Marc's Public Blog

2015/05/23 Some Time in Playa Del Carmel and Cozumel with Arturo

π 2015-05-23 01:01 in Mexico, Ntrips, Trips

Arturo was flying through Mexico on his trip back from Cuba, and he figured he'd go do some diving in Cozumel on his way back, and invited us to join him, so we did :)

where we spent our first night, noisy due to partying and music on the beach

Arturo and Peter, waiting for us to arrive

The main street had a bit of 'everything':

no prescription? no problem :)

very classy T-shirts.

The next morning, we took a guided tour to a Cenote (underground river system) to go diving there:

Diving can be found on this page.

After our 2 dives, we took the ferry to Cozumel:

One evening, we had a mexican party, including a pinata:

Jennifer had a shot

Lots of cruise ships:

One afternoon, since we didn't have any dives, we went to the nearby dolphinaris:

At the end, they had a dolphin tow us across the pool. I hope it didn't mind too much:

you do get water in your nose though :)

Nice sunsets:

after sunset, it was a good time to night dives by the peer

After our last dives, we went back to the mainland for a private tour to Chichen Itza:

Grr! :)

Many street vendors:

Also got to see some iguanas:

On the way out, we went to see a couple of Cenotes:

A big thank you to Arturo for organizing everything.

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2017/12/02 1.5 days in San Jose, Mexico and LaPaz

π 2017-12-02 01:01 in Mexico, Ntrips, Trips

We arrived the day before our dive trip in San Jose, Mexico, and took an ATV tour that day. The next day we went to La Paz before boarding our diving boat to go snorkel with whale sharks.

Before the ATV tour, I walked around downtown San Jose a bit. Apparently, there were some drug lord issues not long before we came, so the police was in force, patrolling the main tourist areas:

We were in a nice hotel next to town square:

I then had 1.5h to walk around town square and the so called art presinct (which was not to Aspen level let's just say):

I had a quick local lunch, including dried grasshoppers

We then took our tour to the dunes north of Cabo San Lucas for ATV'ing

they had a small aviary with friendly small birds

it wasn't cheap, but they had the nicest ATVs I had seen so far

we had a big ass ATV, even though it was indeed not cheap

we eventually made it to the beach

and we got so lucky, some baby turtles just hatched

we watched them and helped the few that got lost

go turtles, go...

then back on the tour

sunset was a miss, sadly

After the ATV tour, we met with Arturo and had a nice dinner in a good restaurant he picked:

The next morning, we left early for La Paz to get on a small boat and snorkel with Whale Sharks:

On the way back, we stopped at the famous hotel California:

We then finally arrived back to San Jose and boarded our diving boat for the Socorro Islands for the 9 day diving trip.

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2024/02/22 Mexico City aka CDMX

π 2024-02-22 01:01 in Mexico, Ntrips

CDMX, Ciudad de Mexico, also known as Mexico City, being the capital of Mexico, was much higher than I thought, 7300ft or over 2000 meters of altitude. It's not montainous looking, but it's a high plateau and definitely a bit harder to breathe at for flat landers :) While I was ready for that, I had no idea that the city was also pretty close to an active volcano that routinely spews ash in the air, and it was doing that when I went to visit during EDC Mexico, so the air quality was poor, which added to the altitude, makes things challenging for some.

Templo Mayor Museum in downtown was quite interesting (click link for more)

Then Palacio De Bellas Artes was an interesting building to visit, with ok-ish displays inside:

After EDC Mexico was over, for a half day, it was best to go check out the Aquario Inbursa (click for blog and more pictures)

Next door was the Museo Sumaya, interesting building from the outside;

Next was time to check out the Museum of Tequilla and Mezcal, do a premium tasting and a dinner on its plaza:

The next day was a day tour to see the Pyramids of Teotihuacan (click for blog)
The tour started with a stop at Basilica of Our LAdy Guadalupe:

Then, we went to see the pyramids, and after coming back from the tour, a bit of time to burn so I quickly checked out the local Ripley's. It was ok-ish, at best, but a good way to spend 1h before the evening activity:

And the evening activity, indeed was to go see Lucha Libre Wrestling at Arena Mexico (click for blog and report) which was fun enough:

The last day started with Chapultepec Castle (click for the blog with more details):

And the day ended with just enough time to visit National Antropological Museum (click for blog) before having to head to the airport for the flight home

And that was it for the visit of CDMX. Happy to have been able to see the hightlights.

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2024/02/23 Mexico City's Templo Mayor Museum

π 2024-02-23 01:01 in Mexico, Museums

Mexico has a rich history from the Mayans and other first nations, and they built really impressive temples for the times. Unfortunately there is very little left of the really cool one in Mexico City, but the ruins and museum in its place were still quite interesting to visit.
This is what it used to look like:

Here is what is left:

The museum was very good:

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2024/02/26 Mexico City's Aquario Inbursa

π 2024-02-26 01:01 in Aquariums, Mexico

While in CDMX, I had a bit of extra time end of day, so going to to Aquario Inbursa made sense. It was split in 2 buildings and had a few more unusual things in the 2nd building:

nurse sharks and bamboo sharks are some of my favorites

Salamenders are very cool, land animals that went back in water

Designer Fish are also fun ;)

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2024/02/27 Pyramids of Teotihuacan, Just North of Mexico City

π 2024-02-27 01:01 in Mexico, Monuments

There isn't much left of the pyramid that was in Mexico City (Mayor Templo), but Teotihuacan is very well preserved with its multiple temples, and even some murals are still left, worth the side trip for sure.

Of course, there are some tourist attractions nearby that the tour got to visit first. We first got to learn how Tequilla is made out of cactus, as well as all the things that cactus can be used for:

there is an anti sweat layer inside that can be used as paper

the fibers can also be used as strings

mezcal is mostly tequilla with worms in it ;)

I did mention that masked wrestling is a big thing in Mexico?

Then it was time to visit the temples:

the murals were impressive

Very cool place, very happy to have seen it

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2024/02/27 Lucha Libre Wrestling at Arena Mexico

π 2024-02-27 01:01 in Mexico, Outings

I used to watch wrestling as a teenager but had never seen a show in person, and Lucha Libre was listed as one of the things to do in CDMX, so I gave it a shot. It was of course silly and had a few expanded "rules" compared to the wrestling I used to watch (3 on each team instead of 2), but otherwise it was the same half ridiculous but entertaining show I had seen before, even if I could not understand the spanish (which ultimately didn't make a huge difference anyway).

Lucha Libre Wrestling is very popular in Mexico, lots of merch in the city:

Very strangely, cameras were not allowed but taking pictures with cell phones, was. Go figure...

Short Video:

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2024/02/28 Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City

π 2024-02-28 01:01 in Mexico, Monuments, Museums

Chapultepec Castle is an interesting historical castle built in Mexico City, originally by the Spanish, and then it was taken by the French which brought a lot of cool things to it, including even some exquisite stained glass made in Paris.
It's pretty far out of the way, a 1h uber ride from town center with rush hour traffic and then It's a bit of a long walk through a park and then uphill from the street (plan an extra 20mn), and google says it can be very busy with long lines, but it was fine the morning I went (early morning is best)

Nice views from the hill:

Had to go through 2 lawyers of security that do not even allow water in. That was non ideal... Eventually got there though, and we paid a private guide who gave us a 1h tour:

the stained glass, shipped all the way from Paris by boat and re-assembled, looked wonderful

I looked up the address in Paris, of course that was over 100 years ago ;)

After the castle, it was another walk through the park to another exit and got to see many vendors, to go to the excellent archeological museum across the street (but still a long walk):

nice insomniac looking owl ;)

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2024/02/28 Mexico City's National Antropological Museum

π 2024-02-28 01:01 in Mexico, Museums

The last thing I had time for, was the National Antropological Museum, pretty close to Chapultepec Castle, and it was a very impressive and pretty complete museum on the history of the land and civilizations, going back thousands of years. Unfortunately I didn't navigate in the correct order, so the history was somewhat backwards, but nonetheless the place was super interesting.

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