An Aussie in Mexico: Ruta Independencia Part 1

Days in Mexico: 241, only 99 left :(

This is the first of two posts because I have done so much and taken so many photos! This post is a bit later than normal because I have been in bed with a stomach infection for the past 5 days. I'm feeling a lot better now but you will read about what happened at the end of the second part which I will post when I have finished writing it

The other week I travelled around Mexico with my family. We left Veracruz on the 25th of September really early in the morning and went to Puebla for breakfast. On the way we passed the 2 largest mountains in Mexico; Pico de Orizaba and Volcán Popocatépet.

A beautiful street in Puebla

For breakfast we went to the markets and ate cemitas which are a type of massive bread roll, filled with ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado and chicken schnitzel that originated in Puebla. A couple of hundred, maybe even thousand of cemitas are made fresh everyday at the market!

Cemita

So many bread rolls!

And so much cheese!!

At the markets there were lots of piñata shops. We watched as piñatas were mad using newspaper and a warm glue made out of a flour and water mixture.

Puebla is famous for having lots of churches. On every street there was at least one church so while we were there we visited 2 churches; Catedral de Puebla and Capilla de la Virgen del Rosario. They are two of the largest cathedrals in the city and have lots of fine details on the inside and outside. They reminded me of some of the beautiful churches in Europe.
Catedral de Puebla

Capilla de la Virgen del Rosario

We then left Puebla and arrived in Mexico City for lunch. We ate huarache, which is a traditional food made with tortia dough and frijoles (beans.) The bean mixture is put inside the tortia dough and it is stretched out to make a long oval shape. It's then cooked on a hot plate and served with other ingredients on top. I ate one with melted cheese on it.

In the afternoon we went to Xochimilco which is a river surrounded by vegetation. My host parents went there about 10 years ago and they said it was more beautiful back then because it wasn't as polluted or developed as it currently is. In the Summer it is really popular and there are lots of boats ready for tourists. There are also boats with mariachi bands that play music as you are floating down the river.

At night we went into the centre of the city and saw the light which were especially up for Independence Day. I have been to that part of the city before with my first host family in March, but it was nice to return and see the light displays. For dinner we ate fresh churros and hot chocolate.

The lights for Mexico Independence Day

Churros and hot chocolate. YUM!!!

On Friday we left at 5am and drove south into Morelos. We needed to leave early because the traffic is really bad at any time of the day or night in Mexico City. Mexico City and the surrounding suburbs have a combined population of about 22 million people, which is only a bit less than the entire population of Australia!

A quick breakfast of quesadillas and coffee. On the plate next to the coffee are a bread made from corn that are rapped in the leaves of the corn plant

We stopped for breakfast on the way and arrived at 'El Rollo' at 9am. El Rollo is the largest aquatic park in Latin America and is located near Cuarnervaca (where I went for the 'Bienvenido' last month. There are more than 30 water slides and hardly any queues so we had heaps of fun! The two scariest slides that I went on were the tallest in the park. One was a tube that you stand in and the floor drops from beneath your feet (the red tube in the next picture.) You gain momentum as you slide down and do a loop-de-loop before shooting out the bottom. The other scary slide was an open slide (the yellow one.) It is almost a vertical drop and for most of it, I was free falling before being caught by the slide at the bottom. It was thrilling but you end a with a really big wedgie!

The waterslides were so tall and so much fun

There was also a wave machine for surfing so I had a go. I wasn't able to stand up on the board but I did get close to it a couple of times. I think it is harder to surf on the machine than it is to surf in real life at the beach. It was lots of fun, even though I ended but with lots of bruises.

On the way home we stopped at 'La Lupita.' The atmosphere is exactly how I imagined a traditional Mexican restaurant in Mexico City to be like; lots of people, music playing, rotisseries with juicy meat and the small of lemons, chilli and fresh, hot tortias in the air. The tacos that we ate were the best I have ever tasted! Even when I was full, my mouth craved the tasted and wanted more. I ate a 'gringo' which is a flour tortia with rotisserie meat and cheese on it and another tortia on top.

The restaurant

Possibly the best taco of my life!

We returned home late (mainly because of the traffic) and everyone was really tired so on Saturday we left at 10am with an aunty and uncle who live in Mexico City. For breakfast we had soup and tacos de borrego en hoyo con penca de maguey, which means tacos with the meat of lamb which has been slow cooked in a hole a in stove BBQ and has agave (a type of plant) in it.

Borrego en hoyo con maguey

The lamb meat was so good and melted in my mouth

Then we went to the pyramids in Teotihuacan. The pyramid 'Sol' (meaning sun) is the largest of it's kind on the continent of America. It was built between 100 and 200 AD and next to it starts the pyramid 'Luna' (moon.) Unlike the pyramids in Egypt, these pyramids were built to worship the day (sun) and night (moon) and don't have mummies inside them. I was able to climb all the way to the top of the pyramid of sun but only part of the way on the other pyramid is open to the public, so I climbed as high as I could. At the top of the pyramid of the sun there is a metal point that signifies the middle of the pyramid. Lots of people wanted to touch it so it was hard to get a photo of it, but it did end up getting one.