Tag / lakes

by Kelly Mattei

See Mexico City

See Mexico City

I know what you’re thinking, because I have heard it a million times. “It’s so dangerous!” “You’ll get kidnapped!” “Won’t the cartel get you?” No, no, and no. Most people in the United States don’t know about Mexico City, the governmental center of the country directly to our south; they don’t know it’s a beautiful, vibrant, cosmopolitan city with some of the best food in the world!

I just got back from Mexico City. I’m not a “sit at a resort” kind of vacationer. I like to move around. I like to learn. I like to have experiences. If you’re like me in that regard, you will likely appreciate this magnificent city. I visited several times in the 1980s and 90s, but I had not been since my daughter was born in 2003. Many times, I have tried to get friends or family members to go with me, and finally, my friend, Jennifer, from Ohio, agreed to go. Not only did she agree to go, but after she looked up information online, she was downright excited! You know why? Because she had taken a little time to learn something about the city, and she found, quickly, that it’s an amazing, massive city that is safer than many cities we don’t hesitate to visit in the United States…like Baltimore, Dallas, Portland, St Louis, and even San Antonio. In my opinion, the US media makes the entire country of Mexico look scary, but really, it’s only certain areas that are particularly dangerous. Even the US government has the same level of travel advisory for Mexico City as it has for France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Sure, other parts of Mexico are considerably more dangerous, but we never felt threatened in Mexico City.

Allow me to share some fun things to do there (we did some, but not all of these):

  • Walking food tour of Polanco, the “Beverly Hills of Mexico.” Tacos! Enchiladas! Chilaquiles! Mexican Hot Chocolate! Let me tell you…Mexico does food way better than we do food in the US.
  • Museum of Anthropology. If you’re like me, and the word “museum” just sounds boring, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this massive museum.
  • Ride bikes on Paseo de La Reforma. On Sundays, from 8am to 2pm, the city shuts down one of the main arteries, a street called Paseo de la Reforma, allowing people to ride bikes, run, skateboard through the city safely. Some of the crossroads are open, so they have people there directing traffic for safety. Rent a Citybike! We used it as a “first look” at the city.
  • Helicopter tour of city. Yep. It’s a thing. Most of them are about a half hour, and they’re not cheap, but wow!
  • Eat street food. We had street tacos and street churros…both delicious! Our general rule of thumb for eating street food was to only use crowded vendors.
  • Chapultepec Park. This park is the largest park in the city and is about three times the size of New York’s Central Park! Inside this park? Lots of sidewalks for strolling through various vendors; the aforementioned Museum of Anthropology; Chapultepec Castle, a real castle; Pole Climbers, also known as Danzas de la Voladores (see info here); three lakes, and you can rent paddle boats on at least one of them; a zoo with a panda! There is so much to see in this park. And the zoo was the first to successfully breed pandas in captivity outside of China. The panda they have now is the only panda in Latin America, and she is very old…so hurry.
  • El Palacio de Bellas Artes. This gorgeous neoclassical building is in the historic district and houses several Diego Rivera murals and other beautiful pieces, plus an auditorium, where you can see scheduled performances of the Ballet Folklorico.
  • Gran Hotel. You don’t have to stay at the Gran Hotel, built in the Art Nouveau style, to go inside and admire the Tiffany-style ceiling and birdcage elevators. It’s free! Make a lunch reservation at La Terraza, the hotel’s rooftop restaurant overlooking El Zocalo, and enjoy an al fresco meal with a view!
  • Stroll through a market. There are lots of markets throughout the city. San Juan Market offers lots of different foods…vegetables, meats, seafood, even insects! There are small restaurants inside where you can dine, if you want to feel like a local. Mercado Jamaica is a flower market that operates 24 hours a day! And there are lots of other markets…
  • Metropolitan Cathedral. This magnificent cathedral, located in the historic center and bordering El Zocalo, is a must-see. Constructed in the 1500s, it’s free to visit and is well worth your time.
  • MORE! There’s no way I could possibly list every single thing there is to see and do in and around the city. There are pyramids outside town. You can take a hot air balloon ride to the pyramids. There’s Xochimilco, the floating gardens. How about the Frida Kahlo Museum and Diego Rivera Museum? The Soumaya Museum in Polanco? Go to the top of the Monumento de la Revolución. Like I said, there’s no way for me to list everything. There are tons of ideas on TripAdvisor. Here’s a video that shows the flavor of the city:

All of that information doesn’t even begin to touch on the restaurants! When I say it’s a world-class foodie city, I mean it’s world class! The only problem with the restaurants? There’s not enough time to try all of them!

If you’ve ever considered it, or even if you haven’t, you might want to think about visiting Mexico City now! It’s gorgeous! The food is incredible. You’ll never run out of things to do. And the people are awesome too!

Viva Mexico!

by Kelly Mattei

Let’s Talk About Snakes

When I was growing up in Alabama, snakes were a full-on reality. I don’t mean green snakes or milk snakes or oak snakes. I mean real, scary, venomous snakes. In fact, in Alabama, there are six kinds of venomous snakes. For comparison, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, there is one type: the Copperhead. But in Alabama, you have to watch out for the Copperhead, the Cottonmouth (also known as a water moccasin), the Timber Rattlesnake, the Diamondback Rattlesnake, the Pygmy Rattlesnake, and the Eastern Coral Snake. You can see pictures of them at Outdooralabama.com here. And I should tell you…they are plentiful.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve run into lots of Copperheads since moving to North Carolina nineteen years ago, but I was reminded about those Alabama snakes when I saw an article on Facebook today about a woman in Greenville, Alabama, who was bitten by a Timber Rattler. You can see the article here. According to the article, she had to have 16 vials of antivenin…sixteen!

I shared the article on my personal Facebook page with a statement about how I likely narrowly escaped death when I was 18. My nephew, who remembers all the stories I tell about my life, immediately commented that he was sure I had told him the story, but he didn’t remember it. And that’s when I realized I probably had not shared it. Why? Because I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not one to “hang out” in the woods. I don’t like ticks. I don’t like snakes. I don’t like excessive nature. “Nature,” in Alabama, means you might encounter any number of those creatures and more.

But on this particular day when I was 18, the summer before I went off to college, I ventured into the woods with three friends. Full disclosure: I didn’t really know we were going into the full-on woods. The family of one of the friends had a “hunting camp” in the woods, so we were going there to hang out one Friday night. Now, when I heard “hunting camp,” I guess I was thinking more “hunting lodge.” As we drove, in a Jeep, through the woods to the hunting camp, I started to realize it was really a camp. The fact that there was no road to it was my first clue. And I was a little scared…not gonna lie…I was scared. But I had to play it cool.

We arrived at the hunting camp, and I’m sure my eyes were wide. I looked at it. I’m sure I looked at one of my other non-nature friends, hoping she would say she was scared, but nope. She let me down. She was actually laughing and smiling. I knew I was in trouble. There were no power lines anywhere. I had thought we would be going to a small house where there was television, a refrigerator, modern conveniences. Nope. Heck, when we walked inside, I discovered there wasn’t even much of a floor. I was scared.

It was at this point I spoke up. I don’t really remember what I said, but I made it clear I wanted to get out of there. Nope…not gonna hang out up there. Fortunately, my non-nature friend in the party spoke up too. Hanging out in the “hunting camp” was not an option. I’m sure I said something along the lines of “Let’s leave now.” So we did.

There were three stair steps to get out of the “camp,” and I was leading the charge to the Jeep.

I stepped down the first two steps, and just as I was about to step off the bottom step, I saw a giant rattlesnake slithering by…right where my foot would have dropped. Now, I’m not exaggerating. It was a huge snake…a Diamondback Rattlesnake. A frightening creature. They can get up to more than five feet long, and they are thick-bodied, scary snakes. I’m not sure how big this one was, but he was big. Fortunately, he had no idea I was there, so he just kept slithering by. If he had been aware of my presence, he would have made noise…aren’t we all glad rattlesnakes have rattles?!?! I don’t know if I gasped. I don’t know if I screamed. I know I pulled my foot back quickly and stood frozen on the steps till the snake had passed, but then I was afraid there were snakes I didn’t see! I was scared to go back into that God-forsaken “camp,” but I was afraid to touch the ground to get back to the Jeep. Finally, one person went ahead of me, and then I ran to the Jeep.

As we drove out of the woods, I cried. Yep, cried. I said a prayer of thanks to God that He had spared me that terrible fate. I said a prayer of thanks that my brother was still alive; he spent so much time in the woods that he should have been bitten by at least one snake. I also prayed that the car would not break down before we got back to civilization.

For days, I thought about how fortunate I had been. I would have died if that snake had struck me…no doubt. There is no way my friends could have gotten me out of the woods fast enough to save me, and there were no phones to call an ambulance (which wouldn’t have been able to find me) either. I had seen death in the form of a Diamondback Rattlesnake and escaped.

The moral of the story? Well, there are a few lessons here. Don’t go places you aren’t supposed to go. Stay out of the woods. “Hunting camp” does not mean “hunting lodge.” One (a lodge) has real walls, electricity, and modern conveniences, and one looks like a place you might find a dead body…mine if I had stepped on that snake. And this has nothing to do with that particular snake tale, but it is a lesson: I don’t like brown water…like water in lakes and rivers…never have, because snakes can hide in the water. My friends, Angela and Mary Ann make fun of me for it, but here’s what I think: that brown water is their home…the creatures, I mean. I don’t want them in my home, and really…I don’t want to get in their home either.

A few years ago, in Maine, one of the kids with me kicked a ball into a grassy field, and I had to retrieve it. As I ran out into the field, I thought, “I wonder if they have venomous snakes in Maine.” As soon as I got to the ball, I saw a snake. And as soon as we got back indoors, I looked up “snakes in Maine” and found they had no venomous snakes. Whew!

Maybe I’ll move to Maine…