Day 60 Mas or Minus

So after kayaking, hiking and climbing for a week and a half, I returned to Mexico City. I had enjoyed my time there waiting for the package of climbing gear and bike parts, but was interested in seeing more this this huge city and spending more time at the best Hostel I had stayed at thus far, Hostel Amigo.

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Aside: What makes for a good Hostel experience? In my opinion:
1. The people
2. The people
3. The people

Hostel Amigo is not the cleanest place in the world. In the two weeks I stayed there, there was never any soap in the bathrooms, there were no handtowls, at times there was no running water, and the water they did have was not potable. The room in which I slept for the first 5 days or so had a window which would not close, and consequently a nightly mosquito infestation. The computers they had for the internet sucked. There was street construction infront of the hostel the entire time I stayed there so we were constantly having to walk through and around huge piles of gravel and avoid stepping into open manholes full of sewage. The hostel, while centrally located close the zocalo and the presedential palace, was about a 20 minute taxi ride from the neighborhood with the good bars. Despite these limitation I thought this was the best place to stay thus far.

However Hostel Amigo had a great bartender and I felt alot of comradery with the guys and girls that stayed there. The bartender, Gerardo Lazarro, was very good at getting people to loosen up, have fun and drink tequilla. Every night you felt like you were hanging out with your friends. He played music very load, and if you had an ipod he was willing to let you be guest DJ. A personal highlight was discovering that an Aussie staying at the bar had Louder Than Love on his ipod, playing the album and singing along to Gun infront of the other guests. The down stairs of the bar would open around 6 PM and stay open until 1 AM, at which time most of the crew drinking in the Hostel would take transportation to other bars in town. There are few pictures of these nights of course. Most of the pictures that were taken are on various folk´s cell phones. But here are a few brief stories:

1. I visited the same night club (Pato Negra) 3 nights in a row accidentally, seeing many of the same people there each night... after that happened I decided to leave DF for the first time.

2. Three of my friends went out drinking and got arrested at 6 AM for drinking in public. After the police relieved them of their IDs, a 1500 peso bribe, and one kids case, his wallet, the were allowed to go home.

3. After a fairly long night of drinking, 5 of us decided to get one more drink at a salsa club and ordered a liter of Barcardi. Two friends immediately decided to leave, one of them being the only girl with us. After our only girlfriend left the three of us discovered that the salsa club was, at least in part, aslo a brothel, and we spent the remainder of the evening trying to finish the liter of Barcardi while fending off some not very attractive sex workers.

4. After discovering that a friend was going to take the Metro to the airport 8 hours before his flight left, I insisted on driving him to the airport at 2 AM. The drive to the airport went fine, but I got lost returning to the hostel and drove around the DF for 1.5 hours before finding my way back home.

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I did do a few things other than go to nightclubs in MC. Actually I tried to make a point of doing something productive at least once a day. Here are a few things I did and pictures I took in the DF. I visited the Museam of Anthropology in Mexico City and thought it was the most impressive museam I have seen thus far in my travels. Here are a few pictures (I appologise for the blue tint. Obviousely something is not right with the camera. I will see if I can get it resolved for the next round of pictures).


This is the Bat God. He is made mostly out of jade and is about 6" tall.



This is the famous Aztec callender. A depiction of this calender is on the Mexican 10 peso coin. Only now they don´t think its a callender. It may have some sort of religiouse significance or guys fought on it or something (my spanish needs to improve, obviously).


Aztec serpent.


This is from a contemporary painting called "Maya Dream." I think the intent of the painting was to depict what the Mayan spiritual or fantasy world was like, or something. I dont know much about that, but I think the depiction of Scotts "Unicorn Boner Jam" is quite accurate... and btw there is a unicorn on the painting, it just didn´t fit into the picture.


So after a night of drinking, I decided to stay in the hostel for a day and make some stencils for the motorcycle panniers. My English friend, Jack, the guy on the right did the drawing. I made the stencils (very similar to "The Warriors" stencils) and put them on my bike. At the insistence of the Gerardo, the bartender, I also put some up in the bar. There they are in the background of the wall.