Mexico: A Summary.
Mostly food. A little on money, safety and transport.
- Final Summary of Mexico.
Places visited: Mexico City, Puerto Angel, Oaxaca City, Laguna Bacalar, Merida, Valladolid, Tulum.
Highlight: The colours, markets and festivities of Oaxaca City.
Lowlight: Mosquitos, humidity in Valladolid and expense of Tulum.
Favourite city: Oaxaca City (close 2nd Mexico City).
Best stay: Hotel Las Golondrinas, Oaxaca City.
Best Airbnb: Merida.
Best taco: Fish tacos in Cabuche, Oaxaca City. (For localness the Antojito in Puerto Angel).
Other delights: Agua del día. Tacos for 30p. Beer for less than £1!
Exchange rate: MX$25: £1
2. Food and drink.
We ate lots of tacos and lots of guacamole, plus there’s cheese on everything (all contributed to my taco belly!). As expected there were quesadillas and enchiladas, but we saw few burritos (I think they’re northern Mexico). Limes are served with most things which I love, and also learnt the nifty trick of rinsing your hands with lime juice after cooking with chilli’s! Although Mexicans seem to love their spice (chilli on beer cups, on crisps, etc.) a lot of the time you add on how much you like rather than all the food being super spicy. The bread is a bit fake and sweet, they love to add sugar in almost everything!
Tacos: A Mexican tortilla is made from corn flour (masa harina) and we had normal, pink and bluey black tacos with every possible filling. I’m all for fish Tacos and Tom’s favourite was cheese and mango sauce (Paramo, Mexico City). I don’t think we were ever served tacos without a minimum of 4 condiments, always including green and red picante sauce.
We ate a lot of Mexican food we’d never heard of before:
Tostadas: a Mexican poppadom with different toppings put on like a pizza (cheese, meat, avocado), normally with a base of frijole.
Tlayduas: a folded over giant taco.
Tortas: sandwiches (often toasted).
Chicharrón: pork rinds. Tom learnt the hard way ordering rather slimy version from a local taco shop on day one!
Mole: a thick rich sauce famously from Oaxaca state there are lots of different types most commonly red and black mole.
Chiliqulas: Mexican breakfast of tortilla chips covered in green (or red) spicy salsa with optional eggs on top, which results in slightly soggy crisps!
Agua del día: Fresh flavoured water of the day I ordered this with most meals. We had melon, watermelon, carrot, lemon, basically whatever fruit is fresh. I loved them. The famous Mexican drink is horchata which is sweet and milky with a hint of cinnamon.
Alcohol: Mezcal seemed to be more popular than tequila. Beer is cheap with Tom’s favourite, Victoria, almost always less than £1.
3. Money.
Mexico is cheap, we ate out for almost all meals and stayed in places a notch above that of South America. It was mainly cash only except in major cities.
4. Transport.
Buses. We got ADO buses all over Yucatán with no problems whatsoever. With some states politically unstable when we were there, we decided to fly from Oaxaca City to Guatemala rather than take the bus.
5. Safety when travelling Mexico.
Not sure if we were lucky or if Mexico is currently getting a bad rep (probably the latter), but we had no issues while travelling Mexico. We were careful, not walking down dark streets, carrying little cash, being aware of our stuff (the usual) and we never felt under threat. Unfortunately having said that, we were warned to be vigilant by an expat who lives in Mexico City and heard of people getting mugged, so there must be some grounds for Mexico’s current reputation.
6. Other things we saw/observations while in Mexico…
- Oaxaca state love a fiesta, there were fireworks day and night the 2 weeks we were there.
- The towns are beautiful, all brightly coloured in Oaxaca and candy floss in Yucatán.
- One thing that will always remind me of Mexico is the distinctive smell of maiz tacos being cooked on the hot plate.
We visited Mexico in September, October and November 2018.
