Saturday 28 June 2008

Introduction


In the Summer of 2008 the European Coaster Club undertook a tour of Middle America running from Texas up to Minnesota. Wanting to see a bit more I added a week beforehand taking in Mexico. The week after which was initially heading into Canada but was changed to head west to Las Vegas. So I would be on the road for an entire month; the longest holiday I'd ever done.

What follows is the inane ramblings of a mad man. There are lots of pictures and quite a bit of text so please don't attempt all this in a single sitting; your family and friends may fear you've vanished.

Flight to Mexico City

No photos from day 1 as it was all spent flying and I didn't really want to be taking photos inside a 747. Jeppe had set off way before me flying from Copenhagen to Heathrow, and not wanting him to spend to much time bored on his own I headed there quite a bit earlier than I needed to.

Now originally we were due to flight out of Terminal 5, which I thought would have been an exciting start to the trip with the waiting-around-in-the-lounge time spent exploring the new terminal and really putting the security systems to the test :) But due to the opening day debacle where a load of flights were canceled my flight had been bumped back to Terminal 4, which I was already pretty familiar with. I just think BAA and Terminal 5 weren't ready for me, that's all!

It was quite a long flight, around 10 hours approximately, which would give me the opportunity to watch five movies on the flight. I find it very difficult to fall asleep on flights, usually down to the chairs not going back far enough, so I tend to watch the 4-inch screen in front of me for the duration of the flight. It's worth complimenting BA on their new in-flight movie system that allows you to stop and start programs as you want rather than everything being on a loop where you have to wait for the longest running film to complete before all they all start over.

So, in the absence of any pictures here are some movie reviews for those I managed to watch on the flight.

I Am Legend.
The fresh prince finds himself alone in New York following a virus outbreak that has turned most of the population into nightcrawling vampires. With the company of his dog he sets about trying to find a cure and establish whether he's the only survivor or not. This film was really crap, in fact I'd prefer to watch the televised sheep dog trial shows on BBC as that is a better "One man and his dog" program than this film. I've never read the book but if the ending is as abrupt as this movie there needs to be a lot of blank pages at the back of the novel.

Oceans 11
Yes, the movie with Clooney and chums attempting to rob the Bellagio hotel. I only chose to watch this because I was staying there in the final week, and I thought the movie would help get me in the vibe for the trip...and it did. I really liked the movie first time around and enjoyed it again, even though I'd seen the twist previously. The soundtrack is also brilliant and fits with the style and setting of the movie very well.

No Country for Old Men
This is a film I'd missed when it got its cinema release and features Josh Brolin coming across a load of drugs that a cruel assassin played superbly by Javier Bardem, is interested in. Tommy Lee Jones plays a sheriff who also gets involved when he stops searching every outhouse, backhouse, doghouse, wendyhouse etc. The movie is very slow paced, but you'd expect that from a Coen movie, and as such sent me to sleep, which I rarely do on flights. A shame as it was pretty good but the overall vibe from the film coupled with me focusing on a small screen was conducive to putting me under. Ah well, I'll try to catch it properly at home when I'm more alert.

St. Trinians
OK, so wanting to stay awake I thought I'd pick this. I was wrong. I saw some girl arrive at the school and the next thing they had stolen a painting from The British Museum, saved the school and the credits were rolling. The body has a wonderful natural defence system in that it can shut down if external stimula is damaging to it; it's what the experts call "shock". That is the reason for me not seeing any of this movie; it must have been so bad that my body decided to close itself down.

Juno
Figuring I'd save the best for last, again this was a film that I'd missed when it came out in the cinema and had received really good reviews. Ellen Page (Kitty Pride in X-Men 3) plays Juno, a girl who gets up the duff and decides to give her kid up for adoption to Jennifer Garner (Elektra in Elektra) . That's basically it in a nutshell (or in a womb, if you will) and the movie definitely has a marmite feel to it (for those who haven't heard of marmite it's a yeast extract that you spread on toast and that uses the advertising slogan "you either love it or you hate it"). Unlike Marmite that I can't stand, Juno was actually really good with an intelligently written script that doesn't bother with dumbing down with back stories etc. I enjoyed it so much that I'm considering buying a copy for the library at home.

Anyway with the movies watched, it was time to touch down at Mexico City Airport. First impressions were that everything looked pretty clean. My breathing was a little short due to the altitude and I knew that within about 10 minutes I'd be used to it, which I was.

At the airport, there's a little taxi booth where you pay up front and you're given a voucher that you hand to the driver. It prevents unscrupulous drivers ripping the tourists off. However I made a mistake in tipping the porter too much. Rather cheekily because there were 2 of us and he'd carried 2 cases he'd asked for a second payment that I paid because I wasn't familiar with the tipping process. Only when I got to the hotel did I realise I'd tipped him 10 times too much, with the first payment, and then doubled it with the second. He'd obviously seen us coming and I hope he choked on whatever food the money bought :D

Its also worth mentioning the taxi drive from the airport to the hotel. Now I have a licence but the only driving I've done since I passed my test is in video games, so to avoid ending my life prematurely I choose not to drive however I think I'd fit right in in Mexico. Our driver drove like an idiot weaving between lanes and hitting the horn more than he exhaled. But even with his erratic driving there were no accidents and with others driving similarly I guess its safe to drive the way he was doing. I can imagine a tourist in a hire car would stick out and probably cause an accident with their "safe" driving.

Anyway we eventually got to the hotel, the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Mexico City and with us both fairly tired we took a quick walk around the Zona Rosa (the hotel was on the edge of this entertainment district of the city) and had a drink in a sports bar.

Then it was time to get some sleep as the next day we'd be heading off to Six Flags Mexico.

Six Flags Mexico

First morning in the hotel and we had a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, some ridiculously spicy mushy nacho stuff, and some refried beans that tasted nicer than it looked.

It was also obvious that we weren't the typical hotel guest. All the other people in the restaurant were smartly dressed business people but the hotel wasn't too expensive to us at about £50 a night.

Following breakfast and a trip to the Starbucks next door for compulsary morning coffee fix we hired one of the taxi drivers touting outside the hotel to take us to the park. In fact we were so impressed with him we used him for the rest of our stay in Mexico City.

Six Flags Mexico is the largest park in Mexico, in Latin America in fact and it seemed to be pretty popular with lots of cars already arriving with ours for the start of the day. We even noticed a Volkswagen beetle with more than a dozen people squeezed into. Alas that was before I could get to my camera out to photograph it, but Jeppe will vouch if need be. Dominating the skyline were Superman, a big steel coaster and Medusa, a large wooden coaster. We'd asked our cab driver to come back in 4 hours figuring it would be enough time to get around the park.

Cute t-shirt in the queue line but still not as good as the kid I saw once in an Italian park who was there with his clearly non-english speaking parents and a hat emblazoned with "Fuckmaster III".

Having entered the park (350 pesos / £17.50) we figured the majority of the crowd would go to Superman, so we headed to the back of the park to ride the Batman Inverted coaster. Hold on, something doesn't look quite right with that track...

Shocker number 1, the coaster wasn't the normal B&M inverted coaster, it was an SLC (which I don't actually mind despite their headbanging reputation)

Shocker number 2, I wasn't allowed to take my backpack onto the station, which meant that I'd have to use the lockers; something I figured I could avoid.

Shocker number 3, the lockers didn't open for another hour so to get around this stupidity one of us had to look after the bags whilst the other rode, then we'd swap; not too different from a baby swap in fact - as long as you kept the baby in a bag.

Shocker number 4, Single people weren't allowed to ride, you had to be paired up. This was just dumb, but fortunately we could get around that by just hanging around the station and waiting for an odd-numbered group then hopping in beside the single person.

A lot of hassle for a fairly average coaster, and a number of issues that didn't appear to be being enforced anywhere else. One extra bonus was that the soundsystem in this part of the park was playing some great trance music including a track by someone I know back in London. So whilst Jeppe rode, I had a little dance around the bat-mobile much to the locals' amusement.

There are lots of SLC coasters around the world, and there are lots of Boomerangs too. So that would be our next coaster to ride. These things are never smooth, and this one was no exception.

Tsunami was down, its the crappy green coaster in the foreground in case you're confusing it with the big one in the background - that's Superman that we'd be riding later on.

Liking the tiki statues

and the pineapple themed breakdance was the first one like this I'd seen

Away from the tropical part of the park into the Western and an opportunity to ride the wooden coaster in the park, Medusa. Rather strangely, the entrance was at the back of the gift shop; you usually just get to endure that when exiting.

The ride was atrocious. We put our hands up for the first drop then braced for the rest of the ride. Really really bad. It sort of does a two lap circuit so as you're suffering on the outer drops you see the inner ones knowing that you still have them to endure.

Rollerskater was much better by comparison and thats just a kiddy ride.

Close to Medusa was the park's big wheel which we rode to get some shots of the park. Here you can see Superman stealing the background.

Medusa is much nicer to look at than ride. In the background you can see the sprawl that is Mexico City going off as far as the eye, could see and the infamous smog would allow. The Six Flags park lies about 30 minutes south of the city.

Hot sweaty staff dressed as pigs with no pants on. The roadrunner was quite cool though. An ideal job for a chronic anorexic perhaps. They could fit up the neck no problem.

We're not sure what this dark ride attraction was but it seemed quite popular. The guess given the way the queue was entering in chunks makes us think it was one of those madhouse attraction where the room rotates and tricks you into thinking you're spinning upside down.

Cute castle in the European part of the town.

Superman is the stand out ride in the park, a big massive red Morgan monster, and I would come to ride many of these rides on the trip. Before being allowed in I had to dump the bag in the locker, which took a lot of translation from a staff member who's English was as good as my Spanish, and therefore took some time to sort out. I'd eventually figured out that in giving the key the time is recorded and you pay based on how long you had the key when you return it.

This ride had the longest queue by far taking us around 40 minutes to get through it. Rather strangely there wasn't much queue forming behind us once we'd joined it, which meant a second go was much quicker. I can only assume we'd joined at the same time a show began, and that's where everyone had gone.

The ride itself is a lot of fun, better to ride in the front than the back. However there are some laterals that throw you into the side of the car if you're not ready. The second ride was much more enjoyable than the first because we'd learnt the layout. No loops or inversions, just big hills and helices. There was also some nice airtime that caused my cap, which I had been sitting on, to float up in front of me.

Oh, a little tip, the Mexican food stand opposite the entrance to the ride served some really nice food, just be aware of the portion size. One of us didn't order enough first time around :D . I was quite impressed with my Spanish here as I was able to order everything, only blowing it when I didn't know how to say ice (hielo).

On the way out we thought we'd see if we could sort of some currency for Jeppe only to find out that we'd stumbled into an commercial shoot. Everyone in this shot is an actor.

Six Flags Mexico isn't a bad park at all, and we'd got around everything in the time we had with the exception of the haunted swing thing. Not getting out of the park properly (public can't leave the driving exit where we'd agreed to meet the taxi driver) we were relieved to see the driver spot us and drive over ready to drive us back into Mexico City.

Teotihuacan and Downtown Mexico City

The next morning we joined the business people for breakfast and then hired Angel our taxi driver to take us to Teotihuacan, another theme park on the outskirts of Mexico City, actually about an hour's drive to the North.

I lie, Teotihuacan isn't a theme park at all but one of the major historical sites in all of South America. It predates the Mayan civilisation so is pretty damn old. Not wanting to just ride coasters on the trip it was important to me to indulge in some native culture and this place was ideal.



On the way to the site we passed lots of graffiti adverts painted alongside the road. At first I thought they were well produced tags but then I realised it was companies being advertised.



We also passed this line of police getting ready to lay waste to a small group of protestors....probably. We didn't stick around long enough to see exactly what was about to kick off.



Like LA, Mexico City is a bit of a sprawl with the city boundaries constantly being pushed with more and more property being built. Unlike LA however Mexico City is pretty hilly so those developments steal the skyline.

A stone sentry greets us at Teotihuacan. A little tip is to be dropped off at entrance one and picked up at entrance three. That way you don't have to walk all the way back.



This is the view from entrance one. Ahead is the citadel, which we climbed to the top of. It wasn't that high really as its the smallest of the main pyramids here.

A view from the top of the citadel looking down behind it. The excavation here is showing that the temples were much like a russian doll with one temple built over the top of another. As they peel away the layers they discover more about the history of the site. Obviously if they dug all the way through there would be nothing left so for now at least the excavation had stopped.


In the background are the two major pyramids, the Temple of the Moon and the Temple of the Sun. In the background you can make out through the Mexico City smog the absolutely massive Temple of Pluto, not really that's a mountain.

This is the Avenue of the Dead, the main throughfare running up the centre of Teotihuacan.

Weird cement brickwork and old wall paintings combined.

This is the Temple of the Sun, half way up the avenue. It's the larger of two pyramids and can be ascended all the way to the top as long as you're OK to negotiate around 250 steps, all of which are pretty high. Apparently if you make it to the top you get 10 years added to your life although the cynic in me says you lose 10 climbing it.

A not particular perfect pano of the Temple of the Sun, the smoggy skies making consistent light levels between shots a bit awkward. But you get the idea.

More aged stone work

Just to show we made it to the top here's a photo from there of the Temple of the Moon. The climb was pretty exhausting, I'm just not cut out for steep climbs; London is pretty flat so I'm not used to it. Other tourists were finding it hard too so I took solace in that. What surprised us was that shortly after making it to the top one of those groups of Chinese pensioners made it to the top too, totally fine and not feeling the effects at all. There must be something in that Tai Chi stuff they do.

Descending the Sun Temple, the idea of tumbling down the stairs was considered but deemed a bit disrespectful so wasn't carried out.

At the foot of the Sun Temple, the fence predates the temples by around one million years...or perhaps not.

Heading up the avenue towards the Moon Temple, although it looks bigger, it's actually smaller than the Sun temple. The trick is caused by the avenue actually being uphill.
Although the place was fairly desolate there were quite a lot of vendors selling random trinkets and souvenirs. A polite "no thankyou" was usually enough to get rid of them, but some were a little more persistant tempting you with a bargain price of one peso for their wares.

Another old mural.

A really cool stone dragon head.

Multicoloured structures. Like visiting Japan for the first time its quite amazing to see original architecture first hand, and old stuff like this still standing the test of time.

More ruins unearthed near exit three. The kids in red were a school party here for a few hours history lesson. I was quite impressed that Mexican schools send their kids to places like this rather than theme parks as often happens in the US and UK.

The Moon Temple done in a pano stylee.

Another pano and I like this one. It covers the avenue from the Moon Temple down to the Sun.

The Moon Temple. You can't climb to the top of this one, only the mid-platform in front of it. Having endured the larger of the two I had no urge to ascend this one either.

For those people who missed the chance of buying souvenirs, and how did you avoid the gauntlet of vendors if you are, there's a final chance to buy something at exit three. It's also worth mentioning that if you do, don't carry it in your hand luggage as it arouses the suspicions of security staff, especially if it's a little statuette, which they might think is being used to conceal drugs.

Having had our fill of Teotihuacan we met our driver, waiting patiently at the exit and headed off back into Mexico City for some more touristy stuff.

Now driving back into Mexico City we passed a modern take on the pyramids structures seen previously. It looks like most of the building was up for sale, I don't think they'll sell it until they finish the penthouse floor.

The city of Mexico City (that doesn't read right) has a main square called The Zocalo, in fact this is one of the largest main squares in the world and like the Palace Square in St Petersburg is used for major concerts including the likes of Tiesto and Shakira, who managed to have over 200,000 attendees to see if her hips didn't lie. It looks like some other concert had taken place the previous night as they were packing up some rigging. The wonderful building on the North side of the square is the Metropolitan Cathedral, which looks a bit wonky, not due to my photography but subsidance.

A wonderfully colour street running off the Zocalo. Moneda for those that are interested.









A bizarre serious of sculptures.

A shop that sells uniforms, I only presume so people could pretend to be official for shop robberies etc. Actually although I didn't photography any its worth mentioning that the security forces in Mexico City are usually heavily armed. We saw some very impressive shotguns, machine guns and rifles being carried that would make the trenchcoat mafia jealous. I was scared that if I shot them with my camera their shot back would be a bit more fatal.

Nice frontage, and I do mean the building.

Some random church, and there were many.

Just how many boxes is that dude carrying exactly?

Back at the Zocalo, we'd explored the area to the east, so decided to head west.

The cathedral is a Baroque structure built in 1667 but finished 200 years later. I reckon the Olympic village in Stratford will take just as long.

We stopped off for food in a wonderful Mexican restaurant on Francisco I Madero street. As is ever the case I tried some random stuff from the menu and having been warned what I'd ordered was quite spicy, still went through with it. It was quite hot but not as hot as whatever the hotel served us at breakfast on the previous morning.

I'm quite brave when it comes to food but there was no way I was going to try "She asses of head"

A plant outside the Cathedral. How did they grow that?

I'm usually wary of taking photos inside religious buildings but it was alright here. Quite a lot of gold here and the cynic in me makes me wonder that if religion was so charitable why so much of the money collected was invested in stuff like this. The Vatican is much much worse at displaying its opulancy than here though.

This plumb line shows how much the cathedral is tilting and they mark it every few decades. Rather oddly it seems to be tilting in various directions over time, not just getting worse in one.

A really beautiful piece of sculpture outside the cathedral. I didn't really appreciate the Mary image until I saw the photograph.

The green volkswagen is the city taxi, which makes the city at times look like a Green Hornet meets Herbie convention at times. There are mini cab type taxis such as the one in the foreground, which are cheaper but not necessarily as safe, much like comparing the black cab and minicabs back in the London.

Walking Cinco del Mayo street, which is one of the main shopping streets in Mexico City. We weren't there to shop though, just walking on through.

Nice patterns on the wall, and no tagging over the top of it. Actually I think all the graffiti takes place on the highways out of the city. I was expecting to see lots within the city and didn't.

This is the Palacio del Belles Artes (Palace of Fine Arts to you non-Spanish speakers) and is the premier opera house in Mexico City. Quite an amazing looking building too.

As well as doing the opera, the building also houses various exhibitions. I can't remember what one they were showing on this occasion but we weren't enticed enough to pop in for a look.

Old school tram, no rails though. This would be fun for a joyride.

To the west of the Belles Artes is the Alameda, which is the city's take on New York Central Park but on a mucho mucho mucho smaller scale. It offers the city people a place to escape the heat and relax in an oxygen rich environment. There's quite a number of food stands, which we avoided like the plague, choosing instead to play it safe on the food front.

An interesting idea for a sculpture. It's actually holding a flag, but I couldn't get it and the hands in shot. As we've all seen a flag before I chose to sacrifice that.

Hmmm, anyone fancy a shock?

West of the Alameda the roads meet the Avenue de la Reforma, which is the Main highway that runs through the city. The building on the left is the National Lottery HQ I think, and the yellow structure is a rather dirty statue that advertises a bank I think. The piece in the middle is just a random piece of art.

Loving the wings on the windows.

Heading back down the Reforma, our hotel is on this road but a short walk away, too much of a walk for Jeppe though :) I think I underestimate how much walking I can do in a day. I dragged Keith around the streets of Tokyo and did the same with Jeppe in Mexico. Sorry guys!

There is a great mix of architecture in Mexico City. Some wonderful skyscrapers juxtapose the equally wonderful pyramids. Why does using "juxtapose" instantly give the impression I'm an art-loving pretentious twat?

This is the Monumento a Cristobal Colon, dedicated to the inventor of the enema. Actually its Christopher Colombus the guy who found America by accident when he got his east and west mixed up. Luckily for us my map reading was a lot better than his!

Strange sculpture. We stopped for a Starbucks near here and were soon joined by a couple of business men and their security details who covered the exits and ensured no-one got close. We'd never lunched with mafiosi before :)

Another statue in the middle of Reforma, this one in honour of Cuauhtemoc an Aztec ruler of what was the city in the early 1500s

Woohoo, some urban graffiti. The megaman reminded me of a large scale invader piece and the ghost was pretty cute.

Hidden on the left a Mexican take on the Shephard Fairey "Obey" logo.

A close up of the ghost

This building was next to our hotel. Designs like this must be great in the event of a major evacuation, you just slide down the left-hand side.

Bizarre dinosaur rowing-boat sculpture outside our hotel.

Equally strange, but its great to see so much art on the streets. Mexico City has more museums and galleries than any other city so art is very important to them and its wonderful to see it out on the streets.

Cool building, not so much fun to slide down in the event of an evacuation though.

What was quite weird about the Mexican roundabouts is that traffic doesn't go around it in one direction like in the UK but they close half the traffic and allow one direction to go around it anyway they wish (note the car on the left)

Along the Reforma there was a series of chair installations, which were open for use by the locals, as you can see from these two girls making use of these high chairs. It's not so obvious how they got up there though.

The most famous structure on the Reforma is the Angel de la Independencia. A golden angel not unlike the one I saw in Berlin.

Having seen pretty much all of the main attractions in Mexico City we headed back to the hotel and then went out for dinner. Jeppe, just so you know the walk was only 5 miles :D