Viva Mexico (with Homefans and Intro Travel)
Day 1 Friday 2nd November
I arrived very tired and made it to the hotel without any issues. Walked two blocks to get some water. Got lost. Eventually made it back. Went to bed… and that was day 1…
Day 2 Saturday 4th November
Club America Vs Club Tijuana
Estadio Aztec 46,046
Mexico City exceeded my expectations right away… from what you see on TV and here I had expected to find a very busy, congested and perhaps polluted city! However, away from the 24 hour traffic jams, I was very wrong and it’s a very pretty city! Lots of parks and tree lined avenues with lots of small independent cafes and of course street food vendors!
Saturday morning was spent walking the old town in search of the Day of the Dead ofrendas, today was the big Day of the Dead parade… I saw the beginning of the festivities, but then made my way to The Dog House Pub to watch the Copa Libertadores final. I had intended to run back up to the parade to tick the box and see 10 minutes of the parade but the game was too entertaining! Alas it went to extra time and it was already pick up time for my evenings entertainment… Club America at the infamous Aztec Stadium! Thankfully my tour guide was of course football mad so we had the game on in the car en route to our first stop, tacos and cerveza! Before making the final part of the journey to the car park to tailgate for an hour or so as the sun set over the monumental stadium! We were seven in our group and entering the stadium was the usual mayhem as I have come to expect in Latin America, dimly lit entrances, many different queues and lots of security checks! Once in the ground we were seated in the bottom tier below the main ultra group and opposite the second ultra group, they occupy opposite top tiers as they don’t get along and they were ordered to move from the bottom to the top tiers out the way of the television cameras broadcasting the games. The stadium was maybe 3/4 full and the atmosphere was lively! Club America strolled to a 3-0 win securing top spot for the play offs to come.
We returned to the parking lot for some post game beers and to let the traffic clear. When it was time to leave the riot police marched slowly across the dark car park hitting their shields in unison forcing cars to flee out of their path! It was very impressive to see but pretty intimidating, safe to say we legged it when they made it to our cars!!
Day 3 Sunday 5th November
Pumas Vs Atlas
Estadio Olimpico Universitario 17,297
An early start for the 12pm Pumas Vs Atlas game. This time we were picked up and escorted by Gaby, a huge Pumas fan! Despite it only being 10am the tailgate was in full swing with beers and tacos for breakfast! We passed the pregame time browsing the stalls, meeting Gaby’s friends and sharing a couple of breakfast beers.
The stadium is located in University Town, a town unto itself inside Mexico City, and was built for the 1955 PanAm games. It’s a large concrete bowl with concrete seats exposed to the glorious midday sun. We were seated on the second tier by the ultras on the long side of the pitch with the 1,000 or so away fans down below us to the left. Pumas strolled to an easy 3-0 victory in the heat of the day. Once again everyone was very friendly and welcoming in the stadium! It is even possible for the non-ultra away fans to sit amongst the home fans even wearing opposition colours! Football in Mexico is generally very safe with very few incidents in comparison to back home.
After the game there was time for a couple of beers in the sun before the police came through and cleared the parking lot. This time in a much more friendly manner than we had yesterday.
Back to the city for a quick rest before heading out to meet Brandon from todays trip in the CityZen bar on the 38th floor of Sofitel for some sweeping night time views of the city! Brandon headed off before I was joined some of my Intro Tour group.
Day 4 Monday 6th November
Free day in the city before the tour officially starts at dinner tonight. Once again glorious sunshine so I spent the day wandering through the beautiful La Condesa neighbourhood, incredibly green with many parks and tree lined avenues. No photos will do it justice.
Day 5 Tuesday 7th November
City Tour Day – after a very busy weekend and tremendous amount of walking i was pretty exhausted for our city tour! The castle was nice to see with some sweeping city views from the top however the rest of the city tour I had largely already done myself over the last three days. Nevertheless it was ok with the highlight being blessed by a shaman! We were sprayed with water, massaged, touched and hit with flowers to bless us and wish us well I believe… it was very hot today so I think most of the group were sunshine energy drained…
Back at the hotel to pack up the bags before heading out the evenings entertainment, a show at Guadalajara Noches… traditional Mexican music, singing and dancing.
Day 6 Wednesday 8th November
Long travel day to Oaxaca via a coffee, lunch and city tour of Puebla. The town was pretty enough with two very impressive churches and once again lunch in a local eatery was delicious! This time I opted for the chicken Milanese sandwich with local stringy cheese and the most fresh guacamole!
After lunch back on the road for up to another 4.5 hours to Oaxaca… a lovely town to the south which everyone raves about! Due to traffic looks like we may not get to experience too much of it sadly. Looks like we are arriving post 8pm and will miss the group dinner reservations and maybe not have the chance to experience its lively nightlife. Arriving just before 9pm we opted against the old town restaurants and bars in favour of the restaurant across the road… the majority of dishes included insects… unbeknown to us before we sat down…
Day 7 Thursday 9th November
Old town tour of the beautiful Oaxaca, the picturesque town with lots of churches and a lot of colour! Lots of day of the dead ofrendas and streamers across the already colourful street! We sampled some local chocolate and wandered the food markets in between checking out a couple more elaborate churches in amongst the vibrant cobbled streets. It would have been great to stay here longer but the distances we need to cover on this trip have us back in the minivan en route to a family textiles business before stopping off at a Mezcal distillery, something everyone is looking forward to!!
The distillery was great fun, not only because of the bottomless free shots, but the process of production on an artesian and ancestral basis was actually very interesting! We had a lot of free shots (a lot!), a lot of group pics and a lot of Mezcal-induced purchases (I hope Mum, Dad and Lucy would like some Mezcal in their Xmas stockings!!) before getting back on the road…
A buffet lunch hit the spot but once again we were very much behind schedule enroute to Tehuantepec, some 5-6 hours away! We are due in once again around 9pm… and alarms tomorrow are to be set in time for a 5am departure…
We took a few beers for the road journey towards the coast and had a minivan party playing tunes put forward by the group, three each! I think they are contemplating changing the first part of the trip to reduce the time behind the wheel. We had fun but we were just partying in a minibus whilst enjoying the striking mountainous scenery. Two long travel days and another long one tomorrow! After these three days the journeys are more manageable thankfully.
Day 8 Friday 10th November
Alarms at 4.25am for our long drive towards San Cristobal de las Casas. When we stopped for coffee at 7.40am we were all reminded how lucky we were when we saw a minibus drop off a group of those desperate to get to the US. They were all quite young and having crossed the border from Guatemala some 120 miles to the south, they were now setting off on foot with all they had towards the US border 1,800 miles to the north.
Enroute to San Cristobal we stopped off for a high speed boat ride through some striking scenery, a huge gorge caved through the landscape that was subsequently flooded after the introduction of a hydroelectric plant. Stunning scenery in the strong midday sun and we were treated to a few crocodile sightings! At points the canyon stretches 1km up from water level.
San Cristobal de las Casas is a lovely little town surrounded by some lush green low level mountains. For once we arrived in good time to explore the town by daylight before soem alcohol sampling and a delicious evening meal at Restaurant La Lupe, where I had the most delicious beer burrito!
Tonight was one of the options for a Big Night Out as they call it, after dinner we headed on down to a small local bar for a few drinks before a few,including myself, headed on to Pub Street 2 to an incredibly loud bar (everything is so loud in most of Latin America). Two of the Norwegian contingent remained and kept buying shots for the table in celebration of Maryam’s birthday at midnight. Feeling a little tipsy we headed to the local nightclub and danced the night away to mainly Reggeton and international dance music! We crept home just before 3am in good time for our 7.45am wake up call… the club was a lot of fun complete with a 7foot high dancing robot
Day 9 Saturday 11th November
Clare, Maryam, Amelia, Simen, Jasper and myself Feeling a little tired headed with the group to a traditional breakfast in a family home in the adjacent town. Afterwards we headed to a Mayan traditional church, no such services take place there except baptisms. However, it is open 24/7 and is largely quite busy (today is Saturday though) with families coming to light candles, offer chicken sacrifices and pray to the saints. The church was busy and full of candles everywhere!! All over the floor too, there were no pews nor seats. We watched one family offer their prayers and gifts finishing with the sacrifice of a cockerel. It was a fascinating spectacle to watch, I stepped away for the sacrifice. Strictly no photos permitted inside the church and there would be a lot of problems had someone forgotten…
A free afternoon I took the chance to walk up to the church on the hill for some nice city views, it’s a shame we didn’t have longer to explore here as the street up to the church was full of small arty bars, cafes, restaurants and boutique shops, it’s a lovely little town. I also squeezed in a hot chocolate (a local speciality) and some sunset views in the town square before a group dinner. After being here a week now I got a little trigger happy with the one of the salsa dipping sauces and had a tough few minutes waiting for my mouth to return to a normal temperature!!
Day 10 Sunday 12th November
A long (long) travel day today… up at 2.25am for a 2.45 / 3 am departure… we were leaving two hours earlier than normal due to a community protest still blocking Route 119 so we headed down back country roads which could only be described as bumpy dirt tracks, some sections on a par with our loning at home (the section passed our house that is!). Average speed for the first two hours was maybe 15mph or so… not to mention the minivan has minimal suspension and I was sitting over the back wheel… very grumpy and tired we made it to our first stop at Agua Azul waterfalls where we had a surprisingly nice scrambled eggs breakfast Mexican style before a walk around and then swim in the more tame waterfall section at the top.
For the afternoon we headed closer to our hotel towards Palenque and stopped off at the impressive Mayan ruins. A few temples and palaces set in lush forested hills! Quite impressive but we only had 1.5 hours here or so.
Day 11 Monday 13th November
From Palenque we had another long travel day to Bacalar this time stopping off at another small Mayan ruin site in the jungle. A lot smaller than what we had seen the day before but was a nice leg stretch on another long travel day…
We arrived after dark to our lake front Bacalar resort and just had dinner before bed… I wasn’t feeling too great today and had started thinking about starving myself for 24 hours to calm my now unpredictable stomach…
Day 12 Tuesday 13th November
Today was a big day so I opted for Imodium and enjoying the day most likely against any doctor orders. Today we had two boats to ride around the shoreside lake. We set up first camp in some shallows where many boats congregate to listen to music, drink and party in the water! Stop 1 was great fun but I opted to largely stay dry here until the Norwegian contingent reassured me they had done beer and Imodium for over two weeks now without issue… stop 1 by 12 pm all beers were gone… our captain had also partaken in the Mezcal and beers soooo he kindly sailed us to a hotel with jetty near some shops… the high end hotel wasn’t best pleased when a load of half drunk lads jumped off and walked through their resort without even thinking twice. In our defence our now tipsy local tour guide said it would be fine but from my limited Spanish I managed to pick up that actually it wasn’t fine… but when in Mexico! I think we ordered over 30 beers and a few small bottles of Mezcal for stop 2 on the boat! Stop 2 was another shallow where boats congregate to party in the sun! Safe to say this party was lively with all the booze and sun induced dehydration! As the clouds closed in it was time for home! Our boat could no longer turn so we tied the two boats together and off we went!! Not sure how we made it back in one piece! People were jumping between boats, imitating Leo and Kate from Titanic amongst other things! Back in dry land thunder set in! Half the group carried on in the lake during the thunderstorm whilst the other half myself included retired for a nap!
Day 13 Wednesday 15th November
As expected I didn’t feel great today, self induced but fully worth it! As such my 36 hour food fast began! My stomach wasn’t great nor were half of the groups! Thankfully today was a short ish travel day to Tulum! For some reason we left quite late at 1045 meaning we arrived to Tulum for a late (delicious looking) lunch which I forewent in place of a walk through the town. I couldn’t sit and watch the others eat so wandered the town… I can see why it doesn’t live up in o the hype! A nice enough touristy town but set along one very main dusty road! Eventually everyone joined me at the hotel! By now it was gone 4pm but I was adamant to see the beach so with Laura and Kate we set off on our hotel bikes, all desperately in need of a servicing!
It was a hard slog once again along the dusty highway to the beach only some 5km away! And it was so so worth it! The beach was paradise and as some rain clouds hovered we had a very dramatic sunset! Still in starvation mode that night I walked the streets and joined three mates for their delicious looking burger meal!!
Day 14 Thursday 16th November
Today was another great day, first stop was the infamous Chichen Itza site, smaller than expected but impressive nonetheless! Unfortunately at our first stop the tour guide got a little trigger happy with the group so 15 minutes were lost / wasted which ate into our free time at the end to explore the sites not included on the tour… this was one of my few criticisms of the trip! Personal photos / group pics for those that want them should be in free time not group time, seems fair enough?
From here we headed off to one of the many impressive Cenotes for a cool off!! The area is full of cenotes, underground circular caverns full of cool crisp water! Very dramatic in appearance. Here we jumped from diving boards and rope swings for an hour or so. I managed the middle of the three diving boards a couple of times, I think I could have managed the top one easy enough had my whole group not been watching! I managed to sneak my middle board jump in when ppl were distracted by the Norwegians on the rope swing! This was a good day and was topped off with me leading the group out for dinner…. and then for some drinks afterwards. I helped out a little more than usual on this trip but didn’t mind at all.
Day 15 Friday 17th November
I think this day was poorly ran but it kind of worked out ok for me and most of the group. We had a late transfer to Playa del Carmen booked for 1330, so we had a free morning to explore the town we had already largely explored, as such a few of us taxi’d to the beach… a palaver but we made it and that almost two hours was worth the hassle! I had an iced Irish coffee to celebrate eventually reaching the beach!!
Once back at the hotel I found out half the group (who didn’t beach) had opted to take local taxis to Playa, our last destination! As such they arrived in good time around lunchtime! All the while we were in Tulum waiting for our leader to shower before we hit the road 11 minutes late. Once in Playa we had hotel issues so I helped out and then handed over to the UK based Intro Travel agent who is fluent in Spanish to handle the situ with the hotel manager. A quick walk to the beach to meet the Norwegians for a late afternoon beer in the sun! Now the trip is over, and I’m writing this solo in a local bar, it is safe to say I miss the Norwegians a lot. I’ve never met a trio like them before!! Everyday before I had even seen them, in their room they would play the Sky Stallone Rocky montage speech and all do a shot of vodka! I joined them twice on a breakfast beer! Three of the most friendly, positive and crazy people I’ve ever met! This isn’t to say the rest of the group weren’t great, because they were too! We lucked out and had a group which gelled from day 1.
Anyway, I digress, eventually all checked in we headed out for dinner via my recommendation of Senor Frogs, which went down well but alas too well as we firstly sacked off our dinner plans and our post dinner bar reservation all in place of Senor Frogs! However, after three hours there the novelty began to wear very thin!!! I needed a break so snuck out for a drink in what should have been our post meal bar and it was great!! It was a shame that we became fixated on the Frog but nevertheless it was a very fun but sad night (our last!).
Most were in bed by 1130pm myself included however I hear English Simon made it home at 4 unsure where he had been partying!
Day 16 Saturday 18th November
Xcaret “theme park” day with Sophs, Clare, Tia and Laura. Not sure how to describe Xcaret but it is kind of a nature theme park, somewhat akin to Floridas Discovery Cove, set in lush forest on the coast with beaches and inlets. It was largely enjoyable but like nothing I’ve ever seen. The highlight being the subterranean “lazy” river that flowed through small tunnels, parts of the theme park and through narrow landscaped gorges. The river wasn’t so lazy as it was a very slow flow so it mainly required swimming albeit at a leisurely pace.
The absolute highlight of this activity was when I decided, with Clare’s backing, to investigate an offshoot channel we found through some mangrove swamp… little did we know we were now going upstream down what was actually a closed section of the river… what made it was the fact 50 or so Mexicans followed us!!!! Clare and I lost it… we couldn’t keep it together for about ten minutes, leading 50 Mexicans down a closed river upstream for about 10 minutes like the Pied Piper, and this detour came as we were so so close to the finish!! Some of the Mexican contingent were looking a little exhausted and unimpressed by the time we eventually made it back to the main channel!!
After this we wandered the park, saw lots of animals, birds, marine animals and watched a couple of cultural shows, in between we made time for some rock pool plunges to cool off. I opted to leave before the evening show and returned to town to see Playa by night once again… unfortunately I missed the main strip but still had fun nonetheless sampling a couple of bars and asking everyone I could about Raul Jimenez! One barman became my best friend as I professed the Wolves fans adoration for their leading striker!
Day 17 Sunday 20th November
My last day called for a slap up breakfast on the beach! Pricey but worth it for my last meal in paradise! As the sun rose I began to melt so a quick sea plunge cooled me off before returning to say bye to Clare and Sophs! Some beach wandering and chilling before my shuttle bus to the airport. I arrived far too early due to bad advice from the shuttle bus company but the silver lining was i arrived so early that I could see Clare once again in the airport departures lounge!
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Very jealous you have been to some Mayan ruins. Am enjoying travelling with you via your diary posts. But who are your travelling companions?