Mexico

Christmas was spent in Mexico City with the lovely Jane, Ainsley (pronounced Arna by the Mexicans) and Jacky. It was an action packed three days that I would highly recommend anyone in the area repeating.

December 24

I arrived in the early hours after two delayed flights and finding that Mexicans are just as reliable as Bermudians - as our flight got in late, most airport workers had gone home for the night resulting in it taking 90 minutes to unload our luggage from the plane. Not ideal.

After a quick nap we hit the markets (shown below) for secret santa presents and did a little exploring. The markets were pretty crazy with everyone doing their last minute shopping, it was great how venders were much less pushy than in Asia.

Our hostel was in the centre of the historical district, alongside the Cathedral and main square. Christmas lights and crowds were everywhere, ensuring a very festive atmosphere.

We had been invited to spend Christmas with a local family who were family friends of Jacky's. A driver picked us up in the evening and took us to their home on the outskirts of the city. We were greeted warmly and introduced to the family (about 20 of them with much better English than our Spanish) before attending Mass at their local church. When we returned, the tequila flowed - it was much nicer than tequila back home but too many bad experiences still ruins the taste for me! We had dinner at about 10pm, followed by fireworks and present opening before returning to the hostel at around 3am. It was a fantastic way to spend Christmas and we all felt just as at home as if we were back in NZ.

December 25

After a lengthy sleep-in, we set off to see our first bullfight. I use the term 'bullfight' very literally here as it was pretty much a slaughter from my viewpoint. The stadium was very impressive - it probably could seat close to 100,000 though being Christmas Day without the top matadors, the crowd would've been much closer to 10,000.

The bullfight itself was not really what I was expecting. It was conducted in three stages - firstly the bull was released and was tainted by several assistants, seemingly to tire it out a bit. Then two guys came out on horses with ten foot long spears. The bull was enticed to charge the horse (which had protective padding) whereby the horseman would spear the bull in the back. Once it was decided there was enough blood, the horses left the ring.

Next three guys each with what appeared to be batons with some sort of hook on them would have the bull charge at them and stab these hooks into the open wound made by the horseman. The photo below shows a couple of these things dangling from the back of the bull.

It's only at this stage that the actual matador comes out. He puffs his chest out and prances about a bit before having the bull charge him a few times. After about 10 minutes of this he gets a sword and if he's good, he'll kill the bull with one thrust into the bull's back, leaving only the hilt of the sword showing. Unfortunately only two of the six bulls got it this easy - the others had to be stabbed several times and the sounds of pain the bull made were fairly unpleasant to say the least. It almost goes without saying to say that after watching a couple of minutes we were cheering for the bull and did see matadors knocked over three times including one of them getting a nice gash in the thigh. Interesting to see, but probably don't need to see another one too soon and definitely very different to my usual Christmas Day back in NZ!

December 26

We'd booked seats for a trip to the Pyramids an hour out of the city, and as an added bonus dropped into Guadalupe on the way. Guadalupe is the site of the Virgin Mary's appearance three times to (now Saint) Juan Diego. The local bishop did not believe Juan's story so asked for proof. The Virgin Mary then gave Juan many roses (it was out of season so therefore proof of a miracle), Juan wrapped up the roses in his cloak and returned to the bishop. When he opened his cloak, the roses fell out and the likeness of the Virgin appeared on the cloak. A shrine has been built and the cloak and picture is on permanent display for visitors.

A couple of interesting points (well I thought so anyway) were that apparently 24 million people visit the shrine each year compared to 20 million to the Vatican, and that the Catholic Church has taken the stance that because the picture of the Virgin Mary was a miracle, it can therefore not be damaged so the use of flash photography is allowed. Below is the shrine and the cloak.

After the obligatory tourist shopping stop, we finally came to the pyramids and they were definitely worth the wait. Authorities are not sure who built the pyramids - they do know that the Aztecs discovered them and thought they were built by the gods so treated the site as a holy place. Apart from that, not much is known. Very impressive though.

The pyramids are known as the pyramid of the moon (approx 55 metres high and featured in the first photo) and the pyramid of the sun (approx 65 metres high and featured in the following two photos).

And of course, a couple of touristy photos were necessary - Jane and Ainsley posing as pyramids in front of a pyramid and me with a bit of cheese.