Trip Report – Dublin, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta

[JDB]

NorthernLass wrote:

Pesos – they will accept USD in some places but you’ll probably get a poor exchange rate. It’s not like some Caribbean destinations where USD is interchangeable with the local currency.

Yes, USD are not necessary at all in Mexico. The Mexican Peso is a relatively stable currency so there’s no great advantage to local people to insist on dollars unless to catch you on the exchange. Cards are very widely accepted and if you do have a surplus of pesos one can put them towards a last hotel/restaurant bill, duty free or charity!

[NorthernLass]

Unless you’re American, it seems pointless taking USD instead of MXN! Most travel agents seem to stock them, and you can load up Revolut or similar and exchange directly from GBP.

@CJD, I’m normally terrible at adjusting to time differences so always pack prescription and over the counter sleep aids for the first 3 or 4 nights. I’m usually wiped out going West, but last night didn’t feel very tired at all despite going to bed about 4 am U.K. time.

Off out to get some sunlight now and re-set the circadian rhythms! It’s supposed to be 27 C later but the locals are all bundled up in their big coats and hats 😂

[CJD]

Haha I experienced similar in Madrid in May this year. Was there for my cousin’s stag do, don’t think it went below 23° all weekend, we were in shorts but the locals were wrapped up like it was winter.

[NorthernLass]

Day 1

After a very enjoyable breakfast of eclectic items at the hotel buffet, we made our way into the Historic Zone for some sightseeing. We have a silly holiday ritual of visiting any locations of Bond films on our travels, so had a look at the Zócalo and the beautiful interior of the Gran Hotel, as featured in Spectre.

We then had a wander around the Metropolitan Cathedral – one of the biggest in the world and sinking into its not very substantial foundations!

Then for the highlight of the day – a visit to the Templo Mayor archaeological complex and museum. This is where you can get an idea of what the city of Tenochtitlan looked like before the Spanish built all over it. Excavations are ongoing and continually throwing up interesting (and macabre) finds, like the walls and towers of skulls made from sacrificial victims. It certainly got us in the mood for our day out to Teotihuacán tomorrow!

Note – you’re not allowed to take any F & B onto the site, even a small bottle of water. There’s a cloak room where you can leave any offending bags!

The area was very busy with street vendors, school trips and more police than I’ve ever seen in one place. I think there might have been a couple of demonstrations but we didn’t see any kind of unrest.

The hotel has a nice little outdoor pool and it’s plenty warm enough for us Anglos to have a swim and get some rays before dinner and an early night 😴

[JDB]

Sounds like a good first day. Did you peep inside the Casa de los Azulejos as well? The cathedral is quite impressive but when visiting most churches in the Americas, my wife reminds me that they were built yesterday, 700 or more years after some of our cathedrals!

[NorthernLass]

We admired the exterior! I know what you mean about the churches but I’m fascinated by the psychology of religion and particularly the Roman Catholic preoccupation with miracles and relics. You can find some grisly remnants in a surprising number of places!

Day 2 was mainly taken up with our visit to Teotihuacan. This was a real bucket list item for me and it didn’t disappoint.

I booked with Viator but it looked like the tours were much of a muchness. You can also get there by bus but the organised tours aren’t very expensive and it’s always good to have a guide who’s an expert in the field.

The scale of the place is breathtaking – the only drawback with the tour is that it was a bit of a whirlwind and we didn’t have time to visit the museum. It wasn’t overly crowded either, so there were plenty of opportunities to get great photos.

I’d recommend reading up on the history of Teotihuacan and the Mexica civilisation in general before visiting; presumably because there were children there there was quite a lot of glossing over the subject of “offerings to the gods” and all that entailed!

Be aware it is very hot there and there’s virtually no shade. Even though it was the end of November we needed lots of sunscreen and water, I hate to think what it’s like in the height of summer. (At the start and end point of the tour there are places to buy water and ice lollies which you will definitely need!)

Although it’s now only permitted to climb one of the actual temples (the Temple of the Serpent), there was still a lot of climbing up and down very steep and poorly maintained steps with no handrails and no management of the flow of people in both directions!
The only wheelchair accessible point was near the Temple of the Moon, at the final stage of the tour.

If you’re a history/archaeology but like me this place is an absolute must, especially as excavations are ongoing and recent finds have shed a huge amount of light on the purpose and function of the site.

[Michael C]

Glad you’re having a great time and fab write-ups, Anna.
And a really good piece of advice about reading up: I hadn’t done
so before visiting Teotihuacan and felt quite ignorant and completely
unprepared for how overwhelmingly stunning it is!

[NorthernLass]

Day 3

We partially master public transport.

Public transport is very, very cheap – about 20p for any journey within CDMX. This includes buses, the metro and the new cable car system (Cablebús), of which there are now 3 around the city (OH is refusing to try one out in case they terminate in a dodgy area 🙄).

You need a prepaid card for all these, however when we got to the bus stop, the machines there were only for topping up cards, not buying them (you possibly need to go to a metro station or newsagent). A kindly engineer who was working on some cables at the bus stop offered to sell us a card he had already – people are really lovely and helpful here!

The bus was clean, comfortable and fantastically air-conditioned, with screens showing where the next stop is and alternately serving a security function. Downstairs was rammed to the gills with passengers but upstairs was half empty!

*Here’s an article by someone who has actually got to ride the cable cars! We saw them overhead en route to Teotihuacan and they did look great fun. They’re primarily to encourage residents in the suburbs to take up jobs in the city by offering a faster commute, but outside the rush hour periods they are apparently very enjoyable for the views.

https://bmorenomadic.com/cdmx-cablebus/

[NorthernLass]

National Museum of Anthropology

This is located in Chapultepec Park, which is a nice shady spot for a stroll in itself and which was very busy on a Saturday with locals and stalls selling all kinds of food and souvenirs.

The museum costs just 95 pesos to get in and is vast and quite overwhelming, with halls dedicated to each area of Mexico. To get the best out of a single visit you might want to pick 2/3 areas you’re really interested in and stick to those. I’d recommend the Teotihuacan display, plus the Mexica and Maya. The latter has an impressive reproduction of the tomb of King Pakal from Palenque (plus the original grave goods, including the stunning jade death mask).

Quite a lot of the signage is in Spanish only so it’s helpful if you have someone to translate, or use the free WiFi.

The museum contains a huge number of stunning artefacts with maps, recreations and comprehensive information about the life and times of the people who created them. However, be aware there’s quite a bit of focus on ritual mutilation/sacrifice/cannibalism and not a trigger warning in sight!

[NorthernLass]

Day 4 & 5

Yesterday was mainly shopping for Xmas stuff we won’t have time to get on our return (plus children especially like presents from other countries!) If you want to shop, CDMX has many malls plus of course the shops in the city centre of all varieties.

We got the metro to Parque Delta because it had both Sephora and Bath & Bodyworks which were on my list! Prices aren’t very different from Europe and the US, and they don’t seem to have as many sales and discounts as their American neighbours.

We’re saving souvenir shopping for our return here at the end of our trip to minimise the amount of stuff we lug to PV and back!

Tip about the metro – it’s pretty much as simple to use as the bus, but much more hot and crowded. Local wisdom seems to be to avoid it at night. There are separate waiting and seating areas for women and children, and police officers posted in the stations, so it feels like safety is a priority.

The weather has been delightfully warm and clear (relatively). I recommend getting a room on a high floor if you’re in that kind of hotel, because the views at dawn and sunset (when the smog has lifted) across the tops of the beautiful buildings and the surrounding volcanoes and mountains are stunning. Popocatépetl continues to spew out smoke, but apparently this has been going on for several years now …

[NorthernLass]

A couple of personal ruminations …

Lots of things about CDMX have surprised me. (I think OH is mainly surprised that we haven’t been kidnapped. I compounded this fear the other day when we passed a load of plaques set into the pavement. I am in automatic translation mode at the moment (though he has learned to ask the egg chef at breakfast for dos huevos fritos, to add to his very limited Spanish repertoire.) Anyway, without thinking I said, “Oh – these plaques are all commemorating people who have been kidnapped or “disappeared” …)

I was surprised to learn while surfing the net in bed last night that Hernán Cortés is buried right here in CDMX and no one seems particularly affronted by this; in fact I have seen him referred to as “padre de México”! The church which houses his tomb also marks the spot of his first encounter with Moctezuma, so we’re planning to see it when we’re back here as a definite historical curiosity!

[JDB]

@NorthernLass – ¿ aren’t fried eggs in Mexico, more usually ‘huevos estrellados’? Lots of new vocab in Mexico which is very confusing as those words then often aren’t understood in Spain or South America.

[NorthernLass]

You are right there are lots of different words! But the chef obviously knew what we meant – possibly the large number of Americans who stay there means they’re used to different terminology among the nationalities.

[CJD]

How have you been dining? The food is one of the things I’m most looking forward to in CDMX.

[Michael C]

JDB wrote:

@NorthernLass – ¿ aren’t fried eggs in Mexico, more usually ‘huevos estrellados’? Lots of new vocab in Mexico which is very confusing as those words then often aren’t understood in Spain or South America.

Fritos are crispy, estrellados have soft egg white!

[Michael C]

Loving reading this vicariously – and yes please NL, hit us with the food and drink descriptions!

[JDB]

Michael C wrote:

JDB wrote:

@NorthernLass – ¿ aren’t fried eggs in Mexico, more usually ‘huevos estrellados’? Lots of new vocab in Mexico which is very confusing as those words then often aren’t understood in Spain or South America.

Fritos are crispy, estrellados have soft egg white!

¡No es verdad! Try jugo de toronja, popote, papas, lentes, camión (= bus), torta (= sandwich) and durazno etc.

[NorthernLass]

I must admit we have been lazy about dining as we’ve been exhausted by early evening and there are 3 restaurants in the hotel! El Cardenal is a very popular chain restaurant which serves very reasonably priced Mexican fare – you can check out the menu online, though we only saw Spanish versions. Google translate helped OH avoid beef with grasshopper sauce the other night 😂
The chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese and smothered with mole (not the furry animal 😂) sauce was very good.

Sonora is a steak restaurant – another chain and no doubt @JDB needs smelling salts by now but they do posh cuts of meat plus interesting takes on traditional dishes – we had slow-cooked brisket tacos with various sides. They bring you house nachos with 6 (!) different dipping sauces to nibble on while you wait.

I promise to be more adventurous in the coming days now we can stay awake past 8pm 😂.

A couple more tips. CDMX has free public WiFi which works very well, as long as you’re not like one of my friends, a cyber security expert who has conniptions at the very mention of public WiFi 🙈.

The Salon Premier in T2 is actually not a bad place to wait for a flight. There are hot and cold snacks which we haven’t tried as we ate before security, and every drink you can think of, which the servers will bring to your table or booth.

[JDB]

@NorthernLass – El Cardenal is a smallish group of restaurants that have been around for a very long home rather than a chain. We like the one on Calle de la Palma. Can’t say we really eat beef or lamb in Mexico though. Fish/shellfish (you should still be able to get soft shell crab as well), pork and chicken are more their thing. Enjoy PV.

[CJD]

Is the Salon Premier the lounge of choice for internal flights?

[NorthernLass]

It’s the one we had access to, but there was a sign telling PP and other cardholders to go elsewhere as they were at capacity. We managed to find 2 seats together though. You need to follow the “VIP” signs after security (where you don’t need to remove liquids!) and there’s a lift and stairs up to the mezzanine where the lounge is.

@JDB, I stand corrected on El Cardenal and I am pleased you rate it! We’ll look for that one on our return to CDMX.

Our short flight to PV last night went very smoothly. AM Premier Clase is extremely comfortable – the bin between the seats for your belongings is a genius idea, especially as we were in row 1. Luggage was out immediately on arrival.

Tip – Ubers seem to be more expensive than in CDMX, but we may have just arrived at a busy time. We were approached by a few men trying to persuade to us get one of the airport “autorizado” taxis but they weren’t aggressive. I don’t know if this is normal, but our Uber driver called us and instructed us to cross the pedestrian bridge to the other side of the dual carriageway to meet him. Fortunately we’re able-bodied as we had a lot of luggage!

[can2]

I have been lazy in going back to Mexico, thanks for the inspiration @NorthernLass
And the anthropological museum is one of the best in the world, I think. I made a long reading list after my visit there some years ago, yet fell far from going through it unfortunately

[NorthernLass]

I’m already planning how to return and see more! We did an organised tour of some of the sites in Yucatan plus Cancun about 20 years ago but this is our first visit since then.

Even further back we visited a family friend who lived in Uvalde, Texas. She took us across the border at Piedras Negras a couple of times as although she was wealthy, she was extremely thrifty (you can take the lass of out of the north, etc 😂), and did all her shopping and got her prescriptions filled in Mexico!

Obviously it’s a vast place and you just scratch the surface with each trip. 🤞🤞🤞the scuba diving here is up to scratch as that’s what will convince OH!

[NorthernLass]

Probably should add, there’s a long list of areas which the FCDO advises against all but essential travel to (including over land to Zihuatanejo, which @JDB has mentioned previously).

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/mexico

[JDB]

@NorthernLass – yes, the Zihua by air only advice has been in place for some years as has the prohibition on travel there by US government employees although we met one couple employed by the federal govt there in wildlife protection so we took some comfort going kayaking with them in a lagoon with lots of crocodiles! Afterwards we went swimming (not in that lagoon) and she got bitten by a scorpion that had got into her towel. Shake your towel out!

Fisherman wade in those lagoons and the crocodiles seem very relaxed. They do sometimes cross the road at night and are best avoided!

There are similar advisories for Jalisco state (excluding PV). Guerrero state where Acapulco is, has been rather lawless for a while, but Zihua and the coast up to the Michoacán border is really very sleepy.