At the end of May two army buddies, Welch and Lacy, and I decided to meet up for a boys trip in Mexico City. Originally we were deciding between Glacier National Park or Banff, Canada for some mountain hiking. We were looking for a little adventure. Mexico City got thrown in the mix and between Welch, who is married, and myself we decided we should go with Mexico City for the boys trips because our wives would be more inclined to go to Glacier or Canada. It would be a tough sell to get either of them to go to Mexico City so we decided to go with what seemed like more of an opportunity with an expiration date. Lacy was indifferent and we seized the opportunity for a Mexican adventure!
Day 1:
I flew out of Phoenix and was the first one to land in Mexico. My first order of business was getting some pesos from an ATM. After that I stumbled through trying to figure out the Metro system. After some confusion and conversations with military members stationed at the subway entrance I got my pass and rode to the area of our hostel. I got off and wandered through a chaotic city market selling anything from knock off shoes to street tacos. I had my first taco of the trip and it was two big delicious pork tacos.


After some tacos I made my way to the hostel and got myself checked in. I originally planned for just one night and we could reassess as a group. Once I got settled I made my way back to the Metro and rode to the airport to pickup Lacy. This first day was just the two of us with Welch coming in tomorrow. I met up with Lacy and got him set up with a Metro card and then led him back to the hostel with a stop for some food on the way. I think I ended up eating some blood sausage on that stop. Pretty much anything I ate was delicious so far.
Lacy and I ended up hanging out at the hostel and we met two dudes about our age who were in their medical residency in Chicago. Sounds like they have pretty intense lives and going to Mexico City for a long weekend was a good way for them to get their mind of the rigors of hospital life. We ended up at a restaurant for food and drinks in the middle of a monsoon. We hung out and waited out the rain and then returned to the hostel to call it a night.
Day 2:
I woke up and saw Lacy who had just gotten back from a run. He really set the tone for us keeping up on our workouts this trip. He had a work call so I wandered out for some breakfast tacos or whatever I could find. Lacy and I started the day by wandering around some Aztec ruins in the middle of the city that weren’t far from our hostel. After that we took the subway to pickup Welch from the airport. We got Welch back to the hostel and then wandered out as a group for lunch. After a good lunch we ran into a girl from the hostel and she invited us to go to some cool library in the area so we tagged along.

From the outside the library looked pretty lame and we were wondering what was so special about it. When you get inside it had some crazy architecture with the different stories of books seemingly hovering into the open air of the rest of the building. It was pretty cool! After that we went back to the hostel area and found some local dinner and tried to get to bed a little bit sooner than later since we were planning a group workout in the morning. It was still a 27,000 step day!
Day 3:
I think I must have been more acclimated to the local time than Welch and Lacy, considering they were coming from Eastern and Central time zones, because they woke me up at 7am for our workout. We started with a run to an outdoor playground calisthenics gym. I did 50 pull-ups, 80 dips, and 3×15 on hanging knee tucks for core. Then I did two sets of lateral raises with some concrete dumbbells they had. The gym was super cool though and there were a bunch of locals working out. Some of them were pretty good at gymnastic style movements and exercises. We walked back to the hostel and showered and then ate breakfast. I got a sopa with eggs and a picadillo quesadilla.



We decided to extend our stay at the hostel since it was well located and working fine for us. We also booked a boat tour for tomorrow. Then we headed to the metro for the anthropological museum which was good prep for the pyramid tours we will be doing later in the trip. We had a mediocre lunch in what I am pretty sure is the biggest park in the city. It was very similar in feel to Central Park to NYC. After that we went to a castle which was also in the park. That was pretty cool.




After the park we headed over to the Arenas Mexico area early and had some amazing al pastor tacos and then some churros. Just a great meal situation! Then we went into the Luchador stadium an hour early and got good seats. The first match was dwarfs wrestling which was hilarious. The next match was pretty good too, but after an hour and 40 minutes we decided to leave early because it was kind of getting repetitive and we wanted to beat the traffic on the metro. It was really entertaining though and a lot of it was really athletically impressive! Those wrestlers are true athletes. We got back to the hostel and got ready for bed. I logged 33,000 steps on the day!
Day 4:
We all woke up around 8am and skipped working out to get ready for the day. We went and got some picadillo quesadillas outside the hostel and then we hung out until 11am for the boat tour. It was completely random, but in the hostel Lacy bumped into one of his buddies from college. He hopped on the boat tour with us too. We went and waited for the tour van which was an hour late. It did give me time to grab some lunch and snacks though.
Eventually we got in the van and it was 2 hours because of traffic and they played crappy music at full volume which was really annoying. It was also hot in there. We eventually got there and then waited longer than anticipated to get onto the boat. When we eventually got onto the boat, the journey was not what I expected. I was completely packed with boats everywhere and it never really opened up into any real lake. It was a little bit more of a drinking party than I wanted but it was still a pretty cool experience.



We rode back and it was only an hour thankfully because traffic cleared up. A lot of the group hopped out early before the hostel and we walked together and grabbed food on the way. I talked with two Israeli guys who were in the IDF. One was an intel guy and one was an engineer. It was interesting to hear their perspectives on the Middle East right now. Back at the hostel we had a pretty relaxed night after avoiding going out drinking with our new friends.
Day 5:
Welch, Lacy, and I all woke up decently early. Breakfast wasn’t open yet so we decided to just head out and eat at the bus station. We took the bus and a metro to the big bus station. We did have to walk a bit extra because the first bus couldn’t go its full route because it was blocked off for a 5k. We got to the big bus station and grabbed some tacos for breakfast. Then we got our tickets and rode to Teotihuacan. It was a smooth ride and we got there and paid maybe like a 5 or $6 entrance fee. We walked around the big site along the “avenue of the dead.” We walked from least impressive to most impressive and ended up climbing the pyramid of the moon at the very end. That had a spectacular view of the site and surrounding area.




Once we finished our exploring, we made our way back onto the bus and rode back except this time the bus was packed so Lacy and I ended up standing for maybe 45 minutes out of the hour ride back to the big bus station. At the big bus station, after lots of walking, we decided to get what was essentially mall Chinese food and that satisfied us. Then we took the metro back to the hostel. At the hostel we relaxed for a bit and then decided to go to Roma Norte just to check it out. It was an intesting trip over there. We wandered around there and noticed how many American couples were there and how many really fancy nice resturants there were. All the Mexicans there were much better looking―taller and more fit. It was definitely a contest from the poorer areas we were in. There we ate at an Al Pastor place and the tacos had pineapples on them and were so good! Lacy was tired so he bought an uber back so we didn’t have to deal with the rain and metros.

We got back and packed up for an early departure tomorrow. It was a good day and a good end to the trip! God is good!
Day 6 (Traveling home):
We woke up at 4am and I had what they call, “Montezuma’s Revenge” right away. We all got ourselves packed up and then we checked out. I haggled the price down with the 15% off for my review of the hostel. With the boat tour included for all of us it ended up being about $16.50 a night which is awesome! But for the reader’s reference, that price is so good because we stayed in a 12 man dorm room with bunk beds. It was luxury compared to the sand we used to sleep next to each other in back at Fort Benning.
We all said our goodbyes to each other at the airport before we split off to different terminals. I had quite the experience with Montezuma’s Revenge and a bad headache as I waited the couple hours until my flight. I got on the plane and was freezing the whole time. I just thought it was cold. I didn’t realize at the time that it was becaue I had a stomach flu and body aches. I got hot tea for my beverage on the plane, but that barely helped. I survived and landed and I got to the parking lot where Emily picked me up. It was so nice to see her! I gave her a big hug and said hi to baby!





The above is a bunch of the other meals we had throughout the trip. There were a lot of highlights on the trip, but one of them was certainly the abundance of delicious and cheap street food. It was even worth the Montezuma’s Revenge! Overall, it was awesome to hang out with some army buddies and there was so much unique culture to explore! I am thankful for another adventure. God is good!