Trip Report: Mexico City, Day Six

We headed into the old part of the city to visit some museums and attractions. The city was bustling! And all masked up.

We went to the National Museum of Cultures. It's always so interesting to see how different countries talk about other cultures. This had exhibitions and artifacts about all of the major countries of the world. Most of it was replicas, but interesting nonetheless.

 

My favorite - and slightly more accessible than the real thing in Paris!

The museum is in a beautiful old building with a big open courtyard.

After this we went back inside the nearby cathedral hoping there was a public bathroom. There was not. But this time they weren't holding services so we got to see the impressively ornate main altar.

We were hungry and Cafe El Popular was on the way, so we went there again. It was just as good the second time.

Then we popped over to the Museo de Bellas Artes to see their famous Diego Rivera murals. The building is mainly used as a theatre. There is an architecture museum at the top but it was closed for renovations. 

They were taking temperatures upon entry, like every single other place we went, but this time Ben's was too high! They made him go stand in the corner for a couple of minutes, along with four or five other people who were also waiting for a recheck. Everyone was fine the second time so we think their thermometer was on the fritz.

There were murals by other Mexican artists as well.

Then we popped over to the printmaking museum nearby, which was small and deserted and full of random interesting things. Our preferred museum type.

Then we rested until dinner in our lovely calm and beautiful room.

For dinner we went to Pujol, widely considered the best restaurant in the Americas amongst people who spend their time rating high-end restaurants.

The price is in Mexico pesos. We're not insane.

Pujol is the type of place where everything is elaborately plated and also interesting and delicious. They gave us little smoked corns to start (not on the menu).

The thing Pujol is most famous for is their mole. They have an aged one and a "new" one and serve them together on a plate with tortillas and boy, it is far greater than the sum of its parts.

The dessert was a delightful strawberry custard-type thing. 

Pujol is worth it! You should go.

Ireland, Day Thirteen: Inishowen Peninsula

For our last day of road trip exploring, we decided to drive around the Inishowen Peninsula up to Malin Head, the northernmost point in Ireland. I have a coworker who is from this area and highly recommended it. We also considered Giant's Causeway, an hour in the other direction, but ultimately decided it would doubtless be very crowded and we didn't feel like dealing with a lot of people. This turned out to be the right decision.

The drive to Malin Head was beautiful and the area is very isolated. The very tip top of County Donegal.

Here they have another of the EIRE signs from World War II.

The wind was back. It was SO WINDY. Always with the wind. I also had woken up with a cold. So we walked out to the point and back, but didn't do much more exploring.

It was so windy here that the seafoam in this cove was blowing in little globs up the beach.

The last walking trail!

And here it comes, the rain. We booked it out of there to as not to get stuck out on the beach when it hit.

I was honestly shocked we made it the entire trip without crashing this car into anything. Trusty little horrible car!

We stopped at a famous seafood restaurant for a late lunch. The crab claws were like half the size of a human fist.

My coworker had recommended this restaurant, and it was also mentioned in the Lonely Planet book. We were there at 2pm and the restaurant was virtually deserted.

We ended up staying for quite a while after we ate to talk to the bartender - he is from the area and told us a lot what it was like to grow up there during the tensions of the 80s and 90s, the precarious peace they have going on now, and their fears for the near-term future as a result of Brexit. With Britain leaving the EU, they are going to have to do something about the invisible border with Ireland, when everybody involved would prefer to leave things as they are.

When we arrived back at the hotel I became extremely shivery and feverish and nauseated and stayed that way, more or less, for most of the night. It wasn't great. Ben had to go out and find me some acetaminophen because Advil wasn't cutting it. I was okay-ish by the following day; the nausea and high fever never came back, anyway, although I had cold symptoms for the next week or so. I don't know if this was coincidental food poisoning or what, but I'm three for three on being sick during our most recent vacations. I hope this isn't the beginning of a tradition.

Ireland, Day Eleven: Mayo to Donegal

Creevagh Heights B&B is only a few kilometers from a place called Downpatrick Head, where parts of the cliffs have eroded into the sea, so we went over there to look at it in the morning.

While we were walking up the hill to the edge of the cliffs, there was a sheep lying all alone in the middle of the field with its legs sticking straight up. We assumed this to be a dead sheep. None of the other ones were paying attention to it at all. Then a crazy German woman went over there and KICKED IT and it got up and ran away. What is happening.

Anyway, Downpatrick Head turned out to be indeed beautiful.

There used to be a natural bridge connecting this to the land but it collapsed hundreds of years ago, stranding some people who happened to be out there at the time. Our B&B owner said it took weeks to figure out how to get them back to land. It's hard to tell how much of this story is apocryphal and what is really true; the guidebook said the bridge collapsed in the 1300s but the B&B lady said it was "a couple hundred years ago."

During World War II, someone lived in this little stone room to watch for bombers.

He had a pretty good view.

EIRE is written in huge stone letters at Downpatrick Head - this was done all up and down the Irish coast during the war, because Ireland was neutral and they didn't want anyone on either side to assume they were over enemy territory. We'd had no idea Ireland was neutral in World War II until this was casually mentioned to us.

Ye olde Seat Mii at the Downpatrick Head car park.

After this we drove a few kilometers back to the Lacken area to hike around before it started raining. The road to reach the trailhead was completely ridiculous. At one point we met someone head on and had to literally back up for probably a quarter mile to allow them to pass. The woman at the B&B had told us to "drive for a bit until you reach the big stone wall, and the car park is just beyond there at the church." We drove for what seemed like much too long, passing many big stone walls, and were just about to give up on the whole thing when suddenly there was a big stone wall followed by a church with a car park and posted hiking maps.

This turned out to be an utterly deserted 8km loop.

This was the first real beach we'd seen in all our days along the coast.

County Mayo's football team was in the upcoming All-Ireland championship against Dublin, to be held the day after we left. We learned that following Mayo's last victory in the all-Ireland championship, they failed to stop the victory parade for a funeral procession, and are now considered to be cursed - they haven't won again in around 50 years. The curse says they won't win until all the members of that disrespectful team are dead, and there's only one poor guy left. Nonetheless, everyone was really excited for the upcoming match.

The curse held, however - Dublin won.

Anyway, the walk was paved and wound around through fields with nice views of the beach and the hills.

At one point there is a megalithic passage tomb you can look at. Just sitting here with no supervision.

This is a real road! There were houses on it!

The Lacken Gazebo is visible through the last quarter of the hike, high on a hill. It was built in the 1800s but nobody knows why. There are stories that it might be related to the Masons, or possibly someone built it in honor of his dead wife.

As we came down the last hill, it started to rain.

Then it rained constantly for the rest of the day. This was our only day of truly bad weather, where you couldn't really be outside. Fortunately we drove through a couple hours of it, arriving in Donegal mid-afternoon.

Our hotel in Donegal kind of sucked. The reviews are glowing, but half the hotel turned out to be motel-style rooms with doors to the outside and we got one of those. After our stellar experiences the previous two nights, it was a bit of a bummer. But we were only there one night so it was fine.

It was still pouring in Donegal, so we bundled up and went to see Donegal Castle, a short walk away.



The newer part is in ruins.

But the older parts still exist, or have been restored.

The castle was occupied by the O'Donnell clan for hundreds of years. They built the staircase with intentionally uneven steps, to deter potential attackers.

After this we decided to find a pub and hang out for a while, as there are not many indoor activities in small villages in Ireland. We looked into a movie but the nearest theatre was 13 kilometers away. Instead we went to The Olde Castle Bar, which turned out to be fantastic. They seated us in a cozy little booth in the back, but when we ordered the seafood platter for two the server recommended we move to a bigger table as "the seafood platter is quite large."



It WAS large! A great way to finish the day.