Mexico City – the city of speed humps! This would drive me nuts. There are almost the same amount of people living in the place as there are in the whole of Australia. The city is massive in area also.
We stayed at a friend’s house while in Mexico. We met Serena on the DTS and what a blessing it has been. We were picked up at the airport by the whole family, in two cars…and we arrived at midnight! The Lopez family has shown us abundant hospitality. Serena gave up her bed for us, the whole family doted on us and we were chaperoned everywhere and anywhere we wanted to go. We ate a lot of Mexican food, some homemade and others in restaurants and kiosks in the street. It was so cool, though after a week my stomach thought it was taking too much of a beating with all the chilli and decided to get upset, but nothing too serious. I found some of the food a little heavy and was craving for salad. On one of the last nights we were there, Dan and I made dinner for them. I made rissoles (an Aussie thick-burger-pattie-looking thing) and a HUGE salad. Dan made a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake for dessert – yummo!
We also caught up with two other guys we’d met on the DTS – Alex and Bernardo. Fortunately they were doing a bakery course close to Mexico City and we were able to spend two days with them. They bought some of their artwork over and it was sooo good. We were blessed having caught up with these dudes – they are such good value.
We walked through a huge park called Chapultepec and jumped on a peddle boat on the lake there – which was a funny green colour. We also visited a Castle-come-museum at the park, which has a lot of Mexican history in it. Unfortunately we didn’t learn enough Spanish to be able to read all the descriptions, nonetheless it was cool to see it all. Serena and I got a caricature done which was pretty cool (photo on Facebook). We went and visited Cuernavaca, walked the markets there and visited the Cathedral. It had some really nice (and old) artwork in it. A strange thing was the skull and crossbones on one of the doors – weird. We went to find the pyramids of Mexico, but when we got there (after getting a little lost) they’d shut for the day :o( Got a look at them from the distance, not as impressive as Egypt but these were Mayan-style so cannot compare. One night after dinner we went for a short walk in the street and there was a breathaliser set up, on the other side of the street were tow trucks ready to take the cars home - classic and brilliant!
We watched the World Cup final and it turned out that Dan’s orange pants didn’t help much, only good for one game. Dan wanted watch a live match of Luche Libre which is similar to WWF (which I’d only been introduced to a few weeks ago) except they’re more athletic…but still just as pathetic. We watched a little bit on TV and it was enough, Dan decided instead to buy a mask…uniquely Mexican.
The traffic in Mexico is similar to that of the Middle East, however I don’t think I can trust the Mexican drivers as much when crossing the road. We did a fair bit of driving (well, Serena did) and the traffic was horrible at times. There are pretty much no rules, though they do stop on red lights. We saw an article on TV of police charging drivers if they stopped over pedestrian crossings. The police drive with their lights on all the time and you know when you’re being pulled over if they announce it by loud speaker.
So, on the 15th we packed up, said our goodbyes and went to the airport to fly to Brazil…and we were denied. We had to get a visa, which we didn’t know about (or really look into it). We figured we’d been fine with all the other countries. So we went back to Serena’s – I felt so stupid. I’ve never had that happen to me before. I pretty much fell apart and had no idea what we were going to do as I’d organised with Compassion to visit 2 sponsor children we have. Dan figured out what we were going to do after a few phone calls to airline(s). Getting a visa to Brazil was going to take 5 working days and we were only on stand-by for flights to Brazil a week later. We couldn’t take the risk with Brazil as our flight to Brisbane was already booked, which went through Santiago, Chile. So loooong story short – we’re going to Chile so we can catch the connecting flight to Australia – which is 10 days. We also found out that it’s going to be pretty cold in Santiago – yay! We will be staying with YWAM and serving in whatever way we can after the earthquake there, and in running the base. Oh to serve again! Holiday with a purpose! Woohoo!
Till we leave Chile and hit Aussie, take care my friends and family mob.
See you all REAL soon – woohoo!
Liz
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