Monday 30 June 2003
It was late on the afternoon when we landed in Mexico City airport just to face rain and only 16 degrees Celsius. This contrast to the 35 degrees in Los Angeles made us loses heart a bit. We got our baggage and when we entered the airport arrival, the total chaos overwhelmed us.
Huge crowds of people were waiting for someone to pickup, the level of noises was high and agents that wanted to sell us a taxi drive or to recommend a hotel were constantly aggressively on our back. We knew that the yellow airport taxis were to prefer, as the green street taxis very often were suspicious. Occasionally the taxis were highjacked and the tourists robbed, often with the driver as part of the gang.
As we were facing this chaos, a nice taxi driver appeared and showed us his card with an image of a yellow taxi. We did not manage to coordinate and a second later we were followed him. We walked in high pace through the hall passing all the yellow taxis and crossed the street to a narrow backyard where he contacted a green taxi. The price to city center was $32 and we decided to accept without knowing how long to go – we just wanted to reach our hostel safely. Approximate 20 minutes later, we arrived at our hostel and realized that we probably were cheated big time.
Before our travel to Los Angeles, we had booked a room for this first day in Mexico City at the Hostel Los Dos Fridas via Internet. According to our guidebook, this was a nice place and judged the same from the relative high price of $34 for two persons. After accommodating, we felt disappointed, as we did not get a double bed or private bathroom as promised by email. Every time we had to go, we had to queue up as the place only offered two toilets for the 20-30 guests.
As usual, we were eager to study the neighborhood and to find a nice place to get our dinner. This area called “Zona Rosa” is known to be an exclusive place in Mexico City, but the dark streets and countless closed restaurants was not appealing to us. Finally, we found a “Steak & Lobster” restaurant, which was a real joy despite the noisy music.
Back at the hostel, we were looking forward to hit the beds very early, as we were very tired. Apparently, this was not the plan for the other guests at this place and just outside our room was 20 young people gathered and a party was beginning to start. We faced the fact that we probably were too old for this hostel-thing and decided to find a more private place tomorrow, which probably would not be a problem matching the same rate.