Mexico City and Teotihuacán, Mexico

We decided to take a weekend trip to Mexico City to celebrate my birthday last week. I've never been to Mexico before, and as a Texan for over 15 years, this is a little shameful. This was also our first time flying Southwest's acquired airline - AirTran. We even got upgraded to First Class!!

Take a look at the picture I took upon arrival. Mexico City is HUGE, but it has some really gross smog because of it. We were definitely having some trouble breathing by the time we left.

We arrived right around 2 on Friday afternoon. We stayed at the JW Marriott right next to Chapultepec Park and the National Anthropology Museum, so we spent the afternoon exploring this area. We walked around taking in the street vendors and performers. We headed to the Museum when it started getting dark. The museum was definitely worth a visit (for about $4) if only to see the artifacts of Teotihuacan and the Aztec calendar.

The next morning, we ventured out to the pyramids of Teotihuacán about 30 miles northeast of Mexico City. We are definitely the type of people that will take public transit over a tour (i.e. really cheap), so we jumped on a subway to Autobus del Norte (for 5 pesos or about 40 cents) and then bought a $7 round trip ticket for our 1 hour bus ride.

This site is a pre-Columbian city that was once one of the largest in the world. The word Teotihuacán is actually an Aztec word for "the place where gods are born". Much about this place is a mystery as not much is known about the people who lived here or why they ultimately abandoned the site.

When we arrived, we walked down the Avenida de las Muertes in order to reach the 3rd largest pyramid in the world - the Sun Pyramid. You don't think about it before, but the altitude and the steps definitely get to you! Not helped by the intense smog...

Pyramid of the Moon at the end and Pyramid of the Sun on the right

Pyramid of the Sun

The moon pyramid is the 2nd tallest pyramid here and is located at the end of the Avenue of the Dead. It is thought to be dedicated to the goddess of Teotihuacán, who represents water, fertility, earth, and creation.

After we did a little souvenir shopping, we caught a bus back into the city.

After a little siesta, we caught a Turibus (double decker bus) around the city. It was nice to see different areas of the city and we found our favorite - La Condesa!  Below you can see the Angel of Independence, Palacio de Bellas Artes and a few parks around town.

Zona Rosa is named because of the pink buildings like below:

We got off to explore in the Zócalo area. This Centro Histórico was literally built from the stones from Teotihuacán making this plaza very impressive. In this plaza is the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Palacio Nationales. It was fun to walk around the vendors who were selling everything from trinkets and ice cream to Aztec cleansing rituals. It was a happening place!

Our last day, we had time to eat some huraches, tortas and tacos from random street vendors around Chapultepec Park and drink some tequila before we had to head out. We went back to our hotel to pick up our bags and then caught the metro to the airport for our flight home.

Mexico City gets such a bad rap and to be honest, I don't know why. We felt totally safe here taking public transportation and walking around. As with any big city, I'm sure there are bad areas, but I feel like if you use your common sense, you'll be fine. Another positive - we didn't get sick! The only precaution we took was drinking bottled water the entire time - even to brush our teeth.

Mexico City was such a fun and vibrant city and I would encourage everyone to make a trip here. Since it is one of the largest cities in the world, I feel like we barely scratched the surface. Even with our limited Spanish, we were able to get around and communicate fairly well!

Up next: We will both be heading somewhere for a weekend of relaxation before I start my new job on Monday!

Cruise: St. Croix, USVI {and a little Puerto Rico}

Here is the last recap of our Southern Caribbean Cruise.

Jason and I love kayaking, so we booked the Salt River Kayaking tour in St. Croix. The tour took us to the Salt River National Park and Ecological Preserve. 

The water was extremely calm and we got the chance to listen to the guide talk about the various Indian burial grounds and villages that were originally here. Christopher Columbus anchored outside the reef at Salt River in 1493 and we sunbathed at his original landing site.

The mangrove trees were absolutely beautiful and we got a chance to see iguanas and a variety of birds. There is a bioluminescent bay here, but since it was a daytime tour, we couldn't really see the effects.

We had time to eat lunch in "downtown" St. John's and swim in the beach for a while before we had to be back at the boat. This was our last night on board before we disembarked.

 

So - our overall thoughts on cruising? It's just not for us. I think it just comes down to the fact that we like more freedom in our travel choices. It's a GREAT way to see a lot of places at once, so I definitely understand why people do it.

I'm not totally ruling out cruises in our future, but I will say we won't be doing another Caribbean one. I'd much rather spend my time exploring one place in depth.
 

My favorite part of this trip was the time we spent in our final destination - San Juan, Puerto Rico! We ate some great food, walked around Old San Juan, explored the rainforest and relaxed at our amazing hotel - the La Concha Renaissance. This was our second time here and we can't wait to go back! If you click the link above, you can read about more of our favorite things to do here.

 

 

 

We'll be back Puerto Rico - we'll be back!

Cruise: Antigua

Stop 4 of our Southern Caribbean Cruise was Antigua!

We had scheduled our day (via Royal Caribbean) at a ropes course. We were picked up at the port and driven to our destination across the island. Holy cow, the main thing I remember 2 years later is how HOT it was there.

Once we got to the ranch, we suited up in our gear and set off. There were wooden walkways high in the treetops that we got to walk on to reach the areas where we zip lined and repelled! I honestly don't have a ton of pictures from the stop as we were actively flying through the treetops. They even let us zip line upside-down!

After this, we headed back to the port and walked around downtown St. John's. The port cities are usually just full of duty-free shops and cheapo souvenir stores, but there are a few hidden gems that were fun to discover. We also perfected the art of sneaking duty-free alcohol on board here!

That night, there was a "Minute to Win It" style competition and all of my travel buddies participated. Tip: Get there early if you want to join in the fun! It was fun to watch and they all won a prize for providing the entertainment.

 

 

There are always fun shows to watch. We stayed after this and watched a fun "newlyweds" style game that definitely provided a lot of laughs.

All this time, we were making our way towards our last stop - St. Croix!

Cruise: St. Maarten

Time to jump back onto our cruise recaps! Without further ado, Stop 3!

This day started off being a little disappointing. We had originally scheduled a full day of snorkeling, hiking and kayaking directly through Royal Caribbean. We received a notice the night before that something was wrong with the boat we were going to take and that the tour was cancelled. This left us in a bit of a bind as we couldn't schedule anything else to occupy our day since all of the good tours were already booked. Boo!

St. Maarten/St. Martin is half Dutch, half French. We ended up at a beach on the Dutch side and it was stunningly beautiful. We spent the day just swimming around and laying out. Not necessarily our style, but it was nice to just relax for a day. The only bad thing was that it was off-season, so most of the bars were closed.

The water was insane - we could clearly see the bottom that was more than 10 feet away.

 

That night was the second formal night, so we got all dressed up again. Oh I miss that tan...

 

 

St. Maarten was a beautiful place that I wish we had gotten to explore more. Next time!

Up Next: Antigua