Mexico City

Our flight from Havana went through Mexico City so we decided to stop off for a few nights and see what the smoggy capital city had to offer.

Being the extremely organised person I am, I had booked us into a hostel months in advance on a half price deal - a private room at Hostel Amigo for only NZD $20 per night including a breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup!

The only problem with Hostel Amigo was finding it. Our taxi driver let us off on a random street and told us to walk "that way" and without internet in Cuba I hadn't written down the address! Asking the locals where Hostel Amigo was proved fruitless as we were directed to about 5 different hostels, most likely because they thought we were asking: "Where is the hostel, friend?". 

We decided to head to the National Museum of Anthropology the following morning. This was the No. 1 tourist attraction on TripAdvisor and the route involved walking through Chapultepec Park so very scenic. We arrived at what we thought was the museum and stayed for about two hours browsing and couldn't help but wonder why on earth there was so many rave reviews about a museum where almost all of the displays were in Spanish. I also noted multiple times throughout the visit that it felt like we were in a castle, but Alex assured me we would be visiting the Chapultepec Castle later that day. After lunch we reviewed the map of the park again and realised that in fact we had been in the castle, and that the museum of Anthropology was further down the road - hilarious.

Just colour coding myself with the castle

Look at the size of that waist!!

Looked like it was out of Cinderella! Such ornate detail (to think we were in the Anthropology museum! Honestly).

Castle overlooking the city

Beautifully manicured gardens at Chapultepec Castle

The museum of Anthropology was gigantic, and we did get a little bored by the end of it. We would recommend tackling this at the start of the day. We had put too much energy into the palace and my conjunctivitis had reached boiling point by 4pm at which point Alex had to guide me around whilst I just closed my eyes, my very own guide dog. Our favourite section was the first one which featured all those 'Homo-.....' which were us before we became Homo Sapiens.

Lucy - an ancestor to all of us

Finger included for scale purposes. Our audio tour advised us that this was a pottery example from way back, we both burst out laughing - this honestly looked like a small piece of hard dog poo.

In search of a good coffee we decided to explore La Condesa the next day and came across a cool little farmers market and dog walking park. Whilst wandering back to the subway we found a little patio that had been set up as a market for the day and decided to order some ceviche from the pop up restaurant there. Oh my goodness it was amazing, possibly the best meal we had the entire time we'd been in Mexico. Needless to say we ordered another as well as some prawn tacos which did not disappoint either.

Being a Saturday we stupidly thought that the metro wouldn't be too busy, boy we were wrong. The crowds were so intense - we were jam-packed and when the train stopped at a station we thought surely no one else could possibly fit in here when what could only be described as a Mexican rugby scrum came tearing through the doors. Needless to say for the next ride I moved into the allocated women & children carriage and let Alex deal with the rugby scrum alone.

Next up - off to NYC!

xx