

On Monday we headed to Coyoacan, a district known for its artists and artisans. It’s the area Frida Kahlo lived in, but we soon discovered that most businesses take Monday off, and so the museum in her old house was closed. It was a lovely area to wander around all the same, and we found some local craft markets and parks filled with murals and statues to get our art fix.

On Tuesday we ventured downtown to the centre of the city, visiting the Palace of Fine Arts, the Cathedral and the ruins of an ancient pyramid which the Cathedral was built over the top of. We explored more markets, historic streets, and large plazas. The architecture in Mexico City is fantastic. Every building is different, but they complement each other rather than feeling like a mix of styles, and every building is impressive. We also happened upon an old church converted into a beautiful library, with murals covering every inch of the walls.

After wandering the city all afternoon, we headed to Arena Mexico in the evening for a lucha libre show – the Mexican wrestling with crazy masks and lots of pantomime and showmanship. I had no idea what to expect, I didn’t even know it was fake wrestling, but I was glad because I don’t like sports where people get hurt. It truly was very silly, that’s the only way I can describe it.

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After a busy two days we took a break on Wednesday, and on Thursday we visited Garibaldi Square, the home of the Mariachi bands. We visited the Tequila and Mezcal museum, learning lots and trying a shot of each (they were both gross). We got some street food and then tried another local drink, pulque, which is made from fermented agave. I got it mixed with passionfruit, which made it significantly less gross, but I still don’t feel the need to ever have it again. We ended the night at the busiest restaurant in the square, with enormous cocktails, watching many many mariachi bands play for the tables around us. At one point we were surrounded by three bands playing at once, so loudly that none of them could be properly heard, and afterwards I was ready to head home and save my ears.

On Friday we visited Chapultepec, a large park with many museums, monuments, a couple of lakes, an amusement park and a castle in its grounds. We rented bikes for a few hours, not going inside anywhere, just enjoying the scenery and sunshine. We saw many large cranes and a couple of turtles in the lakes, had a popcorn picnic, viewed some historic baths with some intricate carving, and headed home once it got too hot to continue. In the evening we met up with our friend again at another park for a walk, finishing at a local brewery with 30 different craft beer options and a delicious mango mead.

The weekend was leisurely again, as neither of us were feeling great. We did a couple of walks around the neighbourhood and visited a local market that only pops up on the weekend. On Sunday afternoon we moved to a hotel on the outskirts of town, closer to our last sightseeing location of the week and closer to the airport for our flight the next day. On the way we visited a very interesting Basilica, a modern circular design, build in the 1970s to replace the old cathedral which was very noticeably sinking into the ground. Apparently Mexico City is built on top of what used to be a lake, so the ground is incredibly wet and soft and it turns out the whole city is sinking. When we arrived at our new hotel, we discovered a small fiesta in the town square, where people were doing a strange dance with sticks – I’m not sure if it was a performance or a rehearsal or a ritual, and the locals were just as confused to see tourists there as we were about the event.

For our final morning in Mexico City we explored Teotihuacan, a large ancient city, now a complex with 3 pyramids and other ruins, dating from 200AD. The pyramids were very impressive, and it was an enjoyable couple of hours. Apart from all of the souvenir sellers. There is some kind of wooden froglike thing that you blow into and it makes an absolutely awful noise. Sometimes it sounds like a screeching eagle, sometimes a hissing cat, or a cockerel or a screaming goat. None of these sounds are pleasant, and they happened without warning, and were amazingly loud, and my initial reaction every time was that the world must be ending. Which detracted from the ambience of such an important ancient site. But aside from this it was a nice morning, and the site was very worth visiting.

Mexico City turned out to be a great choice for a stopover. We’ve had lots of good food – tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, enfrijoladas, tostadas, flautas, gringas, gorditas, volcanos, queso fundido, and a burrito. In all honesty they’re all the same thing, just the tortilla is cooked or shaped slightly differently. They’re all good though. I did however learn that traditional Mexican quesadillas don’t come with cheese as a standard, that’s an optional extra. Which makes no sense, because queso is literally in the name. All in all it was a great week.

Our next destination was cheaper to fly to from Cancun than from Mexico City, so adding a few nights here on our way out just made sense! Having just explored the Teotihuacan pyramids outside Mexico City, our Cancun trip began with visiting Mexico’s most famous pyramid, Chichen Itza. We booked a tour for our first day in Cancun, which took us to a cenote (an underground swimming hole created when ancient caves collapsed in on themselves) and the colonial town of Valladolid, and included a tequila tasting before touring Chichen Itza for a couple of hours. It was a long day, not helped by the fact that we were given the wrong start time, and arrived at our pick up spot an hour and 15 minutes before the scheduled departure, which was then late. But it was an enjoyable trip, and we were able to explore much more of Chichen Itza than just the standard tour, as the site itself has a lot more to it than the pictures suggest. We had to rush around a little, as our timetable had been rearranged to get us there a little later in the day to avoid the worst of the heat, so it was getting close to closing time, but it meant that many of the lesser known areas were completely empty.

On Wednesday we said we’d explore Cancun town, but honestly there’s not much to do in the town itself, so this turned into a work and TV day, with a quick outing to the main square at night to people watch. On Thursday morning we moved to the ‘hotel zone’, which is a strip of land built out into the ocean where all the resorts are. We did not splurge on a fancy resort, instead opting for a basic room at a hostel, but it still had a nice large pool, plenty of hang out spaces, and was a 5 minute walk to a beach with beautiful white sand, warm turquoise waters, and thankfully plenty of shade. We spent the afternoon and the next day split between the pool and the beach, and made use of the hostel kitchen and ate lots of sausages and hashbrowns, having had our fill of tacos in Mexico City the week before.

Thanks for following along on my crazy adventures!

 Ros ♥

If you’re interested in how I got here, or where I went next, check out the rest of the story!