The Streets of San Francisco and our top 10 Mexican Destinations

Our four months in Mexico was a truly wonderful time. There are so many things that make this country so special. Some of them are:

The people: Mexicans have got the happiness thing sussed. Family connections are strong. On weekends, entire families go out together. Teenagers hold hands with parents and take grandma for a stroll in her wheelchair. Dads hold hands with daughters, mothers stroke the hair of sons. The family provides such strong support.

They love celebrations. They seem to look for any excuse for a fiesta. Music is loud and upbeat. Life occurs outside the houses, in the streets. Mexicans promenade around town squares on a Sunday afternoon or they dance the night away in those same squares.

Despite this being a strong Catholic country, they are not prudish. Even old couples hold hands in public. Young couples pash on park benches. Married couples salsa sexily on the dance floor. Public affection is absolutely normal.

Mexicans are so polite. They always say hello when they walk into a shop or even an elevator. Outside of the big cities, they usually say hello just passing you in the street. When they leave a restaurant they always say "buen provecho", which means "enjoy your meal", even if you've never met them or even spoken to them before.

We never felt threatened anywhere, There were a couple of places we avoided due to drug war problems, however I feel more concerned outside Coles in Ballarat than anywhere in Mexico that we visited. I'm not saying it's perfect (every country has dodgy areas) but we felt completely safe. Not once in four months did I feel sexually harrassed either. Mexicans are so respectful. Besides, why would they bother me when they have ther own gorgeous women?

The weather is perfect. I know we've been here at the best time of year but four months of endless blue skies has been amazing. Most places haven't been too hot or too cold, although we have taken the weather into consideration when planning our destinations. No wonder the North Americans come here in droves.

Mexican LOVE colour. Walls are painted yellow, blue, green, purple, pink, orange and brown. Bright flowers add extra splashes. Blankets are woven in bright colours and arts pop with vibrant hues. The arts are so strong here. Never have we been to a country where arts and crafts are so important. Pottery, murals, ceramics and textiles are everywhere. Each region has its own unique designs.

The food is amazing. Mexico is a gastronomical delight. Highlights were the moles (chocolate-based sauces) of Puebla, the cemites (amazing salad rolls with grilled meats) of Cholula, the fish tacos of Baja and the awesome street food that you can get just about anywhere.

I love the way each region has its own unique culture - different foods, arts and lifestyles. You can pick up a piece of pottery and know which town or region it has come from simply by its design. Weavings vary from place to place and even house designs are different. Some regions even have different races of people. The Mayans feature strongly in Yucatan. You can see the different races in so many faces. 

Looking back on our Mexican journey, here are our fave places in case some of you might be interested in going there one day:

1. The Mexican/Guatemalan border: We loved Las Nubes where we saw the most amazing waterfalls and places where the water disappeared underground and re-appeared further down the river. We then travelled on in a local minibus where the driver's lucky charm hanging from his mirror was a goat's leg! We caught a boat up the river to the amazing Yaxchilan ruins, which we had completely to ourselves for an hour or so then saw a wild puma on the return trip.

2. Divisadero and the Copper Canyon: The amazing canyon system was at its most spectacular at Divisadero. This was also where we ziplined down the canyon with incredible views around us.

3. La Paz, Baja California: From La Paz we snorkelled with whale sharks and sea lions. John even had a sea lion pup climb onto his chest! We saw frigatebird breeding grounds, jumping dolphins and schools of small manta rays.

4. The cenotes in Yucatan. Together with our "kids" we swam in these stunningly beautiful sinkholes, draped with vines and laced with greenery. Some even were almost caves and the rooves dripped with amazing stalagtites.

5. The unique village cultures around San Christobal de las Casas. At each village women, and sometimes men, dressed in different clothes. You could pick which village a person was from by what he or she was wearing. Their religions, customs and beliefs varied enormously. It was a fascinating place.

Sadly, our time in Mexico was up. Our flight home took us via San Francisco. I had never been there before so we decided to spend a couple of days there.

We arrived at the airport and went to immigration. We lined up to process our passports on a machine then went into another line to wait for imigration. And we waited. And we waited. It took just over two hours to get through. It was disorganised chaos!

By this time we hadn't eaten for a long time but there was no food anywhere so we headed to the airport train. The machine to buy a ticket wouldn't work but luckily there was a man there who could help. The train pulled up just as we got to the platform. At last things seemed to be going right! People walked to the doors to get on the train but before the doors opened the train moved off again! Another tourist and I looked at each other and started laughing. Luckily, it only moved a bit further up then this time it let us on.

The train smelled awful. Strangely, it smelled like a sheepyard. The windows were so filthy we could barely see out of them. The train screeched and shuddered its way through tunnels and pretty suburbs (what we could see of them through the windows.) A man, so drunk or stoned that he could barely keep his eyes open, wandered through the carriages begging.

We came to our station and rode the escalator to the street. There was a shout from a security man and a couple of youths bolted out of the station. Another security guy called over an old homeless-looking man who was swigging from a brown paper bag. An angry sounding black guy stormed off from the people he was with. We were starting to wish we were back in safe, happy Mexico!

Outside we saw a Carls' Jnr burger chain store. We had visited one of these in Mexico and it was pretty good. We were starving so we walked in. The grotty shop was full of people who looked like they'd seen tough times. The guy serving us was sickly pale and had the personality of a wet fish. While we waited for the burgers, we looked around and nearly everyone in the place looked like they lived on the streets. It was a bit scary.

We paid a whopping $9US each for our burgers and my vege burger was burnt. (How do you burn a vege burger in a chain burger store)? We then lugged our bags six blocks up those famous San Franciscan hills and found our hotel which quickly became a wonderful haven. The girl who checked us in was incredibly helpful. A bonus was they upgraded us to a larger room! Suddenly things were looking good again!

It was getting late but we thought we had to see something of the city so we went to a bar just down the road. It was in art deco style and served old-fashioned style cocktails. We got talking to a guy who was sitting next to John. Behind that guy was a group of people and I thought I heard one if them say the word, "Ballarat". Curious, I wandered over to them. It turned out that, of the four people there, two were local, one was from Melbourne and one was from Ballarat! One of the local women was dressed in 40's style clothing and had a fixation on the Dr Blake mysteries, which are filmed in Ballarat. They were a really fun bunch and we ended up staying at the bar til the wee hours with them. The cocktails were flowing and we all had a really great night. Woohoo!

From left to right: John, Anand, John, the Dr Blake lady whose name I can't remember, me.

We woke up the next day a bit worse for wear. We only had one full day to see San Francisco though, so we had to get going.

I couldn't believe it when I looked out of our window and saw these classic fire escape stairs like you see in the movies. They were everywhere in SF.

I loved the gorgeous style of houses here.

Many of the streets were really steep. Check out the angle the cars are parked on.

Of course, we had to catch a cable car. No trip to SF would be complete without this!

The Bay Bridge was visible at the end of some of the roads.

At the Ferry Building there were the most amazing food shops. There was one that specialised in melted cheese dishes. This was a mushroom shop. John loves funghi!

This retro tram was very cool.

We went to a famous restaurant called Tadich Grill. The decor was really cool in an old-fashioned way and the food was great.

We climbed up what seemed to be a  gazillion steps to get to a lookout tower. The area was really lush and green, surprisingly so for a city location.

The tower was decorated with cool murals. I thought these only existed in Mexico! Lol.

The views from the top were amazing. We could see all over the city....

....... plus across to Alcatraz. We didn't have time to visit the old prison though.

We got our only glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge from here.

More cool buildings and steep roads.

The Transamerica Building.

Next to the Transamerica building was a sequoia park. John said I had to put this photo in for you San!

A cool, retro streetscape.

Chinatown was much like Chinatowns anywhere else in the world, but this one was very big. They sold everything from roast ducks to Bobble-head Jon Snow toys!

Chinatown had some cool murals.

So that was the end of our Mexican travels. Mexico was a truly amazing country and we'd recommend it to anyone. 

Hasta luego!

Heather and John

Down in the Valle and Mexico City

Those of you that have been following this blog might recall we met a couple in a few different places along the Copper Canyon. Gary is English but lived for many years in Australia. His partner, Lourdes, is Mexican and they live in Mexico City. They very generously invited us to join them for a couple of days at Lourdes' holiday house at Avandaro, near Valle de Bravo, about two hours west of Mexico City.

We bussed there from Cholula. Again, Mexico's public transport system made it fairly easy to get in and out of Mexico City. We shared a lovely night at their house, catching up on things and meeting Lourdes' son, Juan Carlos. Lourdes is an archaeologist and has a wealth of knowledge about many of the ancient sites we had visited in Mexico.

The next day they took us out to explore the area. Valle de Bravo is a beautiful colonial town, although it almost looked medieval to me. It was stunning!

Houses have to conform to historic building standards so even the rooves have a uniform appearance.

We ate breakfast at a restaurant with fabulous views over the town and nearby lake.

There was a troll shop in the town!

There was a wonderful spiritual retreat place nearby called Carmel Maranatha. Sadly, we weren't allowed to take photos inside but it was beautiful.

We then went to an amazing hotel on the lake. The views over the lake were stunning.

There was one area that had a stained glass roof over it. The light underneath was incredible!

The family looked after us wonderfully. The next day we farewelled the beautiful property in the trees and Gary and Lourdes very kindly drove us back to Mexico City. They showed us their apartment and we finished the visit with a superb meal at a local cafe. Thank you Gary, Lourdes and Juan Carlos!

We checked into a great place in Mexico City (it's very quiet for such a big, noisy city) and spent the next few days exploring the places we didn't get to the first time we were here.

First stop was the Anthropological Museum. This place was enormous! It could take all day to see it all properly. The entrance was very impressive.

Inside were artefacts from many ancient Mexican civilisations. Some were incredible. I've just added a few select photos in here.

There were a few life-sized representations of what some of the pyramids really looked like. Imagine entire pyramids decorated like this!

The colours in some of the artwork were amazing.

There were some weird and wonderful pieces of ancient art.

Olmecs are famous for sculpting these huge heads, about two metres high. They must be accurate depictions though because, even today, we sometimes see Mexicans who have facial features like this.

Olmecs often made smiling statues. I loved them!

This marker stone with writing is from Yaxchilan, the ruined city we visited near the Guatemalan border a while ago. They had distinctive picture-style writing.

The next day we explored the famous Templo Mayor. This temple was the very centre of the Aztec civilisation. It's located in the heart of Mexico City. It was discovered during renovation works on a building and the decision was made to demolish buildings around it so archaological digs could be undertaken. Today, the ruin sits surrounded by grand colonial buildings.

One of the raised walkways we were on ran on top of an old water or sewer pipe. This pipe ran right through the main pyramid. Whoever built this pipe clearly knew they were going through an ancient building but I suppose that people didn't care about these things for a long time.

There was a museum on site and I loved the way they showed the colours some of the walls were painted.

The amazing thing is that the Aztecs built their entire town on islands on a lake. They extended the land by driving timbers into the water then gradually builing up the land. The idea behind this was that the lake water gave them a huge benefit in growing crops. They could grow three crops per year compared to the usual one. This helped make them such a dominant force.

This also means that the current Mexico City is also built on the old lake bed so there is a problem with buildings sinking. Look closely at the different angles on the buildings below.

This church with the dark stones and the white steeple is leaning significantly.

Next stop was the National Palace to see the Diego Rivera murals. (Diego was Frida's husband.) His work was very political and often portrayed the history of Mexico in some form. This mural was huge.

I was most fascinated by one of his murals that showed what the Aztec city looked like when it was built on the lake. Note the two volcanoes in the background. These are the two we saw from Cholula on the other side. The pointy one is the famous active Popocatepetl.

We visited a gallery showing art from artists who were allowed to pay taxes with their artwork. There were some cool things there!

Out on the busy streets, I realised just how homogenous this world has become.

There was one last Diego Rivera mural to see. He was famously commissioned to paint a mural at the Rockefeller Centre in New York, but they didn't like how he included his anti-capitalist ideals in it. When he refused to remove the offending parts they demolished the entire mural. He reproduced it here in the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

By this time it was late afternoon so we made our way north to Plaza Garibaldi. This was a much rougher part of town with people sleeping in the streets and the smell of pee everywhere. There has been a big push to clean this area up.

The plaza itself was fine and is famous for its mariachi bands. Men, and the occasional lady, roamed the plaza with their instruments hoping to play people a song for a fee. I loved their distinctive black suits decorated with silver.

There were different styles of silver decorations.

The buttons on these pants were owl faces!

We had the best margaritas in all of Mexico here. They were tamarind ones and were the perfect blend of sweet, sour and salty. Yum! Note the mariachi guys dressed in white in the background. The white costumes indicated they were from Veracruz.

Not only were the margaritas amazing but I loved the glasses they were served in too!

In true Mexican style, free music was being played in the square. People obviously knew what sort of music it would be and came prepared with their hankies. We hadn't seen this sort of dancing elsewhere.

Much to our amazement, a group of perfectly groomed horses and riders, all with matching gear, rode past. It turned out that they were policemen! They were dressed like mariachis. It was great to see!

Soon, we heard thunder and it started raining. It had been so long since we saw rain that we can't even remember where it was. It didn't last long. Wet season is coming so we can expect a bit of rain from now on.

We walked 4kms back to our hotel. Our maps programme on the phone took us through some pretty seedy areas. Everyone is so friendly though that when John saw a lady standing on a corner he said hello to her. I made the comment (discreetly) that perhaps he should have asked "how much?" as she looked a bit suss. To our surprise, on the next corner was another lady. On the following corner was a lady who was bursting out of her dress at the top and the dress was so short that we could see what she had for breakfast. There was now no doubt we were in a red light district!

The next day we explored the huge artisenal market. We had bought almost nothing on the entire trip as we didn't want to carry things with us. I was tempted so many times by the amazing arts, crafts and foods in Mexico.

At one stage we stopped at a cafe for a cold drink and were amazed to see a series of tables set up in the middle of the arts market. The tables were full of people playing chess.

There were old and young alike. This girl only looked about 6 or 7 years old!

Next to the artisenal market is a big square. Every Saturday afternoon, people come here to dance. Free dancing lessons are given and these were very popular. I love the way Mexicans just get out and enjoy themselves.

A few couples even had the matching outfits happening. John was very pleased about their choice of colours.

We stopped for some tacos at one stage and I just had to take a photo of the variety of sauces available. They love their sauces in Mexico!

Our last day in Mexico was a Sunday so we thought we'd do the Mexican thing and join the hordes and head to the local park. As expected, it was packed but there were still places where you could find a bit of relative peace and quiet.

Inside the huge park were restaurants, street stalls, museums and even lakes where you could hire boats.

Although Mexico City is terribly polluted and is very busy and noisy, we were rapt to have such a selection of food. We ate Japanese, Korean and Italian. As much as we love Mexican food it was so good to have something different after four months.

It'll be sad to leave this amazing country but it's time to go home - almost! We're spending a few days in San Francisco on the way home so I'll be back again soon. 

Adios!

Heather and John