Mexico with James

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Trip start
January 13, 2024
Mexico with James Traveler
Mexico City
Jan 13–17, 2024 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C
After my siblings left, James came to mexico city. We were originally going to go to the hostel, but my parents still had the airbnb for a few nights. So instead, we reduced our stay at the hostel and stayed at the airbnb. It was quite nice - during the day we went out and worked. We went to various sites around Polanco and Condesa. We went together to Coyoacan and saw the Frida Kahlo house. At night, we would meet my parents for dinner and then go back to the airbnb to play mahjong.

Some other things we did was visit the Nacional Museo de Antropologia (my second time, it's a massive museum with so much stuff).

After my parents left, James and I went to a hostel in Centro called Casa de Pepe. We each had capsule like beds which was nice for privacy. Unfortunately, James proceeded to get sick for an entire week. He spent a lot of the week recovering and took some time off. As soon as he got better, I got sick for a week. Being sick in a hostel actually sucks so much... just not having privacy and feeling like shit is not fun.

On the bright side though, centro has so much amazing cheap food. You can consistently get really good tacos for 10-15 pesos per taco. Awesome. We spent time exploring centro, recovering, and eating good food.

We spent our time in Mexico City working. Uber/didi is super cheap so we would venture out (mostly to Polanco and Condesa), go to a cafe, and hangout there most of the day. It was really nice and the weather was consistently great.Read more
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Mexico with James Traveler
Lucha Libre
January 19, 2024 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
We went to Lucha Libre which was like mexican WWE. The wrestlers are basically muscled, acrobatic performers and the fights have predetermined outcomes. The flips and acrobatics were really really impressive.

There's this notion of the good guys (los tecnicos) vs the bad guys (los rudos)
Part of the experience is to scream "putaaaaa" at los rudos and "chinga to madre" at the performers. What an experience.Read more
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Mexico with James Traveler
Club América vs Querétaro
January 20, 2024 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C
We went to a mexican soccer game! It was hosted at Azteca stadium, an arena that can fit 86,000 people. To get there, we used mexican public transport which was quite affordable and convenient (the only exception being the second leg of the trip, which for some reason did not accept physical tickets. We needed a charge card. The station did not sell charge cards). Luckily someone was able to help us and let us use their card to get in.

It was a really cool experience and when Club América scored, flares and sparks would shoot out of the goal.

The only thing was that our ticket experience absolutely fucking sucked. In order to go, you have to buy the ticket via ticketmaster. I had used the site many times before (like to buy lucha libre tickets for example) so I didn't expect any issues. When we showed up to the venue, it was raining and miserable. I then opened ticketmaster to discover that the site thought I was a bot or using a VPN (I wasn't) and suspended my session. I couldn't re-login, use a different browser, nothing. After trying over and over again, I had the idea of downloading the ticketmaster app to get the ticket that way. This worked which got us into the inner stadium but we still needed to show our tickets again. They wouldn't let us in because we only had the english versions of the tickets because I had downloaded them using the US ticketmaster app. Again, the websit wasn't working so I couldn't access the tickets regularly. 45 minutes of attempts later, I finally had the idea of switching my iphone app store country to Mexico and downloaded mexican ticket master. This finally worked and got us in. 45 minutes late. Better late than never I guess. It was still a fun event. Fuck ticketmasterRead more
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Mexico with James Traveler
Oaxaca
Jan 26–Feb 4, 2024 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C
After mexico city, James and I flew to Oaxaca. Oaxaca was a very nice change of pace - it's a lot smaller and a lot more laid back. The buildings are extremely colorful. The temperature is also a lot warmer. We've spent the time working out of various beautiful, ornate cafes, sipping beers in front of majestic views of the city, and overall just enjoying ourselves and relaxing. The hostel we are staying at now (Iguana) is much more conducive to meeting fellow travelers compared to the CDMX hostel. It feels a lot more down to earth and people like to go to the rooftop to hangout and talk.Read more
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Mexico with James Traveler
El Tule, Mitla and Hierve El Agua
January 28, 2024 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C
Our second day in Oaxaca was spent doing tourist things. We booked a tour with our hostel. The tour proceeded to pick up some other people - all women in their 60s - 80s. We were on a senior grandmas trip! There were two dutch women in their 60s and three japanese women in their 70s accompanying us.

The dutch women both spoke fluent english. Two of the three japanese women spoke english, one spoke french, and the other spoke spanish! Very international.

We first stopped at El tule, the widest tree in the world. It's been cared for by the community for hundreds of years and is very special to them. It's been around for thousands of years.

We then proceeded to Mitla, an archaeological site. It was quite well preserved and there were a lot of cool geometric patterns inscribed into the walls. They called them "greco" designs though there is no proof of a connection between them and greek patterns. There was not much restoration - the site itself was in great condition. Interestingly, it seems that the Oaxacan peoples were not as into human sacrifice and violence compared to their Aztec neighbors - there was no mention of human sacrifice, skin flaying, or sacrifice induced warmongering.

We then went to Hierve El Agua, a petrified waterfall cascade. Similar to stalactites and stalagmites, calcium enriched water would falls down the side of the mountain for generations forming a visually aesthetic stone waterfall. There are also pools of water at the top that you can swim in (which we did!). It was overall very majestic and the mountains in the background were incredibly impressive.

The tour also involved a buffet (not included), a mezcal tasting, and a demonstration of traditional oaxacan weaving. While these things were obviously gimmicky tourist things, they did seem somewhat authentic and good quality. The food was actually really, really good and the weaving was quite impressive. I bought some mezcal at the mezcal tasting. Overall, a very good tour. Our tour guide was also great - her english was good and she was very good at explaining everything.Read more
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Mexico with James Traveler
Oaxaca, Cafes and Work and Beer
February 2, 2024 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
I just wanted to make this post to commemorate our time in Oaxaca. We've fallen into a routine where we will find some ridiculously aesthetic cafe, work during the day, and then go find some equally ridiculously aesthetic bar and have beers before returning to the hostel. It's a great life and I'll treasure the time I have here.Read more
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Trip end
February 4, 2024

Mexico City

Lucha Libre

Club América vs Querétaro

Oaxaca

El Tule, Mitla and Hierve El Agua

Oaxaca, Cafes and Work and Beer