Ciudad de Mexico City
7 days | 360 kilometers within the city
I’m almost two months in Mexico now and I started to love this country. The fear that we had for Mexico and their deadly stats concerning drug trafficking has totally disappeared. I feel safe here. I started to love the people and its traditions. I start to recognize Mexican habits and adapt to use them as well. Like instead of saying “hi” on the streets to somebody you don’t know you make a small whistling sound instead.
Also funny are the Mexican gestures, for example for “yes” they point and curl their index finger two times. Although I don’t speak the language as fluent as I would want yet, still I move around on the Mexican streets like I belong here. It’s the best feeling in the world.
We’ve arrived in Mexico City, or how the locals prefer: CDMX (Ciudad De MeXico). Before I arrived in Mexico I would never have thought I would have been looking forward to arrive to this city. I thought it would be a busy, filthy, big and dangerous city which would be best to avoid. How things have changed. After Guadalajara, another big city that we adored, we were looking forward to arrive to Mexicos bustling capital city.
Also, again, our timing couldn’t have been better because we arrive just in time for the Dia de Los Muertos festivities.



On Saturday me and Jacko head out into downtown Mexico City to watch the big Dia de Los Muertos parade. It’s super crowded along CDMX’s aorta that for one day has been shut off from traffic. Luckily we brought our camping chairs and a bag full of cold beers. We take two empty disposable coffee cups from the minimarket to pour our drinks in, put the chairs down on a small patch of grass next to the road and wait for the parade to come by.
We joke around with our neighbors that have been seeing our little disguise in the form of the two cappuccino cups. Yes, the parade is amazing, but the spectators go home with the first prize: their costumes are awesome. Young and old are dressed up as skeletons, witches, zombies and other scary outfits.












All the “cappucinos” have been making us a bit tipsy and we’re not saturated yet. We head out into town to hit some bars. We have the most expensive beers in Mexico (artisanal hazy IPA for 12.50 euro each) and we make some more friends. We get invited to follow some girls to their next bar, but they cannot make up their minds and in the end they just stroll along from door to door for like an hour. This is taking way too long and we decide to bail. We buy one more beer at the night shop for the way home and walk towards where the taxis are.
Then suddenly two cops appear in front of us and tell us to follow them. Fuck! Two weeks ago we already got in trouble with the cops for drinking in public and now our European drinking-in-public-culture is getting us into trouble again. We follow the cops to see what’s going to happen. They tell us to empty our pockets and put all our belongings in the back of their truck. We get frisked and the guy doesn’t hold back to search for something that is very close to my crutch. Everything is very intimidating. They ask us regular questions like where we’re from and if we have drugs on us, but also strange questions like whether we are gay. They tell us drinking in public is not allowed and subsequently we play the tourist card and tell them we didn’t know.
Then they tell us that we either have to pay 300 euro’s, or we have to spend the night in jail, “and nobody wants to spend a night in Mexican jail”. They try to scare us into just paying the fine. However we know damn well that this is corruption. No way they are going to take that money to the police station to do the proper administration, this is going straight into their pockets. Fuck that. They are messing with the wrong guy. Very determined I tell them to take us to jail then. I can see Jacko is getting a little bit pale in his face. Not me, I feel very combative and within 10 minutes I completely sobered up. They start driving the car towards the police station. They ask us again, “if you just pay the money, you won’t have to spend the night in a horrible Mexican cell”. With a mix of anger and determination I tell them again there is no way we are going to pay that fine and to just take us to jail then.
Five minutes later the truck stops and they tell us that we can go.
We win!
We make it home safely and it takes a while before all the adrenaline has left our bodies and we can get some sleep.


On Sunday Daniel and Daniel take us out for a nice day. We take our bikes onto Avenue de la Reforma, the biggest street downtown, which on Sundays has been banned for cars. Many locals have come out to enjoy the big empty highway on everything that has two wheels. After that we explore downtown a bit more and have Huarache for lunch.
In the afternoon we decide to go watch the Lucha Libre: the famous Mexican free wrestling that’s characterized by colorful masks, overdone high flying maneuvers and a lot of showmanship. It turned out to be more fake than we already knew it was going to be. The most embarrassing was the fight between two “little people”, I felt secondhand embarrassed.






For the last few weeks I have been talking to my brother and little sister. They want to come visit me and I couldn’t be happier. They knew they had to be a little patient with my whereabouts, so for now they only have blocked a particular time frame (19 nov – 4 dec) in their agendas, the destination and the corresponding flight tickets will come later. However lately my brother has been busting my balls because he has traveled to Guatemala before and would rather not go there again. He’s been texting me that I have to pedal harder. But chances are big that by that time I will indeed be in South Mexico or Guatemala. So I came up with a proposal: “Why don’t we all fly to Cuba?”. Everybody was excited.
The Cuba idea originally came from Jacko (he wants to go there after his little Guadalajara-adventure). Cuba it is. But to travel there I need to get a visa from the Cuban embassy that is located in Mexico City.
So on Monday afternoon we bike over to the fancy building of the Cuban embassy. Upon arrival we are told that we are not allowed in because we are wearing shorts?! Very chic first impression, Cuba. So the next day I roll over again, wearing my one and only long pantalons and bringing the right papers (forms, statement of payment, etc). Half an hour later I’m on the street again with a Cuban visa in my passport.





The remainder of our days in CDMX we enjoy life, do some chores and try to visit musea. Try? Yes, try. Our first attempt was to go to the Frida Kahlo museum, Mexico’s most famous female painter. Naively we just showed up at the museum and were told that we have to book online and the first open slot is in two weeks. Too bad. Not so bad was that there was a fair going on in this nice neighborhood Coyoacán. Food stalls, amusement rides, haunted houses, you name it.
We tried to focus on the food and try a bit of everything, but we began to enthusiastically and were already full after our first food stall. The next day we tried to visit the Museo de Arte Moderno but it was closed due to Dias de los Muertes, so we ended up in a bar again. How strange?!
The next day we finally were able to set foot in a Museum, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, it was OK.
Last chore I had to do before leaving CDMX was to buy a photo camera. Because Jacko is leaving me very soon, the camera on my phone really sucks and I want to make nice visual memories of this epic trip. It’s always hard to make choices in expensive equipment that you have no knowledge about, but in the end I managed to pick out a nice Canon EOS M50 MII.
Time to say goodbye to this very nice city! Jacko and I will cycle two more days together to the city of Puebla where we will say goodbye. There he will take a bus to Guadalajara, where he has accepted a job in a coffee bar. I will continue pedaling south alone.




Zo Marijn wat een spannend verhaal deze keer , maar gelukkig niet hoeven ‘ zitten’
Hele mooie foto’s en deze keer vooral mooie portretfoto’s
En verliefd geworden ……op het Mexicaanse land en volk , wie had dat verwacht !
Inmiddels heb je je broer en zus al gezien op Cuba en dat was een bijzondere vakantie , daar zijn wij ook heel trots op !
Veel plezier op je verder fietsreis en op naar het volgende verhaal
Veel liefs , je moederke xxx
Wat heerlijk om met z’n 3tjes te hebben kunnen genieten van Cuba! Zal best wel weer wennen zijn zo in je 🦆. Sterkte hiermee en natuurlijk weer succes met je volgende trip. En zodra je tegen jezelf gaat praten dan wordt het tijd dat je even een pilsje gaat pakken en contacten maakt !
Weer heeeel veel succes Marijn!
Dankjewel Yvonne, superleuk dat je me op de voet volgt!
Marijn, het blijft fascinerend waar deze reis je zoal naar toebrengt en welke avonturen je beleeft. Velen dromen ervan, jij voert ze uit.
Op Insta zag ik al jouw bezoek aan Cuba, prachtig. Veel succes met het vervolg van je reis. Benieuwd welke nieuwe ervaringen je met ons deelt.
Groeten, Roger
Super leuk dat je me blijft volgen Roger. Ik ben een bevoorrecht mens, ik probeer het me zo vaak mogelijk te beseffen!
Hoi Marijn, nicely played, the cops. Geniet ook van Cuba en succes met het vervolg van je reis. En alvast fijne feestdagen gewenst. Groetjes Karin en Ans