Living the Life

After a six hour bus trip over the Sierra Madre mountains we were back in Mexico City again. We had three days to look around some more before we would fly home, at least that's what we thought.... When we tried to check in, which we can do 30 hours in advance with KLM, there was no sign of our reservation, when I checked further, our flights were moved up a day. We called Amsterdam and were told that our group of three was split up, one had to fly via Paris to Amsterdam on the original date, the other two a day later on the direct flight. That was of course not acceptable for us and it took a few more phone calls, one more than 45 minutes to set things straight, now we are flying back on Saturday, FOUR days later than planned! Reason? Boeing is doing a maintenance check on their 747's and flights get cancelled all over the world, our flight was one of those. I'm so glad that I brought my laptop on this trip and that I have skype up and running to make all those calls, oth...

The main attraction in Papantla are the El Tajin ruins but for a foodie this area is also interesting because this is where vanilla was used for the first time and from here it was spread by the Spaniards over the globe. You can find lots of places here where they sell vanilla pods, liquor, extract but also vanilla art, like scorpions, crucifixes, rosaries made out of vanilla beans. I stocked up on half a liter of extract and 20 fat juicy beans. Vanilla Art The next day we visited El Tajin, it was a nice gray day, not to hot and it was very quiet at the ruins which gave it a special atmosphere. Last year it was almost to hot to walk around. J. loved it and due to the weather we were able to enjoy it a lot more! Of all the sites I've visited so far in Mexico this is one of my favorite.

We spend our time in Costa Esmeralda relaxing, J. and I tried line fishing which was harder than it looked, I did manage to catch a crab though. Omid, the owner of Tobago , our hotel here, was nice enough to take me to the local fishing store. I bought 2 rods and some lures which made fishing easier. Not that we caught anything... The first thing my brother said that that was justice, since he couldn't join us :-) We also couldn't stand to long out in the water without the risk of getting serious sun burns, but at least we tried. One day we took a boat tour through the mangroves which was very interesting, our guide, a local fisherman, caught one of the red mangrove crabs to show us, picked local waterflowers, pointed out the different birds and other wildlife. At the end of the tour he took us to the end of the river and almost in to the Gulf of Mexico. After the tour we went to the reason we stopped here this time, barbecue restaurants. Along this stretch of beach are little ...

What do you do when you are Oaxaca? Well there are fabulous restaurants here, so it's more like how do we fill the time in between meals... So far we discovered two great new restaurants. Marco Polo, a seafood restaurant, that has wood fired brick ovens in a garden setting. Your food goes in these ovens and when done straight to your table. Relaxed atmosphere, high quality, great cocktails and very friendly staff. Casa Oaxaca, a little more upscale, but again great food! We went for some of the local specialties and it was superb. I loved their tamales, I had a combo, one in corn husk with lamb and the other in banana leaf with venison, very tasty! They also had a fabulous salad, the dressing was a with flor de jamaica (hibiscus flowers) and a touch of chile, a beautiful combination that I'll try to recreate at home. Nice selection of chiles at the market. And of course we went to the markets here. I bought a nice bag of chipotles (got some for you too Mevrouw Cupcake), some ca...

Last year when we stayed in Oaxaca, Jon the owner of Ollin , the B&B we stay in, told us that the food at a restaurant just 2 blocks away was great, but their strawberry margarita's were even better. Well, we had to test that of course and they have been haunting us ever since! When it is hot weather or when we eat Mexican food, the memory of this fabulous drink always surfaces. So after checking in to Ollin our first stop was La Biznaga, to order a strawberry margarita, we weren't disappointed, they were still as tasty as we remembered. Nice strawberry taste, good kick from the tequilla, not to sweet, just perfect! The Perfect Strawberry Margarita. And the food was still very good too. A few adjustments in the menu but our favorites of last year were still on there. Garlic shrimp over rice with a tamarind sauce. We did eat way too much though, so we are in/on bed and in the hammock outside too full to walk, hoping we have space again for the fabulous breakfast Sophie will ...

First thing we did yesterday was arranging tickets to our next destination, Oaxaca, which went pretty smooth. Public transport is very well organized here in Mexico and even if you don't speak the language it's not hard to get around. With that hurdle taken it was on to our destination of the day. We decided to take the bus to Teotihuacan, we had been there before but with a tour, which takes you to a lot of other things too, we just wanted to see the ancient city and could care less about the tourist traps. The bus leaves from the North autobus terminal and the counter for tickets to the site is on the left side, I give this info for fellow Europeans with a Lonely Planet Mexico guide book out there. The lonely Planet says go to the North side of the terminal, well we Europeans don't do North and South very well :-) It's about an hour to the site. Teotihuacan is were the Sun and the Moon pyramid can be found. The sun pyramid is the third largest pyramid in th world and ...

From our hotel it's a nice walk through the Zona Rosa to "el Angel" on top of the Monumento a la Indepencia, one of Mexico City's most recognizable icons. The colomn with the angel is found on Paseo de la Reforma, which was shut down for cars today, they have been doing this for a while now on Sundays, to give the city back to the people, a lot of people were walking, rollerskating or cycling down this 12 km long, broad boulevard. We strolled along Reforma for quite a while and visited the Palacio de Belle Artes (the Palace of Fine Arts), we had never been inside before and the interior is beautiful Art Deco with Pre-Hispanic details and more murals by Diego Rivera. Man, controller of the universe, by Diego Rivera. After a drink on Plaza Garibaldi, where the Mariachi bands hang out, we went to Los Girasoles for lunch. This is one of the places in Mexico City where you can eat Aztec style food. I had the blue corn quesadillas as a starter, which were filled with squa...

It was eight AM when we left the hotel and had breakfast, after that we went to the Zocalo, the main square in the historical center of Mexico City. It's our fourth visit to the city but we never went to the Temple Mayor, which lays just behind the Zocalo. The Temple Mayor ruins, the Cathedral and the Zocalo in the background. The Temple Mayor is the excavated ruin of the double pyramid temple that the Aztecs built on the spot that they considered the center of the universe. Legend has that their god told them to build their capital where an eagle stood on a cactus with a snake in it's beak, the icon you can still find on the Mexican flag. That is where they built Tenochtitlan, the Temple Mayor. It was discovered in 1978 by workers who were working on the metro. For me it's so impressive that you have this enormous city here and you can visit the ruins of the place where it all once started! No idea why we never visited it before. There is a nice museum which has some of th...

After a nice and comfortable eleven hour flight we arrived in Mexico City yesterday. We were here last year too and nothing changed much in the neighborhood were we are staying again, the Roma district. Had nice chicken fajitas across the street and forgot to take pictures of the food, what a food blogger I am... Or maybe the reason was that it was already 5 AM at home and had been up all day and night. When I checked my email at the hotel I saw that my Red Velvet Cupcakes were picked for the Weekly Cupcake Collection on All Things Cupcakes ! I'm so thrilled, first time I ever made cupcakes :-) If the time on my posts look odd, the reason is that if I change the timezone on blogger to Mexico City time, it will change the time on all my previous posts too! So odd times it is for the duration of the trip. It's after 4 AM local time when I blog this, I guess we will be outside early today, oh well that is one of the benefits of jet lag.

Tomorrow we'll leave for two and a half weeks to Mexico. That means that I won't participate in Tuesdays With Dorie during that period. Also I won't be posting any recipes. But I'll be posting while on the road, I'll show some of the sites we'll visit and of course food related items. So my next post will be from Mexico City, first stop on our trip!