My Trip to Mexico:
Day One:
I began my journey to Mexico at around 1pm, and arrived there at about 9pm local time (10pm Eastern). The trip from the airport was quite scary! There are around 5 million cars in Mexico City and as a result the streets are crazy full. Also, it appears that paying attention to the lights is not mandatory. We stayed at the Casa Blanca Hotel for one night and it was lovely. We stayed in a Junior Suite with a grey marbled bathroom. After calling home, we went to bed exhausted.
Day Two:
We got up super early to have some breakfast before checking out. Then we caught a bus to Acapulco for the weekend. We took a super first class coach and they gave us water and snacks for the trip. They also showed two movies in the roughly 5 hour bus ride. The movies were in English and subtitled in Spanish, so that was good. I saw ‘Life as a House’ again and cried again.
So we arrived in sunny hot Acapulco without too much trouble. Our hotel room was rather nice with an ocean side view. We went walking around after a quick lunch (hotel food was yucky). Visited the shops and malls around us, and haggled with the street merchants in order to buy some trinkets. Then we had dinner at an interesting restaurant with huge menu (literally).
Later we hung out by the beach and enjoyed the breeze and some tacos. Thankfully, it was much cooler.
Day Three:
We took a city tour and saw all the sights. We saw the new and old parts of Acapulco, as well as the Beverly Hills of Acapulco, which includes Sylvester Stallone’s house!! We also visited the Princess Hotel, possibly the most beautiful hotel I have ever seen. Complete with over 1,000 rooms, 7 restaurants, 2 18-hole golf courses, and its own private beach. Later, we took a cruise around Acapulco Bay (really St. Lucia’s Bay). The main attraction was Denise and I: About 4-5 families took pictures of us with their children. Not a lot of cultural diversity outside of the Cancun resort area apparently. After the tour, we ate a hasty dinner and went to bed.
Day Four: Return to Mexico City
The bus trip back took a little longer, and we were stopped and searched at a military checkpoint. After we finally arrived at the hotel, we rested for a little bit. Then we began our next adventure: Dinner! Denise picked out a lovely restaurant but unfortunately when we got there it was closed. So we went to another restaurant nearby with live entertainment (really just four guys making a lot of noise singing in Spanish). Denise had a huge steak (600 grams---over one pound) for only 16$ US. Pictures will come a little later.
Day Five: The Pyramids
We took a tour to the pyramids. Actually we saw much more than that, we saw the 3 Cultures Plaza, Guadalupe Shrine, Teotihuacan Sun and Moon Pyramids, Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl Temples and an Arts & Crafts Centre. It was amazing! Denise climbed up both pyramids, I, sadly, only made it up the Moon pyramid and a bit of the way up the Sun pyramid. We also saw how they extract fluid from the Agave plant to make Tequilla and Pulque aka alcoholic honey water. After the tour, we walked around the famed Zona Rosa region of downtown.
Day Six: Downtown
We explored the Anthropology Museum from around 10am till nearly 3pm, with a little stop for lunch. The museum is amazing with so much to see. We spent so long there and not all the exhibits were open. They had the general introductions in English but the actual pieces only had Spanish explanations. Luckily, I recognized a lot of things from the two anthropology courses I took during my undergrad (Pre-Historic Archaeology and Human Evolution). Next we visited the Chapultepec Castle located in the Chapultepec Park along with all the museums. The park is actually a large forest in the middle of Mexico City! The castle was so cool; there were all these beautiful pieces of furniture and a lovely garden on the top floor. An ideal location for a wedding!
Day Seven: Mountains
We joined another tour and visited Cuernavaca City and Taxco, city of Silver. This tour lasted from 9am till 8pm. Since Taxco is 3 hours away from Mexico City and Cuernavaca two hours away. We saw the first church built by the Spaniards in Cuernavaca and learnt a bit of history about the missionaries. In Taxco, we were shown how to distinguish real silver from fakes and given ample opportunity to shop for silver. At this point, Denise and I were actually getting quite tired of the silver assault. Since Acapulco, the Taxco silver shops have been included in all the tours and we had bought all the silver we wanted. When we arrived back at the hotel, we got something to eat and packed.
Day Eight: The Return
After getting angry at the hotel management for their lack of proper schedules with their airport shuttle, we boarded the shuttle and took off to the Airport. We checked in and explored the duty free shops. Then we got on the plane and began our journey home and concluding our week long Mexican Adventure.
