After arriving in Mexico City you can be astonished by the sheer size of this place. It currently houses 23 Million people. I try to manage to get to the city center because I arrived at the AIFA airport which is further north. After 3 hours of riding buses, trains and metro I finally arrive. My body has to adjust to the altitude of Mexico City because the city is elevated at 2300 meters. No wonder I was out of breath so quickly! Even if it is elevated this high you don’t notice it, since most of the city is flat. The climate is very welcoming for me. It is mostly dry and not too warm. It also get’s cold over night. This is quite a positive surprise for me after spending the last two weeks in tropical climate, where your t-shirt was drenched after you took two steps. I am ready to taste some of those tacos everyone is talking about. Some Taco places really remind me of the Kebab. Even if the meat is often prepared as a kebab, the flavor is completely different though.

The base is usually with some meat or some mashed cooking banana, mashed potato, guacamole or some cheese. The toppings can be cilantro, onion, cabbage or potatoes and you can get some salsas on top. The flavor combination is always good.

As my body is trying to adapt to the altitude, I get sick. Oh oh it is dawning on me that some tacos shouldn’t have been eaten that day before. I get a fever and food poisoning. I go to sleep at 5pm and get into the cycle of running to the toilet, drinking water, questioning my life choices and falling back to sleep over the next 14 hours. After that first contact with Mexico I head to Anthropology Museum to meet a friend from my hometown. The world is working in bizarre ways sometimes. You fly half across the globe and meet someone from your hometown. Apparently the sister is studying here for a semester and the whole family just visited. So we meet up.

The next day I meet with Alan, a colleague of mine. We watch the “Lucha Libre” together. The wrestling has a big fanbase here. Everyone loves it and goes crazy for it. The atmosphere is great while everyone is shouting, cheering, or stomping for his favorite wrestler. A lot of drinks or nachos get passed around the ranks and the wrestlers definitely know how to get the crowd rallied up. Afterwards we end up at a taco place and had a really fun evening. But man they can put anything in a taco.

Afterwards I try to figure out where to go next and what to see in the city. I am following Alans tips and head to the castle Chapultepec. From here you can have a stunning view above the city. This was the only time you could see that this city was build in the basin of a volcano. You can see that it is completely surrounded by mountains. This is also a good place to see how absolutely fucking huge the city is!

The markets are also something strange to experience. You can go and buy all sorts of things. Normal fish and meat or some fruits and chilies. Or some weird stuff like scorpions, cockroaches and crickets with garlic. Depending on the market you could even get a decent flower bouquet.

As I get the hang of it how this place functions I walk down the main road during sunset. This is also something Alan recommended. It is a beautiful walk. You can enjoy the sunset while seeing some nice sights and people. There is definitely a lot to see in this city.

As I walk around I stumble into this open rave. I see that it is just held in front of an government building. As I join the crowd I get immediately asked if I want to buy some weed. I feel like I’m in Amsterdam. Everyone is selling pre-rolled joints, grinders and whatever else you need for rolling joints. As you near the crowd you can already smell it a block away. The police is also there and enjoying this spectacle. Crazy stuff! Later I find out, that this is a protest against the cannabis laws in Mexico. Now this is a protest I can get behind. No violence, just people dancing and enjoying themselves.

I top of my journey with a trip to Teotihuacan. It is super interesting to see a culture that had ancient civilizations that had no influence of Europe till the late 14 hundreds. The place was an old city that could have inhabited about 2 Million people. For the time it was a huge metropolis. These ancient sights always intrigue me. They give me more questions than answers. How did the people actually live? What was their daily life like. How did they manage to get this big city going? How did the city actually look? So many questions on which you can just wonder as you will never fully know.

You can just walk around in their ruins and listen to the archeologists. They usually have some insight about the rites and processes in the city. However they also never have the full picture. It is just super interesting to have different cultures develop with different gods and behaviors.

All in all Mexico City is quite diverse. I’ve seen some Rock and Hippie Mexicans, as well as some Ravers and some dancers. In my opinion the city has great food and very friendly people. From some locals I hear that this city had a tremendous change in the last 10 years. Beforehand it was the capital of murderers. You could not use your phone in the metro as it would be stolen. You could not go to certain areas in the city as the police was not even entering it. Now hipsters can flock to the city and enjoy it’s beauty to the fullest while being very safe. I never had an issue. Even in crowded metro spaces people were very friendly and always helpful! Quite a drastic change for 10 years.