The big Doof...Mexico D.F.

This place made us pee out our bums. Bastards
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Ok, this blog is going to be a bit rank, so those of a sensitive disposition should skip on down to the next one.  For the rest of you...prepare yourselves mwahahahahaha.  So...we arrived in Mexico City on the 12th after a lengthy journey...what should have been 5 hours turned in to 7, and the landscape wasn't as impressive as our other bus trips, but it was comfortable so nevermind.  I was crapping myself (not literally...yet) as the LP description of Mexico City warns of kidnappings, taxi nappings and pillaging...Jodie was his usual cool, calm and collected self hehe.  We managed to get the Metro pretty much to our hostel (Mexico City Hostel...just behind the Cathedral in Centro Historico and $100 per night so cheap cheap), dumped our stuff and wandered in to the Mercado Restaurant as it was the only place open.  I had fish and Jo had Suiz Enchiladas.  It was bland but enough to fill our bellies, so we left and wandered back to hostel for what we hoped would be a good night's sleep until...13th June 2008 at 6am when Jodie woke up feeling a bit queasy.  This resulted in a mammoth 10 hour stint of vomiting from his mouth and ass.  It was beautiful.  I've never seen anything like it; he spewed 14 times and was so weak and pale that he could barely walk to the hotel Azores which we decided to move to seeing as he had a 200 metre walk to the loo in the hostel...not good when you're untrustworthy bowels and stomach are in control!  Being the loyal girlfriend that I am, I carried his backpack to the hotel, and after that he was miraculously better...only joking.  He crashed out and was pretty much following the pattern of vomit/pee out ass/shake a bit/sleep for the full 10 hours.  Pretty soon he started feeling a bit better,so we braved the hotel restaurant for some sustenance.  After watching someone spew for 10 hours, I was feeling pretty queasy myself so I opted for ice cream and Jodie asked for some mushroom soup.   What he actually received was extremely garlicky mushrooms...not good for someone with a dodgy stomach,and which we couldn't believe seeing as we repeated "Sope de Champiñones" so many times I think any normal person would think we were stupid.  So Jodie sent it back (what a hardass...I love it) and asked for a plain banana.  Which arrived deep fried(?!) 15 minutes later.  Poor Jodie.  We wandered  back to the room to watch more films on cable.  Ray Liotta's in a lot of stuff.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that this was the night of the big Lucha Libre match...poor J couldn't go :o(

The biggest organ we've ever seen (well, one of hahahah)
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14th June 2008

I took Jodie on a surprise trip to the Sex Capital...he took me to the Lucha Libre haha!

Woke up with Jo feeling much better than yesterday...so we decided to head out and see a bit of the city.  Decided to try being veggie as being ill is NO FUN AT ALL!  Headed to an amazing Vegeteriano restaurant for breakfast which involved fruit and omelettes...tasty.  Then I took Jodie on a surprise trip to the Sex Capital...basically a seedy market dedicated to the, erm,seedy.  We arrived too early to see the strippers who accompany your lunch in the food court, but we did see lots of lubricant, shifty men, people with their kids at work (?!) and we used the WCs...the flush didn't work so we both left them surprises.  Left the rather disappointing sex capital and wandered to the music section of town.  It's so strange...each area is dedicated to selling specific things.  All the music shops are together, there's a whole section dedicated to cheap, plastic jewellry...  Unfortunately, Bremondo didn't find the acoustic bass of his dreams,but he did try a few out to quench his bass thirst.  After a few hours (yes, hours) of bass hunting, we wandered back to the hotel and I was feeling a bit queasy at this stage.  We went for a vegetarian pizza and they gave us pepperoni instead of peppers.  Normally I love pepperoni, but this stuff wasn't so great so I gave up after a couple of slices.  We were looking forward to a nice, cosy sleep which we had until 15th June at 6am when I woke up and VOMMMMMITED.  Nice.  Obviously that restaurant was AWFUL, but the fish wasn't as bad as the chicken seeing as I only spewed 5 times.  Poor Jodie looked after me really well...he bought me water and gatorade which I spewed back up.  And I peed out my ass too.  I have never encountered anything like it...I had nothing in my system and the stuff coming out of my ass was CLEAR LIQUID!  That's not right.  I'm sorry about the detail, but I had to make sure you all understood the severity of the situation.  I will never take a solid poo for granted again. The only good thing to come out of the food poisoning on this occasion was that I got to watch Nadal beat Djokovic's ass in the Roland Garros final.  Hehe.

Nichola trying to de-wedgy in a cathedral.
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16th June

Today we were both feeling much better - woohoo!!  We said goodbye to the lovely Hotel Azores after breakfast there and made our way back down the street to the hostel.  Decided to see what we could of the Centro Historico today so made our way to the Templo Mayor - ancient ruins of the original settlement in Mexico City.  The museum was closed though, so we just had to make do with admiring the pretty bricks and pyramid structure.  Next, we went to see the Cathedral which is HUGE and has amazing, intricate detail in the stonework and decoration.  Finely carved figures adorning the gold-clad ceilings and altars.  Although it was very pretty, we both still find it bizarre that some Christian places of worship are full of severe Jesus imagery; Jesus being stabbed, burned or flogged and covered in blood!  I got some rather fetching images of this for you all to see!  Haha!  Onwards to the Palacio De Gobierno which now houses gevernment buildings.  That should say government buildings...gevernment seems funnier.  After passing the security check we wandered around the building and saw some amazing Diego Riviera murals.  How very cultured of us.

A big thing in the cathedral.
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After this, we noticed something in our Lonely Planet called "The National Sanctuary of Saint Death" 500m from the main centre, and being that we're complete goffs(?!) we decided to head along.  This turned out to be a wild goose chase to a less than savoury part of town; aparently there is no sanctuary here,but lots of the inhabitants of this area worship Santa Muerte on the first of every month.  Thanks Lonely Planet...we nearly had our bums felt!  Eventually, we ended up in a market town East of the Zocalo so we did a bit of window shopping.  Walked back to the hostel where we bumped in to Hugo, one of the Irish guys we met in Guadalajara,so went with tradition and sat in to watch a film...as if we haven't watched enough over the past few days!

One for the kids...
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Travelling wise we're REALLY enjoying ourselves - being ill wass totally fine and we didn't really miss home comforts; well, Jodie did miss his Mum's lentil soup!  We're now used to living on a budget (loosely...we'renot letting it dictate what we do).  We're trying to stick to $400 per day which has been relatively easy so far; travelling as a couple makes it a bit cheaper!  And it's strange how natural it's been to forget about work and other responibilities!  We have been pretty busy though with planning our next trips or seeing sights or wandering around, so that could be why.  Every now and then we realise how amazing this is - being in a city again it's difficult to remember as it's so similar to Glasgow or Edinburgh (apart from the Spanish)!  But when we're out in the sticks it's amazing...to see landscapes so different to want we're used to; the smells and sounds, etc!

Mr Calavera gambling as usual.
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On the 18th June I was sunburnt, and we spent the day trying to find the mythical food market which never materialised.  On the 19th we went to Xochilmilco which is in a seperate blog entry for map purposes.  And on the 20th Jodie had one of the best experiences of his life.  After a day of wandering around the markey (which is almost as big as Glenrothes)...that was meant to say market, but markey is better.  Unfortunately Jodie's daypack thing is on it's way out, so he bought a swanky fake bag for $50 which is about 2 pounds 50...that's a shabba moment.  I bought an amazing dress for the same price.  I love Mexico.  And then, it was time for the Lucha Libre.  Jodie will write this bit:  We got the metro from Zocalo to the Arena de Mexico.  After crossing a big, scary motorway we found the back entrance of the building- we knew this was the place as we saw a masked luchador heading in and getting swamped by fans.  We walked around the outside, and the area was PACKED with lucha fans teaming in and out of stands selling mascaras, wrestling figures and all kinds of wrestling merchandise.  We eventually found the ticket booth, and after working out what each ticket was, we paid $90 each for "Prelat" which turned out to be the first balcony off the floor with really good views of the action.  After getting searched and having our water confiscated (dammit) we headed in.  The arena was amazing...totally packed with people going her and there, big flashing lights, and big screens that showed the action and highlights after each mathc.  We really got our money's worthtoo as there were loads of matches with each match having 3 luchadors on either side.  Notable luchadors were Misterioso Jr; a viking themed guy, Maximo; a hilarious gay one who kept bum-bashing the bad guys and trying to kiss the ring announcer, and Mystico who did some amazing technical moves.  Then there was Dr Wagner who the crowd loved.  There were loads of vendors, and we had beers and amini-pizza delivered to our chairs!  All in all an amazing experience that shouldn't be missed in the big Doof.

Headed back to the hostelvia the metro without incident, and had a few drinks with Vinnie and Hugo.Also met a Scottish guy now based in Syndey who gave us some good tips re: bus and train travel in Japan and New Zealand.  Noice.