Cycling The Mountains Around Mexico City

In Guadalajara we hanged around for a few days in the Casa de Cyclista. We're the only ones when we arrive but soon we get company from Alice and Aurelien from France and Nathan from the States who we met before. We're all going in some sort the same speed and keep bumping into each other.

From the Casa de Cyclista we cycle to a close by Burger King restaurant and we're picked up by Alex and Julia again. The Canadian and the France with the Yellow schoolbus camper. We planned to spend some time together again. We visit the nice mountains cities of Guanaguato and San Miguel de Allende. Both beautiful cities and we have a good time together for three days.

The mummy museum... the most creapy museum we ever visited:

Julia and Alex go their own way again.
Bye bye friends, we will stay another night in town before continue cycling again.

Camping in the kitchen of Pablo, a very nice Warmshowers host in the mountains around San Miguel de Allende.

He also makes delicious chocolate candies we discovered.
We loved his free spirit mind. Bye bye my friend, hope to see you again someday!!

At a lake we're invited to celebrate a pre x-mas party with some locals.
The site we are camping on belongs to a canoe rental company, owned by one of these locals.
We have a good time together and the locals have loads of advices for our cycling trip.

Our next destination is the city Cordoba. On the way to Cordoba we hit the nice city of Guerrero where we are invited by Sergio who we did met a few weeks ago in Jala. (the guy with who we got up the volcano) Sergio told us to stay in contact by the time we hit his city, so we did.
He tells us he is not at home at the moment but his mother will be so we can stay anyway.
When we arrive at his house we meet a bunch of people. The house is also an office we find out.
Sergios mom, Lety, is very kind and offers us a sleeping room upstairs.

While discovering the city we find a very nice coffee bar, El Apapacho. Mau, the owner is into cycling himself a lot and offers us free coffee because we’re long distance cyclists. In the coffee bar we also meet Renate, Mau’s girlfriend and graphic artist. Also we meet Melany, an American living in Querétaro and making money out of doing English/Spanish translations for companies.
The vibe is very nice and we make friends easily and fast.
How many very nice people can you meet in just one town in two days? First Sergio’s family and workers and now Mau’s friends... we love it!!!
When we leave town the next day Mau and a few friends escort us the few first kilometres.
Bye bye friends, hope to see you again somewhere someday.

There are truck factories close to Mexico City. (Scania and Volvo already seen) The undercarriages are transported from one place to another over the highway. Not on a trailer or something. No just driving. They tie up a wooden crate where the driver's seat comes. They hang jerry cans with different liquids on the half build trucks. They put on a thick coat. (Sometimes) a helmet on ... and go full speed. Mad guys 🙂

Plastic rivers. There is a lot of trash around whole Mexico but this river is pollution to the max.
The water underneath the river is no visible anymore because there is to much trash on top of it. Black dirt water is still coming in on the right of the picture.
Very sad to see... This shit will end up in the oceans someday and nobody seems to care at all. People through their dirt just on the streets anywhere.

The campsite we are on close to Mexico City is still around 60km away from downtown CDMX (Mexico City) but is in a walking distance to the famous Teotihuacan pyramids.
Pyramids built by the Aztec people long long time ago.
Because it’s so close we decided to go there first before heading to CDMX.
When we arrive at the entrance we discover foreign tourists have to pay three times the price of Mexican tourists. Saying we’re Mexicans as well didn’t work out.
The archeological site it self is busy but worth the visit. It’s possible to get on the pyramids but we’re not the only ones with this plan.

The day after the pyramids we decide to go into CDMX. Because it seems to be very busy in the city (there are 25 million people living in CDMX) we go by bus.
Even by bus it’s crowded and it takes more than an hour before we’re dropped off on one of the big bus terminals before entering downtown.
The plan for today is to visit the Frida Kahlo museum in the opposite side of town. At the bus terminal we easily find a taxi who will bring us there. This ride also takes us nearly an other hour. When we finally arrive at the Frida Karlo museum the taxi driver drops us off and moves on quickly.
At the entrance of the museum we discover it is closed today because it’s Monday and on Mondays most museums are closed.
For sure the taxi driver knew this and that’s why he went off so quick... asshole!!
We make the plan to come back tomorrow and take a walk directing downtown. Halfway we hop on a crowded public bus for just a few pesos which drops us off in the middle of the city.
The rest of the day we wander around and end up in a cheap hostel for the night.
The next day we take a touristic tour by an open roof double-decker bus, back to the Frida Kahlo museum. The tour takes so long we arrive at the museum when it’s after 2pm already. In front of the museum a long line of people are waiting to get in, we go in the line as well. After a 20min wait in the hot sun without any movement we ask some people in front of the line how long they’re waiting already. “More than two hours” they answer “and inside the museum the line of people continues for another 10 meters.”
That’s gonna be a very long wait for us we figure ☹️
We also figure we don’t have much time left by the time we’re in before the museum closes.
Kim wanted to see the museum very badly, this was the main reason we entered CDMX in the first place. Despite of this we make the decision to skip the museum and head back to downtown for a good coffee and something to eat.
At the end of the day we head back to the big bus terminal to catch the bus back to our campground.