Mexico City
There I will finally meet 2 of my - Israeli/Mexican friends and I'm sure we'll have fun together. The best way to end this trip!
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I got to Mexico City... Terrible!
I had to take a taxi to get to my friend's place, but this meant to deal with very bad people. Taxi drivers as soon as they see you are tourist, jump on you, take your bags, show you a fake (but very well done) document with all their exorbitant prices and push you to take their taxi telling you that so many bad thing can happen to you taking a taxi directly from the street.
In Mexico City there are taxis that belongs to the group "Taxi Seguro ", this is a kind of taxi you can trust. Many stories are known about tourists that took the wrong taxi and then saw all their stuff, money, credit card stolen.
As soon as I arrived at the bus terminal, I was approached by a taxi driver, telling me he was working at Taxi Seguro, he even showed me his licence. Fortunately the price he required was way to expensive and I started to be suspicious. When I told him I was going to look for another taxi, other taxi drivers came to me, took my luggages and tried to convince me to go with them. I had to take back my luggage with strength and go away. In general I never take taxi, I feel safer taking a public bus, but in such a big city as Mexico DF I had no choice. After more than 30 minutes trying to understand what to do, constantly in contact with my friend, I found an office of Taxi Seguro, where I paid my ride (1/4 than the price I got from the first taxi driver), they gave me a receipt and they scanned this receipt along with the documents of the taxi driver who was going to take me. I never heard about this system, but finally I felt safe enough to take the taxi. The ride was really safe, unfortunately the man was really unpleasant. He asked me many times to give him a tip "tu seis Americana, tu tienes mucho dollares" "no, yo no soy Americana, soy italiana, en Italia hay mucha crisi, no tengo trabaco! ". At the end he managed even to tell me to ask my friend to give him a tip! Unbelievable! Besides this, in the middle of the ride he told me he didn't know where was the the place where I wanted to get and he asked me to call my friend. I gave him her phone number, but he asked me to call with my phone. When I told him I do not have a phone, he replied me that the phone call from his phone would cost me money. What?!? I take a taxi, you don't know your city and I need to give you more money to get where I want? And you even have the courage to ask me for tips?!? I told him to stop and to ask to a policeman or another taxi driver.
Eventually I got to my friend's house . I was so happy to see her, after more than one year and a half I didn't see her, that I immediately forgot everything. I soon met all her family and it was so beautiful to feel at home again after 10 months travelling. We had a shabbat dinner, the first one since I left Israel. Wonderful evening!
At my friend's place I took a shower and I could use a real towel... You can't imagine the sensation you feel using a big, soft towel for the first time since months.
And the toilet... I could finally throw the toilet paper into the toilet itself! This was strange... In Latin America you always have to throw the toilet paper in the trash because the hydraulic system is not really good and can be clogged very easily.
After dinner we went to the birthday party of another friend from Israel. It was really strange to met two my Mexican/Israeli friend from the ulpan (Hebrew school) in Mexico City and speak with them in Spanish! It was a nice reunion after a long time I didn't see them. Funny was also listening to the conversation at our table : half in Spanish, half in Hebrew. Most of his friends infact speak Hebrew perfectly, some just studied it at school, others immigrated to Israel and came back to Mexico.
I'm sure I'll have really good time here in Mexico City!
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