Restart in Mexico City and Querétaro

We're back!

After a stopover in the best flat share in the world, family gatherings, and a few celebrations, we made it back to Mexico. Now - finally - we are able to write a blog post and send a sign of life.

Unfortunately, our journey this time was a bit more difficult than before. Due to the holidays, there were not really good flight connections - it seems like everyone wanted to fly to Mexico at the same time. So, for the first time internationally during Covid-19, we had to make a transfer, which meant a little more research effort. Because the transit regulations in the Netherlands were the most relaxed at that time, we decided to make a stopover in Amsterdam and had to wait 7 hours for our 12-hour flight to Mexico City. That was kind of annoying, but in the end, it could have been worse. After about 24 hours of travel time, we arrived at our first hostel at 4 am (Mexican time), which was located in the historic center of Mexico City. Here we met some really lovely people (from Hungary, Spain, and the USA) with whom we spent our first days in CDMX (Spanish abbreviation for Mexico City). On the first day, we took a little walk around the city and in the evening, we went to a wrestling match.
Now some of you might be wondering: 'Why did you go to wrestling?'
Good question - no idea! Someone wanted to go, we didn't have anything better to do, so we just went along and let the atmosphere work its magic on us. Actually, this event consisted of about 5 different fights in which the audience shouted nonsense - pretty crazy. Luckily, there was an American with us who already knew about it and introduced us to the art of wrestling and heckling. :D

The following days, we spent a lot of time in the city with Sergio. Sergio was one of the volunteers at the hostel in Mérida, where we stayed in June/July. He lives in Mexico City, so he showed us around and took us to great places. Among other things, he took us to a vegan taco restaurant, which was so good and cheap (the three of us paid about 12 euros) that it will definitely be on our top 5 restaurant list of the past months.

During our stay in CDMX, we made a trip to Querétaro - a 'small' city north of CDMX. There Paco and his family live, another volunteer from Mérida who we became friends with. He invited us to show us the city and the surrounding area. Besides a beautiful historic city tour and a super hospitable stay with his family, we also visited a huge rock - the Felsen von Bernal (Bernal Rock). It is the largest monolith in the world (monolith = naturally occurring or processed rock block consisting of only one type of rock) and is said to have magical powers. Allegedly, it gives visitors a particularly long life. All in all, the view and the climb were pretty spectacular! If you ever visit CDMX, you should definitely make a little detour there.

There is one more thing that I absolutely have to tell you. One reason for us to return to Mexico was that in CDMX there is the opportunity to fly over the Aztec pyramids (Teotihuacán) in a hot air balloon - at sunrise! However, since Stefan didn't really feel like doing that, I had to do it all by myself. Stefan came along, at least until it got serious, held my hand, and encouraged me (I actually have a fear of heights :D), and then everything was so tightly scheduled that I didn't have much time to think until the balloon was in the air. Thank God - because it was an indescribably beautiful experience, and I am incredibly glad that I did it. When the sun rose behind the mountains, with about 50 balloons in the air, flying over the Sun and Moon pyramids, it was simply one of the most beautiful views I have ever had.

All in all, Mexico City was breathtakingly beautiful! The beautiful historic center, the nature in the surrounding area, and of course the balloon flight - more than 'wow' I can't say. We would recommend everyone to visit this city!