The Big City

The world's largest city openned up before the us like an ocean of lights as we drove down into the valley of Mexico City. The city boasts high violent crime rates, expanisve slums, near-blinding smog, nearly a fifth of Mexico's populations, and the world's second-highest number of reported kidnappings: I was anticipating a stab-a-minute cough fest fighting through the hostile throngs of this goliath of a megalopolis.

After navigating nearly every line in the metro –the sixth largest in the world– and covering just about every major neighborhood in the District Federal over two days of ferret liberation efforts, I truly enjoyed Mexico City. Public transportation was fast, reliable, and cheap (about $0.20 a ride). The people were infinitely patient and helpful (aside from two gals at the airport). The food, from the 4/$1 hotdogs to the street vendors flutas to the Chinese food was all fun and enjoyable to eat.

The only bummer was the beaurocracy Anna and I were trying to navigate through to get Crackers out of the airport. All my paperwork was sufficient to bring in a domesticated animal, but Crackers is a wild animal being held by 3 different departments. At the third place, we were told he is a "rare" animal and that international certification was required to bring him into the country. A $2000 sum (20,000 pesos) was requested as insurance to guarantee we would not sell the ferret on the black market. At this point, we decided to go to the embassy and ask for Uncle Sam's help.

Our "day-trip" to Mexico City turned into four. To make the best of it, we visited the pyramids at Teotihuacán, shopped our way through animated street bazarres, visited the anthropolgy museum (free on Sundays), the zoo (free all the time), walked around Chapultepec Park, and just tried to make the best of the situation.

We had to bring Crackers food before leaving. Who ever knew the phrase "Where can I by cat food on the way to the airport" would ever come in handy...