Intrepid daytrip 2 – Markets, Teotihuacán, and dinner with local family. I have decided to split it into two posts. Otherwise, you will be scrolling all day!!!
After another night with my ever present neighbour, the tomale truck making his 10.30 rounds, the sleeping was a big rough and it was an early meet up. The ever-present Peter was on hand after another tissue wrapped toast and he whizzed next off to kinda near the meeting place???? But not even Peter could whizz up the pedestrian mall so old mate Google did the rest. I met Ava, our guide, two Swedish girls (names gone – they kept to themselves) and Constantine, a young Russian living in London with companies everywhere. Ok then. I told him a wrote things for the government. He asked me if I wrote speeches. At my affirmative response, I laughed inwardly at any thought of me propping up a local propaganda machine.
Ava then escorted her little multicultural ducklings mother hen style to the square where I must confess to vaguing out since I have seen it a few times. Then she led us to another square, Santo Domingo, where the Department of Education was opposite the a series of buildings for printing. Traditionally for wedding invites, less traditionally for fake IDs. Maybe I could get an Aussie drivers license there? Why have the Australian unis not cottoned onto this funding source?? The square and nearby church were all askew, the pavement sloping as a result of the earthquakes.
First proper stop was a market with a library, the familiar CDMX mega letters and more of Mexico’s mega murals. Perhaps I shall call them MMM for short. We didn’t look at the market at all. Just the MMM. The movement seems to have been a 1930s-40s phenomenon about how the capitalist industrialist exploiters were ripping off the farmers and workers. Why are the exploiters always bald? You would think they could afford Advanced Hair (yeah yeah). Duckling walk recommenced to market 2 which I don’t believe to be that notable. Yellow chicken fed on corn – check. Corpses and grain – check. But I found out what Mr Tomale craps on about with his megaphone every night at 10.30.
Ava also grabbed us some churros. Then it was time for a ride on the public transport bus. Note to Adelaide Metro. Please sub contract out all your buses so drivers can pump their own party tunes out and pimp their rides with Marvin the Martian vacuum cleaner gear sticks. Fun fact – chivalry is alive and well in CDMX. I don’t think I had accumulated anywhere near a food baby to be mistaken for a gestating female but a man gave up his seat for me. In fact, all the men gave up their seats for all the women. Well, when in CDMX.
After disembarking with the usual mandatory warnings about watching your bags, Ava navigated us through the labyrinth of stalls to the toilets. (Will spare you recap on that. ) Then explained a little on Santeria and witchcraft stalls featuring stuff like skeleton statues that you leave offerings to if you want a new job or good juju etc, a small statue of the patron saint of drug dealers with a dope leaf throne and some aerosols spray cans full of magic spells for love, warding away bad people, good luck, you name it, don’t say it, spray it! I wondered how bad they really smelt. What if you doused yourself in the love one but it stunk???? Sadly, there was no taking any of those bad boys through Australian customs so we moved on. Time to eat!
Then it was time to eat again. This time, blue corn tacos! This lady was slinging ‘me outside like nobody’s business. Either potties and cheese or cactus and cheese. Cactus all the way, lady! Incidentally, tastes like green capsicum.
We caught the subway one stop to a place called the Jamaica Market and we saw these poor kids scraping prickles off cacti all day. I wondered which old bald exploiter was responsible.
Time to fill my guts up with more food. Despite the burgeoning stomach lining, this was a good thing. I knew there would be no lunch provided on the 1.5 hour bs trip and nothing at the pyramids so was fully prepared to stuff my face with every comestible with a metre radius of my gaping maw. First we hit done free samples of mole.
Time to get serious with barbacoa. The biggest fight I think I ever got into in my life was about the spelling of barbecue (I am still right) which derives from the word, barbacoa. I sat there on my stool, gloating that I would quite literally eat Lucas’ words. Winner, winner, lamb taco dinner. We gorged on a delicious broth from the barbacoa, hibiscus juice and lamb tacos. So good! Constantine questioned the presence of onions on his breath, but I chucked them right in. Suffer, Constantine.
Next, the fruit and sweets section where I couldn’t resist asking what this monstrosity was.
It’s tamarind and it’s salty and disgusting!!!! We were stuck with a bag. I was ashamed.
Then we headed through a few other free samples on the fruit market. Avocados were 20 pesos a kilo so 4 bucks? The Swedes snapped to action with their cameras!!! Then we had a quick spin through the flower market which isn’t really my scene, then a final cactus based tortilla product with cheese before Ava hurled me into an Uber to the bus station.
I must say Ava was quite lovely too. She was like a mum for the morning! She took a picture of me with her to send to the next Intrepid guide to make sure she was meeting the right short redhead.
Stay tuned for the next episode!
HockTales: a Central American Adventure 