On Stalking Strangers

This post is one in my series on traveling, volunteering and teaching. So far, I will have two parts to this series – Central America and Eastern Europe. For the Central America stories click here. For tales of Georgia and Eastern Europe click here. 

I woke up early on my second day in Mexico City. If you’ve traveled alone, maybe you remember the first day you woke up in a strange place by yourself – it’s a weird feeling. My plan for the day involved the Turibus (a hop-on, hop-off tour around the city for $7 kinda thing) and Chilaquiles (corn tortillas with green sauce and scrambled eggs – so good).

After breakfast, I hopped on the Turibus and put on the requisite headphones to listen to the tour. A few stops in, two young guys got on the bus and I noticed that they were speaking English. As an extrovert, I was already feeling a bit lonely and lost so when they got off at one of the tourist stops, I shamelessly followed them off the bus. I wandered around looking at the fountain until one of the guys asked me to take their picture, and offered to take mine.

The picture the guys snapped of me by the fountain

I ended up chatting with them – it turned out one of them, Enrique, was from Mexico City but had gone to school in Vancouver where he had met Syd, who was visiting for the week. They invited me for lunch, and glad for the company, I happily accepted.

We spent the rest of the day together; touring around on the bus, doing a bit of shopping, heading to the top of the Torre Latinamericana (one of the tallest buildings in Mexico). 

My new friends and I at the top of Torre Latinamericana

At the end of the day, the guys walked me back to my hotel – where we stumbled upon the 100 Year Celebration of Mexican Revolution in the Zoloco.

This was honestly the most amazing show I’ve ever seen. The Zocolo in Mexico City is a square in the center of the city with striking buildings on all four sides – the National Palace, a beautiful cathedral, the federal building and the Old Portal de Mercaderes. The celebration took place in the giant square in the middle of all these buildings. They used the buildings as screens – literally projecting HUGE pictures all around us with a stage and dancers in the middle. The cathedral lit up with gorgeous colours and huge skeletons dancing across the Palacio National is something I’ll never forget.  

The Zocolo all lit up - Photo Credit HERE

For an idea of the epicness  - this video captures some of it.   

I was so grateful to have met these guys – if it hadn’t been for them; I would have most likely gone back to the hotel before dark, out of fear. I would have missed this amazing show; I would likely have been too nervous to stand in the square by myself to watch it. I ended up spending a lot of time with Enrique and Syd – we went to the 5 flags amusement park, visited Teotihuacán pyramids, and I even went to Acapulco with Enrique after Syd headed back to Vancouver.

Probably the best decision I made in Mexico City was following strangers off a bus – seems counter-intuitive, but I can’t imagine what the first two weeks of my trip would have been like if I hadn’t risked it, put myself out there and followed my gut to make new friends. Viva México.