Mexico City: An enchanting city with teeth.

Only half way there...

July 11, 2012

Queratero, Mexico

After an incredible 4 days in Mexico City I've done my best to try and understand the city and see the sites it has to offer, but I now know that no matter how many days I had here I'd never have it all figured out. Everyday brings something new to do, see, talk about, or try. Mix that in with the incredible people I met at the slightly downtrodden and grouchy hostel and it was really one the most excellent times I've had on the trip so far. Its the longest I've stayed in one place since seeing my brother and although I still don't feel like I got enough time there, I'm happy to have turned around and started heading for home even if my drive was only a meager 137 miles today. To try and recapture so many things that we experienced and saw would be nearly impossible. However, a few key moments stand out in my mind.

Basil (Swiss), Isabelle (Belgium), Michi (Swiss), and Me

Normally due to my wandering personality (and tight budget) I'm much happier walking around , visiting free places, and doing some good old fashioned people watching. But two days ago I left my comfort zone for a prepackaged tour of some ruins. While the tour was great and the ruins were absolutely incredible completely overshadowing the first ruins I saw in size, easily the best part of the trip was the company. With us we had two Swiss guys who couldn't pass up a joke to save their lives, two Finish girls whose clothes I believe kept us out of a church, a quiet but sweet Belgium girl, and a nice girl from France who proved my French language skills too rusty and forgotten to be of any use to anyone. The entire time we laughed, made jokes, tried the local liquors based on Tequila, and took in the incredible historic scenery.

When I say that no two days are ever alike in Mexico I really mean it. Like always after a long day our big group wanted to have some fun and experience more of the night life. However, because it was a Monday almost nothing was open. That's when we heard about a huge square that fills with raucous people, music of numerous Mariachi bands, and is the only place in Mexico City where you can drink in public. It was definitely one of the rougher parts of the city I had been to, but it was still so incredibly nice just to relax in a square, listen to music, and talk with your friends until well after midnight. Some of us even took dancing lessons from Ana who of course turned out to be a well known dancer back in Slovenia, although I suspect that because I did not buy her hot chocolate earlier as requested I was not one of the lucky ones.

Does he sit next to the statue to not feel lonely?

During our time at the ruins the day before, Isabelle the girl from Belgium managed to learn that I had come to Mexico City by way of motorcycle. After hearing this she excitedly asked if she could have a short ride around the city and yet again another incredibly pretty smile overrode my common sense. So last night after a 6 hour mind blowing, people watching, sight seeing walk around Mexico City with a hilarious self-proclaimed “dirty old man” from America/Canada/Korea, me and Isabelle finally agreed to go for that ride. After all, it was the first time having a girl on the back of my bike and to say I started out a little bit nervous would be a total understatement, but I was determined to try and impress her with my suave drive abilities.

Where most parts of Mexico City portrayed in movies is incredibly false, the traffic is most certainly not. So we waited until it got dark and the streets grew quiet and then finally agreed to head out for a quick trip around the block. It occurred to me that I only had one helmet, but as I saw numerous other people riding without one and it would be no more then five minutes I naively figured that it would be no problem.

My luck quickly started to turn bad when after 4 days of sitting outside and getting rained on the bike refused to idle and continuously stalled at every stop. To make matters worse I tried to give it extra gas in hopes that it would perk up, but that only caused Isabelle's head to repeatedly smack my helmet quickly draining my confidence, but then things some how managed to go from not so great to horribly worse.

Soon enough we took our first turn but quickly found ourselves in the one part of our neighborhood that we had been specifically warned about. Trying to circle back each attempt was rejected by either a one way street in the wrong direction or a dark trash strewn alleyway that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up especially considering the fact that every time I came to a stop (or even slowed down) my bike stalled. Before long trying to find our route back we quickly became lost in the unfamiliar part of the city, but even that soon turned out to be the least of our problems.

Finally getting to a large street that looked somewhat safer indicated to us by the few scantily clad women standing around the streets (sarcasm) we passed our first Policia. To my total heart dropping dismay as soon as we passed, they turned on their lights, pulled up behind us, and started squawking at us in incompressible Spanish from their radio.

Getting pulled over in the states is definitely a nerve racking no fun time for me, but being pulled over in Mexico in a part of the city I had no desire to remain in was very honestly terrifying. So I quickly moved to the side, turned off the bike (it actually just died the stupid thing), and hoped for the best. After waiting a few minutes and stewing in our own fear, the police women finally approached us, said a bunch of very bad sounding things, and asked me for my documentation. The documentation part I understood, but the problem was that was all I understood and because I was used to leaving my bike parked while I was staying at the hostel of course I was without my paperwork except a folded up copy of my passport. My hands started shaking and fear took over as time after time she said something official and important sounding to me that I could only respond to with “Lo siento, no entiendo” (Sorry I don't understand).

Finally I realized that without my paperwork they were planning to impound my bike. I understood that I could try and pick it up tomorrow, but knowing how incredibly time consuming, frustrating and confusing process was back home, I could only imagine the total chaos of trying to get my bike back from the police in Mexico City. I begged and pleaded for them to follow me to my hostel (where ever the hell that was) but finally understood that they could not because their bosses (I understood Jefe) were standing right their.

By this time 3 other policemen had walked up from behind, a truck of assault squad looking police had arrived up the street, and another huge group of cops where just up the road to the left. Knowing what I did though about Mexican police and authority I tried for my only option. I asked if instead of going to the court tomorrow I could just pay the “fine” on the spot and slowly hinting at what the price would be. The one officer grew quiet when talking to me, but at the time with my nerves running wild all of my Spanish vocabulary was diminished to that of a two year old baby boy. Finally, what I think was the head officer came up to me and said $150 dollars in perfect English. Between the two of us though we only had about $1200 pesos, so finally we managed to somehow haggle it down to $1000 pesos. While I heard that this was how things worked here, I could totally imagine trying to hand over the money only to arrested for attempting to bribe a policemen.

Thankfully the situation started to lighten up though and we followed the police woman over to her passenger side of the car. I barely made out “1,000 pesos” and “with discretion” so as discreetly as my shacking hands would allow I got my money out. Unfortunately I think Isabelle didn't get the discretion part because with great gusto sensing we were almost free she pulled out her wallet and started rifling through her bills before quickly realized her mistake. At the embarrassment and unquestionable entertainment of the police officer, she took her hat off and set it in her lap upside down, and we dropped the money in not sure what would come next. To our relief she gave us a little piece of paper which we could only assume was to be used if we were pulled over again. However, although our problems with the police had been taken care of we still had no idea how to get back to our hostel. To the incredible amusement of the police woman who we had just bribed we asked her the way back and gratefully after a huge laugh she pointed us in the right direction.

By the time we got back (after asking two other people walking around [and stalling my stupid bike countless other times]) my heart was racing and I realized any attempts to impress the girl were totally gone. Both Isabelle and I had no idea what we had done wrong if anything, only that they had chosen to focus on my lack of paperwork and had most definitely wanted money. Thinking back if they wanted to actually impound my bike I'm sure they would have actually called a tow truck and they wouldn't have been smiling to each other so much in partial enjoyment but more boredom. I'm sure after we left the only thing that the police were upset about was the fact that they didn't get as much as they wanted and it had taken so long. Now I know how these things work though and hopefully next time if it happens again I can handle it a little better. For now though I thinking I'm done giving rides to pretty girls and oddly now that theirs no woman on the back of Saphira, she's back to her smooth running monstrous self. 

An incredible view from the top of the pyramid

Trying for an artsy picture...