Hola! from Mexico

Well after an uneventful three days stuck in the hotel room due to flooding in Kauai; we headed to Mexico utilizing the cheapest route we could find which unfortunately involved four back to back flights. This time it was Vanessa’s turn for an unanticipated airport drama where a correction to her name on the itinerary was required before being allowed to board.

About 26 hours later we arrived exhausted and armed with about three words of Spanish we somehow navigated our way to the hotel room in Mexico City. Mexico City is about 13 million people squashed into a sprawling urban, smog filled landscape, think Bangkok but more cars. Nonetheless, part of me is very excited to be here.

 Not handling the pollution well, we head out of the city the following day to Teotihuacan. We spent a couple of nights here and leisurely make our way around the ruins. Climbing the pyramid of the sun was a lot of fun, tiring, and I thoroughly enjoyed peaceful scene from up top :-)

 Pyramid of the Sun

Looking down on the Pyramid of the Moon

View from the Pyramid of the Moon

My lameass Indiana Jones impersonation ;-)

Next location on the agenda…Palenque. Although the bus system here in Mexico is really quite good, I am yet to figure out how it all works (slight language barrier). In the end we settle on a bus back to Mexico City, a flight to Villahermosa, followed by a bus to Palenque.

Vanessa and I rise early to ‘beat the traffic’ to Mexico City. We had one of those ‘we’re in Mexico’ moments when the police stop the bus for a routine security check. This involves patting down all the passengers, checking the seats, children etc. It seems like such a regular occurrence, all the male passengers automatically get off the bus and line up outside for their ‘patdown’ with no complaints, seeming happy enough to undergo such checks.

While on the road we were wondering, “where is all the traffic?”, before realizing it was Sunday…lol. This resulted in us being about 2 ½ hrs early for the flight. Thus adding to the feeling that most of the holiday so far has been waiting in airports, or in flight...sigh.

We arrive in Palenque late afternoon and settle into a hotel on a beautiful tree laden strip of hotels and restaurants. It is absolutely gorgeous but I can’t help but feel a little sad that this is ‘for the tourists’ and how nice it would be to see the entire town covered in forest.

Overall, I am really liking Mexico so far. I really love that the locals are so friendly and smile warmly, wave and say ‘Hola’ to a complete stranger. Or smile patiently and do their utmost to assist a tourist who knows no Spanish. I love the food here, I even woke up this morning craving chilli :-)

I am also resolving to learn a new word or two of Spanish each day. Today's word was 'aeropuerto'. At least Vanessa won't need to do her impersonation of an airplane anymore ;-)