Most important point to note for this part of the trip is again friends of friends. We met up with Kerri, Alex, Maia, Lana and Lula (not forgetting Chewbukka the dog) whilst Kerri knows so many of our friends we had never properly connected when she lived in Sydney years ago. Kerri and Alex opened their home to us and really helped us to get started in Mexico – our duolingo Spanish didn’t help us for getting a phone sim or figuring out car hire! It was Easter weekend and we had a great time exploring the city and going out to the forests just outside the city for picnics, horse riding, fishing, ziplining, dusty Mexican fun!
The kids all got on really well, the challenge for the boys was their loss (or rather reduced) ‘freedom’, we knew as soon as we got to Mexico we would need to change our parenting due to the dangers of being in a foreign large city – especially not speaking Spanish and all being rather white. Trying to get them to understand why we needed to see them at all times, how they can’t run off – we have always enabled them to play where they want, chat to whoever they want (Dexter has taken this to a whole new level recently) it was hard as we don’t want to stop that but we were also nervous about being in Mexico with two small kids.
A day trip to Teotihuacan was amazing and something Tim had wanted to do for ages, we caught their early to beet the crowds as it was Good Friday, we climbed up the top of the temple of the sun and the moon, dragged the boys (well mainly Archie) around some of the other sites. Incredibly to think of how old it is and what it was used for, first of many ruin expeditions….
Easter Sunday was great in Chapultepec park – bike riding (another win for Archie), paddle boating, visit to the anthropology museum, and experience the huge number of Mexican families out enjoying the park on a really hot day! We were all adjusting to the change in temperature. We stayed in La Condesa which was great for parks for the kids and amazing restaurants. We started the endless taco eating that we have all started to get quite used too. We learnt what to order and also started to love google translate app…..
From Mexico City we hired a car (interesting and challenging experience in Spanish for Tim, thankfully ‘phone a friend – aka Kerri’ helped with the insurance discussion…. Then to drive out of Mexico City – few things about this
There appear to be very few road rules in Mexico – except one – don’t hit someone
Aggressive driving seems to be the only way to cut through the traffic
Google maps doesn’t understand some of the junctions
There are crazy amounts of cars and lorries travelling at crazy speeds at all times
Always stay in the fast lane when you see police on the side of the road – the thought of getting pulled over by the police was not an experience we wanted
3 hours later we made it to Valle de Bravo, a beautiful little town on a lake west of Mexico City, our friend Wade, Leanne and Castro live there so we made the trip to see them. We stayed in a very lovely Airbnb just outside the town with great hosts. We had only just arrived and they were taking us on a tour of the town – Tim and I in a car with Ery and the boys on the back of a quad bike – on a Mexican road, with no helmets. Where did our sense of safety go!?! The boys had the best time (no surprise there), Salvador and Ery spoke little English and our pigeon Spanish was struggling, they introduced us to another favourite app – SayHi – revolutionary as you talk in one language and the app speaks back in another – and visa versa for them. You can have a great conversation through the phone – doesn’t help with trying to improve Spanish but does ensure we can communicate easily.
The following day we went to the lake and went donuting, water skiing and wakeboarding – daddy watched as didn’t want to impact all the good work he’d done to repair his shoulder. More exploring and a fun bbq at Wade and Leanne’s house ended a lovely trip to Valle.
Then came the drive from Valle to Mexico city airport – we left at the crack of dawn knowing that we would get caught in traffic or take a wrong turn through the city. Amazingly we made it in great time and successful gave the hire car back with no issues, check on to our plane and we were off to the beach!!
Comments