¡Hola, Ciudad de México!

Our first stop in Mexico was Mexico City.

I have been learning Spanish for about 6 months so I was really nervous about actually having to have Spanish conversations with actual Spanish speakers!

It's fair to say that we did experience a little bit of culture shock in Mexico City for a few reasons:
- nobody speaks any English so my basic Spanish got a harsh work out
- there are police / armed men everywhere - slightly intimidating
- I obviously do not look Mexican - so EVERYONE was staring at me 

Also, the city was a little different than I had expected I guess, it was more run down than I had thought it would be for a capital city and there were a lot of people / vendors shouting at us constantly to buy things. We have definitely experienced this before but I think it had been a while so it was just another thing to get used to. 

Anyway, lets just say that we took the first day to find our feet before we got starting on the exploring.

After a day of walking around Mexico City and generally feeling confused by everything we decided to shake it off and go on a day trip to Teotihuacan - an archaeological area about an hour north of Mexico City.

Teotihuacan is also known as the City of the Gods.

Above Michael is standing on the Avenue of the Dead, which is the main path that runs all the way through Teotihuacan and connects all the different pyramids and plazas. 

The history of Teotihuacan is really confusing - it was built sometime between 100AD and 650BC but it's a bit of a mystery as to which civilization actually built it. It's also unclear why they left / why their civilization actually collapsed.

The Aztecs found the abandoned pyramids and gave the area it's name: Teotihuacan 

One of the smaller pyramids lining the Avenue of the Dead.

Michael in front one the biggest and my famous pyramids: The Pyramid of the Sun. It was named this because apparently the Sun God worshiped at this particular pyramid in the 16th Century.

The top of this pyramid is flat but it used to be crowned by a temple in which religious ceremonies and worship were carried out. A mere 248 steps later and we had reached the top.

We were really surprised that you could climb up the pyramid (we thought there must be some kind of conservation rules) but were glad you could as it was really cool to be standing on a pyramid.

Behind both of us (more clearly behind Michael) you can kind of see the Avenue of the Dead - a strip running through the entire complex.

Some pano fun on top of the Pyramid of the Sun.

Behind me, on the right, is the Pyramid of the Moon - the second biggest pyramid in this area.

Last photo of Michael in front of the Pyramid of the Sun - it was definitely much bigger and more imposing in person.

From here we continued to walk up the Avenue of the Dead and towards the Pyramid of the Moon.

Although you cannot climb all the way to the top of the Pyramid of the Moon, the view from about half way is pretty spectacular. 

You can see all the way down the avenue of the dead and also the Pyramid of the Sun on the left. There was a huge plaza in front of the this pyramid with lots of smaller pyramids, which acted as viewing platforms when ceremonies or worship was performed.

Supposedly, the fact that these smaller pyramids all face into the main square / plaza, indicates that they were used to control the access of people attending ceremonies.

I really liked the intricate detail that had gone into building each pyramid / structure, surrounding each individual rock / stone were lots of little rocks, it made it appear as though there were little decorative spots around each rock - it would have taken an incredible amount of time to create this level of detail.

This is one of the smaller pyramids surrounding the Pyramid of the Moon - it just occurred to us that everyone was bypassing these to look at the bigger pyramids so we decided to do a little adventuring.

Just your average day sitting on an ancient pyramid!

Later that night, we (I) decided to be really brave and put my limited Spanish skills to the test. Mexico City is well known for street food - on every corner there seems to be a new street food cart and as a general rule, if the locals are eating there then the food must be good!

We headed to a Taco stand we had read about - it is literally two dudes with a little stall built into the wall but there were people everywhere lining up for these tacos! Also, they were reasonably tolerant of my poor Spanish.

Mexican tacos!

They are nothing like the westernised tacos that we eat - they are better!

This taco place was amazing - each taco costs no more than 25 peso (around $1.70 AUD or £1), so since they are super cheap you can order a variety of flavours to try. Above is Michael with 'campenchano' which is a mixed beef and chorizo taco (and is absolutely delicious).

Above: all the meats were cooked together on a huge grill and the tacos made to order - it smelled ridiculously good!

Above is me with 'longaniza' which is a chorizo taco - we also had some other varieties but I just happened to take photos of these. 

The best part about this is that our entire dinner cost less than £10 - and these tacos are suprisingly filling!

The following day we just wandered around different parts of Mexico City.  

Above is Chapultepec Park. 

There happned to be a huge market while we were there. Mexico has really cool (mostly food oriented) markets (I tried to take some sneaky photos).

Later we walked around an area known for nice cafes and restaurants called Amsterdam Avenue, which was really pretty.

Finally, also above, some more authentic Mexican food. We headed to a restaurant we had read about online and had to queue to get a table (the turnover was fast - Mexican people don't muck around when it comes to food!).

The menu was all in Spanish (more testing of my basic understanding of Spanish) but we ordered some amazing food! The top plate is 'flauta' which is like a fried quesadilla (ours was chicken with cheese).  The closer dish is quesadilla verde, which is in a green salsa / sauce (also with sour cream and cheese). 

Each dish cost no more than £2 - bargain - and they were absolutely delicious!

With the limited English spoken in Mexico City it was definitely a fast paced introduction to the Spanish speaking world but I think (think) my Spanish is slowly starting to get better. 

From here, it was onto southern Mexico for some beach fun :-)