Day two in Mexico City, Mexico

I was a little tired when I woke up this morning, so it was not until around ten or eleven when I crawled out of the sofabed and actually did something constructive with the day.

Many years ago K' father had found a place called Xochitepec where there was an wonderful old style hotel with a grand pool and restaurant that you could use even if you could use even if you were not a guest, and in a setting so beautiful that many is the Mexican who has been there that they have thought about using it as a place to hold their weddings or anniversaries.

Again it was a little far out from the city centre, so we had to drive there, but as before this was only a benefit and not a problem and even if it was longer than just a few minutes the scenery was worth the wait.

The price of the breakfast was not exactly cheap, but then considering if it far out and non guests can use it I feel that this is a good thing as I would hope it would be a little bit more expensive than normal to keep it slightly exclusive and prevent it from being swamped with tourists and passing travellers.

Lovely arched walls and walkways, an authentic horse drawn carriage, large fountain and enough flowers and palmtrees to please even the most demanding nature lover are all carefully spread out over a few acres of land that you can walk around without having to enter the hotel itself, which again leads an extra level of privacy and security to any guests who do decide to stay there, and having been there for a day I could think of few places that had the mix of convenience, history and beauty all wrapped up in such a stylish way.

A open and varied buffet with inclusive drinks was enough to fill me up plenty, and it was a good job too as after here we planned to take another longish car journey to visit K's favorite archaeological site at Xochicalco and both along the road and at the destination there would be few places to stop and eat that I would want to do so.

Arriving there the first glimpse of the structures on the high green mountain top are when you are almost there, as the place is less well known than other sites of interest and has been much less excavated due partly to its hard to reach location and partly due to lack of available funds.

A museum at the entrance is included in the entrance price, which is hardly anything when you consider what it covers, and once you start to look around the site you get a real sense of history and beauty.

The site itself is actually probably one of the largest in the Americas, and although from the low entrance below it looks like just a few squared top pyramids, but once you start to ascend up the hillside and then look back you can see the surrounding hills are actually littered with a myriad of other stuctures stretching far into the distance.

Even a momentary study at the structures that are uncovered reveals that what is on show is far from all that is there, and more time, money and labour a complex twice its size might eventually be unearthed, but the fact that it hasn't and the fact that it is less well known all adds to its mystery and alure. During the few hours that we walked round it I barely saw fifty other tourists and much like Copan, this was of great benefit as I could really be alone with my thoughts and send my mind back in time to how it was when the place was filled with the sounds of an Indian civilization now long since departed.

Again using small stone and rock they erected structures of perhaps a simple design, but they are no less impressive when you consider the size and the care with which it was built, and K' also told me that from space many of the achaeological sites right across Mexico could all be seen to be places along a straight line, which further impressed me as the distance and line of sight between each are not only great but also obstructed by mountains and rivers.

At the time of its creation and original height of power, they locals played a bizarre game called 'Juego de Pelota', the rules are a bit unclear, but apparently it was played right across the Indian world at the time, and involved two teams partially covered in padding, a concrete ball and a large concrete disc held high above a double open ended court with angled walls.

As I understood if from K's explanation, from the relics left over and from the wall mounted display model it appears to be a bit like violent sideways basketball with the overall winner being declared a hero or great worth who is then sacrificed to the gods in recognition of his skills.

I have no idea why anyone would want to play a game where if you won you would be killed, and while I have no idea what happened to the losers, I would privately think that the whole killing the winner part was drempt up a feeble but cunning Indian who used it as a way of eliminating his opposition in terms of romance or political power.

Another part of the site was the observatory, which was nothing more complex than an artificially constructed cavern that was placed in totaly darkness except its single chimney opening directly upward and used to both study the sky but also as a primative xray device, using the bright sunlight to penetrate and observe a persons limb on the smooth flow below.

Having been to the totally darkened cavern in Peru, this place did not phase me and it was funny to see K's reaction as she walked with a sensible degree of hesitation while I was happy strolling along and offering to take photos to light up the way.

The whole place closed to the public sometime around dusk and with it being a couple of hours drive away from the city centre, we decided to drive back and along the way I got to see a wonderful Mexican sunset as we drove along the motorway, passing hills, fields and volcanoes barely visible in the distance.

Day One in Mexico City, Mexico

Before I arrived in Mexico City I had contacted my friend K' and together we agreed that we would visit a few of the major archaeological sites in Mexico. As there are dozens and dozens of different sites worth visiting and my time here is limited, we chose a few of the biggest, most important and best preserved sites to visit.

It was only after I arrived here and we discussed then that I found out that there are almost no actual sites that the Aztecs built that remain intact, but there are plenty of ruins that the Mayan civilization created, a race that was different and earlier than the Aztecs, and who had either died out, migrated or abandoned their mountain strongholds long before the Aztecs conquered much of what is now Mexico and Central America.

Before we headed out to visit our first site, Teotihuacan, we had to swing by K's work place so that I could send a few emails and visit the neighbouring laundrette in order to get my clothes done, as it was far too expensive to get it done in the hotel in San Salvador.

It was really great driving through Mexico City with K' as she is a confident driver, we had the radio blaring out classic 80's songs and with the sun shinging down we flew along the highways and could see the mountains, valleys, corn fields and it felt so confortable and relaxing.

The colours of Mexico are as green as anywhere else you could imagine, and I was pleased and surprised to see small trees, shrubs and flowers planted and lovingly tended to all along the highways, like they were private avenues instead of public highways.

The colour of taxis in Mexico City are green and white and although the modern models are slowly phasing out the older taxis, it was wonderful to see green and white beetles whizzing about the city centre.

Mexico city centre was originally built by the Spaniards right over the top of the original city built by the Aztecs, which they first had to flattened and flood, and this terrible act destroyed almost all of the original structures, however the foundations are still there, underneath the modern buidings.

The only drawback for them, which they could never really have forseen, is that where they did not let the land settle for years first, the land is slowly subsiding and now the modern buildings are in danger of falling down in on themselves. This can be seen is many of the roads and larger buildings where the room centres are lower than the supporting walls.

However, saying that, Mexico City has more modern and properly constructed buildings than most other cities that I have seen in the Americas, as largely it does not feel like a poor or a broken down metropolis at all.

Of course, there are the bad neighbourhoods and regions, but more often than not they are few and far between and much of the city is under constant reconstruction and renovation, with scaffolding and pavements uprooted on many street corners, and the roads themselves are some of the best I have seen outside of Europe.

Outside of the city centre the horizon became even more beautiful than before, with forested hills and white peaked volcanoes rising up in the far distance, until we reached Teotihuacan, a settlement built by Indian people of the same name and here my first experience of the vastness and size of the pyramids that in stone and size dwarfed even the Greta Pyramid of Giza, although using more much more managable sized hewn rock and stone.

An avenue of mini funeral flat roofed pyramids stretched out on both sides, passing by areas of housing and reaching out to the end of the avenue which sat the impressive pyramid of the moon, itself almost in the shadow of its bigger twin pyramid of the sun.

Having already trekked through Central and South America, the heat and humidity was not a problem for me but for slightly overweight American tourists it was another matter, and a few had to pause every tenth step as they climbed up to the top of the Sun Pyramid, before being rewarded by a magnificent view overlooking the valley that stretched for miles in every direction.

As Teotihuacan is almost two hours drive away from the city centre, we could only stay a few hours before it was time to come back, but in all honesty with the flatness of the land itself, the hordes of tourists and the lack of trees or vegetation for shelter I would not really have wanted to stayed there much longer.

On the way back we could see that the sun was almost setting and in the end once we arrived back in the city centre, we found a restaurant that served traditional tacos where I stuffed myself silly eating, as they were so great and I regret not trying them more often back in the UK, although being fare K' explained that they dont travel well and are best found locally.

As the sun was down, there was not much else we could visit that I could take many photos of, so instead we went around an area just outside of the city centre, known for its night life and found that a wedding was in progress in the local church, which meant lots of people dressed up in their finest clothes and the bride arrived in a wonderfully preserved car that would have turned heads even in the 1920's or 30's which is when it was first seen on the roads.

Then we came back, watched a comedy movie and then crashed out for the night.

A morning at the beach, and a day spent flying

I met up with M' around 9:30 as she had agreed to drive me to the airport, as she also had to pick up her cousin who was flying in the same day, but as neither flight was in the morning she said that we would have enough time to take a quick drive to the beach, and she said it would be a crime if I did not visit the beach near San Salvador, at a region called La Liberdad.

The drive through the city to the beach was great, as it gave me a chance to see some of the rich chateaux's and poor slum houses almost next to each other and I was amazed at how close they were to each other, as normally an area is rich but here one street could be rich and the next poor.

As we drove we were chatting and I remembered that this area was where the two German guys were going to visit to do some surfing and after about half an hour we pulled into a side street leading to a hotel that was right on the beach.

I had no idea that a lot of the beach front resorts doubled up as restaurants and private swimming pools, but in turned out that even if you were not a guest staying at the hotel you would order food and drinks from their restaurant and for a mere US $3 you could use the pools.

I am so glad that I had left the rain behind as being yet another gloriously sunny day, I was able to do a tiny bit of lazing in the sun and if only I had known this before then I would have stayed here instead of in the city centre, and with prices of US $57 for a single room the cost was very resonably priced for the good facilties and location.

Looking out over the beach I was gobsmacked at the dark sand and large pebbles and stones that were the beach area, and they were as beautiful as any beach I had seen before, with the palm trees swaying gently in the sea breeze.

Sadly, with the time it took to reach and then return we didn't have much time to stay there and after a nice breakfast it was time to leave and head off to the airport, and I could not thank my M' enough as she had been the best guide she could be, fun, happy and refused to always let me pay for things, despite her not taking any money for the petrol that she was using when we were driving around for the last few days.

The airport itself was pretty small when you compare the size of the city, but it was well modern and the staff knew enough English for it not to be a problem either checking in or finding my way to the gate.

Before I boarded I shared a last banana split with my M' in the airport restaurant and we spend so much time talking that I almost missed my flight, barely passing through security at 1:15pm when my flight was due to depart at 1:25.

The next 9 hours were spend rushing to catch planes, flying and watching crappy airline with tv with more adverts than shows, drinking coffees and only a few hours all in all wasted in airport departure lounges. I was surprised at the speed and smoothness of my connections, all with TACA, and all of them took off and arrived on time which meant the forty minutes between flight times was perfectly enough to go from one arrivals lounge to the next departure gate.

I have never seen such small queues as I did at the Mexico Immigration station and I think I spent less than a minute answering about two quick questions before he stamped my passport and waved me through. Equally good timing was that my holdall luggage had arrived perfectly undamaged despite two flight changes, and it came out number 7 on the luggage carosel ( I like to count to see how many other pieces of luggage are processed before mine, silly but it helps the time go by ) and then I was through to the main terminal.

I phoned up my friend K' who had herself just arrived at the airport and together we went to have a mini tour of the city at night before finding an Irish bar where we grabbed a quick drink before making plans for the next few days and then finding me a place to sleep for the night, as I could not find the paperwork that I had printed out of my hostel.