Mexico
"Duuude! You look like a hobo."
Those were the welcoming words that greeted me when I emerged from arrivals at Mexico City's main airport, the words of my great friend Daniel, who himself was on a bit of a trip, returning to his native country for a few months to work on a personal project. I hadn't realised just how much my beard had grown, growing from hipster to homeless in the three months since I saw him last, and his reaction was probably justified.
The trip started as it would mostly proceed and end, with lots of eating. We stopped off at a chain called Casa de Toño to sample some pozole rojo (soup), with some flautas and a little taco thrown in for good measure. It was a lot of food, but holy crap...flavor! Variety! Spice! Parts of my tongue were tingling, parts that hadn't tingled in months. Daniel had always hyped up the food in Mexico, and it made a spectacular start in living up to expectations. I was already looking forward to the next meal.
We made our way out of the Mexico City metropolis towards Cholula, where Daniel was staying with his parents. Cholula is a lovely little town, on the outskirts of the also lovely but bigger Puebla. After settling in, and stumbling through some Spanish with his mother, Daniel and I took off on the ten minute walk to the centre.
We caught up over more amazing food (tlacoyos and queso fundido con chorizo this time) and a fine assortment of mezcals at a local mezcaleria. Mezcal is the other spirit produced from the agave plant (tequila being the better known one), and from what I sampled it's a notch or two above tequila in terms of deliciousness. It doesn't transport very well however, usually being produced and sold locally, one of the reasons you don't see too much of it in other countries. I miss it already.
The next day was spent exploring Cholula and Puebla with Daniel and his parents. Cholulans like to boast that the town has 365 churches, although Wikipedia has a more conservative estimate of 159. Either way, with a population of less than 200,000, that's a lot of mass.
The most famous sight, the first place we visited after fuelling up on some coffee, was the Great Pyramid. As you can see above, it looks like a hill with a church on top, but in fact it's the largest pyramid known to exist in the world today. Access to the top was closed when we visited, but we got high enough for a panoramic view of the rest of the town and it's many church steeples.
We then made our way to Puebla, with the father and son team taking on the roles of chauffeur and navigator. Our first stop was for a late breakfast of delicious gorditos (literally "fatties" in Spanish), filled fried doughy little pancakes with what I would come to realise was the ubiquitous selection of spicy sauces. These were accompanied by molotes, all washed down with a chocolatey milky drink that was also delicious but I've forgotten the name of. Everything was made fresh before our eyes, as seems to be the case with all food in the country.
After getting some context at a museum located inside an old hilltop fort, and wandering through some old tunnels that were used to evade conflict in a previous century, the Serrano gang and I hit up the colonial-era centre. I was surprised by two things: one, the centre was so well preserved, and two, it was impeccably clean. Mexico is a country whose main news export is horrific stories related to drug gang warfare. It paints an image of a war zone, a country reduced to its knees by violence. Strolling around Puebla's jovial heart, a little buzzed on pulque and feeling completely safe, was, for want of a better metaphor, blowing that image of Mexico away.
Mole enchiladas supplied another sensation of flavour at lunch. By now I had worked out the system of eating in Mexico - Daniel orders loads of different things for me to eat, and, despite my stomach being close to bursting, I eat them, because they're so fucking delicious. As well as enchiladas, I tried chalupas poblanas, and tortilla soup. And because the dessert stomach is separate, despite feeling full to the brim a stroll down a nearby street lined with traditional dulce shops provided a delicious injection of sweet after so much savoury.
Dinner and the following morning's breakfast were home made with love by Daniel's mother, and kept the Mexican food standards high, in particular the tlacoyo with cream, cheese, salsa and avocado. It was time to leave the comfort blanket of the Mexican mammy though (Daniel's mother also did my clothes washing - Mexican mammies are just like Irish ones), and head out on a road trip to Tepoztlán, followed by the big smoke of Mexico City the following day.
The road trip started with a splash, with Daniel spilling his coffee all over his father's car. Eventually, we made it to Tepoztlán, which had a charming main street, though it was obvious that it catered to a lot of tourists, particularly the free-spirited hippy-ish kind. After checking in to our perfunctory hotel, Daniel and I climbed the steep 40 minute uphill to El Tepozteco pyramid, which had decent views over the whole town and some of the rocky surrounding scenery. The jagged, protruding rocks reminded me a great deal of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
After some guacamole during lunch that I'll dream about for years to come, we explored the old centre. I've seen my fair share of old churches on this trip, but one difference in Mexico is that many of them are being restored after the earthquake last year. It's amazing that, in a seismically active area, so many of them have even stayed standing this long (hundreds of years in most cases). Done with sightseeing, we went hunting for some craft beer, but ended up in a little mezcaleria at the end of town run by an interesting character who seemed to be a bit too fond of the drink he was selling. He regaled Daniel with some interesting sounding stories, which actually were when Daniel translated them for me - he used to work as a crab fisherman in Alaska, one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
The next morning was yet another food highlight - quesadillas in the local market for breakfast. The ingredients travelled from container to hotplate to my mouth over a total distance of about 1.5m - incredibly fresh ingredients. This was the best quesadilla I've ever had, and one of the best breakfasts. The food is amazing in Mexico.
Unfortunately, we couldn't sit and eat quesadillas in the market all day - it was time to make our way back to where I landed, to Mexico City. Daniel spent a large part of his youth in the place, and it was clear that he holds a love/hate relationship with it. The traffic is appalling, with near-constant gridlock on the lower-level roads. To fix this problem, the city planners decided to built another level of heavily tolled roads directly over the busiest thoroughfares. The end result is essentially a class system of road users, with the upper class roads sparsely dotted with nice, expensive cars and smooth journeys, and the lower class ones cramped with old bangers packed like sardines. We took the high road.
It still took a couple of hours to progress through the length of the city, emerging out of its northern boundary into Teotihuacan, the most famous of all the indigenous pyramid complexes in Mexico. It was a sunny 22 degrees, perfect weather for a stroll down the Avenue of the Dead to the mindbogglingly massive pyramids of the sun and moon. It was fun to imagine, looking up from the base of the Pyramid of the Sun, just what an ordinary person would think, seeing a distant figure at the top covered in glittering gold and feathers, performing a ritual sacrifice. It wasn't hard to see how they thought these people were gods.
Another trudge through gridlocked traffic, where Daniel's annoyance with the more frustrating aspects of Mexico City (such as forced windshield cleaning) was readily apparent, had the grand reward of tacos al pastor. A speciality of Mexico city, they're tacos with kebab meat, pineapple, and the ever present lime and hot sauces. So simple, yet so incredibly delicious. I'm longing for them again just writing this. I repeat, the food is amazing in Mexico.
We were staying with Daniel's old college mate Cristian, his girlfriend and friendly dog. A quiet night in was decent preparation for another round of sightseeing, starting the following morning in the bohemian area of Coyoacán. The wide, tree lined streets of the area are the most popular part of the city for expats to live in, and with a relaxed, prosperous vibe it was easy to see why.
After grabbing a quick coffee with chilli, we made our way more towards the centre, our next stop being Chapultec Castle, the only royal castle in the Americas, which now houses the National Museum of History. The outstanding feature of the museum was the amazing murals, full of social commentary stylishly illustrated, and highlighting the injustice that comes with the social stratification of the Mexican nation.
The first bad meal of the trip was had for lunch (which Daniel was genuinely upset about), followed by some gift shopping in a crafts market. The tour of the city now progressed to the centre proper, with a different perspective on the place provided from the top of the Torre Latino. After a walk down a busy pedestrian shopping street, a visit to a nativity art exhibition, and a wander around Zócalo (the city's main central plaza), we were both starting to feel the effects of a pretty hectic week. Once we returned to the apartment (which we now had to ourselves), energy levels were low. But this was a Friday night, in Mexico City, and it was also the last full night of my whole three month trip. There was no way I was staying in.
We Ubered to a close by hopping neighbourhood full of brewpubs. After struggling to find a decent local craft beer (the industry is still pretty immature here it seems), we decided to change tack and play some foosball instead. After getting distracted on the way by a kind-of-hipster-meets-Berlin music and leather party (I don't know how we ended up there), we eventually arrived at the bar with the foosball table, ready to renew our old rivalry from our Hothouse days (Hothouse was the Sydney company where we used to work together and first met). I have to admit, one of the things I enjoy most in life is beating Daniel at foosball, if only because he's so cocky when he plays.
There was a large crowd of locals surrounding the table, which we didn't expect. Sharing the same passion for the game that we had, these friendly folks became our gang for the rest of the night. Eventually Daniel and I got our deathmatch. We had had a few beers by that point though, so, ah, I don't remember who won. Super spicy tacos and a chat with some local pimps were the memorable parts of an epic but hazy journey home, a journey that finished at 5am. A fitting final night out in Latin America, and a great end to a magnificent Mexican week.
Daniel and I are not as young as we use to be, and with such a big night out the next day was a complete washout. Spending the whole day just chilling with an old friend wasn't such a bag thing though, and some tortas for dinner were a final reminder of how good food can be before I returned to the more gastronomically challenged Netherlands.
Seriously, did I mention that the food is amazing in Mexico? Go eat there.
More photos from Mexico
Those were the welcoming words that greeted me when I emerged from arrivals at Mexico City's main airport, the words of my great friend Daniel, who himself was on a bit of a trip, returning to his native country for a few months to work on a personal project. I hadn't realised just how much my beard had grown, growing from hipster to homeless in the three months since I saw him last, and his reaction was probably justified.
The trip started as it would mostly proceed and end, with lots of eating. We stopped off at a chain called Casa de Toño to sample some pozole rojo (soup), with some flautas and a little taco thrown in for good measure. It was a lot of food, but holy crap...flavor! Variety! Spice! Parts of my tongue were tingling, parts that hadn't tingled in months. Daniel had always hyped up the food in Mexico, and it made a spectacular start in living up to expectations. I was already looking forward to the next meal.
We made our way out of the Mexico City metropolis towards Cholula, where Daniel was staying with his parents. Cholula is a lovely little town, on the outskirts of the also lovely but bigger Puebla. After settling in, and stumbling through some Spanish with his mother, Daniel and I took off on the ten minute walk to the centre.
 |
| Delicious mezcal |
We caught up over more amazing food (tlacoyos and queso fundido con chorizo this time) and a fine assortment of mezcals at a local mezcaleria. Mezcal is the other spirit produced from the agave plant (tequila being the better known one), and from what I sampled it's a notch or two above tequila in terms of deliciousness. It doesn't transport very well however, usually being produced and sold locally, one of the reasons you don't see too much of it in other countries. I miss it already.
The next day was spent exploring Cholula and Puebla with Daniel and his parents. Cholulans like to boast that the town has 365 churches, although Wikipedia has a more conservative estimate of 159. Either way, with a population of less than 200,000, that's a lot of mass.
 |
| Great Pyramid of Cholula (Tlachihualtepetl) |
The most famous sight, the first place we visited after fuelling up on some coffee, was the Great Pyramid. As you can see above, it looks like a hill with a church on top, but in fact it's the largest pyramid known to exist in the world today. Access to the top was closed when we visited, but we got high enough for a panoramic view of the rest of the town and it's many church steeples.
 |
| Gorditos and gorditos |
We then made our way to Puebla, with the father and son team taking on the roles of chauffeur and navigator. Our first stop was for a late breakfast of delicious gorditos (literally "fatties" in Spanish), filled fried doughy little pancakes with what I would come to realise was the ubiquitous selection of spicy sauces. These were accompanied by molotes, all washed down with a chocolatey milky drink that was also delicious but I've forgotten the name of. Everything was made fresh before our eyes, as seems to be the case with all food in the country.
 |
| Puebla |
After getting some context at a museum located inside an old hilltop fort, and wandering through some old tunnels that were used to evade conflict in a previous century, the Serrano gang and I hit up the colonial-era centre. I was surprised by two things: one, the centre was so well preserved, and two, it was impeccably clean. Mexico is a country whose main news export is horrific stories related to drug gang warfare. It paints an image of a war zone, a country reduced to its knees by violence. Strolling around Puebla's jovial heart, a little buzzed on pulque and feeling completely safe, was, for want of a better metaphor, blowing that image of Mexico away.
Mole enchiladas supplied another sensation of flavour at lunch. By now I had worked out the system of eating in Mexico - Daniel orders loads of different things for me to eat, and, despite my stomach being close to bursting, I eat them, because they're so fucking delicious. As well as enchiladas, I tried chalupas poblanas, and tortilla soup. And because the dessert stomach is separate, despite feeling full to the brim a stroll down a nearby street lined with traditional dulce shops provided a delicious injection of sweet after so much savoury.
Dinner and the following morning's breakfast were home made with love by Daniel's mother, and kept the Mexican food standards high, in particular the tlacoyo with cream, cheese, salsa and avocado. It was time to leave the comfort blanket of the Mexican mammy though (Daniel's mother also did my clothes washing - Mexican mammies are just like Irish ones), and head out on a road trip to Tepoztlán, followed by the big smoke of Mexico City the following day.
 |
| Tepoztlán |
After some guacamole during lunch that I'll dream about for years to come, we explored the old centre. I've seen my fair share of old churches on this trip, but one difference in Mexico is that many of them are being restored after the earthquake last year. It's amazing that, in a seismically active area, so many of them have even stayed standing this long (hundreds of years in most cases). Done with sightseeing, we went hunting for some craft beer, but ended up in a little mezcaleria at the end of town run by an interesting character who seemed to be a bit too fond of the drink he was selling. He regaled Daniel with some interesting sounding stories, which actually were when Daniel translated them for me - he used to work as a crab fisherman in Alaska, one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
The next morning was yet another food highlight - quesadillas in the local market for breakfast. The ingredients travelled from container to hotplate to my mouth over a total distance of about 1.5m - incredibly fresh ingredients. This was the best quesadilla I've ever had, and one of the best breakfasts. The food is amazing in Mexico.
Unfortunately, we couldn't sit and eat quesadillas in the market all day - it was time to make our way back to where I landed, to Mexico City. Daniel spent a large part of his youth in the place, and it was clear that he holds a love/hate relationship with it. The traffic is appalling, with near-constant gridlock on the lower-level roads. To fix this problem, the city planners decided to built another level of heavily tolled roads directly over the busiest thoroughfares. The end result is essentially a class system of road users, with the upper class roads sparsely dotted with nice, expensive cars and smooth journeys, and the lower class ones cramped with old bangers packed like sardines. We took the high road.
 |
| Teotihuacan |
It still took a couple of hours to progress through the length of the city, emerging out of its northern boundary into Teotihuacan, the most famous of all the indigenous pyramid complexes in Mexico. It was a sunny 22 degrees, perfect weather for a stroll down the Avenue of the Dead to the mindbogglingly massive pyramids of the sun and moon. It was fun to imagine, looking up from the base of the Pyramid of the Sun, just what an ordinary person would think, seeing a distant figure at the top covered in glittering gold and feathers, performing a ritual sacrifice. It wasn't hard to see how they thought these people were gods.
 |
| Tacos al pastor |
Another trudge through gridlocked traffic, where Daniel's annoyance with the more frustrating aspects of Mexico City (such as forced windshield cleaning) was readily apparent, had the grand reward of tacos al pastor. A speciality of Mexico city, they're tacos with kebab meat, pineapple, and the ever present lime and hot sauces. So simple, yet so incredibly delicious. I'm longing for them again just writing this. I repeat, the food is amazing in Mexico.
We were staying with Daniel's old college mate Cristian, his girlfriend and friendly dog. A quiet night in was decent preparation for another round of sightseeing, starting the following morning in the bohemian area of Coyoacán. The wide, tree lined streets of the area are the most popular part of the city for expats to live in, and with a relaxed, prosperous vibe it was easy to see why.
After grabbing a quick coffee with chilli, we made our way more towards the centre, our next stop being Chapultec Castle, the only royal castle in the Americas, which now houses the National Museum of History. The outstanding feature of the museum was the amazing murals, full of social commentary stylishly illustrated, and highlighting the injustice that comes with the social stratification of the Mexican nation.
The first bad meal of the trip was had for lunch (which Daniel was genuinely upset about), followed by some gift shopping in a crafts market. The tour of the city now progressed to the centre proper, with a different perspective on the place provided from the top of the Torre Latino. After a walk down a busy pedestrian shopping street, a visit to a nativity art exhibition, and a wander around Zócalo (the city's main central plaza), we were both starting to feel the effects of a pretty hectic week. Once we returned to the apartment (which we now had to ourselves), energy levels were low. But this was a Friday night, in Mexico City, and it was also the last full night of my whole three month trip. There was no way I was staying in.
We Ubered to a close by hopping neighbourhood full of brewpubs. After struggling to find a decent local craft beer (the industry is still pretty immature here it seems), we decided to change tack and play some foosball instead. After getting distracted on the way by a kind-of-hipster-meets-Berlin music and leather party (I don't know how we ended up there), we eventually arrived at the bar with the foosball table, ready to renew our old rivalry from our Hothouse days (Hothouse was the Sydney company where we used to work together and first met). I have to admit, one of the things I enjoy most in life is beating Daniel at foosball, if only because he's so cocky when he plays.
There was a large crowd of locals surrounding the table, which we didn't expect. Sharing the same passion for the game that we had, these friendly folks became our gang for the rest of the night. Eventually Daniel and I got our deathmatch. We had had a few beers by that point though, so, ah, I don't remember who won. Super spicy tacos and a chat with some local pimps were the memorable parts of an epic but hazy journey home, a journey that finished at 5am. A fitting final night out in Latin America, and a great end to a magnificent Mexican week.
Daniel and I are not as young as we use to be, and with such a big night out the next day was a complete washout. Spending the whole day just chilling with an old friend wasn't such a bag thing though, and some tortas for dinner were a final reminder of how good food can be before I returned to the more gastronomically challenged Netherlands.
Seriously, did I mention that the food is amazing in Mexico? Go eat there.
More photos from Mexico
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