Day 1 – Arrival - Mexico City
I arrived in Mexico City at approximately 8.00pm on Friday the 16th of April 2010. I had flown from Sydney, Australia - first to Los Angeles and then straight on through to Mexico. My total flight time had consisted of about 17 hours, more than 24 in travel time and somewhere around 14,000 km in distance.
My first sight of Mexico as the plane descended through the cloud-cover was what I now believe to be the town of Tepotzotlán - north of Mexico City. It was a land entirely covered in structures as far as I could see, all neatly tucked in between the hills that spotted the area. This was a part of an area (including Mexico City) that was about 7000 X 7000 km in area and had a population of over 20,000,000 people. Making it one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the world.
I had made loose arrangements to be picked up from the airport by a friend of a family that I knew back in Australia who had recently migrated from Mexico City. I knew what the guy looked like, I had his phone number and a description of what he would be wearing - no more. Also, I had a limited ability in Spanish, no phone of my own and my plane was running about 45 minutes late.
Finally we were in the car and on the way. He had offered to take me out for some drinks with his friends, it was Friday night in Mexico City. The traffic and way that people drove in Mexico City is a fun trip. La gente like to drive fast across multi-lane highways with littler regard to any road laws that I was used to. There are huge, intertwining roads, most of them oneway, many taxis and many police patrol cars. And while they would pull over a car from time to time, there were simply too many of them on the road to catch them all. We were driving to an area about 10km south of downtown Mexico called Coyoacán.
Upon arriving we parked in one of the many one-way streets that littered the area. It was raining. There was a man who looked to be the age of about 40 standing on the sidewalk and doing nothing more. My friend walked up to him, muttered something inaudible to my ears and handed him some cash. I inquired what it was for. He was paying him to watch the car until midnight. He told me that it wasn't an uncommon occurrence for any car left at night to be broken into or worse, but the main point was that it was a better option to pay him that to have the man do something to his car for not paying him.
Coyoacán is a beautiful area filled with a healthy plant-life for a semi-suburban area and colonial buildings. In the main plaza there was a statue of a coyote made of what looked to me like bronze. Restaurants surrounded the area. I was told that these were some nice Mexican restaurants. Each one of them had their own vagrant musicians, standing close and making enough noise to warrant them a few pesos per table. They were mostly solo musicians singing Mexican songs and accompanying themselves with guitar.
By this time I had met up with some of the other amigos of my friend and we headed into an upstairs bar off of the main square. Waiting at the top to greet us was a man wearing a luchador (wrestling) mask, he saw us to our table. The bar was dimly lit with various neon lights flashing slogans at you. The floors wooden with all of the tables jammed close together. My friend went up to order. A few minutes later out returned with a nacho platter, corn chips rife with jalapeños, chili sauce and a sickly yellow cheese, a bottle of tequila and a few cans of orange flavoured mineral water. luchador
These Mexicans didn't normally drink their tequila straight. Put it on ice, add the orange mineral water, squeeze a lemon/lime in and perhaps some slat around the rim of the glass. I was warned about buying tequila. I was told to always buy the bottle, to make sure that the cap was sealed and to check the hologram on the label. This is because some years ago people started bootlegging tequila in Mexico - as a result, some people went blind. After everybody had their fill it was time to pay, it is important to remember that it is customary to tip 10-15% in restaurants where you have received table service.
Afterwards, back in the cars, it was time to head north to the city center. It was the location of my hostel and of a club the others wanted to visit. Of the club I don’t have much to say, it was a techno-style binge kind of place, but when it cam to the entry, that was something new for me. There were 7 of us in the group and the cover cost $150 pesos. I was not particularly keen to spend that much money on this kind of place. However, my friend quickly began a dialogue with the bouncer and soon beckoned us all over. He had negotiated my entry for free and everyone else at $100 pesos. After we entered my friend and the bouncer disappeared upstairs. He was giving the cash to the bouncer. Bribery was a regular occurrence in Mexico it seemed and at times it could be advantageous and cost-efficient.
As we left the place my friend and the bouncer embraced in a hug. As I was driven back to the hostel there were fully dressed mariachis trying to hitch rides from passers-by. I made it back to my hostel well, after my first evening in Mexico.
Daniel Bakewell
