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Friday, Jul 01, 2022
Once we landed in Mexico City, I had to fill out an immigration card. I found it a little confusing, and it was hard to ask anyone for help since I didn't speak Spanish, and the workers at immigration seem to mainly speak Spanish and not English. I finally got through and off to the next step of the journey.
I then had to get a ride to the Airbnb in town. I was told ahead of time that Uber was not allowed at the airport anymore, meaning I needed to go to a taxi desk inside the airport, figuring it would be less risky if they were authorized. I probably paid more than I would have elsewhere; however, I just wanted the assurance of not taking any big chances.
Now, when you pay for it there, you get a slip of paper and then go outside and have to find your cab station, something that was fairly difficult because I had no idea where the right cab stop was. I did get some help from someone and was soon in a cab heading to downtown Mexico City, about 30 minutes away. I was then dropped off at the Airbnb. It was about seven in the morning by then, so my friends were still asleep. I just crashed because I hadn't slept really on the plane at all, and was extremely tired.
Sleep was quite limited, and a few hours later, my friends were waking me up to go on our food tour that we had pre-booked. It was tough, but I arose and got ready to go. We took an Uber over to the location and entered the restaurant.
There was about eight other people taking the tour, and they were all very nice. The restaurant started us off by having us sit and they talked about the various types of foods and where it came from. Then they served us some delicious dishes. We then began walking over to a market that locals use. It was a huge place with a vast variety of different types of foods. At that place, we were offered some samples of different foods. One in particular was grasshopper salsa (interesting), and then some dried bullet ants and dried grasshoppers. I didn't want to miss a chance to try something completely exotic, but while they gave us a small cup full of those insects, I only tried one of each, and I have to say it was not to my liking. Very bitter and acidic and the little legs get stuck in your throat...and yeah – once in a lifetime is plenty. I also noticed that on some stands they would sell all sorts of interesting dried creatures like cockroaches, scorpions, worms, grasshoppers and ever tarantulas, just some completely different types of foods over there. Neat, but certainly not for my palette.
Another station we went to had a huge assortment of colorful fruits that all looked delicious. We were each offered a fruit cup, and that food did not disappoint at all, quite sweet and sugary—most excellent. The market also had small brass bands playing here and there for entertaining the shoppers. Certainly quite festive.
We made our way over to a small restaurant that served seafood dishes. We got a fish taco, but it had octopus in it, and I must say the taste wasn't exactly my favorite. Plus, I had just seen “My Octopus Teacher,” so it was sort of awkward. Moving forward, I don't think I'll ever eat octopus again. They're just too intelligent of creatures.
At another place, I had a large mild pepper with a very good white sauce on it, and then at another stop, we were given some excellent beef to try which had been wrapped in leaves. There were a couple more stops for food, and even a tour of a church and a library with very colorful mosaics. It was nice to see libraries were so popular and that people still read books.
The final stop on the tour was a candy store that was the first ever in the city and they sold amazing treats, which were all so tempting. We were offered a few samples and I was in heaven.
After the tour was done, we got ready and headed out four our tour, which was for Lucha Libre. This tour would involved learning about the sport and attending a match. We had a tour guide, Daniel, which we booked through Airbnb, and he brought a scrapbook and explained everything. It was interesting because to him it was real, but I wasn't sure if he truly believed it was real or not and of course I didn't want to spoil an illusion for him, but if you've ever watched it, you know it's completely choreographed.
We met at a restaurant and got some tacos and beer and learned about how it all works, and then headed to the stadium, which was quite impressive. Before going in, he handed us some masks that we could wear during the game. That was really nice of him as they were pretty cool things. That said, I really didn't want to wear a mask the entire time. We then left to go inside. Before actually entering, they checked our bags and I was told I could not bring in my Canon camera as they had rules against professional cameras. My Canon wasn’t even close to being professional though it did have an amazing zoom. Regardless, I had to check it and go in without it. Around the outside, they had history of the historical wrestlers over the years.
We then went to our seats which were pretty good. For beers, they bring them to your seats.. Nice and convenient. They are interesting because, well, they're very large, but they do prepare them with a rim of chocolate which is tasty; however, it's also extremely messy, and I didn't have any paper towels with me, so yeah, that was a bit of a messy issue. I took off my mask because I really could not drink the beer with it on and as well, I wasn't going to be wearing it the entire time. The others did the same. Soon, the event started.
It's similar to American WWE and they have matches with good guys and bad guys for each fight. I guess the main difference is they wear masks, and they each try to pry off the other’s masks to reveal their true identity. They also have a little people wrestling as well. It's pretty funny, though the type of humor they use probably would not go over too well back in the states as it would seem a little cruel and mean. They also have female wrestlers that come out and battle each other, and then finally the old-timers face off against the younger generations of wrestlers. You kind of assumed it would be the old people to win, but I believe the young people won that match. Again, it just depends on the night and who's scheduled for a victory and how far they get to go. It's all one continuous story, and each week they play out another episode – kind of like a soap opera. Afterwords, we went outside, and my friends bought some souvenir masks and Daniel was then kind enough to drive us back to the Airbnb. That was it for the day. It was definitely a packed one!