Touching Down in Mexico City

Landing in Mexico City

We landed at 4 am in Mexico City, earlier than we were scheduled to do so. Our flight with Aeromexico had been very smooth and we even managed to sleep a fair amount on the plane. The queue for immigration was long but we finally made it through and got our luggage about 5.15am. Google Maps informed us of a quick and easy route to get to our hostel. We arrived at 7am, unsure if we could get into our room, but thankfully we could.

Look at the sunshine!

We flopped onto the bed, exhausted from the 12-hour flight. It was still dark outside and we really had no idea where we were. We had a “what are we doing here!?” moment, before napping for a couple of hours.

How is Mexico City?

When we awoke later, we were greeted with glorious sunshine. Along with the sunshine was a load of traffic, roadworks, and very busy streets. In an odd way, it actually reminded me of China. When we first arrived in China I was a little overwhelmed by it all. It’s safe to say that I felt the same arriving in Mexico City. With the city hosting 8 million people and the surrounding area being a home to 21 million, it’s definitely one of the biggest places I’ve visited.

Tall buildings, construction, traffic, and air pollution: I definitely see some similarities with China.

Despite vigorously going through reviews to pick a hostel with good wifi, our hostel’s wifi only worked well in reception… a room with no windows. For the first couple of days, we had work to catch up on and spent about six hours a day in this dark hostel reception. This gave me a lot of headaches and we were very pleased when we realised that there is a certain spot on the hostel’s balcony which has a good internet connection (though it’s only open from 10 am) so we used this space to work after breakfast.

The combination of not knowing the city and having to spend our first few days working meant I felt a little detached from Mexico City and overwhelmed by its presence.

The Weekend in Mexico City

Now it’s the weekend and our first real chance to explore. We’d been out exploring on the weekdays after we got our work done, but it was more wandering around, rather than hitting specific sights. However, we woke up early on Saturday and visited Castillo de Chapultepec (Chapultepec Castle) and the Museo Nacional de Antropologia (National Anthropological Museum). Both of which were wonderful and reminded me why we’re here: to see the amazing history and culture the city has to offer.

The castle was very impressive and we got some great views across the city

What’s Next on the Agenda?

Today we moved into our Air BnB which thankfully has much better wifi and two awesome hosts. We’ve booked two more weeks in the city. If we feel the need to stay longer, we may book another week. Mexico City is big and so I’m looking forward to exploring some smaller cities later in our travels. In the meantime, we’re going to continue eating all of the amazing food and seeing some more of the capital’s highlights.