Teo wir fahrn nach Lodz äh Teo(tihuacan)

Beautiful day today.

But before I forget it, I’d like to add a few facts on the Paseo de la Reforma that I forgot yesterday due to tiredness. On the few kilometres visited, there were about 6 Starbucks. For yesterday, that means I saw more Starbucks than old VW beetles which yes, I do find a bit disappointing. Today made up for that, I just keep counting and have crossed the 6…….. AND I saw a selfmade VW Kombi out of town. And other beauties…

Yes, out of town. Not sure WHEN you are allowed to use this term with regard to Mexico Ciudad.

The city stretches through the mountains I crossed like an organical being, crawling up the hills.

I TOOK A BUS.

My first mexican bus. I love it. I followed the advice from my guidebook, saying you could go faster by bus from the end of Metrostation #3 (which happens to be „mine“ anyhow) then from the station autobus del nord. So I arrive superswiftly at „Indios verdes“ (and I don’t get it, in my german ears that sounds a little —- well like green Indios, I’m not sure if that’s racist??!) and I find the busstation and I worried to starve (the best worry you can have in Mexico) and of course the place is packed with little selling points, it is literally covered. And I find my bus to „los pyramides“ and I enter, I pay, I manage to ask if I still have time to catch un sugo, and I go back and get a sugo di aranja. I completely fail to ask for „takeaway“, but end up with a 1 litre cup that we agree to only fill to three thirds. With that, proud as Oscar, I find my way back to the bus, and sit in it like the queen of Saba.

The trip took forever (1h20, as the driver correctly told me before) BUT I loved it. We went through some village that starts with „Te“ and continues either with a P or a X…. and it was small, cute, definately out of town, and apart from me only one Japanese tourist on the bus.

I trustfully fell asleep on the last 15minutes…

So Teotihuacan. Is impressive and definately a must-see. And it’s scary. Plus it got wet wet and wetter ((((OH MY GOD I just realize why the German word for weather is wetter, that makes SO much sense!)))) The first major sight on my way, the citadel – something like el Ciutadel (….) – had a relatively small pyramid.

With steep stairs. So I stand in front of that, look up, tell myself things like „courage“, „we’ve done worse“, and „it’s no big difference to climbing the 5th floor regularly“. Then a lady turns up next to me, asking me if I speak French. Given my knowledge of Spanish, I spit out a clear oui. And as I am busy thinking about stairs and she’s scared, too, we nicely chat away in French. I suggest to go together… and so two semi-scared women courageously take on Teo practice Uno.

Great sight on the top, opening up on a hidden pyramid underneath with decorations of jaguar heads……..

Turns out there is a stair down the other side (looking much more friendly), BUT the mexican seller who’s dreaming away on the platform tells us the exit is blocked. So we face those stairs the other way round. And make it back together, a nice „ca va?“ half way down actually makes me laugh.

And then I continue, totally falling in love (I repeat that every day with everything I meet) with the landscape. I discover some mammal I don’t know – in the alps I would bet my shirt it’s a Murmeltier, so imagine a smaller mexican equivalent (now looking at the pic I think its a simple squirrel…) –

spiders,

 

flowers,

cactus in all variations with and without fruit….. and ants.

What you think to be round places with small stones, and small paths leading to them, reminding me of crop circles…. Well in Teotihuacan, it’s no aliens, but the ants. Worst moment: wondering if one of them secretly had sneaked up my trousers. Places I don’t want to mention in detail started itching…. until I told myself to stop. Don’t think there’s enough suicidal tendency even in a surprisingly red ant (it’s red cause it’s mexican and loves color). Best moment: couldn’t resist and took a piece of my mexican bakery and threw it right in the ant party, watching it disappear like in that famous movie scene from Indiana Jones…..

The pyramid del sole – of the sun – the male part as I read someplace, is the huge huge main sight in Teo.

And I was real early (relatively). But there were already people on there. While I looked at the end of the street, where the pyramid de la luna – of the moon (female…) – resides and looked at me – almost deserted.

I decided to go for that one – for barbarian beginners. And I got up.

And had this wonderful moment. The moment of being terribly scared of the way back down. And then – not sure how – but I felt scared and capable at the same time. I even managed to look down the stairs for quite a bit to check if „my“ side of the rope was free.

Dear Teo-tourists. You daring bunch. Would you please consider when climbing a pyramid to go for ONE side only, as it avoids confusion, especially for those of us that are afraid of heights…….

I went down step by step, facing the pyramid. Much easier than I thought. The only thing is – 15 minutes after that incredible success, my legs started hurting reeeaaaal bad. Or rather some formerly unknown part on my upper legs on the sides. It hurt so bad I decided to be a Luschi. I decided the altitude, jetlag, the spiritual moment on the luna-pyramid, basically everything was getting at me………….

Tlacol, as far as I got it a God of storm, lightning, all in all for WATER – was with me. It had started raining when I climbed the pyramid, but it would not stop. So on top imagine how DANGEROUS climbing a HUGE pyramid is with RAIN.      I don’t think it is, actually, in case you really did fell, you’d only cause a domino-effect, bumping over one tourist by the other until you reach the ground – well padded.

Anyhow I made my way with the umbrella to the restaurant area. There were 3 restaurants, maybe 4. And about 6 people trying to catch tourists with a menu card. I’ve done that yesterday cause I was reasonably hungry and regretted lateron – you don’t know where you end up. So this time I completely ignored the guys with a few Gracias and then went into the place that played Mexican music and had an old guy with cowboy boots and a cowboy straw hat waving me in. And then I found out how to use my Spanish.

If you apply this: look most charming. It does not matter if your trousers are half way drowned and you rather look like a bandit……. Just feel that you look charming. Start with something like „non hablo espanol“, I have today updated that to „non hablo espanol muy bueno“. Then ask for comida corrida or corrida comida. It works both ways, I think. Ask if it is sin puerco (without pork). If everything sounds to you as if it is con pollo… ask „que es el mejor?“. A great thing to ask a man in any circumstance. He knows the woman in front of him is lost without his help, and boy did I enjoy being saved. My lunch was delicious.

I had great expectations of being a good tourist afterwards, which is why I turned down a tequila – not sure if I was being invited, the word was something similar to courtesy, but I denied with respect to pyramid-climbing which I managed to translate with dramatic gestures.

Back to full view of Mr Sun the Pyramid I just sat down.

Next to two stray dogs, one of which was seriously holding an empty cup between his paws. A sign, a sign! I sad down and admired the pyramid. And I admit – it has a bad tendency to intimidate. It just swooshes away everything, sitting there like an animal in stone. I was just thinking about the clouds and climbing with an umbrella… when it started raining AGAIN. This time like mad. 10 minutes later I had made it to the museum, with my legs all wet AGAIN (just wetter this time).

The museum was dry, cold (mark apart from all my love there’s one thing I hate – AIRCONDITIONING!!!! in the bus, in the building, in the airplane….) and interesting. And scary. Something’s wrong with that culture that makes me happy not having lived there. I can’t connect to it. So different to Petra! I can’t put it in words and there’s so little they know about the place. The art is well, artful, but I can’t connect – I know I said that before.

I plan to not go swimming tomorrow but take the metro to the anthropological museum and spent a cool & dry day there. So I’ll get a picture of what’s weird here, dunno.

I admit I really like this one:

Gave up on the xth rain-shower (literally), went to the overexpensive café where you pay for the view of Teo. Hot chocolate seems common even if it’s not on the menu.

On the bus back, there were TWO tourists, Germans. They told me there are currently storms on the Pacific. Should I read the news? Fly to Yucatan directly so I stop swimming in cold weather around here?

But I look forward to my route soooo much – I just know it’s right. My room-mate at the B&B, told me I’m in for nature. I think he’s right. And I have my umbrella.

I might buy new shoes that are more waterproof than my sneakers, found out yesterday that zapateria (or something alike) means shoe-shop.

And after this endless post (which makes up for my laziness to solve that photo-upload problem, hello I’m on vacation, apart from that who’ll come for a Caipirinha-evening if I post all pics NOW) I’ll add on one more ILOVE – I love learning vocabulary in the metro. Today’s favourite: economista.

Will now retrieve to killing my street-bought mexican top cuisine. Tortillas con arroz con blackbeans con res (beef) con salsa verde con salsa rojo. While it pours outside.

Someone who made it all the way through, let me know if this is too long… I ought to write my diary AND this maybe. Anyhow I reread it and couldn’t stand to delete parts of it….. Barbarian after all.