Travels with Hayley

Up before the larks (or the Mexican bird equivalent I suppose…) as the car picked me up at 5.20 to head out towards the pyramids. Hilarity ensued as I got straight into the drivers seat, I forgot it’s the opposite side here! ‘Do you want to drive?’ asked Juan Carlos – only a person who lives on another continent from my previous driving escapades would ask that question eh…!

We drove out of the city for an hour in the cool darkness, the journey broken by the occasional random sight such as this statue in the middle of the highway called El Vigilante (photos stolen from google as the car was going too fast to get one) – take a look at the size of the door to get an idea of the scale of this thing. Having it loom up from nowhere out of the darkness is quite something when you’re half asleep still!

We arrived at the hot air balloon site where everything was super slick – you got a poncho to keep warm as it was freezing, signed a waiver form (nothing to do with us if you die etc etc, standard boiler plate stuff…) and ate a sad snack called pan dulce which is just a slightly sweet bread roll – I had higher hopes for it but it filled a gap at least!

Then a quick video about the pyramids site using VR goggles which was a first for me. Super weird, I kept trying to lean my elbows on the table but I had no concept of where anything in real life was at all so kept slipping off 😂 Disconcertingly it had been dark when I put on the headset on and when I took it off it was daylight – I can see how you could lose entire chunks of time without realising with one of those. Back to reality and with elbows firmly back in place we watched them inflate the enormous balloons and gathered for the off.

Into the basket we went (there is absolutely no way to climb into one of those elegantly, I was extremely glad I had chosen not to wear a skirt…) and suddenly we were gliding through the air.

It was wonderful, I loved every second. It’s a very weird sensation, it’s so smooth it doesn’t really feel like you’re flying or up high at all, if it wasn’t for the cars and people on the ground below being pocket sized you really wouldn’t know.

We glided over the ancient pyramids and the fields and towns surrounding them, joined by dozens of other balloons, all hanging suspended in the sky like baubles on a giant Christmas tree.

The ride itself and the view of the pyramids was beautiful, but my favourite part was being up there with all of the other balloons, there was something almost spiritual about it, time felt as though it slowed right down. We watched as the sun burnt its way up over the mountains, and everyone and everything just became quiet.

Ever so slightly altering the spiritual vibe was when the – captain? Balloonist? Not sure what to call him – turned on some music – very quietly but ever so often you’d get a snatch of song – one memorable one had a woman singing about her lost love – apparently she loathes him, she’s extremely glad she’ll never have to see his mother again (know that story, amen sister…😳), F him and everyone he knows but she will in fact miss his dog. So that added to the mood…😂

We flew over a town where the streets were festooned with rainbow coloured and glittery metallic streamers to celebrate a saints birthday (I like a deity that appreciates a bit of bling don’t you…) and then started our descent. The captain had radioed in our landing spot so a dozen guys were on the ground running to catch the basket as it landed.

I’m not sure if he was excited to see his buddies, or perhaps distracted by the angry lady singing, but he misjudged it a bit and – long story short – there’s one less tree in Mexico than there was this morning! We just plowed straight through it! If I was being charitable I would say it was more of a large sapling – emphasis on the ‘was’… Two of the girls on the trip shared the transport back to base with all the balloon guys – she speaks Spanish so could eavesdrop on their conversation and reported back that apparently they absolutely rinsed the poor guy the entire way back to base 😂 He’ll never live it down, he’ll have some kind of derogatory tree based nickname by this time tomorrow I have no doubt at all.

We celebrated our ‘safe’ landing with a plastic thimble of ‘champagne’ while the shamed pilot did some nifty parallel parking/flying of the basket up onto the trailer (that he could do…🙄) and headed back to base where we jumped in the car to take us back to the pyramids for our guided tour, safely on terra firma this time.

Choosing to do the tour meant foregoing the option of breakfast so luckily, they had handed out mini cakes to all those celebrating special occasions at the balloon ride (note to self, lie through teeth in the future when asked if it’s a special occasion, free food could be in the offing…) and there was a spare one which we nabbed and shared between 4 of us, digging in with plastic spoons in the car! Our driver Juan Carlos tried some too – for professional purposes only you understand – they have recently changed supplier from a large bakery (‘you are lucky for getting this one, the old cakes – not good…’) to one of the members of staff’s mum baking them instead 😍. I have no idea what it was, maybe some form of tres leches cake but it was like heaven, we scraped the plate in minutes. Juan Carlos pronounced it ‘mmm, juicy’ – which I’m taking to mean moist I think?! I shouldn’t mock his English, he couldn’t understand my accent at all (bit of a running theme, they are so used to American accents as it is chock full of Americans here that a British accent totally throws them) and he told me ‘today, you are challenging my English skills’! Always glad to be of disservice…

We met our lovely guide and headed off into Teotihuacan (city of the gods) . It was fairly interesting and we learnt a lot about the ancient civilisations and how they share many similarities across the world – for example, the base of the pyramid of the sun here is almost exactly the same length as the biggest pyramid in Egypt – coincidence…? However, while the Egyptian pyramids were burial chambers, these are solid and apparently built in homage to the mountains surrounding them in their likeness.

Other interesting facts included how the pyramids are held together with an ancient form of concrete made with ground rocks, limestone and sticky cactus juice and that the whole facade was painted red in it’s heyday (bits of the original paint are still remaining which is pretty amazing bearing in mind it’s 1,800 years old ). My personal favourite fact however was that in 1987 Plació Domingo stood on top of one of the pyramids and sung opera to the thousands of people standing below without having to use a microphone as the site is laid out in such a way it’s has an incredibly powerful natural way of echoing and increasing the volume. That must have been some concert!

It was nice enough but mainly I loved how excited our guide got about everything, especially as she must have said it 1000 times before – whereas I in parts have to admit to somewhat cynically just seeing some old stones 😂. A lot of it was reconstructed in the early 1900’s which has left a bit of a patchwork effect to the whole thing but it’s still pretty spectacular if you aren’t being cynical 😂

One of my favourite parts of the site was there are thousands of comedically large cacti around – until I saw one of these I didn’t realise how much I actually wanted to see one – turns out a lot! I was wildly overexcited! Expect many further pictures of oversized plant life to come your way during this trip I suspect…

Back in the Juan Carlos mobile back to town with the tunes blasting – I’ve been a bit surprised by the music choices of all of the drivers over here thus far I have to say – I’m yet to hear a single song of Latin music – English songs have featured exclusively and today ABBA was somewhat prevalent!

I was determined to have a rest when I got back until my next trip this afternoon but tourist guilt got the better of me and I ended up wandering around the local area for a couple of hours, just people watching and checking out the sights and sounds (and smells!)

I think I’m in the Oxford Street equivalent kind of area but there’s a really weird proliferation of opticians and perfume shops – literally dozens, if not hundreds of both within a tiny area, often 6 or 8 next door to each other. Is Mexico’s eyesight that bad? Do they smell that good? There’s also a surprising number of sex shops around – is Mexico having loads of very exciting sex – or maybe not very much at all and it’s very boring so there’s a big market to spice it up! These are the sophisticated cultural conundrums you come here for I know…

A shower and an Uber later and I’d made my way across town to meet ‘Emmanuel’, a salsa teacher I’d found online who offers a small group salsa class and then to take you off dancing at a bar for an hour. Turns out the small group was very small in that it was just me! So I got a 121 private lesson.

I was really, really nervous about this one and to be honest, if it was refundable I probably would have chickened out and cancelled. This however, is the universe’s way of saying feel the fear and do it anyway as it ended up being absolutley wonderful, incredible and truly a core memory made. I’m buzzing about it still.

We met in the park where Emmanuel put on some salsa music and he checked out what dancing level I was – yes there were people around watching but I decided – I’ll never see them again and what’s nicer than seeing someone having fun anyway so I threw myself into it! After an hour of teaching me a different style of dance called Cumbia as he declared my salsa ‘very good, we don’t need to practice that’ (hilarious but I’ll take it!) we went off to the bar.

I don’t know how many of you know why I started taking salsa classes – when I was in Costa Rica this time last year, I ended up in a local bar with the tour group and all the locals there were salsa dancing. The guide showed me the basic steps so I could go basically back and forward and side to side but I loved it and vowed that the next time I was in that part of the world I would be able to go to a local bar and dance well enough to not to shame myself.

Tonight I kept that promise to myself and it felt utterly incredible. The bar we went to had exactly the same kind of vibe as the one in Costa Rica – I was the only non Mexican in the whole place bar a very sweet, young Singaporean girl there on her own who made a beeline to join us when she heard English being spoken! Everyone else was local, there was a huge birthday party happening, a live band all dressed in matching suits and people of all ages, sizes and talents were dancing, laughing and generally packing the whole place full of total joy. Oh – and all this is from 6.30 on a Wednesday night! By 8pm you could barely squeeze onto the dance floor.

Emmanuel and I danced pretty much every dance from 6pm to 8.30, a full hour after the time with him was supposed to finish – we escaped when the band took a break as both of our legs were like jelly at that point and we were both more sweat than person! It was the most fun and I really felt like he had a great time too which was lovely. The owner even asked to take our picture for their social media – it’s a terrible photo, I look sweaty and revolting so we won’t be following them to check it out 😂

We were chatting about life in London and Mexico and he gave me a funny look and said ‘I hear you right, you are from London?’ I said yes, why? He replied ‘Because other people from England I dance with they are (indicates standing very stiffly, holding at arms length, straight face) and you are (indicates swinging hips, smiling, dancing close) and you have all of the good energy, I feel it from you so I think, I hear her wrong, she cannot be from London!’ So a compliment for me and a big diss for the motherland but sod patriotism, I’m taking it! Long live the Latin spirit in me 😂

The only duff point of the night if you can call it that was the experience included a drink of pulque, it’s a traditional Mexican drink made from the fermented sap of the agave plant. Ooh it’s not good. The texture is like aloe vera, gloopy but with a slightly fibrous feel. I had one sip and Emmanuel, who is a fan, very graciously polished off the rest while I moved onto the hard stuff and got myself a big bottle of water instead 😂 I’m fairly sure at least one if not two more of my tours I have booked have tastings of it on them too, I’ll be politely making my excuses there – or even non politely to be honest, as long as I don’t have to drink it again!

I headed back towards the hotel in an Uber, but as we were stuck in traffic, I noticed El Moro up ahead which is the most famous churros shop in Mexico City and had been on my list to try so I got the driver to let me out there instead and headed in.

I have to say, I think they are very overrated in my, very much not expert opinion, the ones yesterday were so much better. These were so crispy they were hard, had no fluffy inside and were too dry. They are also famous for their chocolate drinks, hot and cold of which they do 5 varieties. The waitress recommended the Mexican special cold which I tried – it’s not been a good evening for drinks frankly as that’s still sitting on the table with one sip taken out of it! I didn’t actually know there was a chocolate based product I could actively dislike but there we have it, it has been thus proven!

Back to the hotel, via the freebie cafe for a Diet Coke (how am I going to go back to paying for food and drinks at the end of this week, I’ll be devastated) and I’m currently lying in bed writing all this up.

Tomorrow I’m off on a market and boat tour and then a couple of the girls who were in the balloon today are off salsa dancing and got my number from the guide to text me and ask me along which was super sweet of them so I’m going there (this one doesn’t start until 9pm, I’ll have to have a disco nap won’t I!). I might even treat myself to a lie in and leisurely breakfast with a view, I am on holiday after all 😜

Lots of love to you all always xx