Mexico City, otherwise known as D.F. (Distrito Federal which means Federal District) is a beast of a city with a population of about 20 million. Needless to say, it's pretty hectic. Our first few days were spent organising everything for a new passport for Kurt, and getting all the paperwork together for the insurance claim. If you've ever made an insurance claim for a lost or stolen item you'll know all the bullshit you have to go through. Now imagine claiming for about 8 different items as well as accommodation and travel, and translating a police report from Spanish to English using Google translate. Bullshit multiplied by a thousand. But we got it all done and then we just had to wait for Kurt's new passport.
We spent almost a month in Mexico City in total and there's no shortage of things to do and see. Aside from just wandering around and exploring different parts of the city, we did some of the major touristy things like visiting the Teotihuacan Pyramids just outside the city. It's an archaeological site thought to have been established around 100BC, and was one of the largest cities in the world at that time. It's a pretty impressive site, with a couple of massive pyramids you can climb up for a great view of the entire site and the surrounding landscape.
Chapultepec Castle was also recommended as a place to check out. It's located on the top of Chapultepec Hill in the middle of Chapultepec Park (at least there's consistency in the naming of things) and we spent an hour or two wandering through the multitude of rooms with the usual displays of art and artifacts. The Park it's located in was huge and is a nice place to walk around as well, with loads of stalls selling toys and brightly coloured food, museums, a zoo and a couple of lakes. It's a perfect place to escape the city for some peace and clean air.
We're not big museum people, but we made an exception for the Soumaya Museum as it's an awesome looking building, all shiny and silver. Owned by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, and named after his late wife, the museum was built to showcase his extensive art collection, including the world's largest private collection of sculptures by Rodin. With over $700 million worth of art, entry to the museum is free so everyone can enjoy it. And lucky for us, the man himself was there on the day we visited doing a press conference of some sort, so we got to see him with our own eyes. Not many people can say they've been in the same room as the richest man in the world.
It would be remiss of me not to mention food at this point. After a year of fairly bland South American food which typically consists of rice, beans and some sort of fried meat/fish, we were hanging out for the variety of flavours and spice of Mexican food. And we weren't disappointed. Finally, some decent (and ridiculously cheap) street food! Tacos (5 for just over $1) with all manner of meat fillings (including head, tail, tongue etc which Kurt rather enjoyed) and flavourful toppings like coriander, onion and spicy sauces; quesadillas filled with beans, meat and oozing oaxacan cheese; gorditas and sopas, tostadas and tortas...the delicious list goes on. Our taste buds were in heaven. One of our regular and filling favourites were tortas. We were confused at first as in South America torta means cake, but in Mexico it's a sandwich. A totally awesome sandwich filled with all kinds of meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, mayo and chipotle sauce, and lightly toasted. And for only $2.50. Fuck yeah.
The reason we had to get to Mexico City in December is because we were going to spend Christmas with Sara and Luke (friends from Sydney that Kurt worked with) and Sara's family. Of course we managed to get in a couple of nights of coronas and tequila and mariachi's before then, just to catch up first. Then a few days before Christmas we loaded up a taxi and made the drive to Actopan, a city about 4 hours from Mexico City. We stayed at Sara's aunt's house and over the next 5 days we met other aunts, uncles and cousins and were made to feel like part of the family - the retarded members who barely speak Spanish. As with any normal Christmas at home, we ate way too much, drank a bit and talked shit. But the added bonus of a Christmas in Mexico meant we got to set off fireworks and bash the shit out of piñatas. Who said they were just for kids? It was an awesome way to experience a real Mexican style Christmas - huge thanks to Sara and Luke and Sara's family for letting us spend it with them.
From Panama City we originally planned on getting a bus all the way up to the south of Mexico. However, being so close to Christmas the only company that did that particular route was completely booked up until the new year. So we figured we'd just do the journey in smaller legs, getting buses as far as we could each time. That meant we had to find a bus to take us to the border of Costa Rica and then once we crossed over jump on a bus to take us to San Jose, the capital city. This was pretty easy, except it had to be the worst border crossing we've done so far. It took about 3-4 hours to get our passports stamped out of Panama, then we had to walk about 1km to the Costa Rican border which was thankfully a piece of piss. Then we only had to wait 20mins or so to get on a bus.
We arrived in San Jose late arvo/early evening and went straight to the office of a bus company in the vain hope we could get straight on another bus that night. Unfortunately we were shit out of luck so we found a hostel for the night. Even after only a couple of hours, we got the feeling that Costa Rica was very expensive and not a particularly welcoming place, so we decided to spend just one night and get up at stupid o'clock to try and get tickets on a 4am bus across the border. Again, it was fully booked so we went to another bus terminal where we lined up for about an hour and finally secured tickets to the Nicaraguan border. That wasn't a mission at all. So at about 5:30am we were on our way, expected to arrive at the border about 5 hours later. However, due to an accident along the way we were stopped in traffic for an hour or two waiting for the road to be cleared. We got moving again, and at some point there were quite a few people standing in the aisle of the bus, and one guy standing next to Kurt's seat fumbled and dropped his wallet which fell under our feet. We searched around to pick it up and Kurt had to get up so we could find it. At that point a woman pushed passed Kurt, turning him around, and soon afterwards a group of people got off at a stop. A couple of minutes later Kurt reached up to check on his small backpack which was in the overhead compartment, but it wasn't there anymore. FUCK!!! After a lot of swearing and yelling Kurt got the driver to pull over and we got off, unloaded our big bags and waved down a cop car. It was at this point that several other passengers on the bus decided to be helpful and proceeded to give the cops a complete description of the group of people that had stolen Kurt's backpack. So they'd obviously seen it happen and chose to do nothing about it. We later figured that the group regularly targeted this bus and the locals were probably too scared to speak out against them. We jumped in the cop car and raced back to the bus stop to see if any of them had hung around. Which of course they hadn't. So we drove to the nearest police station (about 30mins away) to make a report of everything that had been stolen. Which was quite a lot - bet those assholes were happy fucking campers. Kurt's nice new backpack contained: a laptop, 2 cameras, a hard drive, a new Samsung Galaxy S3, Kurt's passport, my credit card and two others for an account we thankfully no longer use, and a few other small electrical items/cords. And by the time I called to cancel my credit card, they'd managed to spend about $500 in less than an hour. Guess they could've racked up a lot more, but still, it was quick work. Oh yeah, and we discovered they'd also taken our other laptop out of my backpack which I'd left on the seat for 5mins while I got off for fresh air when we were stopped in traffic due to the accident. Strangely they didn't take anything else (there was a lot more they could've stolen), so maybe they were just testing the waters. If only I'd opened my bag to get something out because I would've realised straight away and we would've known it was someone who was still on the bus. And there's no way Kurt would've let the bus go anywhere until we found out who it was and had got it back. Good old hindsight ay? Anyway, after making our report and getting a copy for insurance purposes (thank god for travel insurance), we then had to get a bus all the way back to San Jose, as without Kurt's passport we couldn't cross the border.
As there is no Australian embassy in Costa Rica, we had to go to the Canadian embassy as they look after Australian citizens (the Poms look after us Kiwis). It was a Friday afternoon and we got to the embassy at about 1pm, thanking our lucky stars we'd started out ridiculously early that morning and had made it back in time. So we rock up to the counter only to be told that the embassy is closed for their Christmas party. Excuse me? You have got to be fucking kidding! But no, they didn't even leave a poor lackie behind to man the office. A guy who worked in the building walked past and heard our plight, so he tried to help us contact someone. But of course nothing worked so we were fucked until Monday. Obviously our only course of action was to find a hostel and proceed to drink ourselves into oblivion to forget the shittiest day on record. Which we achieved quite successfully.
Being fairly confident we would get the necessary document on the Monday to allow us to leave this shitty country (maybe our opinion was unfairly biased, but then again, maybe not), we went ahead and booked cheap flights to Mexico City on the Tuesday, which is where the nearest Australian embassy was. Convenient, as that was our final destination anyway. So on Monday we got all the required shit together (passport photos, police report etc) and were at the embassy nice and early to get this thing done. But as usual, bureaucratic processes are never quick and straightforward, so we had to wait hours for the Australian embassy in Mexico to approve the emergency travel document for Kurt. We made ourselves comfortable and Kurt even got in a quick nap on the couches. Finally, the woman called us up and handed over the prized document which turned out to be just a sheet of paper with Kurt's details on it. Who cares, as long as it gets us on the plane and out of there. Which it did, although check in and customs officials in both Costa Rica and Mexico had to check with bosses that it was legit.
So as you can imagine, we don't have fond memories or a huge desire to go back and spend much time in Costa Rica. Not that we blame what happened on the country - it could've happened anywhere. And according to all the Costa Ricans who heard what happened, the thieves were clearly Nicaraguan. Obviously. Anyway, we're lucky that that's the only really bad thing that has happened to us in over 12 months of travelling. Touch wood. Things can only get better from hereon in!
When we arrived in Panama we anchored at a place called Isla Grande. In a small town about 30mins away we were supposed to get our passports stamped coming into Panama, but of course the customs office was closed. Frank then had to come with us to Panama City, about 2 hours away by bus, and make the round trip back to Portobelo the next day to get our passports stamped. A few of us weren't comfortable entrusting our passports to someone we didn't really know, so we discussed one of us going along with Frank to make sure he didn't disappear with them. But in the end Frank ended up going alone and we all breathed a sigh of relief when he returned later that evening, with all the passports safely in his possession and stamped into Panama.
We only spent 5 days in Panama City, mainly just chilling out and getting used to being back on land - it was a very weird feeling and it took a few days for the swaying sensation to fully disappear. As luck would have it, we were able to meet up with Sam again, an American girl we'd met on the W trek in Patagonia. She was living in a small village a few hours out of Panama City but was in town for a couple of days, so we walked around for a while catching up on everything then went to the seafood market to have some fresh prawn ceviche.
Of course, the most touristy thing to do in Panama City is to visit the famous canal. It's been around for a while - construction started way back in 1881 and was finally finished in 1914, and while we were there they were expanding it to build a third set of locks. Even if you're not particularly interested in mechanical feats of engineering like this, it's still fascinating to watch the ships come through the locks and see how it all happens right in front of you. While we were there a couple came through, and it's quite surprising how fast it all happens considering they're such huge vessels being moved through massive amounts of water. And it all happens so quietly and seamlessly. It's not exactly cheap for ships to pass through the canal however - the average toll is $54,000 but the most expensive toll charged to date was for a cruise ship which paid $375,600 in 2010. And I bet that was all covered by the stupidly expensive cruise fees the passengers willingly paid.
After a few days we had to start the big trek up to Mexico by bus, so we said goodbye to the others and went our separate ways.
