At the pyramids there were all sorts of vendors. I usually say buy your trinkets anywhere but the at the tourist site, but I realized that we would be out all day and I didn't have a hat. So, when a woman approached me with a hat and said it was 50 pesos, I said yes! That's about US$2.50. There were vendors outside the entrance where I bought the hat. There were also vendors at many places within the site itself. There was a small entrance fee of 85 pesos each. There was one such trinket which was quite annoying. It was a voice modifying toy that you could produce a kind of howl/growl/cat scream kind of noise. A boy near us bought one before we entered the site. He kept making that noise and we heard him practicing with delight for the whole time we were near him.
Matt mentioned that he didn’t feel stared at in Mexico like he did in Asia. We noticed very few Black people in Mexico City. There were some concerning indicators and moments of discomfort, but there was nothing overt in the time we were there.
When you arrive at a Mexican restaurant there is usually a set of 4 sauces already on the table. If they’re not there initially, the server will put them out post haste after you arrive. What they don’t offer is salt and pepper, just the 4 sauces which offer a variety of flavors from mild to hot spice.
As a traveler I like to go local a bit. I love converse with natives. I love to barter. Air-conditioned buses full of foreigners is not my style. Most of the time I don’t care about special tourist menus and air-conditioned restaurants far from the madding crowds. So we decided to take the public bus out to the pyramids near Mexico City. The cost was beneficial – about $5 each versus an Uber at that hour would have been $30. A full tour probably would have been $60+ per person. So we went to the north bus terminal where we could catch the bus. The bus terminal is enormous. There were 12 or 15 sections to the terminal.
We had a pretty good idea of what to look for and where it was. We found it straight away. The tickets are sold out of a green and white booth. You can either purchase one way or round trip. They have periodic departures. The buses are huge. We found our spot in the section where the Pyramid bus would pick us up. There were lines of people everywhere. Suddenly I remember that I’d drunk some coffee and didn’t need it in my body anymore. So I found a nice public toilet which had bars in front of it like Fort Knox. It was a pay toilet. You had to have 6 pesos in exact change to get in the toilet. A man in front of me put in his money and it clearly wasn’t working. I went to the lady at the gate that was checking tickets. I tried to explain that the toilet was out of order and said clearly in Spanish that I was concerned that there were no toilets on the bus. She was busy. She couldn’t work with me. I walked around to see if there was another option. The terminal is in a downtown location so I couldn’t just go out back. Somehow, I saw the woman again and she signaled me to come and use the toilet. She would let us in. What a relief! This is one of those situations where you want to be able to communicate effectively in the native language. I was able to do so and the woman helped us effectively.
