OKAY hello I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping up but I’ve now been sick for a week so we’re in recovery. BACK ON TRACK let’s go.
So today we woke up for Maman’s last day (boooo) and went upstairs for breakfast at 9:30 as usual. We got a little omelette with the fruit and yogurt which was delicious as usual.
I had asked Claudia earlier in the week if she could recommend a bike tour since we’ve wanted to do that since we started planning the trip, and she said she couldn’t recommend any companies but that the hostel usually did them on Sundays so we’ve been keeping today free specifically for this! The tour was gonna start at noon though so we had some time before we had to meet on the terrace.
We decided to find a cafe nearby to just go chill. We ended up finding this place called Che Che just around the corner from our hostel which was great! I had a latte and Maman had a mocha which was quite floral, the chocolate was made from scratch you could tell. We eventually caved and split a chocolate chip cookie too which was very good. I journalled a bit while Maman read and it was really nice just to sit somewhere without feeling like we had to leave immediately, most places here are small so seating is a hot commodity but Che Che was nice and big and not too busy.
We headed back to Wanderlust around 11:45 to meet on the terrace at 12:15. We didn’t know how many people would be joining but actually we had a good group after all! I didn’t really know what to expect (as always when Claudia plans our outings), but it was a GREAT bike ride! We did 20km through the city (I only started the route on All Trails 5 km in though so that’s why the screenshot doesn’t have the complete circuit).
On Sundays, a lot of the streets are closed to traffic and become cycling / pedestrian areas. It was so nice! There were also lots of roller bladers / skaters. We first rode to Chapultepec park, where Maman and I took the cable car the other day. We stopped there to watch a ceremony called the Voladores de Papantla (Papantla Flyers).
We’d seen the ceremony before but it’s always impressive to watch. We stayed for about half an hour and then were back on the road (at this point I started the ride on All Trails)! Claudia was just zipping in and out of traffic while the rest of us hopelessly tried to follow her, tours with her are ALWAYS so chaotic but it was fun. Eventually she asked if we wanted to do the easier route back or the difficult route. At this point, we were an hour and a half into the ride and halfway through. We, of course, chose the difficult route which involved a couple of steep bridge climbs. The first one was fine, but the second one was super steep and long and I didn’t know how to shift gears on my bike and I had to get off right at the end and I may have caused a minor collision whoops. Anyways I got up to the top and then I was really dizzy and almost fainting from the heat and dehydration (also I have diarrhea today from something I ate yesterday yayyyyy) but I didn’t tell anyone and we kept going and it went away, everything is fine. Okay so the entire reason we did the difficult path was to see this statue of the god of water in a different corner of the park.
On the way back to the hostel, we stopped at a wonderful taco place called El Pescadito. I wasn’t super hungry but we ordered one taco with battered fish and shrimp, and one with chopped-up cheese-stuffed pepper. The condiment bar was SO great with tons of fresh coleslaw and salsas.
After lunch we rode back to the hostel, Claudia was lane-splitting between cars and I was just hoping and praying but everyone was fine. Maman and I were periodically chatting with a Swiss man called Marcel from our hostel, we actually had some interesting political discussions while riding. That bike ride was great but MAN the seat was hurting me so bad I was glad to get off when we were done.
Once we got back to the hostel, I just hung out with Maman because she had to pack and leave around 8pm. We went up to the terrace for a bit and got caught talking to this WEIRD guy Aqil who wanted to play cards so we taught him black ball. Thank goodness a lovely Dutch girl called Lizan also showed up and we all played together. We escaped and called the family a bit, I watched her pack, we chatted, it was nice. At some point she went up to the terrace for water and she came back saying “I met a guy called Ricardo he’s here for a week you have to talk to him” so I said I’d go out with a group for supper. I ended up leaving for dinner around 7, before Maman had to leave for the airport so we said our goodbyes and I headed up to the terrace to meet the group who was going for supper. It took SO long for us to decide on where to go, so at some point I just started walking. We were gonna try a recommendation from someone who’d been there before so we walked there (I navigated) and then when we got there, there were no tables left so we turned back and ended up at Tacos Frontera where we sat outside on the sidewalk.
I sat beside Ricardo (from Germany) and Adam (from Belfast), and had a corona with birria soup. It came with tortillas on the side and it was a bit difficult to make tacos with the meat from the broth but it was delicious.
During dinner, we were serenaded by a guy pushing a cart with a mobile wood-fire oven on it. The cart was equipped with some kind of screeching whistle to get people’s attention so that was lovely.
After supper, I told everyone I was going back to the hostel (partially because I needed to fix my stomach issues and partially because I wanted to capitalize on my last night of sleep in the private room). Everyone ended up following me and when we got back, I gave Lizan some of my Tedra (Mexican pepto basically) in hopes that both our stomachs would be better in the morning (she had food poisoning). I said goodnight to the group and had a wonderful sleep.
See you in the next one (soon this time I promise).