Last day in Mexico. An excellent breakfast offered by our hosts: fresh orange juice, fried nopal (a variety of cactus), aguacate, beans, fried eggs with some nopal again, some unidentified vegetable with the taste similar to zucchini, boiled carrots.
Then we went for some shopping for some three hours. Then an as delicious lunch as the breakfast and then straight to the airport, saying goodbye to our very hospitable hosts, the Garrido-Martinez family.
Wednesday was the day we visited the pyramids in Teotihuacan, some 40 km from the capital. An impressive site of the Aztecs. We climbed both the Sun Pyramid and the Moon Pyramid and walked to the Temple Quetzalcoatl (Temple of the Feathered Snake). In we evening we had an unbelivably delicious dinner.
On Tueusday morning we left Puebla by bus shortly after 8. We arrived in Mexico City around eleven and went straight for a sightseeing tour. We visited shortly the Find Arts Museum, then the Garribaldi Square where the "mariachi" play their guitars. Them we climbed up the Torre Latinoamericana from where we admired the views over the city (139 meters height).
Then we visited Zocalo, the main central square of the city, and next to it the Government Palace which has some famous murals by Diego Rivera, the husband of Frida Kahlo.
Next during our tour was the Chapultepec Castle, a really beautiful place, something like the Peles Castle in Romania. After that we got back to Zocalo for dinner.
On the second day in Puebla we went for lunch around 11.30, as we had an early breakfast around 7.30, and of course, they were not serving lunch at that time. So we went for a small juice (half a liter glass) and a fruit salad. Well, we had no idea how big the portion was, so we fought with it for some time and it ultimately turned out to be our lunch.
After "the lunch" we visited Cholula, a village near Puebla, where the Spaniards built a church on top of a pyramid, to defy the locals. After returning to Puebla, we went for more shopping.
On Saturday evening we got on the bus towards Puebla - an over 8 hours trip. The bus had only 24 sits on 3 rows, with sits which can be set up as almost horizontal beds. An unbelivable experience, and by the way, the bus network in Mexico is very well developed, covering the whole country, with modern coaches and huge bus stations, as they have almost no trains at all.
Puebla is an old historical city built completely by the Spanish. Its center resembles to a European Middle Age city. One outstanding characteristic is that it has lots of churches, almost one on each street. We took a hotel in the center for 2 nights for about 22 eur a night for a double room (same price as a hostel private ensuite). We then realized it was a 4 star hotel (but actually it did not look to be more than 2 stars).
The ground floor of all the buildings are shops. It seems everybody has something to sell... And the majority of them are shoe shops - all of them offering the same models. In addition, they prepare food on the street, soup, nachos, anything. People eat on the street, by the kiosk, sitting on a small chair, keeping the plate in their hands.
Villahermosa might not be a beautiful city, but it has some interesting sites. We visited two of them on Saturday.
The first one: Parque de la Venta - an outdoor museum of ancient stone sculptures as old as 1000 BC, having as most famous attraction an over 20 tons stone head; it also hosts a Zoo with some exotic animals.
The second one was the Yumká National Reservation, a huge area where one can experience the Tropical jungle, the savanna and lagoons. Beside the local fauna it is also the home of some imported African animals.
We arrived in Villahermosa on Friday morning, took a basic hotel room in the center and spent the afternoon shopping. The prices are unbelivable (the food - about 3 eur for lunch; jeans, shorts - 5 to 7 eur). No famous brands, but nice shops. And the streets were also full of all small kiosks, selling anything one could imagine.
We went to the beach around 9 after the usual breakfast (4-5 types of fruits - melon, water melon, papaya, grapefruit and pineapple - some toast with butter and jam and coffee or tea ). After 2 hours the sun was too hot, we packed and checked out.
After lunch we took a cab to Tulum center and walked the whole day through the bazars. The bus to Villahermosa, our next stop, leaves at 23:30. We'll be there after 10 tomorrow morning.
A day visiting the old ruins in the Mayan "capital" Chichen Itza, some 130 km from Tulum. We took a bus at 9 and arrived there around 11:30. Hot day! The hottest so far probably.
The area on which the ruins are located is quite large. It was very difficult to walk through the heat. Before getting onto the bus for the return trip we had a delicious Mexican lunch.
This pyramid in Chichen Itza is one of the 7 wonders of the world's seven wonders.
Today we got up for the sunrise around six.
We took a walk on the beach and were surprised to discover the traces of a turtle which dug a nest, laid the eggs, covered it back and returned into the sea. Judging by the traces, the turtle must have been at least 1 meter, most probably over.
Later, on the sand alley between the cottages, a crab was dragging its shell..JPEG)
Then we visited Tulum, the ruins. Close to there, some local people dressed up in Mayan traditional costumes performed a ritual, hanging down an unfolding rope while turning.
We arrived to Tulum and went straight to the "hotel", some 5km from the center (where the ancient Mayan ruins are located). The "hotel" is actually a mini village of some tens of Mayan cottages, right on the seaside and on the edge of the tropical forest. During the lunch, an iguana visited us on the terrace. Later in the evening a lizzard climbed up the window net.
We stayed in Cancun only for a night, as our flight arrived late in the evening. During the next day we headed towards Tulum, an ancient Mayan place.
We visited Frida Kahlo's house in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City about 20 km south.
The customs officer stamped the inner cover of my passport, by mistake. We arrived with 5 hours delay, around midnight, after 28 hours.
Finally boarded, the aircraft was heading to the take off runway, but suprisingly, after about almost 30 minutes of taxiing the captain announced that due to a technical problem we had to return to the gate. We were told there was some problem with the door. An update after about 20 minutes informed us that actually they were suspecting a fuel leakage from the left wing. They would empty first the tank to check if it was broken or if the leakage was due to the tank being too full. Ten minutes later we were also told that we would wait in the airplane and not go out, because if we went out the crew would need to change as they would exceed the maximum allowed working hours due to the delay. At this point we were already 2 hours late with the take off. After another 20 minutes the captain announced that the tank was being filled in with the fuel we had consumed (so they had not emptied it after all). It seemed the tank was ok and we would be ready for take off in half an hour, that is 3 hours after the schedulled time.
An over eleven hours flight ahead after a sandwich, some pizza, a coke and 5 hours in Amsterdam. My longest flight so far was 4 hours. We are now boarding on a double deck airplane. The next post will be from Mexico.
Early flight at 6.15 from Helsinki to Amsterdam. It is always a bit of a pity to leave Finland when it is nice weather over there. Because there's so little of it during a year. We are flying KLM, with a 5 hour break in the Holland's capital. Interesting thing, the pilot turned the seat belt sign off immediately after the take off, while the plane was still going up very steep.
