Layover: Mexico City

Hola! Primero parada: Cuidad de Mexico

After leaving SFO at 1am, we had a pretty quick flight to Mexico City. We arrived at 7am local time; 5am California time. We were pretty tired but in the zone. We brushed our teeth in the bathrooms to freshen up and found our way to the bus. Luckily this Cuban traveller was having trouble with the ticket machine before us...and he was fluent in Spanish, so we navigated our way to downtown fairly easily with his help.

We had roughly 7 hours in Mexico City and fit in quite a bit. First off, MC was much cleaner and less crazy than I imagined it would be. Granted, the closer you get to the historic downtown the nicer It gets. We wandered around for a little bit, starting from a small plaza (see wes In bIg chaIr outsIde thId cathedral), while the city started to wake up. Our first stop for breakfast turned o out to be abad call, but good lessons were learned. First, ignore those guys that try to pull you into there restaurant. Second, ignore restaurants that are empty. At first I saw another turisto couple. I didn't fully observe they were only drinking cokes! So we naively ordered coffee and food. The coffee came out; tasted terrible/weird and was luke warm. Uh oh is this tap water?! Out comes the pazole. Again luke warm and now I'm thinking I did myself in on the first meal, and this pozole will be looking just as ugly on its way out. So third, only accept the food piping hot. After a few tastes I could not stomach we bailed.

We walked around the city some more and admired the old fIne architecture. MC has a lot of very old buildings, most of which are leanIng every which way. So in a little bit we found the main pedestrian drag. I also found something I could test for breakfast: krispy kreme. Authentic shmathentic, I was proud of corporate America quality control after our first breakfast attempt. They also had a comfortable lounging area so we sat for a while to rest.

Afterwards we follow the drag to its end, which was the famous Zocalo square. I was stoked we stumbled upon this. I think it was only last year this square was packed for a massive protest....and this square has got to be square mile large. (Side note: the are LOTS of police in MC, practically everywhere you look. Near Zocala they wore riot gear.)

Also at Zocalo was the natIonal cathedral. It was huge and beautiful. Lots of history and importance here, with preserved bodies and bones on display and ornate shrines. And the biggest pipe organ I have ever seen. Cool stuff!

After this we made up for the krispy kreme and got some real tacos. The place was packed, food cheap, and they cook it in front of you. It tasted great! AuthentIc tacos and beer on a warm sunny day. The server was cool and help us on our Spanish too.

After this we trekked back to thus tequila and mezcal museum we saw earlier as we had a little more time before catching there bus back.the museum was really cool. Nice displays and a wall full of tequila bottles ( see pic) and a room with cool artwork. On the roof they had a bar where we did tequila and mezcal tasting (included with entry ticket). the pic turned out a little dark.

Then we got back to the bus and hopped on the plane. We made quick friends with our seatmate DaShan from LA, all got pretty lit up with a couple stiff complimentary drinks (aeromexico doing it right...good food too), talked and played games, them slept for a couple hours before landing in lima at 1am. A long, action packed day!