Seeing México City by bike

My Friend had the rigors last night. He was putting clothes on (I was eyeing him off out of my half-shut left eye about midnight when I was trying to sleep - on went the thermals, on went the thick winter socks ...). Meantime, I was in summer PJs on top of the covers wishing I could open the window ...

So, he has spent most of today in bed.

I had a bike tour organised. It was quite a fun day: a 4-hour tour; although we didn't ride all the time as we stopped for a few chats from the guide along the way plus a stop at a chocolate 'museum' plus lunch of yummy tacos (I stayed with guacamole while most of the others got stuck into chili-laced toppings) plus icecreams (I passed on those; I LOVE icecream but I was full of tacos).

The guide Antonio teaches at the University and he was pretty interesting. I think he figured he was pretty cool too ... I quite liked the 'tail-end Charlie' - Valentin. Now, he was cute! Also he was pretty interesting to chat to. The group was friendly and interesting.

One woman is from Germany and is a flight attendant with Lufthansa - for 30 years! She has been to Mexico City heaps of times. They get a 48-hour layover on long-haul flights. She always picks something interesting and different to do. She speaks good Spanish (plus Italian, French, Portuguese, English - and of course German). She chatted with Antonio a lot ...

Anyway, it was fun to be out riding and seeing the city from that perspective. Many of the roads are closed to traffic on Sundays which makes it do-able - wow, there is so much traffic here! And there were some looney riders! (I nearly got taken out by one ...).

I picked up some free wi-fi in the street when we had lunch at the taco stall and sent My Friend a message. It was almost 1 p.m. and he was just waking up ...

Catalina picked me up at the finish of the tour - many of the previously closed roads were now open and there were major protests taking place: Fuera peña ("Go away President"). And no, they are not talking about Trump (although they don't like HIM either!). They are referring to THEIR president! The people are not happy with him, accusing him of corruption; and they are unhappy with increases in prices of things like petrol (they call it "gasoline").

We had passed the protests whilst on the bikes. But anyway, now I was back at our hotel and My Friend and I ventured out so we could buy him some electrolytes; he said he felt he was 'up' to getting out. We could hear the protests approaching along the street outside the hotel to enter the main square (zócalo).

There was plenty going on outside and we amused ourselves the rest of the afternoon wandering around. I had really wanted to see the Frida Kahlo museum (she was married to Diego Rivera and a very good artist in her own right). But with the streets so congested it was going to be difficult to make it there in time. I am very disappointed but c'est la vie!

I have to say though, that it was a lovely afternoon. In the shady streets it was a delightful temperature compared to when the bike tour finished (it had become quite hot by the middle of the day). I was keen to get to El Moro for the churros and chocolate that Catalina had recommended. We did finally find it with the help of some free street wi-fi and an offline map that My Friend had on his i-phone. What did we do before technology???

Anyway, El Moro was FANTASTIC.

We then headed for El Mayor which was a tip given to me by one of the people on the bike tour. It is a roof-top bar and restaurant not far from our hotel overlooking the Templo Mayor archaelogical site we had walked through late yesterday afternoon. It was very crowded but we 'snagged' a table overlooking the site.

The waiter apologised it was in the sun but it was setting anyway so in about 15-20 minutes we were out of it and we watched the sun go down behind the Cathedral and the zócalo.

By the way, Mexico City is built on a swamp and so the city is sinking 3.5 cm a year! And buildings are leaning (the photos are not straight because of this - it is not my crooked eye!).

I was still full of churros so didn't need much to eat and My Friend was still feeling sqeamish so he settled for tomato soup and I had fried parsley and lemon tacos (perejil frito con limón - oh wow!) and taquitos con puntas de filete con nopales which basically translates as "a rolled taco (or 'flauta') with a beef filling with tips of prickly pear". Umm - nice, actually.

It was by now cool and it was a brisk walk back to the hotel via the walkway over the Aztec ruins archaeological site.

Back to the hotel to sort out the blog!! The staff have been in to do the room even though it had been mid-afternoon when we vacated. It looks nice.