Frida's Casa Azul

In today's episode of the Amazing Race, Fiona has four hours to find her way across Mexico City without a map to Frida Kahlo's house armed only with the name of the nearest (give or take 10 blocks) Metro station. She can (and frequently does) ask for directions (which only helped when accompanied by hand gestures and charades as no-one spoke English or even slow Spanish). From there she must use Blanca's Mum's mud map to find Lecaroz Bakery, buy a pollo empanada and pastry, walk across to Coyoctan Plaza, sit (not directly) under the world's largest Piñata and smugly eat her lunch in the sun.
Casa Azul is an amazing collection of Kahlo's work, life and loves. Decorated with her paintings, photos and personal possessions, it's a must see for anyone going to Mexico City ... just take a map..
On the way back I dropped in to say goodbye to my new friends at Culichi Bichi - they fed me (again) this time it was spicy seafood soup and crab empanada whilst inflicting Andrea Rieu "Live in Australia" on their customers in my honour .. priceless ..

The Pyramids of Teotihuacan (or "El Stargate")

On the way to the ancient Anztec Capital we stopped off and had tastings of Tequila, Mezcal and other local liquors. Francisco and I continued with the shots while the rest of the bus went shopping - a bad decision in retrospect as within a few minutes we were at the pyramids. With belly full of molè, head fuzzy with tequila I could sympathise with the Aztec's human sacrifices as I climbed the Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon and dragged myself down the (aptly named) Road of the Dead to the Citadel and the Plumed Serpents (my favorite obviously).
It may have been the hours of watching Espanol Stargate while trying to learn the language - but I swear there was an uncanny resemblance ..

Of Mojitos and Mariachi

... my hotel map seemed clear, it was a 20 minute walk away and the Paso de la Reforma is the huge and dotted with monuments - so what's the chance of getting lost? But there I was ... map out in front of Culichi Bichi Cafe and Bar when the owners rescued me.. Replying to my abysmal Spanish in perfect English, Hector pointed out that I could attempt certain death trying to cross eight lanes of traffic OR I could sit at their bar on the street and have a beer... The beer morphed into a jug of mojitos (Hector popping next door to get the mint) and we were amigos .. wandering down after closing to Garibaldi Square to eat cochinita pilit (pork with axiote ... for a split second I thought I was going to be eating lung fish but it's a spice), drink more tequila and listen to Mariachi. The bands filled the square and the bars we were in, small groups of men in traditional (read cool Cisco Kid) costumes playing instruments from trumpets to harps. It costs between $6 - 8 per song or you could hire a group for the evening - common practice amongst groups of Mexican men ... I paid one group to play "Jarebe Loco" - a song from my friend's home town - hilarious... We walked back across town and caught a cab .. day one ...

Images of Mexico

Mexico City is an amazing mix of cultures - not to mention a huge clash of colours and smells and noise ... and right now approaching Christmas, with a billion strobing lights and nativity scenes crowding the streets, the chaos is at it's peak! McNifico !!

Pinatas and Patiserias

... I sped back to my hotel last night in the back of a VW taxi (looking exactly like my `68 Beetle I had in the US - except this one didn't have a front passenger seat), Mariachi music ringing in my ears full of tequila blanco and cochinita pibil ... viva la Mexico!! ..
Mexico City is enormous, 8 million people all driving huge SUVs or VW bugs ... in a chaotic frenzy. Exploring downtown and the Zocolo yesterday (3rd biggest plaza in the world - now currently housing an enormous ice skating rink - a novelty that has Mexicans lining up for 2 hours), I noted that I was a head taller and good deal blonder than the general populace - who were really friendly and chatty - though I suspect they were saying - "God Juan, look at that pale, blonde giant, quick get the children out of her way .."
Staying in a much more salubrious neighbourhood than my last trip (paved roads and no packs of wild dogs this time), many of the streets look like Buenos Aires, clean, full of Fifth Avenue shops and uniformed, heavily armed police lounging around toting weaponry that could overthrow governments.
Also like BA, there are thousands of mouthwatering bakeries and street carts toting fried, sugared and creamed delicacies (but this time I packed all loose clothing ..) and I stumbled onto the largest pinata in my whole life!
I treated my inner geek to a second visit to the National Anthropology museum (Anztec human sacrifice and snake worshipers - what's not to love?) and had sopaipillas for lunch (little fried chicken filled pastries) - I thought I had ordered quesidillas, so obviously my Spanish is going to be REALLY helpful this trip..

Countdown to Cuba!!

I'm flying out to Cuba via Mexico and Costa Rica in less than two weeks!!! I’ve had five months to prepare for this trip – weeks and weeks of Spanish lessons (am still abysmal - but it was fun)and hours watching Stargate in Espanol with English subtitles (as a bonus I also feel absolutely confident I will be able to deal with the huge alien bloodsucking scorpions when they descend onto Mexico City). I also roped Linda into doing Salsa lessons (which almost ground to a halt day one when she realised she would have to actually TOUCH people she didn't know – but 3 litres of hand sanitiser later we were fine).

Although the ransom fund is pretty healthy I haven’t had as much luck auditioning for my hostage negotiator team. The most enthused volunteer (who appeared to have the right qualifications) was later exposed as having lost hostages in all his three training scenarios and come to his own grisly demise in at least one of them. So I am looking for volunteers. A common kidnapping practice in Mexico City is to keep the victim over 24 hours so they can return to the ATM to take out the daily limit the following morning which, Randy optimistically pointed out, would take care of my first night’s accommodation….

Very very excited ..driving my staff mad with frenzied versions of La Cucaracha in the hallways and the hourly number-of-sleeps-to-go-tally ….

Finally I'M A BEST BOY AND GRIP !!!!

So not only do I have wonderful memories from the trip - the boy's vids are up for their competition so I can relive the adventure over and over and I got credit for being Jason's BEST BOY AND GRIP - hope Mr Speilberg is watching .....


http://besttraveljobever.com/jason-boomers-travel (I get a cameo at the end) and for all their 5 minute clips - http://besttraveljobever.com/travel-team-southamerica