Mites at the Tristan Bates Theatre: Don't Trust Men (or Cats...or Men that are Cats)by Randi / October 10, 2019“Hey, do you guys know a good place where I can get Mexican food?…Oh, Mexico, duhh!” Just like Judge Gen on The Good Place, my love of Mexican food runs hella deep (although I do not have the ability to add essence of time to my burritos). We finally made it to Mexico City, what the cool kids call CDMX (for Ciudad de Mexico), and we forking LOVED it. All of it too, not just the (amazing) (omg so good) (and so vegan-friendly) food, which is a huge deal for something who tends not to breathe in heavily polluted cities. Okay I’m not saying we loved the pollution (hates it!) or the traffic but the rest of it, you bet your bottom dollar we loved.
After our incredible time in the Yucatan (that link will show all the Yucatan posts at the beginning!), we flew from Merida to Mexicity funtimes. PS, the Merida airport doesn’t have vegan food but it DOES have giant waters after security, which is the most important thing. (The airport was also playing my absolute favorite song from the band Jesse & Joy, a Mexican duo that I hadn’t thought about in years so I was like almost crying, it was so amazing. (They are amazing truly check them out.)) Okay food is important too, so that was bad planning on my part. The flight was 10:50am, landing (bumpily) in CDMX at 12:50pm. By the time we got through customs and got our bags, it was like hella late! 2pm! Where’s our first day! I guess it was not a good day to not plan for lunch, I’ll tell you that. The airport has mmmnothing. So don’t be like me! Be smart!
It’s okay I just love them so much!
We took an Uber to our hotel because the metro wouldn’t have helped much timewise (and we were crankypants), but MAN ALIVE, the drive into the city from the airport was hell. Sitting in traffic was definitely the worst part of the whole experience (and I had to go to the hospital another day! we will get there), just sitting on crammed highways and smelling/seeing the pollution. We walked everywhere and used public transit from that point on.
Luckily, everything picked up from there! We got to the Hipodromo section of the La Condesa neighborhood to our hotel, Casa Mali. Guys, I don’t think i can do justice to how BEST EVER this hotel was. First of all, the room was not a room but more like a surprise serviced apartment: a little kitchen with a full-size fridge (and a blender!), a dining area, a gorgeous bedroom, a sun-lit bathroom. We were on the top floor (yes it was called a penthouse but it was like 4th floor, it’s a small boutique place and it’s perfect) so not sure if this was an upgrade sitch but I wasn’t going to ask questions.
(not pictured: A+ wall unit the bed points to and another big tv, plus on the left side you can sort of see the beginning of an INCREDIBLY GIGANTIC CLOSET AREA)
But aside from a great shower, a huge fridge, a lovely bed, all these wonderful aspects of the room, what could there be that actually made me sob with happiness and disbelief at our good fortune? Guys what’s my favorite thing in the world??
A WASHER AND A SEPARATE DRYER! AHHHHH! I screamed, I really did, and then I immediately told my mom and my best friend so they could scream (they know how much I love a good dryer). I know this is weird but they don’t do dryers right/at all in England so this was huge for us. And those of you who followed along on our Central Asia trip a few years ago (check the DESTINATIONS tab at the top) know how much I love (/how anxious I get about) doing laundry when I’m traveling.
Obviously I immediately washed all of our clothes and then did my second favorite thing to do when traveling: completely unpack.
(not pictured: water shoes lol)
The hotel had a roof deck with a tiny hot tub and a “gym” – and by “gym” I mean a teeny lil room with an elliptical and a treadmill but no real room to get on them, lol. Our room was spacious enough that I worked out in there! (ABYB: always bring your bands!)
Okay that’s enough about the room because you know what the best part of this hotel was? Well what do I love even more than a clothes dryer that actually works? The same thing I love more than life:
Doggos.
People. The hotel was located right on a park, which according to google maps is called simply Parque Mexico, which cannot be right. But not just any park: It was a dog park. It was packed full of good boys literally everywhere you turned, all day every day. I honestly would have been happy not seeing any of Mexico City and just walking around this dog park every day. I could NOT handle it! So cuteeee! In fact, one day, there was a doggo adoption fair going on in the park. Right outside our front door. Can you even? I could not even.
Mexico City is like, UNNERVINGLY large, so instead of breaking up the experience in the usual way (separate posts for activities, hotel + food, &c), we are going to talk about each neighborhood that we explored in separate posts. It’s so big that it’s no good to you if we talk about a restaurant near x activity in a post that isn’t about x activity! It’s like REALLY big so you have to plan ahead and know what you’re after. We’ll continue today with our BFF nabe, where we set up our base: Hipodromo in the La Condesa neighborhood, about the southwest corner of the very central section of the city. It’s right near the Roma neighborhood, and we excitedly took pictures outside the Roma house even though the movie was like, just okay.
Read my thoughts on Roma and every other important movie of 2018 here!
i was looking at a dog
I’m SO glad we had a friend recommend staying in La Condesa. CDMX is GIGANTIC (i’m going to say that a lot) and figuring out where to stay or even where to go is seriously stressful, so having an insider’s opinion on what neighborhood we’d like most was priceless. La Condesa is a really nice, chill, hipster, semi-quiet very-neighborhoody area with lots of good businesses, and full of green spaces. That last one really helps you feel comfortable in a city where not many people feel comfortable. In fact, most people I know who have been to CDMX in real life have hated it! I think your enjoyment hundo p depends on what sections of it you explore and where you stay. All the pollution and cars and HUBBUB that you’ll encounter throughout your day pretty much sucks, so having to stay in an area that is also super pollution + cars + HUBBUB would be terrible. La Condesa was so calm and green and cool, it was like a refuge we could return to after hubbubbing all day, a refuge that is still jam-packed with activity but in a cool neighborhoody way.
I’m also super grateful to our expert-friend for recommending this neighborhood because he based it mostly on its proximity to Tacos Hola, also known as Tacos El Guero, also known from its sign as Tacos Hola El Guero but that’s not the name, it has to be one of the other variations. Anyway, this super unassuming lil almost-hole-in-the-wall joint was INCREDIBLE. There were big pots of all these different kinds of fillings and you just say which pots you want in a taco. There’s also a big picture-board of all the menu options which you know is the best forking thing in a foreign country.
It doesn’t look like much, but that’s because they are LEGIT, not worried about the gram but about the taste and the authenticity and the general amazeballsness. AMAZE. And the people were really nice and friendly despite my horrible attempts at communicating.
Alright, it’s time for some culture – we will get back to tacos later, as 90% of what we did was eat tacos. Our big To-Do list for Mexico City was literally to go to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, or the National Anthropology Museum. Now, if ever a museum has attained A Reputation, it’s this one, famed for requiring not a whole afternoon, not even an entire day, but entire daysss, plural, to even scratch the surface. We tried, my lord how we tried, and we did not even finish the first floor. It is INTENSE, it is dense with information, and it is incredible.
The MNDA, former name of MDMA, from here on in referred to as the Anthropology Museum because I’m realizing what a horrible acronym that makes, is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. It’s in Chapultepec Park, a giant, lovely park to stroll around with lots of other important sites: the Castillo de Chapultepec (a castle on a hilltop with a history museum), a modern art museum, several fountains and monuments, a lake, a zoo (don’t go to zoos!), a Canadian Totem…? LOTS. We meandered through the park on the walk from our hotel so it took about an hour to get there.
We also, obvs, were stopping to try every awesome bit of street food we saw.
The museum costs 75 pesos to enter (about $4), so one of the highest values in all of museuming considering the quality and quantity of what’s inside (“everyone wants to know what’s insiiiiide”). The only bad thing is they do not let you bring liquids – even water – in, and Mexico City isssss hot. Because “I promised” not to drink what was left (not that much!) from my giant bottle, the security guards let me in with it, and I drank when I was in between rooms and near bathrooms, but I didn’t have nearly enough. After a few hours of rationing when I really could not afford to be rationing, I ran to the cafe at the end of the first floor only to find they had CLOSED FOR THE DAY. I mean, WTF. Guess who else closed for the day? The fancy restaurant! I was like please please I need water I’m literally dying, and they said they could fill my bottle from the tap. Well. If you know anything about traveling to Mexico, not drinking tap water is like rule numero uno. I knew that, and my face conveyed that I knew it to the guy who offered, because he quickly added “the water is filtered from this tap.” And honestly, I didn’t know if filtered meant safe for my weak ass tumnus, but I was going to find out because I needed water. Luckily, I am happy to report I did not get sick. PROCEED WITH VISIT!
So, a museum of anthropology is not full of cute dresses that are supes overpriced until they go on sale and you have to root through those overstuffed racks and honestly in the past few years it’s not even worth it anymore; whoever is doing their buying should be working at Free People because the aesthetic is off. ANYWAY, no, anthropology is the scientific study of humans, human behavior, and past and present societies. (The study of (near-) future societies is called Idiocracy by Mike Judge.) The museum is packed with archaeological and anthropological artifacts from Mexico’s pre-Columbian heritage, with lots of Aztec finds. Even if you don’t think you are interested in anthropology, you gotta see the big f-ing thing, okay?
Considering the extent of what we saw on our first day literally fills four years’ worth of college anthro courses (I took one and it was too cold in the hall so I did not learn SHITE), I’m going to just share my highlights from the museum instead of like, leading you through it. There are tons of good highlight guides online if you need guidance for when you are there.
Considering my line of work (you can ask if you want), I loved that my visit began with a sign calling humans chumps for trying to feel superior to chimps. I am so going to throw the phrase “nothing but an evidence of anthropocentric arrogance” at some bitches.
“well maybe he was nervous.”
The museum is laid out like a big rectangle, with each room opening to the inner courtyard on the inside and having outdoor exhibit extensions on the perimeter. I was grateful for these outdoor sections because no one can yell at you for drinking water outside! It rains!
Below is the Aztec sun stone, maybe the most famous Aztec sculpture. Its complexity has attracted tons of interpretations from scholars but I bet none of them are right.
So that was a quick and dirty tour through…the things I took pictures of, so if you are in CDMX, know that you must go and you must devote lots of time to a proper visit. (And let me know what’s on the second floor; we never made it!)
After all that learning, we all deserve a delicious reward:
MOAR TACOS! We treated our time in CDMX as any wise person should: as a chance to do the taco cleanse and to do it right. La Pitahaya was on my list because it’s hundo p vegan and had great reviews on trusty old HappyCow. Also, it was a 20 minute walk from our hotel, which is pretty much as close as anything could be in this city.
We enjoyed delicious tamales, a special from Mama that day (I’m assuming), and AMAZ tacos. They have six or so taco kinds, so we thought it would be normal to have 3 each, but fork being normal – if you go just get one of each. WHY NOT. They also have INCREDIBLE sounding mains like enchiladas and enfrijoladas, and if we weren’t committed to our cleanse/if we had more time, I would have been back for all of it.
We got a ‘carnitas michoacanas’ which is meaty mushrooms, with raw nopales; we got my FAVE the scrambled tofu with black salt and guacamole (I mean, a perfect food circle); and I think the masala curry potatoes? Just get them all. Man alive, these were great. I definitely recommend a visit. And the staff was SO super amazing and nice and I wanted to be friends and not only because they gave me tacos.
The last thing I’ll share from this neighborhood is our visit to a pulcheria, a thing we had to do because culture. Pulcherias sell pulque, a Mexican alcoholic drink made by fermenting sap from the maguey plant, which is a kind of large agave plant. Cool! I thought. It’s like an agave nectar drink! No, pulque is like the initial, unfiltered substance that can be distilled into mezcal (which can be tequila). I was told this was like kombucha, like a low-alcohol drink that I’d be fine with, which was FALSE. The kind we tried at L’Nuclear Pulcheria (about 20 minutes from our hotel) (I mean honestly the name should have given it away) was 20% alcohol! That’s like A LOT. It wasn’t an unpleasant drink though, which is a huge thing considering it’s famous for its OKRA-LIKE VISCOSITY. It really is…quite viscous. But if you can consume alcohol, it’s worth a try. I didn’t hate it but I will be sticking with kombucha.
So that’s our first look into Mexico City! Next time – Coyoacán! And more tacos of course.
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It’s Yucatanfastic: Merida, Uxmal, Mexican Chocolate, & More Cenotes
Welcome back to Mexico Central (not to be confused with Central Mexico), at least for the next few weeks! After our wonderful but brief trip through Valladolid and our visits to Chichen Itza, Ek Balam, and our favorite cenotes, we’re ready to continue through the Yucatan – which is, as you saw above, Yucatanfastic – via Merida and Uxmal. And not only are there more cenotes to come, there’s also a museum…of chocolate. It’s all my favorite things, babies! And then a real museum, which as you know is usually not my favorite thing only because for some reason in museums I tend to turn into Dug from “Up” seeing a squirrel , but this museum held my attention. IT’S ALL GREAT. Let’s get to it.
Once we saw all the wonders of Chichen Itza, on that amazing first full day in Mexico, we drove about two hours towards the west coast to Merida (it could take you less but remember we left Cheechee at closing time (5pm), so we were living it up during rush hour! On a Monday! So fun in every country!). As we saw in Valladolid and as I warned you would happen in every town in the Yucatan, our evening arrival was commemorated with half of Merida dancing in the street outside the main square, and the other half watching. It’s so fun and lovely; I love that there are still legit communities out there in the world. Meanwhile we don’t even know our neighbors (but one of them has a Leave (Brexit) sign in their window so we don’t want to know them, obvs). Honestly I can’t even believe there are Americans who don’t want Mexican people to be their neighbors. THEY’RE JUST GOING TO DANCE IN THE STREET AND MAKE YOU AMAZING FOOD, what is your problem?
Now that we’re in Merida, it’s time for our favorite travel segment:
Merida, along with being the heroine of the most disappointing “Disney princess” movie (seriously all she does is turn her mother into a bear and we’re supposed to appreciate the “feminism”? she’s a “strong female role model” because she “decided” to turn her mother into a bear? how many “quotes” can I “use”??), is the capital and largest city of the Yucatan state. It’s also one of the most popular destinations in the Yucatan because of its prime location as a perfect jumping off point to start negotiations explore the surrounding sites, and also because it’s one of the most beautiful cities. It’s been named the American Capital of Culture a few times by smart people who know that ‘American’ doesn’t just refer to USA. Merida is indeed a cultural gem, with interesting architecture that mixes its Mayan roots with European influence, and with strong museums, amazing food, and the aforementioned dancing in the Plaza Mayor. Having the largest indigenous population of any Mexican city means its Maya heritage and history are at the forefront.
So in the 1500s, there were three men named Francisco de Montejo and they were all Spanish conquistadors AND they were all related so it got super confusing but there wasn’t much they could do because there just weren’t that many names back then. To make it easier, they used cute lil nicknames: the oldest was “The Lieutenant” (“hello lootellaaaann” – South Pacific), his son was “The Boy”, and his nephew was “The Nephew”. Cute for you! Obviously these were in Spanish because they spoke Spanish because they WERE Spanish! which means they arrived in Mexico and saw indigenous people just carrying on living their lives and the lootellant, the boy, and the nephew – or just The Boy, actually; I think it was just The Boy but then why did I have to hear about all three of these bozos? – were like “LA LA LA I DON’T SEE ANYONE ELSE I MAKE MY CITY HERE. HERE’S A GOOD SPOT.” Merida was built on the site of the ancient Maya city of T’ho, and stones from T’ho’s/those buildings were used to build the Spanish colonial buildings of downtown Merida, including the cathedral.
For a few centuries, Merida was a walled city, needing such protection because SOME Maya people had the BIG IDEA that the Spanish and their descendants shouldn’t have just up and taken the land so there were some revolts. Modern Merida has since expanded well beyond those old walls. I don’t know much about the treatment of the indigenous population today, but considering they are the majority, I hope they are running things.
I’m going to share Merida hotel and vegan food info in a separate post because there is just SO MUCH to talk about! You may recall we only spent 1 night in Valladolid (and did so much I’m honestly just so proud of my lazy butt) but we have 3 in Merida, so we have a lot of ground (food, really) to cover – as well as a beach day in Progreso! It was not as exciting as it sounded! But you’ll see! In the separate post!
After our first night, we slept in a little because, well because I hadn’t been able to sleep in for like at least a week and I can’t function like that for too long because I have a SYNDROME and the only cure is MORE COWBELL sleep. Also, we had to be ready for another gigantic day! This day was going to be packed with a trip to the site of the ancient Maya city Uxmal, more cenotes, and a surprise chocolate museum that literally took 3 hours and yet was great.
UXMAL
After about an hour’s drive, we got to Uxmal at 11:30am, which is a terrible, no good, very bad idea. See, this was summer, in Mexico. It’s hot. At almost noon, the sun is, like, ready, and boy oh boy it felt like we were in a sauna while we explored the extensive grounds of Uxmal. It was about 102 degrees (Fahrenheit, obvs; see last post for my rant about systems of measurement it’s totally worth it) and we were positively baking. (You’ll be like THEN WHY ARE YOU WEARING A SWEATER IN THESE PICTURES but it is not a sweater it’s like the thinnest material ever made and it just protects my arm skin from burning.) Entry into Uxmal is 413 pesos (about $20) and, like the other sites, a portion of that is a federal fee that has to be paid in cash so you just need to be prepared to pay in cash.
Like pretty much every site we’ve seen so far in the Yucatan, Uxmal is an ancient Maya city and one of the most important archaeological sites in Maya culture. It’s on the Ruta Puuc, a long grouping of roads that lead to endless Maya archaeological sites and ruins. If you are in the market for an entire day of endless ruins, just drive down the Ruta and see however many you have time for, ensuring you end with Uxmal since it’s the grandest and most important. If, like us, you’ve already seen lots of ruins and you don’t want to get burned out to the point where you don’t appreciate them any longer, start with Uxmal, spend a significant amount of time exploring this site, and then treat yo self to a hilarious afterparty/museum.
While everyone visiting the Yucatan will put Chichen Itza at the top of their to-do list, we were impressed with Uxmal and I think we both agreed it was our favorite site in the state. It’s an enormous site like Chichen Itza, but it’s much less crowded, and it’s also much more interesting topographically. There are so much areas to explore and it seems like they’re all on different levels, like various earthen platforms rising in unexpected ways so there’s all this surprising variation in elevation as you explore. This made our exploration of Uxmal much more exciting and fun. Also, there are ZERO touts, whereas Chichen Itza has tons of stalls all around the interior grounds, which I get and it happens at most important sites around the world, but it’s nice to find one that isn’t all commercialized inside.
actually we made about 1000 of these new frens. they are EVERYWHERE.
Despite its popularity and general fame, Uxmal has not actually been studied enough as an archaeological site. I’ve been calling it an archaeological site and I’m going to keep calling it an archaeological site because calling it old ruins sounds like I’m being a bitch to her, but there hasn’t actually been much archaeology going on. Very little excavation or research has been done because I guess archaeologists are too busy in Egypt still? I don’t know where are they? People think that it was founded about 500 AD and was the capital of the Maya state from 850-925 AD before invaders took over. During its height, it teamed up with Chichen Itza to dominate Mayan society; the two together were like Helene Bezukhova, the queen of society, beautiful, barely clothed, plump bare shoulder and much exposed neck, round which she wears a double string of pearls! okay I’m getting sidetracked by musical theatre again (PIERRE THE CUCKHOLD SITS AT HOME PIERRE THE CUCKHOLD SITS AT HOME the poor man).
Like all good ruins, Uxmal featured a enormous f-ing thing that you have to climb. Well you don’t have to, but we always feel compelled to climb whatever is climbable, even though my FOMO (fear of missing out) is regularly outweighed by my FOFO (fear of falling off). Uxmal’s expansive grounds include lots of highly climbable structures, but the highest building, the grand temple, is the Featured Climb. As always, it probably looks like an easy climb in the pictures but it was g-d terrifying to come down. I mean the climb up wasn’t a picnic in 102 degree heat when you are sweating buckets even without moving but I almost panicked to a halt coming down. No I definitely did panic-halt a few times. At the top, we met a really nice English family who were taking a year-long tour around the world. They had a son of about 7 years old and the two of us literally talked each other through the descent. We both went down on our bottoms (as the English say) for a part of it, but I felt better standing and going sideways. Guys it was legit terrifying. It’s so steep that you are basically looking at a sheer drop; the stairs are almost on top of each other and even for my small-ish feet they are TINY. I felt bad leaving my new child friend as he took longer but his parents were waiting for him at the bottom and like, didn’t seem concerned and I had to GET THE F OUTTA THERE before I froze again. Ahhh these descents are scary! I mean I get extra scared because I fell down a similar thing once (okay it was stone stairs at college not at an ancient archaeological site BUT STILL) but it’s definitely not a breeze to do for anyone. (Also not a breeze? The lack of breeze.)
At many of these ancient sites, amid the enormous temples and structures for sacrificial rites and residential buildings and smaller temples and everything, would always be an open field called the ‘ball court’. Some, like at Chichen Itza, are ‘Great Ball Courts’. I honestly saw all these signs for ball courts and thought ‘well it’s nice they also had leisure activities and sports.’
We’ll put a pin in that ball court discussion until we get to the Mayan Museum at the end. REMEMBER!
Surviving the descent of that temple was definitely my favorite part, but my second favorite part offers some stiff competition. Like I said (a lot) (yay complaining), it was hot as the balls they used in the great ball court’s non-basketbally game of basketball. When we exited the grounds back into the ticket/welcome building with the toilets and a few shops, we saw THE BEST THING EVER:
ICY DRINKS! PLEASE AND THANK YOU! We shared a mango one and a coconut one and because it was so sweltering out, they were amazing. Icy drinks have never been better. HUZZAH FOR ICE.
What a great place.
After our just-under-two hours at Uxmal, we were definitely ancient-ruinsed out for the day. I mean, all we’d really done so far in Mexico was tour these sites, so continuing further down the Ruta Puuc would have probably made us bitter. Instead, we went across the street from Uxmal to…the Museum of Chocolate.
CHOCO-STORY: ECOPARQUE MUSEO DEL CACAO
We thought the Chocolate Museum, or “Choco-Story” would be a nice little air-conditioned diversion to regroup after our exhausting (but awesome) time at Uxmal, before getting back on the road to find more cenotes. But it turned out to be a HUGE cacao plantation, where they grow and harvest cacao beans and also have an entire museum about the history, growth, use, everything to do with cacao. It was INSANE. We thought it would be like 30 minutes tops and we were there for over 2 hours. But it was SO fun, and so interesting. The museum is spread through the endless grounds in numerous thatched huts, with each hut covering one topic. I fancy myself a chocolate connoisseur and I never imagined there could even be so much information about it.
We learned what healthy beans look like, as well as a lot of (too much) information about all the different kinds of diseases your cocoa beans could catch (omg it was actually very sad). We learned how the very special beans were used as currency in ancient times, and how much they’d be worth. We learned how the Maya would use cocoa beans in their sacrifices to the gods. And we learned about the cocoa gods the Maya people would pray too, like this fine one below who is appropriately but oof sadly covered in cocoa bean…lesions?
90% of what we learned in the Yucatan was about human sacrifices. I mean I’m all about respecting other cultures BUT DAYUM
We ALSO learned – too late – that it wasn’t just a cocoa plantation, but also a sort of animal sanctuary. When I first came upon the cages, I was like OH SHIT OH SHIT IS THIS SOME SORT OF F-ING ZOO? But there are signs all over the animal areas saying WE ARE NOT A ZOO! and explaining that the animals living here have been rescued from abuse, and wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild. Now I’m no wildlife expert, and I’m sure there’s a strong argument that we still shouldn’t interfere with wild animals even if they face certain death remaining on their own. But there’s not much I personally am mad about if this place is giving these animals a nice life that otherwise would have been over long ago.
Another thing I thought this place did well was reinforce the respect that cacao farming deserves, and how we should treat chocolate as something special and not something we are entitled to. And of course, we have to be careful where we buy from and what kinds of practices we support.
My favorite part was that one hut was for learning how to make traditional Maya hot cacao drinks, complete with making and enjoying your own cup! The cocoa on its own is extremely bitter, so there is a bowl of sugar for making it palatable, plus the traditional spice additions of cinnamon, annatto, allspice, and hot pepper. I added everything!
I also really enjoyed the sign on Chocolate & Health. We had a pretty good laugh at how ridic this was.
It was pretty cool but kind of awkward when we were ushered deeper into the forest (it’s like in a forest, it’s nuts) for a traditional Maya cocoa ceremony. Awkward just because we were uncomfortable with these guys performing for us white tourists and we were just like eeeek thank you I really appreciate this but eeeek, but it was interesting.
Obviously, my favorite part of the Chocolate Museum was truly the gift shop. IT WAS ALL CHOCOLATE! and like, things for making chocolate? and soaps and shampoos made from chocolate? The flavors of their bars sounded incredible, but it was so hot and they would all immediately melt before we made it back to London (in like, another week? no chance!). We limited ourselves to two awesome flavors, both with some sort of pepper.
OH NO! HOLD THAT THOUGHT. My actual favorite part was the additional information inside the main building, near the gift shop. There was a “Chocolate Timeline”, and it included such shade, such absolute, gorgeous, sensational shade, thrown at the king of fuckery, Mr Christopher Columbus. Behold the glory:
I CANNOT handle how excruciatingly perfect this is. In so few words it’s basically announcing what a f-ing asshole Columbus was but without saying anything objectionable. SO GOOD. WHAT AN ASSHOLE.
Choco-story was a really fun surprise! It took over two hours to tour, and the toilets are only outside the ticket area (had to do a few reentries), but I’m glad we went.
After the chocolate, you know what it’s time for.
CENOTES
Another day in the Yucatan, another swim in a cenote! We followed our GPS as best we could towards the middle of nowhere for X’Batun Cenote, which eventually led us down a dirt road. We were like, is this right? Where TF are we? We drove through this amazing, quaint little villages with a single small church and like a cow on the side of the road, wondering if we were going in the right direction. Eventually, we saw a small sign up on a big porch, with a few guys sitting in chairs. They were selling tickets and giving directions! They also had toilets!
The men sold us a joint ticket for two cenotes located across the road from each other, X’Batun and Dzonbacal. It’s 80 pesos for both. Unfortunately, X’Batun was closed because of heavy rains earlier that week – the rains made the water too dirty to swim in. We had a peek at it though, and it was very similar to Dzonbacal, where we still could swim, so it’s fine.
We still have to get there though! This ticket porch is still miles away from the actual cenote! They directed us to drive to the end of this road, turn right past a certain tree, and then drive 3 kilometers down a random suuuuper dirt/off-roady road till there’s a split in the road, indicating the two cenotes. We peeked at the one and then drove to the other, where the parking area had toilets (!) and a shower stall. The toilet was the foulest one I’ve seen yet in the country, and still no hooks were to be found (Mexico like doesn’t do hooks in toilet stalls), so changing in it without letting any of my stuff touch the gross floor was A CHALLENGE. We rinsed off with the shower stall/bucket as you should do (really as you should do not just with natural swimming wonders of the world but in public pools omg the gross men at my London pool don’t shower beforehand even though it’s IN THE RULES and they all reek of cologne HOW MANY EMAILS DO I HAVE TO SEND BEFORE THEY ENFORCE THE RULES) and then we enjoyed this cenote! It was beautiful, like half in a cave half outside.
Such a great cenote. There are decent signs advertising X’Batun, so you shouldn’t have a hard time finding it (or at least finding the right village) if you include it with your trip to Uxmal, which you should do. Hopefully for you X’Batun won’t be too dirty to swim in!
Since we were already in wet bathing suits when we got back to our hotel, we enjoyed our hotel pool after our cenote time. Double swimming days are the best. But more on that in the next post!
Aside from our beach day in Progreso, we have one more sight to share from our time in Merida, and one of the most important: The Mayan World Museum of Merida, or the Gran Museo del Mundo Maya.
GRAN MUSEO DEL MUNDO MAYA
The Mayan Museum is the big thing to do actually in the city of Merida. It’s off one of the main expressways of the city leading north out of it (so it makes sense to visit the museum first and then continue north to Progreso for a beachy day trip, if you are planning things for yourself). It’s a huge, modern, shiny building with a gigantic, new, shiny, modern parking garage underground. It costs 80 pesos to park in it, which is $4, and worth it to keep your car out of that sun.
When you get to the huge shiny lobby of the museum, you’ll be (I was) happy to see water dispensers for refilling your enormous water bottles! Honestly my favorite part.
It’s 150 pesos per ticket, about $7.50 which is not bad considering how much this museum has. The exhibits are great, but there isn’t very good signage, at least in English, which was a little disappointing. Still, you can learn a lot from what what signs there are and from just looking at the displays with a modicum of critical thinking.
There’s tons of information about indigenous cultures, their ways of life, and what they were like in ancient times, in every aspect. There’s tons of archaeological finds, including ancient statues and all kinds of pottery.
But you’re here to finally learn what the big ball courts in all the ruins sites are about. All over Mesoamerica, these ancient cities have these huge ball courts, and like I said before, it’s not just for old-fashioned forms of basketball. Archaeologists believe that the game was played by hitting the ball with one’s forearm, or a bat-like device, to try to pass it through those rings we saw above, in Uxmal, on the side walls of the playing field. Hitting it with your forearm sounds like it would hurt, because the balls were HEAVY. Yikes! That’s probably as bad as it gets, right? Pain-wise? Noooope. Scenes carved on walls of the spectator benches show players wearing protective gear as well as carrying tools that could be used for striking the ball, so who knows what the right way to play is. It shouldn’t concern us too much, though, because REGARDLESS can we just ALL AGREE as a society NOT to play this game? Okay so after you play and try to get the ball through the hoop, there would be a winner and a loser, as there are. Seven players on each side would parade toward the center of the field, and the captain of the defeated team would kneel. Then the captain of the winning team would DECAPITATE THE LOSER. The winning captain/murderer would hold his knife and the severed head of his friend up before the probably cheering crowd. This, like almost everything else in these ancient cities, existed as a way to offer human sacrifices to the gods but in a more communal and fun way, I GUESS. And I thought football sucked.
I won’t leave you with ‘horrible sports gone wrong’, though. Elsewhere in the museum, there was an interactive screen display that, if you entered some personal information about yourself, would tell you sort of your Mayan fortune – what your personality is like and what jobs you’re equipped for. I’m sure it’s a way for the government to collect private details about its guests but we really wanted to know what it would say so we did it anyway.
As you can see, my color is black and my direction is west, so I’m kind of like a Kardashian in Mexico. I’m like IN AWE of how accurate this is. I DO live between day and night (like most people…because they just mean like…daytime, right?). I am GENEROUS with my ADVICE (/extremely judgmental and bossy). I TAKE TO THE ROAD IN BOTH HAPPINESS AND SORROW! this is amazing. Although apparently I should be a road guide or a…a marriage spokesman?? what job is that and how do I get it? LOVES IT! WORTH THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT HAVING MY EMAIL ADDRESS!
So that’s it for Part 2 of our trip through the Yucatan, but there’s much more to come. Like, the hotel (and its pool) and all the vegan food, plus a beach that I did…not…love. So fun! Stay tuned.
Seville, Spain: I Did Not Fall Madly in Love with Generalissimo Franco But I Still Had Fun
Recently, Husband and I spent a weekend in Madrid, and then two weeks later we returned to Spain for an extended trip through Andalusia, because whenever we go to Spain, we go back two weeks later. Not really on purpose, it’s just how our travels always fall and it’s weird but hey we like Spain. If we go to Spain once, we go twice, usually in the same month. But this part of Spain, the southern part, was new to us, although I did spend a weekend during college in Malaga at a resort I found on hostelworld.com for supercheap but I didn’t leave the resort the whole time so it doesn’t really count. Also I was alone at the resort, which was filled with Spanish families and lots of children and everyone stared me and it was the most awkward thing ever. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about that. We are here to talk about something that finally surpassed the awkwardness of that Malaga weekend: Easter week in Seville. See, we didn’t realize that Seville was the epicentre of Easter, not until we were smack dab in the center of the insane crowds and shocking costumes. I don’t know if you know this, but you know Jesus? Hoo boy, he’s big there. And Jesus Fever spreads at similar strengths throughout all of Andalusia, so while I’m just talking about Seville today, the rest of my Andalusia posts will feature similar levels of craycray bananapants.
I was really excited to go to Seville, not just because I thought Andalusia was the fairytale land from “Enchanted” (it’s seriously ONE letter off) so I thought I was getting into some kind of Neverland situation. but also, I always wanted to go to Seville, well, since 1998, when “You’ve Got Mail” came out. That’s where Birdie fell madly in love!! But it wasn’t meant to be. I’m sure you know the unparalleled genius of “You’ve Got Mail” as well as I do but it’s always fun to watch (best at the end):
AHHHHHHHH oh no you’re fine i guess
Despite not meeting any fascist dictators (my trip to the USA was a month later), I enjoyed the sights of Seville very much, although the timing of our trip made things…interesting. Going during Easter week is not necessarily a bad idea; in fact, Husband loved all the Easter hubbub. I got a little tired of it but I’m still glad I saw things I would not believe if you told me. You have to be prepared to deal with endless crowds that could very well block you from doing what you planned to do that day. Numerous parades happened all day long, all week long, because instead of a measly Monday off to celebrate, Spanish people take the entire week off and probably the one after it too. During the parades and marches, people would cram into the streets like sardines to catch a glimpse of people dressed up…like Klan members. I kid you not. The traditional Spanish Easter costumes that even little children wore look eerily like what white supremacists play dress-up in. They came in ALL COLORS though, not just white. There was black, there was purple and magenta and green and lots of other colors I can easily name but can hardly get over. There’s nothing tying this traditional hey-zeus garb to the worst of American culture, and I’m pretty sure that Jesus, and Spain, came first before neo-Nazis and the American south, so it’s just an unfortunate coincidence if you’re familiar with the latter. As far as I know, the Spanish have no idea that their special costumes remind us of dirty diaper people so there’s no reason to tell them and tarnish what’s clearly their favorite time of year. Because lordy, do they LOVE them some hey-zeus. As Americans, we never got over the shock of seeing these costumes everywhere we looked, but it’s nice to see the pointy hats and not run in fear for your life so like let’s not bother them about it.
CRUUUUUCIFIIIIXUUUUUS REEEEX COELEEEESTISSSS
There were other costumes too, like these, um, executioner? outfits. In the rest of Andalusia we saw even more variation, including a Teenage Widow costume that I look forward to sharing with you in future posts. Seville had some of the densest crowds though, and the most participants, as you would expect since this was the center of it all. Like I said, we had no idea that Seville was Easter Capital of the World – can you imagine going on vacation and seeing these scenes the entire time? So nuts! It’s a good thing we expected Easter to be big in a hugely Catholic country; we just didn’t know it would be the entire week. Incredible!
In addition to the costumes, there were parade floats, gilded beyond belief with giant nativity scenes but for Easter, whatever you’d call those. These were some serious floats, and in the tiny, ancient alleyways of Seville, we often wondered how in god’s name they would make it through the narrow passages. I guess with god’s grace. Or by? I don’t know I wasn’t carrying the floats. The one pictured below was what we encountered one evening on our way to dinner. Needless to say, we had to pick a different restaurant.
this was precarious
But like I said, there’s plenty of Easter treats in all the other towns we saw in Andalusia, so let’s talk about what makes Seville particularly special. Its history as the cultural and financial capital of southern Spain means it has very important stuff to see. The river, which is either called Guadalajara or LaGuardia, divides it into Sevilla and Triana, and I wish we had more time to spend in Triana because it looked really nice. And crossing the bridge in the evening from one side to the other was so beautiful, and as in most European cities it was my favorite sight.
we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it oh we’re there |
I forget what this statue is but ME GUSTA MUCHOOO |
REAL ALCAZAR
In every city, there’s the big thing to see. Oh I gotta SEE the big f-ing thing! In Seville, it’s the Real Alcazar, not to be confused with the fake one because you say it ‘ray-al’ and it means royal. It’s the old Moorish palace with endless rooms and courtyards and gardens and fountains and really purdy tiled walls and it is really cool. Now this is the pinnacle of that Moorish architecture in Seville I was talking about. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site (I mean what isn’t these days) and the royal family still uses parts of it when they are in town, which is super weird considering there are hundreds of tourists at all times. The gigantic palace has lots of smaller palaces within it and lots of patios and special historical rooms, and I learned all about them from my audioguide but then forgot everything about them. But pictures!
oh look this is a courtyard a what a courtyard 
beautiful tile! 
this might be the Courtyard of the Dolls – or the Courtyard of the Maidens. It could be one of those. But can anyone really ever know |
this ceiling is INCRED 
Oh I remember the audioguide about this facade, the Facade of the Mudejar Palace! It’s clearly an example of Islamic art but its actual existence is a Christian thing |
And just when you think you’ve seen all there is to see while you’re inside, you find out that there are like acres and acres of outside gardens and maze-like paths and fountains and it’s so wonderful.
I think that is a statue of Mercury which would make this the Mercury pond!
I love maze-y gardens
From the Gallery of the Grotesques (!) you get a great view of a lot of the palace and gardens
THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE
this is a great picture
The other big f-ing thing you have to see in Seville is the Cathedral, which is the third largest church in the world, unless you are going by volume and then it’s the biggest, but like, what. Weird fact, Spain. Once you have seen Saint Peter’s, it is hard to get excited about other cathedrals, no matter how much water they can hold. But this was indeed a nice one. I had an audioguide here too but literally not one word stuck around. I believe it was built by the Spanish. OH and Christopher Columbus is buried there so you can spit on him.
THE JEWISH QUARTER
old timey map of the jewish quarter don’t mind the flash
OH YEAH now we’re talking! Well, we’ve been talking, because the Jewish Quarter is the main touristy section of Seville and includes the Real Alcazar and the Cathedral so you’re in it allatimes. This was actually the Jewish quarter during medieval times, in both senses of the word (the era and the slang of describing something as so stupid as to be archaic). Ferdinand III (not the one with Isabella) concentrated all the city’s jews in this area because he was so scared of their big strong bodies (lol just kidding) so he thought it would be easier to watch them out of the corner of his eye if they were all in one spot, and then he went to hell. It remained the Jewish Quarter until 1492, when the Alhambra Decree kicked all the Jews out of Spain. This decree came from the later Ferdinand, the one with Isabella, who by the way the Sevillanos ABSOLUTELY ADOOOORE, who were dicks. But Seville loves them, and seriously everywhere we turned there would be some monument or at least sign (and street name) for The Catholic Kings, as they called them. I really like calling them both kings but that’s where any good feeling ends. So the jews were expelled from their homeland as the universe decrees must happen every century, or they converted to Catholicism with their fingers crossed behind their backs so they could stay in their home. People are crappy. Anyway, you can learn all about the long, extended history of hatred for jews in the Centro de Interpretacion Juderia de Sevilla, the small museum in the Jewish Quarter that recounts all the horrid events. It’s not a great museum, as it is mostly lots of writing on walls so you just read and then walk to the next wall section and read more, but the information is put forward nicely. The staff will give you a map of the important parts of the ancient Jewish Quarter so you can walk around the neighborhood and see what happened to the synagogue (it’s a parking lot), the school (it’s a parking lot), the famous jeweler’s (parking lot).
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OH THIS IS FUN. In the 15th century, you had to prove that you had no Jewish blood in your system in order to hold public office or be a member of an organization. It doesn’t say what kind of organization. Is that ALL organizations? That seems overbroad. Anyway, people are horrendous.
A much more fun thing to do in this area is to see a flamenco show! A popular place to go – for free! – is Carboneria, mostly because it’s free. You pay your dues by buying food (which is very much not good) or drink (same) but it’s all in good faith, no one watches or forces you to. Anyway, it’s a big cafeteria looking place that gets packed to the gills and a lady dances for a minute and then people play guitar, and then someone sings, and then maybe the lady will dance for another minute. If you can see anything, that’s great, but odds are you can’t see anything. It’s worth it to pay for a really good flamenco show if you have never seen it before. We have, so we kind of just popped in for 30-45 minutes and then said we came, we saw, we tired.
This was our view — after we moved seats to get a better view. Somebody somewhere is dancing.
PLAZA DE ESPANA
Plaza de Espana is without a doubt my favorite part of Seville. I guess I don’t love it enough to figure out how to get an accented ‘n’ up in there, but I do really love it. It’s a huge, gorgeous (slightly dilapidated but that’s part of it’s charm?) pavilion that houses government offices both in Spain AND the newer/subpar/NatPo Star Wars movies! Look I was standing where R2 was!
Despite the various joggers, strollers, and government workers present, the plaza feels sort of serene and special. It’s a beautiful place and I cannot imagine what it’s like for those people who go there every day to work. They probably hate being cooped up inside a boring office even more than most people because they know this lovely spot is just outside the door. We went early our last morning before we walked to the train station to go to (camp) Granada.
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FOOD AND LODGING
As for food, I had a long list of places but few worked out, either because they were closed for Easter or we literally just could not get to them because of parades. We pretty much just ate a lot of tapas in the tapas bars – the famous Seville-style gazpacho called Salmorejo was vegan-friendly as far as I could tell. Just like tomatoes and bread and oil pureed. Thinking about it now, I’m actually starting to gag because I had so much of it and got so sick of it, but it’s pretty decent. What is not vegan-friendly at most traditional places, that I was so upset about because I counted on it being my main source of food all week, is espinacas con garbanzos, or spinach and chickpeas. I KNOW. My fave thing. I had it once or twice and it seemed fine, but the third place we had it it was CLEARLY cooked in hot ham water. It was too good to be true to think that it was vegetarian at the super old traditional bars. Oh blergh. My favorite meal was the vegetable paella (pictured) I scored at a restaurant right outside our hotel on a sort of main drag. It was really delicious and I’m so glad I got to have paella!
One of the HappyCow places that did work out was the ridiculously named Coq and Roll Market. The man working was super nice and helpful, and I immediately ordered a great green juice. The best when traveling! Then we had a nice arugula and pecan salad and a hummus sandwich. We kind of got our wires crossed because we (thought we) asked for hummus with crudite, but the sandwich was good and bread is good and everything was good so no complaints.
One night, when we crossed the bridge into Triana, we chanced upon what I am guessing must be the Mercado de Triana, an upscale food market that was packed with cool people and blasting live music. They had all kinds of stalls, including one preparing vegetable-focused food like this delicious veggie pie. It had really olive oil-y (in a great way) tomatoes and eggplant and stuff on a crumbly crust and it was really good!
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But nothing beats the gelateria (I’m sorry, ‘heladeria’) we found close to that same bridge, a place called Giolatto! They had a whole section of dairy-free ice cream! And everything was perfectly labeled and they said on the sign that there was no cross-contamination, so that way they could advertise to those with allergies. Most importantly, the ice cream I had – dark chocolate and strawberry – was amazing.
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Yumm I wish I could have that ice cream (and the paella, if we’re wishing) right now!
Seville was full of chance food encounters that turned out to be brilliant, like how a lot of the regular gelaterias in town also had horchata, a sweetened rice milk kind of thing. Horchata is usually vegan, and amazing. I love it so much!
We also happened upon these absolutely stellar freshly made potato chips! I’m not a potato chip person at all – I would take tortilla chips over potato chips any day, all day, for as long as I can remember. Just not my thing. However, I would permanently change teams for these hot fresh amazing potato chips. Man aliiive.
Seville was full of chance food encounters that turned out to be brilliant, like how a lot of the regular gelaterias in town also had horchata, a sweetened rice milk kind of thing. Horchata is usually vegan, and amazing. I love it so much!
We also happened upon these absolutely stellar freshly made potato chips! I’m not a potato chip person at all – I would take tortilla chips over potato chips any day, all day, for as long as I can remember. Just not my thing. However, I would permanently change teams for these hot fresh amazing potato chips. Man aliiive.
freshly chipped potatoes!!! |
dance emoji! |
Probably our most favoritest fortuitous food experience was when we randomly found the Ines Rosales store. Ines Rosales is the famous brand of Spanish tortas – thin, crispy, super flaky pastry cracker things made with olive oil and usually sugar and cinnamon or other flavorings and they are addictive beyond belief. You can find them in London in Selfridge’s or a place in Borough Market, with a considerable markup. We are indeed addicted to them so finding their actual store was super exciting for us. And they had flavors we never saw before, from orange to cinnamon to savory thyme and rosemary ones! We haven’t tried the savory ones yet, I don’t know why. Since Seville was the start of our Andalusian adventure, this meant we were carrying around tons of fragile tortas the whole week! We took really good care of them though!
This is what the hotel looked like inside! So cool! But so hard to navigate correctly!
As for lodging, we stayed in the heart of the Jewish Quarter at the Las Casas de la Juderia, which was gorgeous if super confusing. From the front, it looks like a regular hotel off a main street, but it’s like 15 different buildings on this somehow huge piece of land in the middle of the city, and it’s hard to go through the winding little inner-hotel paths to find your correct building but it’s SO cool. It’s such a beautiful place, and they had a pool! I mean it was the coldest pool I have ever ever tried to go in but still, yay for pools! The wifi did not reach the rooms, which sucked, but that’s the only drawback. It’s a really cool place and it was nice to be right smack in the middle of everything in such a great city. I really enjoyed it and would definitely be willing to go back. I’m curious about how different it is when it is not Easter!
did not see Antonio no no too sexy too sexy!
