Travels with Hayley

Welcome to Mexico! Or ‘Meh-hee-co’ as I’ll be pretentiously pronouncing it for the duration, obviously…

Day 1 was entirely taken up with getting here, lovely flight with BA, tons of leg room and delicious food – how often can you say that!

My home for the next 5 nights is the Hotel Zocalo Central and it’s just beautiful. Full of Mexican curios and art, a 24 hour cafe free to all guests (Sandwich at 3am? Balsamic strawberry salad at 10am? Fresh cakes and Diet Coke all day every day? I’m in heaven already 😂)

After a decent nights sleep I checked out the hotel breakfast – I’m not normally a fan but when your table has a view like this, it kind of changes things. Tried a little of everything and can confirm all is delicious, especially the little sugary cakes. Only tried the buffet today, I will go a la carte later in the week and keep you all updated!

Headed out in an Uber about half an hour away to a district called Coyoacán which translates as ‘Place of the Coyotes’. Fortunately, bar a couple of statues there didn’t seem to be many of them prowling about the place…

Met up with a small tour group and walked around the town. It’s really lovely, very quiet and chilled with no high rise buildings, lots of tiny parks around every corner and greenery and flowers everywhere. The reason the tour is held there is it’s where Frida Kahlo lived so we heard a bit about her and her husband Diego Rivera and their lives. That woman had it hard, first polio as a child and then hit by a tram at 17 where she was skewered by a pole through her back and uterus. 22 operations later she marries an ugly man who is 20 years older than her, who consistently cheats on her (although sounds like she did her fair share of gadding about too in the interests of being fair…) and finally had to have her leg amputated before she died at 47. Poor woman! Nice house though – more on that later…

Actually, talking of the skewering accident above, there was a funny incident where the guide Rolf was telling the story and told us she was hit by a ‘trolley’. Now, about half an hour later he points out a similar trolley which turns out to be like one of those mini trains on wheels that go up and down the front at seaside resorts – and not, in fact, a Sainsbury’s shopping trolley which is what I’d first thought of, not knowing this secondary use of the word! I did realise something couldn’t have been quite right there! I told Rolf and he was crying laughing – with me I’m sure, rather than at me…😂

We stopped at the first church ever built in Mexico, the Frida Kahlo park and admired some of the local architecture.

We chatted more about Frida and Diego (apparently he was very ‘ragey’ – I’m going to start using that as an adjective) and then topped up our energy with some amazing churros which Rolf produced like a sugary magical trick from his backpack. I’m not normally bothered by them at home but these were incredible – crispy, sweet, cinnamony – I feel I might have to conduct a churros tour of Mexico while I’m here, just for research purposes you understand…

After another wander around we stopped at a food place – I don’t really know what to call it – it had about half a dozen different stands inside it but the front was open to the street – kind of like a mini food court being held out of a large garage! We tried tacos with huitlacoche which is a fungus which grows on ears of corn. That sounds gross until you remember mushrooms are a fungus and that’s exactly what it tasted like! We tried a spicy pork one too, both delicious and I braved the green sauce (the less spicy of red/green) – maybe next time I’ll go racy and go red. Maybe…

Exploring more, we checked out a set of buildings built around a central courtyard which used to all be private, very expensive homes but which are now a restaurant, function rooms etc. The colours were so vibrant and beautiful, apparently the style is called folkloric and is very traditional. Just gorgeous.

Last stop at an indoor market for a light lunch of a tostada (crispy tortilla with a cold topping) and an aguas which is a flavoured, sweetened water. I went for the chicken mole (pronounced mo-lay) which is a traditional Mexican sauce that has chocolate in, and a guanábana water. They were great and usefully, the exact food stand we went to I had marked on my map of places to visit having read someone’s blog post about it. So that’s one to check off the list without any effort whatsoever! We also tried 2 different fruits, neither one I could name if you put a gun to my head – one tasted like a rich, sweeter pear, the other was like a creamy, less perfumed papaya although it looked like a sweet potato!

We were dropped at the Frida Kahlo museum where the tour ended and we were free to look around ourselves. It’s housed in La Casa Azul (the blue house) where Frida lived almost all of her life – it was her family home and then Diego bought it for her later on.

It’s filled with her pictures, photos, clothes and all the pieces she collected over the years which showcase her wide interests in science, nature, politics, the arts etc.

She was a formidable woman, the medical contraptions she had to wear were hideous but she painted them and made them part of her outfits which shows extraordinary strength of character I think. I’d read a novel last year which was partially set in La Casa Azul and went into lots of details about Frida and Diego’s life (The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, excellent book, would recommend) – it felt really special to actually be there in person to see it.

Once I’d drunk in everything I could and spent some time sitting in the lovely gardens (Frida loved the gardens and had them replanted exclusively with Mexican indigenous plants) I went for a last wander around the area, checked out the snacks, bought a bracelet in homage to Frida’s love of jewellery (50/50 on whether they are real gold nuggets or not, one would certainly hope so at £3…) saw some classy souvenirs – and some…less classy ones, and then jumped into an Uber back to the hotel.

I had dinner at the hotel booked and made it all the way up to the balcony restaurant and had a drink at the bar – before looking at the wildly fancy and wildly expensive menu and realising I was both not fancy enough and very much unlikely to stay awake long enough to appreciate it! So made my way downstairs instead to the freebie cafe for sopa de tortilla (Mexican tomato soup), chilli crisps and a Coke. Then some strawberries and a mini muffin takeaway, currently being consumed in bed! All gratis and frankly, much more my speed than the posh fare upstairs 😂 You can take the girl out of Kent…!

Early night as getting picked up at 5.20am tomorrow for the hot air ballooning!!! So far I’m loving Meh-hee-co 😍

Lots of love always xxx