First Impressions.....

Tam: Mexico City, I must admit, at first was not all to write home about. It could have been that we had taken 19 hours on a bus to get there, found it difficult to find decent accomodation in our price range and our first day exploring the historic centre (centro historico) was on foot getting lost in and amongst at least 20 millipn people. Not mention the pollution, foul smell and very noisy hotel.

But gradually as we got to know the place we discovered some really great things. First the centro historico is full of beautiful ornate buildings, we visited the main cathedral in the zocalo (main plaza) and walking in, it takes your breath away. The cathedral is enormous, there is gold everywhere and statues of the many saints that are prayed to, little altars and pews are gated in for worshippers to go onnand light candles and on some paintings people attach little photoa of themselves. Near one saint's altar was a table full of thousands of locks chained together with little ribbons with writing on it. One of the most impressive sight was seeing the massive organ pipes, huge!

Walking through the historic centre, you also notice that most of the older buildings are leaning to one side and sinking. There are remnants of old water ways too ( canals where gondolas would have traversed throughout the city before the lake was drained by the spanish). Most of the crowd in this part of town are there to shop. Being xmas, the streets are literally lined with noisy vendors selling scarves, shoes, toys, belts - everything. You have to weave your way through the crowd. One street is dedicated pretty much to one set of products, we saw beauty products being sold in tiendas on one street with one store holding tonnes of Ponds and Dove creams in plastic vats where if you want to buy you pay a small price and a plastic bag is filled with your cream or gel. In one plaza, all your printing needs are catered for where they still use vintage style printers set up in the square to print you wedding invitations, business cards, calendars etc. We spent some time wondering through wracking pur brain for ideas to get something printed.

Along our walk too we checked out murals adorning the local market, beautiful murals on the walls and ceilings. And most impressive of all is the zocalo, where for xmas the city square is turned into a winter wonderland, a huge ice skating rink, snow mobiles for kids, tabogganing, sculptures and games. The square is always packed with families making use of the fun activities. On our last night, we had a wonderful filling buffet dinner at la Terazza overlooking the square at night, lit up with christmas lights.

But sometimes, the noise and crowd can get too much. So on our second day we went to Condesa (think Paddington or Toorak) just a metro ride away and well worth the 3 pesos! Beautiful resturants line the quiet streets and the neighbourhood is presented with fountains and parks for the locals to sit and chat and walk their dogs. A lot of the charm of the place is where the cafes, bars amd restaurants all meet surrounding the small roundabouts at each of the intersections ( think fiveways Paddo) and in the middle of the street are walkways lined with trees and benches making it a pretty walk to your lovely colourful apartment. I also had a lovely glass of white wine for the first time in months, a lovely drop from Portugal whilst Coxy sipped a beer and we had some bread and salsas al fresco in very Parisian looking chairs facing the street. Condesa certainly is a place to stay if you lived in Mexico. That night we had more drinks at Bar Vincent before heading back to our hotel.

A definite highlight for Mexico city and an injection of some real retail therapy for me was discovering Coyoacan, another leafy suburb several metro stops away from the city. This suburb is where Frida Khalo lived and her house has been turned into a museum with her works and hubby's Diego Rivera (a very famous Mexican muralist). Its also cool funky part of town much bigger than Condesa with a ritzy shopping centre and nearby "plaza ( square) centennario" , four quadrants lined with bars and restaurants and a pretty park in the centre. This place bustles with the cool kids as does the restaurant strip down the road. Here we checked out "La Bipolar" (owned by "Y Tu Mama Tambien" actor) which reminded us of St Kilda on a weekend trying the wine and "antojitos" ; spicy tatters and jamaica flower and cheese quesadillitas. Next stop, "Cafe Bizarro" a hard rock tiny bar, decked out in day of the dead decor with a rustic theme, here we had to purchase food with our drink so ordered fresh cucumber slices with a ranch dip. Final stop was a restaurant in the plaza where we had beer and a refreshing chicken salad watching the locals meet up and get ready to go out for the night. Worth a mention too is my first purchases from Zara, not on a whim mind you, its fast approaching our USA leg and our cargo pants and leggings are not going to cut it in the Big Apple. Was a lot of fun shopping for non souvenir stuff and im record time purchasing a xmas present for Coxy too!

One of the real highlights of Mexico City was Friday night Luche Libre wrestling. It is huge here, big bulky guys most of them wearing colourful face masks flinging themselves acoss the ring (and often outside of the ring) to the shouts of the crowd. We got into the spirit and purchased masks of our own, munched on popcorn and drank Corona ( excellent service too, they come to you for your order - no leaving you seat and waiting in a queue!). The wrestlers usually are "goodies" or baddies" and they can get up to 10 in a ring. Its a great night out and even better if you are in good seats and can see these guys up close (we were right on the runway). The atmosphere is mixed too, alot of families and kids, even babies are thrust infront of their heroes, there is an older crowd, ritzy crowd and of course touristy crowd.

Finally on our last day on Sunday we took advantage of the mayor's dedictaion to promoting green travel. In a bid to get more "chilangos" to try cycling rather than drive, the main boulevard stretching over 12 kms Paseo de Reforma is closed off to all cars. Police section off intersections and volunteers are everywhere directing traffic and cycylists to safety.
Coxy and I also took advantage of the free mountaib bikes for hire in the zocalo and road on cobblestones all the way to the boulevard. The next couple of hours we rode with families, cyclists, rollerbladers and runners up and down Mexico City passing statues of famous writers and artists and a big fountain at the main intersection. The ride made you feel free and it opened up te usually claustrophobic crowded city. A great initiative - Sydney should do it!

Our last two stops; the GPO, a gorgoues gold gilded and marble building and then Sanborns their equivalent to DJs also enclosed in a historic building covered entirely in beautiful mosaic tiles.

So it turned out that Mexico City wasnt so bad afterall!!