The adventure begins in Mexico City

Hola from Mexico! Hope you're ready for an essay and a half.

We began this three month trip by arriving in Mexico City after the longest 12th January ever - approximately 43 hours for us or something ridiculous. Literally arrived about 4 hours after we left NZ but with some 20something hours of travel and horrendous immigration lines at LAX in between! The wonders of time travel. It was almost midnight though by the time we got to our hostel and obviously pitch black so we didn't really know where we were arriving to but the city looked massive from above. I guess if 22 million people live here then it has to be.

We spent our first three nights in Mexico City, starting to familiarise ourselves with the language, culture and food. While we tried to learn some basic Spanish before we arrived, it has quickly become apparent that we are going to need to learn a lot more! Basically apart from the hostel receptionists, no one speaks English. In some ways I suppose we had expected particularly in the city that they might speak a little bit of English as they do in so many European cities and quite a lot of Southeast Asia too, but at the same time it is nice to have to make more of an effort to get by and it gives us something to do in our downtime! However I think also the more we get to the coast, the more English speaking there will be, but we will try our best to keep speaking Spanish instead.

Another aspect we've had to adjust to was the altitude. Mexico City itself sits at 2,250m above sea level. For the most part it was fine until you climbed a few stairs and felt out of breath abnormally quickly. We've been finding ourselves more tired than usual as well but nothing a little "feet up" as Mike would call it, can't fix.

The first day in Mexico City we quickly learnt that the locals tend to dress quite conservatively, as I first went out wearing a long sleeved dress that came to above the knee as it was quite warm (mid 20s) but with the looks I was getting, I may as well have been wearing a bikini! Even Mike wearing shorts seemed not so much the norm. So we didn't last long before I felt truly uncomfortable and we went back to get changed into some trousers. It's so interesting how differently you can be perceived by what you wear. No second looks after that and lesson learnt.

One problem we found with the Spanish that we've learnt is that it's obviously it is mainland Spanish and although it's mostly the same, Latin American Spanish does have some differences or rather Mexican foods obviously aren't covered so we found ourselves not really having any idea what things were on the menu or even which meats were involved! This is because even though for example, cerdo is pork they will call it different things on a menu depending on how it is cooked. But anyway that first evening we went deep on trying some tacos from a street food stall and went for a mix of the meat options not knowing what any of them were. Some ended up to be a mix of what's seemed to be chorizo and pork and then we later found out with the assistance of google, that one may have been goat... interesting. At least we didn't end up with the liver that is offered at some of the other taco joints!

That same night we went to see one of the Lucha Libre fight nights which is similar to WWF wrestling, quite staged but pretty funny as well. We went with a group from the hostel which was a laugh. The amount of snacks and drinks being sold in the aisles throughout all the different matches as well was insane, chips, popcorn and god knows what else but there was something different every minute I swear. As soon as you finished your beer they'd be ready to serve you another as well, truly hustling all night long. One experience of this was enough for us but it seems that some of the locals are avid followers and clearly each have their favourite fighters to support!

The following day we headed south of the city via the extremely cheap metro to Xochimilco. I'm talking like 5pesos (33cents NZ or 19p) a trip each, which takes you as far as you want. I'm not saying NZ public transport needs to be that level of cheap but maybe people would actually use it if it was more affordable like that! Anyway, at Xochimilco they have canals that you can hire a boat for an hour or two and take food and drinks or buy them along the way from other boats. It was fun to see/do and clearly an activity that families do perhaps for special occasions or with friends. There are mariachi bands as well that will come onto your boat and play a few songs as well if you wish. Quite a fun idea really.

The following day we also briefly went to see Frida Kahlo's bright blue house - funny as I studied her and her art when I was at school. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go in to the house/museum that it is now, as the lines outside were silly and we had a bus to catch!Read more