In place of the amenities which nearby town-folk may have enjoyed, I had rolling green fields in which to run, streams and rivers in which to play and miles upon miles of country roads on which to cycle. As a young child not yet in the age of mobile phones or the Internet, it was the perfect way to spend growing up.
The only downside to this quaint way of life was it fostering a fear of places which were bigger and scarier... which at the time was pretty much anywhere and everywhere that wasn't home.
I remember well as a kid visiting my cousins in the nearby 'big' city and always being overwhelmed. It was weird being in a terraced house with no garden and on a street which had more residents than twice the population of my home-hamlet. There was always noise, even at night, and it was never properly dark. Whilst I always had fun with my cousins, the city was not somewhere I enjoyed being and not somewhere I'd ever imagine being attracted to.
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| El Torre Latino America |
In the greater Mexico City area there resides 21.2 million people. That's more than 100,000 times the size of the place I grew up, nearly two and a half times the population of London and almost as many people as live in all of Australia. It is staggeringly huge.
Nick and I would come to spend 8 nights here in this metropolis and given these were his final days on the trip we were both keen to make good use of the time we had. I'll recount that time we had now.
Our first evening was spent in the company of Alina, who I met first here 5 years ago when she and her lovely family hosted me for a few nights on CouchSurfing. She's wonderfully sarcastic, incredibly funny and just lovely to be around.
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| Alina and myself out in Condesa |
By day, Nick and I spent a good amount of time walking around parts of the city. Most notably, we made our way up to Chapultepec castle which boasts great views over Reforma, a surprisingly modern and metropolitan part of the city.
We split our 8 nights between two different hostels, the second of which was pretty much as a central as you could get and overlooked the central cathedral.
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| Zocalo Cathedral in the centre of Mexico City |
By night, our time was spent like pretty much like most of our other nights here in Mexico - out drinking. We found a bar early on just a couple of blocks from the Cathedral which we both became quite partial towards and it was here that I had the best margarita of my life. We also enjoyed for the time in our lives a 'chupecito', a small and incredibly strong little drink made up of Kahlua, Baileys and Absinthe. It sounds disgusting but was actually quite delectable.
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| Our favourite bar in Mexico City, La Pata Negra |
During our first weekend we were invited to hangout with Kattia and her friends through CouchSurfing in Coyoacan. Having had stuff stolen on the metro earlier that afternoon we weren't on arrival perhaps in the best of moods but it was nothing a dozen or so shots of tequila couldn't sort.
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| Kattia, Matteo, Shimul, Fery, Nick and Myself out in Coyoacan |
On one of the evenings, we ate the best tacos I've ever had in my life.
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| The best tacos I've ever eaten |
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| Our last night in La Pata Negra with Moises, Me (Drunk), Nick (Drunk), Adrian (Drunk) and Alina |