Right so were now in Canada. We have been here for about 3 or 4 days. We are in the beautiful city of Vancouver. We flew from Mexico City where I managed to pick up a stomach bug just before I left. I did find it particularly awesome that I spent 2 months in Central America avoiding stomach bugs then on the day I have to travel I get one. Although I did get a stomach bug in Mexico City I would not let it put me off the food there as you can go to these wicked little Taco bars, they are almost like little kebab shops but sell Tacos. You have a variety of different beef, pork or chicken ones and they are awesome. They cost about 70p each and the beer is about 90p a bottle as well. They also have loads of different salsa’s and chillies and homemade sauces that you can put on your tacos. I think we had Tacos every day for about 3 days. I was happy. If your going to stay in Mexico city I would recommend staying at the Hostel Catedral (Cathedral) right in the centre of town. If your walk out of the Hostel and walk down Tacuba Street for about 5 mins or two blocks you will see this little kebab shop/Taco place on the corner. Go here and eat Tacos they are awesome. I am certain it was not this place that made me ill. There is one type of Taco called Suerado (Spelling might not be quite right) and it is pretty much sliced bits of fatty beef with chopped onion and coriander on top. Soooo good.
By Stuff
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Knitted Character: An introduction
So it has become time to introduce Knitted Character (KC Wooly to his friends). He shot to fame during a British TV show called Harry Hill's TV burp and is now taking a break from stardom to travel with us as mascot. He will be seeing the sites and getting in trouble. As in the TV show he will sometimes be hiding in our photos, so if you spot him leave a comment so we know what he's been up to!!!
Rock on KC
Rock on KC
Here he is at Teotihuacan
Museum of Anthropology
So having successfully navigated the metro we arrived at the Museum of Anthropology. It's a really cool pretty modern place with a huge column water feature in a main square. We got our tickets and check our bag in then got a audio tour doofer in English to share and headed to the first area. The audio tour was really good as most the written information was in Spanish but you could select different sections on the devise and get a little talk about what you were looking at.
The museum is massive, there is so much to see however their 3 main exhibits which are recommended to see are about the ancient tribes found in Mexico like the Teotihuacans, the Aztecs and the Maya, but the bit that interested us the most was a section about the evolution of humans. This included a cool model of what Lucy (Australopithecus) would have looked like (shes considered to be our oldest direct ancestor). They also had remains of mammoths and loads of other really cool stuff.
There was a lot of artifacts from the ancient tribes, including lots of decorative pottery and obsidian arrow heads. The Aztec area housed mostly large stone artifacts including a sacrificial alter which was a huge round carved stone with a dip in the center and a channel running out and a really cool massive circular calender (see photo).
After a few hours we decided to get some lunch before tackling the Maya exhibit. I don't know what it is about museums but they are exhausting. We refueled and soldiered on for a time but I'd hit a wall, I was overloaded with culture and my legs hurt. So having seen all we could take we headed off and to a little park outside to have a sit down.
Weirdly and this sounds like I was dreaming or been slipped some hallucinogenics, in the park were four men hanging upside down on ropes suspended from a spinning maypole. as the pole spun the ropes got longer slowly lowering them to the ground. one was playing a whistle and drums and one looked a lot like he had passed out. we took this in for a few moments, before a man asked for some money for the show. We gave him what change we had seeing as you don't see it everyday.
We headed back to the metro through a large park covered in children (the park that is not us, it was school holidays), and thankfully had a smooth homeward journey to wearily fall in to our hostel.
By Things
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The museum is massive, there is so much to see however their 3 main exhibits which are recommended to see are about the ancient tribes found in Mexico like the Teotihuacans, the Aztecs and the Maya, but the bit that interested us the most was a section about the evolution of humans. This included a cool model of what Lucy (Australopithecus) would have looked like (shes considered to be our oldest direct ancestor). They also had remains of mammoths and loads of other really cool stuff.
There was a lot of artifacts from the ancient tribes, including lots of decorative pottery and obsidian arrow heads. The Aztec area housed mostly large stone artifacts including a sacrificial alter which was a huge round carved stone with a dip in the center and a channel running out and a really cool massive circular calender (see photo).
After a few hours we decided to get some lunch before tackling the Maya exhibit. I don't know what it is about museums but they are exhausting. We refueled and soldiered on for a time but I'd hit a wall, I was overloaded with culture and my legs hurt. So having seen all we could take we headed off and to a little park outside to have a sit down.
Weirdly and this sounds like I was dreaming or been slipped some hallucinogenics, in the park were four men hanging upside down on ropes suspended from a spinning maypole. as the pole spun the ropes got longer slowly lowering them to the ground. one was playing a whistle and drums and one looked a lot like he had passed out. we took this in for a few moments, before a man asked for some money for the show. We gave him what change we had seeing as you don't see it everyday.
We headed back to the metro through a large park covered in children (the park that is not us, it was school holidays), and thankfully had a smooth homeward journey to wearily fall in to our hostel.
By Things
Photos of the Aztec calender and an upside down spinning man.
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Mexico Metro
Right so more culture was needed and we had only heard good things about the museum of Anthropology so that was next on the list. We decided that we would take the metro as it is called in this part of the world. I do not like the tube in London not sure why I just don’t dig it that much. The tube in Mexico city is super cheap we had to go about 7 stops on one line and 3 on another and it only cost us 6 pesos which is 15p each!!! So cheap!! The tube is crowded but I think that is like any city, it runs on time and it was clean. It did make me think I should right a letter to Boris Johnson informing him how shit the tube in London is and perhaps he should take a trip to Mexico to check theirs out. The most interesting thing about the tube in Mexico is the variety of sales people that you find on the trains. This also includes singers and beggars. We discovered that you can buy torches, razors, CD’s with the picture of naked women on the front, the guy selling the CD’s had a speaker strapped to his chest and was belting out the tunes he was selling. You could also buy sponges, chewing gum, sweets all sorts really, even donate to the blind dwarf guy who was singing some crazy song. There was also 2 little kids who must have been brothers, one about 8 and the other about 3 or 4 and they would hand out bits of paper as they didn't speak Spanish and it obviously asked for cash as they would then return collecting the bits of paper from people and small change. It was really sad to see. That was the tube experience, crazy but good.
By Stuff
By Stuff
Monday, July 22, 2013
Teotihuacan
Next stop was a village near Teotihuacan where we had a presentation on uses of cactus and obsidian in ancient and modern Mexico. We had some lunch that was super tasty, tried some booze that was made from cactus and then hopped on the bus to Teotihuacan. We arrived at Teotihuacan and were advised to buy ponchos as it might rain in a bit. So we did and it promptly pissed it down on us. We went to the temple of the moon and climbed as far as you‘re allowed. Pictures better describe this so check them out below (Check out knitted character for you Harry Hill nerds). This site was occupied by the Aztecs but it was actually built by an earlier culture The Teotihuacans. They occupied it from about 2000BC to 400BC, but had died out and moved on when the Aztecs rocked up to find a ready made city, with sacrificial stones and pyramids ready made, what more could you ask for. They named it Teotihuacan meaning City of Gods as they assumed it had been built by Gods.
From the Temple of the moon we walked down the avenue of death, so named as it has lines of smaller pyramids on one of which every 20 days some one was sacrificed marking the calendar. It was later used as an area for the people to pay their taxes so kept its name! On the avenue there are many small stalls selling what can only really be described as tat, awesome tat!!!!!! We could only resist for so long until we caved and purchased an eagle whistle. What is an eagle whistle I here you say, well it is a whistle shaped like an eagle that when you blow through it sounds exactly like a eagle!!! It is now Stuffs most prise position, he has taken to wearing it round his neck and blowing it when least expected, has not got old yet but we’ll see. It took all of our combined will power to not buy a jaguar whistle, this we still regret!
After ducking and diving the many kindly merchants desperate for us to buy more cheap tacky awesomeness we made it to the temple of the sun, and made for the summit. This was beautiful and the rain even stopped with a hint of sun on the descent. Very wearily, but triumphantly adorned with and eagle whistle we made our way to the meeting point for the coach to make our way home.
By Stuff and Things
From the Temple of the moon we walked down the avenue of death, so named as it has lines of smaller pyramids on one of which every 20 days some one was sacrificed marking the calendar. It was later used as an area for the people to pay their taxes so kept its name! On the avenue there are many small stalls selling what can only really be described as tat, awesome tat!!!!!! We could only resist for so long until we caved and purchased an eagle whistle. What is an eagle whistle I here you say, well it is a whistle shaped like an eagle that when you blow through it sounds exactly like a eagle!!! It is now Stuffs most prise position, he has taken to wearing it round his neck and blowing it when least expected, has not got old yet but we’ll see. It took all of our combined will power to not buy a jaguar whistle, this we still regret!
After ducking and diving the many kindly merchants desperate for us to buy more cheap tacky awesomeness we made it to the temple of the sun, and made for the summit. This was beautiful and the rain even stopped with a hint of sun on the descent. Very wearily, but triumphantly adorned with and eagle whistle we made our way to the meeting point for the coach to make our way home.
By Stuff and Things
Photos of a moody pyramid of the moon and KC up the pyramid of the moon showing the pyramid of the sun and avenue of death in the background.
The Road to Teotihuacan
We decided to go to Mexico City to do some cultural/educational stuff. As our friends already know we are the intellectual type of traveller always spending our time visiting museums, historical monuments, archaeological sites and never just hanging out at the beach surfing eating tasty food and loafing. So first thing we did was book ourselves onto the Teotihuacan tour.
This tours first stop is at a site in Mexico city called Tlatelolco which is the twin city of Tenochtitlan the Capital of the Aztecs. This is where Hernan Cortez who was a conquistador defeated the Aztecs and built a church using the remains of the Aztec pyramid he knocked down. This is considered the difficult birth of modern Mexico as it was this point onwards where the Spanish and Indian cultures really started to mix. It was also the site of a massacre of protesters by the military prior to the Mexican Olympics and one of the worst hit areas during the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake. Sensing the bad jue jue, we hoped we wouldn't be hanging around too long. We wondered around here for about 30-40 mins and we had a cool tour guide called Fernando who spoke good English so we knew what was going on. We saw the remains of the Aztec temple where they would cut people hearts out and show it to them, pretty brutal I thought, but it was considered an honour apparently. We then went into the big church was built in honour of Santiago who is the patron saint of killing Moors but in this Church he is depicted killing Indians. Cortez built the church in tribute to Santiago. This was the start of the conversion of the Aztecs and the rest of the Central American cultures.
We then hopped in the bus and went to the next stop which was the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe (VOG). This church is in tribute to VOG as she was the main reason the Aztecs were converted to Christianity. The Aztecs were not really that keen on Christianity (partly due to them not being down with crucifixion) until the VOG appeared to a local peasant on a hill and then made flowers appear that only grow in Spain and appeared on a rug or something. This hill was already important to the Aztecs and this allowed the VOG to be a bridge between the cultures and the conversion of the Aztecs to Christianity. In this region the VOG is still considered more important than Jesus, girl power baby!! Also at this site is newer church, The Basillica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that was built in the 1970’s and is the second most important Catholic pilgrimage site after the Vatican in Rome. Despite being really 70’s (in the ugly way as opposed to the cool way). It did however have a very impressive organ and to prevent people loitering (worshiping) too long in front of a super important image of the virgin it has a conveyor belt system, so everyone can see it, kind of a good idea but a bit weird.
By Stuff and Things
This tours first stop is at a site in Mexico city called Tlatelolco which is the twin city of Tenochtitlan the Capital of the Aztecs. This is where Hernan Cortez who was a conquistador defeated the Aztecs and built a church using the remains of the Aztec pyramid he knocked down. This is considered the difficult birth of modern Mexico as it was this point onwards where the Spanish and Indian cultures really started to mix. It was also the site of a massacre of protesters by the military prior to the Mexican Olympics and one of the worst hit areas during the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake. Sensing the bad jue jue, we hoped we wouldn't be hanging around too long. We wondered around here for about 30-40 mins and we had a cool tour guide called Fernando who spoke good English so we knew what was going on. We saw the remains of the Aztec temple where they would cut people hearts out and show it to them, pretty brutal I thought, but it was considered an honour apparently. We then went into the big church was built in honour of Santiago who is the patron saint of killing Moors but in this Church he is depicted killing Indians. Cortez built the church in tribute to Santiago. This was the start of the conversion of the Aztecs and the rest of the Central American cultures.
We then hopped in the bus and went to the next stop which was the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe (VOG). This church is in tribute to VOG as she was the main reason the Aztecs were converted to Christianity. The Aztecs were not really that keen on Christianity (partly due to them not being down with crucifixion) until the VOG appeared to a local peasant on a hill and then made flowers appear that only grow in Spain and appeared on a rug or something. This hill was already important to the Aztecs and this allowed the VOG to be a bridge between the cultures and the conversion of the Aztecs to Christianity. In this region the VOG is still considered more important than Jesus, girl power baby!! Also at this site is newer church, The Basillica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that was built in the 1970’s and is the second most important Catholic pilgrimage site after the Vatican in Rome. Despite being really 70’s (in the ugly way as opposed to the cool way). It did however have a very impressive organ and to prevent people loitering (worshiping) too long in front of a super important image of the virgin it has a conveyor belt system, so everyone can see it, kind of a good idea but a bit weird.
By Stuff and Things
Photos of stuff with the church of Santiago and the ugly popular 70's Church (The Basillica of Our Lady of Guadalupe).
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
The Big Smoke
After some difficulty arranging a train, plan or automobile out of Peurto Escondido, we settled on the night bus which we took last night at 19:40 and arrived in Mexico City this morning around 7:30. The night bus was pretty nice, very comfy recliney seats, weirdly our seats got changed and we think we may have been a little jipped as we ended up right by the toilets, but still it was the best bus we've had so far. Despite this sleep did not come easily partly because the driver was attempting to hit warp 10, often over speed bumps and we had the in ride entertainment of what we believed to be Sister Act 34 dubbed in Spanish followed by The Office dubbed in Spanish. I can't imagine The Office translates that well but good to see it travels.
We arrived safe and sound and following a slightly grumpy almost very unhelpful taxi driver made it to our hostel, which seems really nice. We have done a little exploring and on a whim we decided to go round the Spanish Inquisition Museum of Torture, it was an odd whim. We have also booked a tour to the slightly less grizzly Pyramid of the sun tomorrow, although it is Pre-Inka so will probably have some sacrifice involved somewhere!!!
That's it for now, off to the roof terrace bar to get our bearings!
By Things
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