Mexico City: Vamos!

Mexico City, a place we had been warned about several times. Not just by people in the US, even Mexicans had warned us. Don't do this, don't do that, don't go there. The warnings didn't stop. But actually it felt far more civilised than we had expected. Perhaps that's because when someone warns you about a place you feel more inclined to give it fair chance. The opposite of when someone tells you how great a place is and it rarely lives up to expectations.

Arriving at the Northern bus station in the morning, we picked up our bags and made for the metro just outside. For 3 pesos (a few pence) we were able to get right across town. The only downside was the considerable distance between the different lines when we had to make our two changes. By the time we reached the hostel we were exhausted, our bags felt heavier than at any time in the last 2 months of travel, our legs felt like they were giving way. It wasn't until we had sat down that we remembered that Mexico City is over 2000 metres above sea level, our lungs had been deprived of oxygen!

Unfortunately the hostel had booked us into the wrong room, it wasn't the best news we could have had. But we dumped our bags and went back out to find some food. Just around the corner we found a lovely restaurant, overlooking a large fountain, so we rested our weary legs and had a good meal for the first time in 24 hours. Remembering that we had plans for the evening, we hurried back to the hostel and fell asleep.

We were awoken by one of the hostel staff, banging on the door to inform us that our taxi had arrived. I'd forgotten to change my watch overnight, so without showering we jumped out of bed, threw some clothes on and rushed downstairs. The taxi driver drove us across town to another hostel, from which we were picked up by a large minivan. We were then driven to another hostel, where we had a shot of tequila and the chance to try on some masks. Two hours after we had been woken up we finally reached the Arena Mexico, ready for the Lucha Libre wrestling.

Lucha Libre is a curious form of the sport. Clearly for entertainment purposes rather than a serious bout of wrestling, the acts veered between impressive aerial manoeuvres, comedy play acting of the sort that would make premier league players appear like Hollywood stars, and dubious social commentary. The protagonists bore names like Nitro; Electrico; and the Blue Demon. And several wore the masks for which Lucha Libre is famous. I might have liked to show you some photos, but for some reason cameras were banned in the arena.

The events usually featured two teams of three wrestlers, one team the "good guys", the others being "baddies". What I found particularly curious was that the baddies were almost universally more popular than the good guys. Indeed any acts which might have been considered "unsporting" seemed to generate the loudest cheers of all. The crowds were ecstatic when a ruffian delivered a supposedly illegal kick to Electrico's family jewels. Hardly surprising that after such a blow Electrico more closely resembled a low energy bulb.

Only one of the good guys seemed to have anything approaching a fan club to rival the baddies. I forget his name, but his act was essentially a gay man. Clad from head to toe in pink (they weren't holding back on the cliches), every time he got his opponent into a hold he would attempt either a kiss or a rub of the opponents, well, erm... , you don't need it spelling out. The crowd went wild with every stroke. Gemma and I looked at each other, absolutely stunned. There really isn't much more I can add to that, clearly gay rights have a long way to go in Mexico.

The following day we decided to go for a walk in chapultepec (grasshopper) park, 686 hectares of open space and forest in the middle of the city. There are several museums inside the boundary, most popular of which is the anthropology museum. We were heading in it's general direction when Gemma remembered that there was a free zoo, and it was a lot closer, so we popped inside.

When I hear the words "free" and "zoo"together my immediate reaction is to fear for the wellbeing of the animals, but this zoo clearly had some wealthy benefactors. It was both well stocked, and in the main the animals were obviously healthy and well cared for. We wandered through the cat section, stopping to admire the tigers, ocelot and panther. The monkey section was quite nice too, and I braved the snake house to see a huge anaconda, whilst Gemma waited outside for me.

Outside the zoo we wandered down several miles of small stalls, where you could pick up anything from a cold drink to a Manchester united shirt. Somehow I managed to resist any rash novelty purchases - quite the rarity for me, although I couldn't stop Gemma from making a new acquaintance, appropriately named Chapultepec the monkey. We also discovered a small sightseeing train, which for 15 pesos (80p) took us around the outskirts of the park, although with Spanish commentary we're still not quite sure what we saw!

We're both slowly growing more confident to try out the Spanish we have picked up. Even the briefest conversation feels like a huge victory. However the next day was a huge test, one which we were definitely not prepared for. Our mission was to post a box of excess clothes and random items back to England, and to buy two mosquito nets in preparation for Guatemala.

Thanks to the touchpad I managed to locate a post office, but it was over 3km away. Even with the address written down we couldn't find a taxi driver who knew where we wanted to go, so we ended up walking to it. Once inside our problems really began, we hadn't brought a passport, we couldn't read the disclaimer form, we didn't even have a box to put everything inside. Temperatures began to rise, whilst our mood began to fall. Somehow, after 30 minutes of faffing we managed to work everything out, thanks to the patience of the post office staff - not a sentence I ever thought I would write.

Outside, wandering past a rather beautiful monument to the republic, we flagged down a taxi. And what stopped in front of us? A Volkswagen Beetle, painted in the dull red and gold colours of the taxi service. I was delighted, and despite being cramped up in the back seat for 15 minutes fearing for my life as the old rust bucket raced through the traffic I was glad we had been inside one of these evocative vehicles. The ride cost us under £2, so I tipped the driver a few pesos and rushed outside to snatch a photo. Rodriguez the driver clearly found this most amusing.

At the Zocalo we had a wander about, the square was filled with bizarre paper mache models of various peculiar monsters called "Alebrijes". Not quite sure what these represented, it didn't stop us from enjoying them, and we took turns posing with the models. There was also a sculpture by the Mexican artist Rivelino which has been travelling around the world for 2 years. Apparently the Zocalo has become something of a mecca for various artworks in recent years, which we both thought was quite nice. Too often these huge squares lack any vitality, but that was one thing Mexico City was not missing.

We also managed to locate a couple of mosquito nets in a camping shop. We couldn't help but notice that the shops on each block have a theme, so one block might have musical instruments, the next religious icons. When we reached the sporting goods block things began to look up. We found some outdoors shops, but our attempts to mime a mosquito net were initially met with confusion, to be fair we looked like an interpretive dance troupe failing at an X Factor audition. One man did eventually manage to suggest, through stifled laughter, that six shops down they would have what we wanted. Kindly he told us the Spanish name, saving our blushes for our next attempt. And sure enough we got them.

We got up early the next morning a caught a taxi to the bus station in the east of the city. The station was called TAPO, but the driver couldn't understand us, so Gemma had to write it on her hand in biro! For the first time we hadn't booked online, so we wandered inside the terminal and approached the ADO service desk. With relative ease we managed to ask for two tickets to Oaxaca on the primera class service which was leaving in just one hours time. Inside the terminal I also managed to pick up a travel pillow, not so necessary for this 6 hour drive but something I should have brought for the overnight journeys.

The bus ride was smooth enough, although we were delayed by the traffic leaving Mexico City. It is such a sprawling city, we didn't see many high rise buildings, instead the houses and offices seem to stretch for miles in every direction. Once out of the city centre the place feels less colourful, so many of the buildings have been left their natural concrete gray that even the few open spaces seem to share this one dimensional palette.

We had to stop on route to pick up some passengers from another bus which had suffered a broken windscreen, but despite that the bus was less than half full, so once again we reclined our seats to the maximum and nodded off. I awoke some hours later when my head bounced off the window, not the most pleasant of alarm clocks. We had entered the mountains, the road twisting and turning through the most stunning scenery. Before long the town of Oaxaca spread out in the valley ahead of us, our shortest journey in Mexico at it's end.