Jaza's World Trip

Blog

All the blog entries that I've managed to scratch down, while travelling around the world.

You can view these blog entries in reverse chronological order (below), or you can browse them in a monthly archive. You may find the monthly archive more convenient for catching up on older entries, or for finding specific entries or ranges of entries.

Transsexual at Cabaré Tito

Two crazy Danish girls grabbed three unsuspecting guys from the hostel (one of whom was me), and took us to the crazy bar called Cabaré Tito, in Mexico City's Zona Rosa district.

Only in Cabaré Tito can you watch a transsexual singer performing live. It's that kind of place. The performance was disturbing, to say the least.

Upside-down globe

At one of the market stalls in Teotihuacan, we saw a souvenir of particularly — and amusingly! — poor workmanship: a little world globe that was upside-down. It was quite weird to look at.

I guess Australia ain't the land Down Under any more!

Filed in: Mexico CityFor saleJunkSouvenirs

Home-made tequila and mezcal

On the way to Teotihuacan, we stopped at a little tourist house, and tried some shots of home-made tequila and mezcal. These drinks aren't nearly as strong as the usual variations that you find in bars, but they taste much better!

These drinks are mixed with almonds and honey, among other things. The result is sensational.

Teotihuacan tour

Booked myself in for a full-day tour of Teotihuacan today. The tour included an early start of 9am, from the hostel's front door (which I was late for); a tour of Tlatelolco, the ruins of ancient Tenochtitlan, inside Mexico City; a trip to the Lady of Guadaloupe, the largest church (and a collection of several churches) in Latin America; and a trip to the archaeological site of ancient and majestic Teotihuacan itself.

Filed in: Mexico CityArchaeologyAztecsTours

Mariachi night

A group of 8 of us from the hostel went out to see a Mariachi band tonight. Entry was free: they were counting on making up for this by selling us plenty of Corona, and that they did do!

The Mariachi is the quintessential, stereotypical Mexican entertainment. A bunch of señores, all wearing their fancy suits (with their metal-adorned pants) and big sombreros. Playing guitars, trumpets, and violins, and singing old-skool Spanish love songs in operatic voices.

Filed in: Mexico CityEntertainmentMusicQuaintSinging

Tapas thingies

Not sure exactly what they were — kind of a big round taco, covered in meat and fish, and salad and salsa. Anyway, I got one of these in the street for just 8 pesos, near Hostel Amigo, and I gotta say it tasted superb, and it was easily enough to fill me up for lunch!

Hostel Amigo, Mexico City

Since this is the first youth hostel I've ever stayed at, I'm not really qualified to comment on how good it is. However, from what I've heard about youth hostels, I had pretty low expectations; and Hostel Amigo easily surpassed those expectations.

The Mexico City metro

Mexico City has an excellent underground train system — one that reminds me very much of Paris's metro. I first caught the metro late at night (on my first night here, with Jackie), and there were few people on the trains, and plenty of room to move about. This gave me the wrong idea as to what catching the metro would be like during the day!

Filed in: Mexico CityCrowdedTrains

The air in Mexico City

The first thing I noticed about this city, when I started exploring it, is that the air is much cleaner than I thought it would be. I've always heard that the air pollution is among the worst in the world here, and so I was expecting the worst. But it's really not that bad.

Farewell to Jackie

After the late night last night, I also had an early start this morning, to have breakfast with Jackie, and to say goodbye to her before she left for the airport. My first Mexican breakfast was standard enough: just toast, coffee, and orange juice. Not quite as exotic as last night's enchiladas, but hey, it did wake me up.