Although our AirBnb in Mexico City was only a few miles from the airport, our cab ride took close to an hour because the traffic was so bad at that time. But it gave us the opportunity to begin to get familiar with the enormous city we just found ourselves in. One of the largest cities in the world with more than 21 million people. As we were sitting in traffic, people walked through the cars selling water, candy and snacks, while others washed windows for change. It was apparent right away that not a lot of people spoke English here which was something I hadn’t really thought twice about. Come to think of it, most of the countries I have travelled to have a strong enough English-speaking foundation that I haven’t had to struggle too much with language barriers. I do always feel ignorant and wish I spoke another language fluently when I travel. Pretty much every other culture outside of the US speaks more than one language. It’s slightly embarrassing to admit to other travelers that I only speak English fluently.
After settling into our Airbnb which we later learned was smack in the middle of the ghetto, we set out to find dinner. We didn’t have a plan, just a general idea of where some restaurants were. We started walking in that direction and quickly found ourselves caught up in a crowded local street market that spanned 10+ blocks in all directions. We did pass by one restaurant that didn’t have a single vegan option on the menu. We continued to walk and got slightly lost in the crowds for a few minutes before eventually navigating our way back to the AirBnb. Feeling slightly defeated and having accomplished nothing, we decided to have a plan before setting out on our second attempt. We finally found a vegetarian restaurant that was a short walk in a different direction and headed that way. My food options were limited even at the vegetarian restaurant and they were out of the one vegan dish on the menu. I fumbled through my Spanish and was finally able to modify one of the vegetarian dishes to be vegan. Eating dinner and having a beer provided some relief, but by that point I felt mentally exhausted from just having gone out to dinner.
The challenges didn’t end there. The following day was just as challenging, particularly with food. I couldn’t really find any breakfast food I could eat other than fruit and dry toast which didn’t sustain me for long. Other meals were just as challenging, I thought I’d at least be able to find veggies, beans and rice, but pretty much every dish at every restaurant we found had meat and/or cheese. We even went to an Asian buffet where I was sure I’d have some options, but the only dishes that didn’t have meat amongst about 40 dishes were green beans and potatoes.
The second challenge was the crowds, and feeling safe in the crowds. My guess is that it was more crowded than usual due to the holiday festivities, but I have nothing to compare it to so that may very well have been the norm. We didn’t particularly feel safe walking in our neighborhood and had to keep a tight hold on our bags and remain very aware of our surroundings. We did get to visit several sites on our first full day including some incredible cathedrals very similar to those in Europe, ruins right in the middle of the city, the performing arts center, the art museum and a beautiful giant park. When we were in front of the performing arts center, we strangely ran into a guy we had sat next to on the plane ride over- in a city of 21 million people. He told us that his phone had been pickpocketed earlier that day, which made us keep an even tighter hold on our things.
Clarissa suggested I look at some blogs to find vegan food which was a good suggestion and we were able to find a couple of vegan restaurants that we enjoyed the following day. They were all about a 20-30 minute cab ride away in a different neighborhood. Luckily I had also read in the blogs that we could take Uber for insanely cheap prices ($4-$5 for a 30 minute ride across town). We also took a bus that next day to Teotihuacán, the pyramid ruins that are about an hour outside of the city. They were unique to Chichen Itza in that we were able to actually climb them. The steps of Chichen Itza are much steeper and people have been hurt and killed climbing them, so they are now roped off. I climbed the larger of the two temples of Teotihuacán- the Temple of the Sun, didn’t make it up the Temple of the Moon due to some knee troubles. Very beautiful site that I highly recommend if you ever happen to find yourself in Mexico City; the views from the top were breathtaking.
I had stayed in communication with Hiram and he was on a road trip with a friend and wasn’t far from Mexico City. I jokingly asked him to be our guide (he is originally from Mexico City) and he ended up agreeing and joining us for our last day there, which was also the Day of the Dead. That was by far the best day. We felt much safer with Hiram with us, and he was able to translate for us and help us find vegan friendly restaurants. And of course the festivities. The crowds were immense which was stressful at times, but also a lot of fun. We painted our faces and joined the fun, watching a huge parade they started having a few years back because of a movie that was film in Mexico City. We eventually went to another neighborhood for dinner and drinks with one of Hiram’s friends and escaped the crowds for a bit. We had to be up very early the next morning for our flight home, and just like that this whirlwind of a trip was over.
Truth is, I walked into this trip in a very scattered, ungrounded and disconnected emotional space. 
The past few months of my life had been quite difficult emotionally and financially and I’ve felt a lot coming at me from seemingly all directions. I hadn’t done the best at handling everything that had come at me with grace and I had allowed a lot of stress to take hold of me and negative momentum to gain a lot of speed. I naively thought that temporarily stepping away from my current circumstances and changing my environment would help me to break or at least slow this momentum, but something I forgot that I have unfortunately had to learn time and time again, is that no matter where you go or what you change in your outside world, you take whatever is going on in your inner world along with you. If you do not do the work to change the inner environment, nothing in the outer environment will change either. As my friend and travel buddy for part of this trip so accurately put it, I came onto this trip with some extra baggage, and I had to learn some tough lessons because of it. There were moments I wish I had handled more gracefully, and moments I wish I had allowed myself to be more present and enjoy rather than being distracted by things that were ultimately unimportant. But, I learned a lot and will never forget those two weeks. And I have a feeling I’ll be seeing Mexico again sooner than later…
