5 reasons why Mexico City is a dangerous place.
1. There is a gang of little old ladies that rob and kill unsuspecting tourists. (This happened to us 3 times)
2. If you carry an ATM card criminals can smell it, and before you know it there'll be 27 people following you Pied-piper style just waiting for you to turn your back. (This happened twice to us on Saturday)
3. If a car passes by within 3 metres of you watch out! It is likely to be an express kidnapping. The best strategy is to yell loudly and climb the nearest tree. (This happened 4 times)
4. Unsavoury characters know this, and will often hide in trees waiting for you so they can steal your ATM card. (This happened 5 times)
5. If you must carry valuables put them in your pocket and then sew them up. While this may make it difficult to retrieve said items, it will prevent pick pockets rifling through your clothing and copping a free feel. (More adventurous travellers will choose the location wisely for valuables if a touch up is desired) (This happened on many occasiosn, Dave got really good at placing his "valuables")
Mexico City, what a fantastic place. Being such a big city, we chose our location based on nightlife, and it was a bloody good choice. We stayed in a great little hostel called "Hostel Home" in Condesa. Despite the imminent dangers of the city (e.g. previously mentioned killer grandma's) this allowed us to walk to wherever we needed to go in the city.
Our first day in Mexico City should have seen us tentatively checking the city out and making sure we stayed out of trouble. Unfortunately, a six-pack and a bottle of tequila meant that by the time we left the hostel we were feeling a little more festive than usual. We made it to the bar area of town with our American friend (who spoke excellent Spanish, thanks Jorge) ready to throw down a few more. We were keen to go into one bar, but decided to keep looking, when the dude on the door says something to us and everyone around laughs. We just keep walking, oblivious to what had happened. Jorge informs us the dude said "Come and drink in here you rich assholes". If he was about 50 kilos lighter and a foot shorter we may just have taken it up with him.
We did end up finding a cosy little bar... I mean... a bikie bar to have a few drinks. We made sure we stepped very carefully around the bikes parked out the front. One misplaced step could have resulted in a world of pain. This became very apparent when the tourist bus came past and was greeted with enough hollering and abuse you could be mistaken for thinking that George W Bush just did a cameo.
Feeling a little like a target we decided to move on, being very careful to ensure we had fun, but remained alert (in truth by this stage it was getting difficult to stand). We stumbled into a bar we found in a side-street... and before you knew it Jorge was out carving up the dance-floor with some locals and we had found some new friends. (Add 6 more beers here).
Time to go home. Now where the hell are we? Anyone seen Jorge? It can't be that hard to get home.... (A quick aside, we were about a 15 minute walk back to the hostel from where we were). 30 minutes later we were still stumbling around the streets. We had a map, but Dave was too pissed to be able to read it and Jarrod wasn't quite sure how to orient the map. SOLUTION: Buy a donut. (What the ?). We stumbled into a 7-11 and very drunkenly got a donut each, map in hand, and asked for directions. The guys in the store just looked at us incredulously, clearly thinking "How the hell are you guys still alive, haven't you heard about the killer grandma's?". But, the plan worked. It seems the donuts had protective powers and came fitted with a GPS. Withing 10 minutes we were nicely snuggled up in bed. That is, Jarrod was in bed and Dave had passed out in the hallway.
The next two days saw more of the same thing... a little sightseeing, a little drinking, and a lot of street food. Mexico City has some fo the best street food we've encountered so far. So avoid restuarants, eat like a king for $1 on the street corner!
