Travels with Hayley

Today’s tour started at 9.30 in the main square – I was looking for Fernando in ‘pink shorts and a red wine coloured shirt’ which I thought was very descriptive! Once the group had gathered – 9 today, the usual Americans but with a Canadian and a Nigerian thrown in for variety – we set off. We took the metro underground train way out of the city to Iztapalapa (pronounced Iz-tap-a-lapa and meaning ‘water over obsidian stones’) which is a very working class district about 8 miles from the city centre.

This is the only tour that goes to this district, tourism absolutely doesn’t exist there so it was a totally different experience than anything I’ve done previously – Fernando says he wants to get people away from the tourist bubble and ‘hipster land’ as he called the place I was in yesterday afternoon with the dog hotel!

The subway itself is pretty similar to the London Underground except that it’s a fixed price per journey no matter how far you go – 5 pesos which is around 25p. 22 million people travel into Mexico City each day and the subway bears the brunt of it although they do have buses and trams too. Each train has a dedicated women and children’s section to try and cut down on harassment (wouldn’t it be nice if those men could just behave better so we wouldn’t need this, but it’s a smart initiative). It’s super super bumpy in places, a sports bra might have been a good investment 😂 The stations were full of art and murals like everywhere here, it was nice experience especially as it was early and not too busy.

We had a quick stop to go inside a government building which had a kind of indoor garden with a huge mural, explaining again about Mexico’s ancient history, right up to when the Catholic Church converted the country. A fascinating thing I learned was that every Easter in Iztapalapa they recreate the crucifixion of Christ – a young man who must have been born in the district and of good health is chosen to play Jesus – the whole thing is authentic bar the nails and the dying bit – he is dragged through town tied to a cross wearing a crown of thorns and then flayed 😳 2 million people each year go and watch it! I feel like maybe Mexico needs better tv if that’s their idea of entertainment.

Back on the subway (or the orange limousine as Fernando called it), there was a bizarre episode where a guy came on with hundreds of pairs of nail clippers and tried to sell them to us – how is that a business, who is in emergency need of an additional pair of nail clippers mid train journey?! Not only was that weird enough, exactly the same thing happened with a different guy on the journey back. What is going on with Mexico’s nails?!

We jumped off at the end of the line to transfer to the cable car. This is quite an operation, the gondolas circulate constantly without stopping, you have 9 seconds to jump in or it leaves without you! 184 gondolas are running at any one time, it runs 5am- 11pm, is 10.6km long, costs 7 pesos per ride and it’s aim is to get people from the suburbs to connecting metro lines much faster than the ground transportation. It’s been a huge success since its inception in 2016 with 100,000 people per day using it.

It’s also so peaceful and beautiful. In a truly amazing initiative, at the same time the cable car was under construction, the Mexican government paid a whole host of artists to paint murals on the roofs of the houses on the cable car route, and painted for free the houses of the inhabitants on the mountain so as you fly over, the whole vista is brightly coloured and decorated.

Advertising and propaganda is banned and all of the murals follow themes like nature, children, history, women’s rights etc. Cool air flows in through vents in the roof of the gondola and you can hear the wind, birds chirping and the occasional snatch of music below. Also spotted on rooftops were lots of washing lines and homemade piñatas drying in the sunshine! Iztapalapa is famous for it’s art, it’s everywhere you look – just in this province alone are over 10,300 murals!

Our first stop was the main centre of the town. This was exactly what I came here to see, the real Mexico with people just going about their business. It’s known as a very poor and quite dangerous neighbourhood but it was so beautiful, just bright colours and art everywhere you looked.

Our first stop was to a social initiative called Utopia, it’s one of 12 of them across the province (8 more should be launched by 2027) and it’s just incredible. The aim is to raise the quality of living for everyone living there – the area has been historically very stigmatised, it’s a low income and historically dangerous area and the people there (22% of the entire population of Mexico City live there, almost 2 million people) often feel trapped by their circumstances. This initiative is looking to change this perception and raise people up in both their own, and the wider population’s estimation. They put on hundreds of courses in absolutely anything you can think of – computer programming, dance, accounting, piñata making, cookery – the guide reeled off at least 40 different things off the top of his head. All of them are 100% free. There’s concert halls, sports courts, swimming pools – the list was endless.

2 of the Utopias have something extra special and we visited one of those. The mayor managed to persuade an airline who were retiring a couple of old 747’s to donate them. These have been parked up, painted with flowers, the seats stripped out and replaced with computer terminals so people can come and use the internet for free, and the overhead lockers are filled with library books.

It was just wonderful – it’s a really practical solution to a problem (you know how much I appreciate a bit of practicality!) and the whole thing was really touching. Fernando pointed out that for most people in the area, this will be the closest they have ever been to a plane. It’s not an area that people have money to travel so this apparently has been really inspirational, especially for the kids.

Next stop was to a local market where we stopped for a taco (also where 2 women rolled their eyes and laughed at us looking around and taking pictures – they might not have said it out loud, but the message of ‘idiot gringos’ could not have been more obvious!) The taco was delicious, the best one I’ve had. It’s called carnitas which is quite a fatty pork, but cooked in a way it was so tender!

I bought dessert for the group to share – fresh mango topped with chamoy (the spicy fruit paste from the top of last night’s michelada), lime juice and Miguelito which is a type of chilli powder. Half of the group were brave and got stuck in, not so much the other half! Their loss, it was delicious!

We went to the very end of the cable car line, snapping pictures and chatting all the way. The guide was really interesting and rattled off information faster than I have ever heard anyone speak. He also basically jogged everywhere – there was a slightly larger American lady on the tour and at one point we had to stop as she was sucking on an inhaler and looked ready to pass out!

Back to the city on the metro to the last stop of a pulqueria that’s been there since 1903. It was a cool place but very sadly a specialist venue that sells only that horrible slimy drink I was given at the first salsa club – and on the canal boat too! They are determined you’ll try this stuff while you’re here. Fernando was convinced I would change my mind about it, apparently this venue makes the very best one, I would feel differently, it’s delicious. Fernando lies…It’s just awful – the picture below with the thin stream coming from the jug, that’s a gloopy string just hanging from it 🤢

Aside from the pulque, this was my favourite tour I had done since I’d been here. I absolutely loved seeing all the murals from the air and it was so nice seeing such a beautiful part of the city that normally gets overlooked. I feel so lucky to be able to do all these things.

After escaping the pulque, I wanted to spend a couple of hours resting up outdoors but out of the sunshine. Fernando recommended a hotel with a roof terrace about 15 minutes walk away so I headed over there. It was sooo fancy and hipster, almost sitting on top of the cathedral so the view was amazing. Full of young hip Americans in tiny bikinis and designer sunglasses whereas I was covered in dust and filthy! But my money is as good as anyone else’s (even if I did order the cheapest thing on the menu, a large bottle of fizzy water at £3.50!) and spent a very relaxing couple of hours sitting by the pool in the shade.

I walked back through the main square (the Zocalo) which was full of Saturday madness, more people than you can possibly imagine selling everything under the sun, calling from balconies to get you to come into their restaurant, performing cleansing rituals with burning sage – all forms of humanity were going on! Retrieved my bag from the lovely hotel and got a cab through the insane traffic to the very serviceable but not nearly as lovely, sadly, hotel where the Intrepid tour is starting.

My taxi driver – Alan (Alan!!) spoke great English and we laughed and joked the whole way. He told me again it’s hard for them to understand English accents when they are so used to American ones – in fact he said English accents and Indian are both hard and basically the same to them?! I must work on my American drawl…After writing that Mexicans hadn’t been that friendly yesterday, every person I’ve met today has been really kind and smiley – must be weekend fever!

Got to the new hotel with 15 minutes to spare before the welcome meeting as the traffic was so bad, rushed into my room like a tornado and probably scared my new roommate to death with frantic explanations of how I did definetly want to talk to her but I had about 12 minutes left to shower and look presentable. Poor woman, I’d known her less than 30 seconds and had stripped all my clothes off in front of her 😂

Met 6 other people on the tour, the last couple’s plane from Ireland had been delayed so we will hopefully meet them tomorrow. So far we have 4 girls including me travelling alone representing England, Scotland, Belgium (I might need to check that actually…Sweden maybe?!) and Australia, a single guy from the states and a couple from Australia too. The guide is called JJ and he seems very cool (he has a nose ring and an undercut so I assume he must be cool anyway…) and we all headed out to a local restaurant for dinner. It was a really fun place, basically the cuisine here seems to be all the meats in all the breads – so today I tried a torta which is like a big roll, with pastor which is grilled pork cooked on an upright spit. It came with crema, which is like a less tangy sour cream, avocado, tomato, coriander, onions and Oaxaca cheese which seems to be like mozzarella. It was absolutely delicious but huge – I managed half and picked a few bits out of the second half – Dad, I couldn’t even finish the expensive bit 😜 Along with a fresh guanábana drink and a bottle of water it set me back about £8.50. I’m just sad I don’t have a fridge, that other half would have been great for lunch tomorrow!

Speaking of tomorrow, we’re doing a walking tour around the city – to be honest I think I’ve seen most of what we’re seeing already, but JJ assures me I’ve not had the JJ guide experience so it will all be different so I’m going with it! He’s under pressure to deliver now…!

Lots of love always xxx

Ps. Please remember to leave your name on any comments on here, I’ve got lovely things being said and no idea who from sometimes! Thanking you kindly 🥰