Breakfast

The Tlacoyo stand outside the condo was closed for New Years so I got a tamale from another stand instead. I got a chili verde tamale and Lizy got a cheese and chili tamale. I think Lizy’s was better.

Driving out of the City Centre

The air pollution hung heavy on the streets so I suggested to the group that we drive to Ajusco National Park, which was just outside the city at slightly higher elevation. It was a farther drive that I had been expecting.

Speed Bumps

On the country roads there were huge speed bumps that seemed to appear from nowhere. I missed the first one since I wasn’t paying attention for them yet and the car seemed to go into the air and crash down. Everyone cursed me for not paying attention. After that first incident I got Lizy to help me look for the speed bumps so I can slow down in time, since she’s more observant for details than I am. At one point there was a whole series of speed bumps in a row, like we were in a derby course. At least those ones were easy to spot.

Learning about Cop Cars

At one point two cop cars were behind us with their sirens blaring. I pulled over to the side of the road to let them by. No one else on the road stopped for the cops, and they passed people by veering into the shoulder of the road. As the cops were passing us other cars behind us started honking us that we should keep driving. I started up the car again. Now we knew that you did not stop for cop cars. We thought it was weird, but that’s the way it is.

We turned off the main road and started going on smaller dirt roads into the hills. As we went further up the air quality improved. The speed bumps continued on the windy dirt roads. The buildings become more shanty town like. People were eating at roadside taco stands and other people were waiting for busses.

More cops passed us, but this time I didn’t slow down like a local.

The shanty town area ended and we drove by a string of rural businesses. There was a campsite, a restaurant with a huge play area for kids, and then a paintball arena, which looked cool because one of the places you could hide for cover was behind a dilapidated airplane.

More cops passed us. It was three pickup trucks of cops this time. In the bed of each truck were three cops with assault rifles.

“Do we turn back,” I wondered aloud. No one knew what to say.

It became mostly forest on the side of the road, interrupted by the occasional restaurant or food stand. Another three pickup trucks of cops passed us on the road.

I was nervous about the cops. What if the cops were going to the national park? But before I could collect my thoughts, we had to stop anyways because there was a group of maybe twenty five cop cars blocking the road.

“Do we turn back,” I wondered aloud again.

One of the pickup trucks in the group of cops made a three point turn and went past us. Two more cop cars followed close behind and then another three cars adjusted slightly making room on the road for a car to pass. A cop standing on the side of the road waved me through.

What was that? A shootout? By the time we drove back later that day they were gone, so we’ll never know for sure.

Ajusco Park

I’m not going to give too much background information on the park, so here is the wikipedia link if you want to know more.

The national park didn’t have a gate or anything like it would in the US. There was a old looking poster announcing the park and a guy sitting on a camp chair ran out to stop us to charge us for entering. In the parking lot there were a few other cars, but not too many.

Getting from the parking lot to the trail one had to cross a rickety bridge. It freaked Lizy out at first, but she braved it like a champ in the end.

The hike was steeply uphill right from the get go. The elevation made the hike even harder. Elizabeth was worried because her heart started racing. We went only a little ways up.

There were a lot of families on the trail enjoying the nice day. They appeared to be local. We didn’t see any other people that were obviously tourists like us. After walking for a while we stopped to observe four lizards on a log. We thought the lizards were so exciting enough, so having felt fulfilled we turned around and made our way back to the car.

By the time we got to the spot where the cops were they were already all gone.

“I guess they caught the guy,” I said to the group.

UNAM

On the way home we stopped by UNAM University. Lizy got us a really good parking spot right beside the library building using her parking magic. The library building had really cool graffiti. I wasn’t really sure what else to check out, and everyone was tired, so after checking out the library and the quad we got back in the car and continued on to the condo.