Planes, Rains, and Electrical Drains

In all honesty, we both love doing this blog. But neither of us want to bombard people with too many posts, and sometimes life happens so quickly that we feel like we could be posting every day… and that would be…. a lot.

And then suddenly, cascading towards us like an out-of-control luggage cart, we have too much to talk about and really don’t know where to begin.

So, you get an extra-long edition.

Mexico City was overwhelming.

We’ve already done two posts about all the sites we saw; and there are still some great moments that just didn’t get captured. There was the Vasconcelos Library- the most amazing library I’ve ever seen (and the Seattle Library is pretty darn amazing). The Vasconcelos felt like entering a Borg ship, with the stacks jutting out through an 885-foot, 6 story structure.  

There was the Museum of Tolerance, with BUSLOADS of students walking thorugh, learning about global attrocities, and how to learn from them- including Mexico's own human rights crimes. If you look closely, you'll see a photo of the "Discursos de Odio", or "Speeches of Hate". People will likely recognize the orange-colored man in the center.

There was also the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the myriad of Catholic holy sites, this complex is second only to the Vatican in the number of visitors each year, and according to the Catholic faith, is the site of a Virgin Mary visitation in 1531. On the immense, beautiful, bucolic grounds there is the ‘New’ Basilica (built in 1974), the Old Basilica (1695), The Chapel of the Well (1777), and The Church of the Indians (1649), the earliest structure on the site.

There was the Teatro de Bellas Artes, where we went to two shows: A symphony and the Ballet Folklorico.

And who can forget the food? We had mole and tostadas and horchata and quesadillas from a street vendor. We hiked across the city to try the Michelin starred tacos (Good. Michelin? 🤷) My favorite food experience in the city was the taqueria half a block down from our apartment. This hole-in-the-wall was featured on the Netflix Series, ‘The Taco Chronicles’- but the lack of hipster clientele from the U.S. and the (very) faded poster on the wall announcing this honor both indicate that the resulting busy-ness from this has since faded. Thankfully, that doesn’t mean the tacos are any less good. I think we went six (?) times during our stay. Every day there are different guisados (stews) on offering… chicharron (pork belly and skin), lengua (beef tongue), and chili relleno (stuffed chilis), to name a few. The stew was then ladled into a tortilla that had a layer of rice (to absorb the stewy goodness!) laid down first.  Honestly, one taco was sufficient for lunch, and the taco was about $1.50, while a bottle of water was about $2.00.

Relocating is an adventure- Every time.

Erik in our dining room in Merida

Our flight to Merida was our second flight on Viva Aerobus… Despite having the word ‘bus’ in its name, we’ve had good experiences with them. And after we landed and picked up our luggage, the taxi ride to our Airbnb was smooth. We were grateful because it started raining just as we arrived, so we figured we’d unpack, let the rain pass, and head to the market later.

Three hours later … we were now renting riverfront property. If you’ve ever visited certain parts of Mexico, you’re likely familiar with their very high curbs. Turns out, these serve a purpose; they help keep sudden deluges of water from flooding into (some) people’s homes. We were lucky, and this was the case for us- but we still needed to go to the store (and find dinner!).  Thus began ‘the wade’. Walk a block on the sidewalk, wade across the intersection with water up to mid-calf; walk a block on the sidewalk, wade across the intersection- you get the idea... lather, rinse, repeat (which is how we showered when we got home). I only wish I'd thought to take a photo.

Apparently, rainy season arrived late this year; so despite our best attempts, we didn't avoid it. Thankfully, since then it seems to be abating, and we’ve had a series of dry days. Also (hopefully now) abating is an ongoing issue with electricity, that we've had since arrival. It turns out that there were both neighborhood power issues, as well as issues specific to our house. (An outage here also means no water, because the water pump doesn’t function.) Our fourth outage in 12 days lasted 48 hours, and in hour twenty-four we fled to a hotel for the night.

Ah…. The glamorous life of travel. 🎩

Our home through the end of the year.

To be clear- the house is a pretty decent house. It’s in an older neighborhood, and it’s a bit ‘quirky’- but it has a real charm, and our street is incredibly quiet and peaceful. Our landlord has been gracious and good about doing the right thing (in all our various rentals, most of the owners have been kind, communicative, and honest). It just seems to have been a series of unfortunate events that compounded onto each other. We’re hopeful that after multiple technicians, both from the owner and from the city power company, the situation has been resolved. 🤞🤞

We rented a house in Merida so that friends could come visit- and the first arrived during these first two weeks of adventures. We were grateful that none of the big outages occurred during Cynthia’s stay, and it also helped that she’s a seasoned traveler. Because of the ‘adventures in renting’, we didn’t have much time to explore before her visit; so, she got to learn the city at the same time we did.

Merida is incredibly popular with immigrants from the U.S. and Canada and now that things have settled down, we have 10 more weeks to explore and discover why.