Gozo, Malta: Lots to See and Enjoy Besides the Azure Window (RIP)

“Hey, do you guys know a good place where I can get Mexican food?…Oh, Mexico, duhh!” Just like Judge Gen on The Good Place, my love of Mexican food runs hella deep (although I do not have the ability to add essence of time to my burritos). We finally made it to Mexico City, what the cool kids call CDMX (for Ciudad de Mexico), and we forking LOVED it. All of it too, not just the (amazing) (omg so good) (and so vegan-friendly) food, which is a huge deal for something who tends not to breathe in heavily polluted cities. Okay I’m not saying we loved the pollution (hates it!) or the traffic but the rest of it, you bet your bottom dollar we loved.

After our incredible time in the Yucatan (that link will show all the Yucatan posts at the beginning!), we flew from Merida to Mexicity funtimes. PS, the Merida airport doesn’t have vegan food but it DOES have giant waters after security, which is the most important thing. (The airport was also playing my absolute favorite song from the band Jesse & Joy, a Mexican duo that I hadn’t thought about in years so I was like almost crying, it was so amazing. (They are amazing truly check them out.)) Okay food is important too, so that was bad planning on my part. The flight was 10:50am, landing (bumpily) in CDMX at 12:50pm. By the time we got through customs and got our bags, it was like hella late! 2pm! Where’s our first day! I guess it was not a good day to not plan for lunch, I’ll tell you that. The airport has mmmnothing. So don’t be like me! Be smart! 

We took an Uber to our hotel because the metro wouldn’t have helped much timewise (and we were crankypants), but MAN ALIVE, the drive into the city from the airport was hell. Sitting in traffic was definitely the worst part of the whole experience (and I had to go to the hospital another day! we will get there), just sitting on crammed highways and smelling/seeing the pollution. We walked everywhere and used public transit from that point on.

Luckily, everything picked up from there! We got to the Hipodromo section of the La Condesa neighborhood to our hotel, Casa Mali. Guys, I don’t think i can do justice to how BEST EVER this hotel was. First of all, the room was not a room but more like a surprise serviced apartment: a little kitchen with a full-size fridge (and a blender!), a dining area, a gorgeous bedroom, a sun-lit bathroom. We were on the top floor (yes it was called a penthouse but it was like 4th floor, it’s a small boutique place and it’s perfect) so not sure if this was an upgrade sitch but I wasn’t going to ask questions.

But aside from a great shower, a huge fridge, a lovely bed, all these wonderful aspects of the room, what could there be that actually made me sob with happiness and disbelief at our good fortune? Guys what’s my favorite thing in the world??

A WASHER AND A SEPARATE DRYER! AHHHHH! I screamed, I really did, and then I immediately told my mom and my best friend so they could scream (they know how much I love a good dryer). I know this is weird but they don’t do dryers right/at all in England so this was huge for us. And those of you who followed along on our Central Asia trip a few years ago (check the DESTINATIONS tab at the top) know how much I love (/how anxious I get about) doing laundry when I’m traveling.

Obviously I immediately washed all of our clothes and then did my second favorite thing to do when traveling: completely unpack.

The hotel had a roof deck with a tiny hot tub and a “gym” – and by “gym” I mean a teeny lil room with an elliptical and a treadmill but no real room to get on them, lol. Our room was spacious enough that I worked out in there! (ABYB: always bring your bands!)

Okay that’s enough about the room because you know what the best part of this hotel was? Well what do I love even more than a clothes dryer that actually works? The same thing I love more than life:

Doggos.

People. The hotel was located right on a park, which according to google maps is called simply Parque Mexico, which cannot be right. But not just any park: It was a dog park. It was packed full of good boys literally everywhere you turned, all day every day. I honestly would have been happy not seeing any of Mexico City and just walking around this dog park every day. I could NOT handle it! So cuteeee! In fact, one day, there was a doggo adoption fair going on in the park. Right outside our front door. Can you even? I could not even.

Mexico City is like, UNNERVINGLY large, so instead of breaking up the experience in the usual way (separate posts for activities, hotel + food, &c), we are going to talk about each neighborhood that we explored in separate posts. It’s so big that it’s no good to you if we talk about a restaurant near x activity in a post that isn’t about x activity! It’s like REALLY big so you have to plan ahead and know what you’re after. We’ll continue today with our BFF nabe, where we set up our base: Hipodromo in the La Condesa neighborhood, about the southwest corner of the very central section of the city. It’s right near the Roma neighborhood, and we excitedly took pictures outside the Roma house even though the movie was like, just okay.

Read my thoughts on Roma and every other important movie of 2018 here!

I’m SO glad we had a friend recommend staying in La Condesa. CDMX is GIGANTIC (i’m going to say that a lot) and figuring out where to stay or even where to go is seriously stressful, so having an insider’s opinion on what neighborhood we’d like most was priceless. La Condesa is a really nice, chill, hipster, semi-quiet very-neighborhoody area with lots of good businesses, and full of green spaces. That last one really helps you feel comfortable in a city where not many people feel comfortable. In fact, most people I know who have been to CDMX in real life have hated it! I think your enjoyment hundo p depends on what sections of it you explore and where you stay. All the pollution and cars and HUBBUB that you’ll encounter throughout your day pretty much sucks, so having to stay in an area that is also super pollution + cars + HUBBUB would be terrible. La Condesa was so calm and green and cool, it was like a refuge we could return to after hubbubbing all day, a refuge that is still jam-packed with activity but in a cool neighborhoody way.

I’m also super grateful to our expert-friend for recommending this neighborhood because he based it mostly on its proximity to Tacos Hola, also known as Tacos El Guero, also known from its sign as Tacos Hola El Guero but that’s not the name, it has to be one of the other variations. Anyway, this super unassuming lil almost-hole-in-the-wall joint was INCREDIBLE. There were big pots of all these different kinds of fillings and you just say which pots you want in a taco. There’s also a big picture-board of all the menu options which you know is the best forking thing in a foreign country.

It doesn’t look like much, but that’s because they are LEGIT, not worried about the gram but about the taste and the authenticity and the general amazeballsness. AMAZE. And the people were really nice and friendly despite my horrible attempts at communicating.

Alright, it’s time for some culture – we will get back to tacos later, as 90% of what we did was eat tacos. Our big To-Do list for Mexico City was literally to go to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, or the National Anthropology Museum. Now, if ever a museum has attained A Reputation, it’s this one, famed for requiring not a whole afternoon, not even an entire day, but entire daysss, plural, to even scratch the surface. We tried, my lord how we tried, and we did not even finish the first floor. It is INTENSE, it is dense with information, and it is incredible.

The MNDA, former name of MDMA, from here on in referred to as the Anthropology Museum because I’m realizing what a horrible acronym that makes, is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. It’s in Chapultepec Park, a giant, lovely park to stroll around with lots of other important sites: the Castillo de Chapultepec (a castle on a hilltop with a history museum), a modern art museum, several fountains and monuments, a lake, a zoo (don’t go to zoos!), a Canadian Totem…? LOTS. We meandered through the park on the walk from our hotel so it took about an hour to get there.

We also, obvs, were stopping to try every awesome bit of street food we saw.

The museum costs 75 pesos to enter (about $4), so one of the highest values in all of museuming considering the quality and quantity of what’s inside (“everyone wants to know what’s insiiiiide”). The only bad thing is they do not let you bring liquids – even water – in, and Mexico City isssss hot. Because “I promised” not to drink what was left (not that much!) from my giant bottle, the security guards let me in with it, and I drank when I was in between rooms and near bathrooms, but I didn’t have nearly enough. After a few hours of rationing when I really could not afford to be rationing, I ran to the cafe at the end of the first floor only to find they had CLOSED FOR THE DAY. I mean, WTF. Guess who else closed for the day? The fancy restaurant! I was like please please I need water I’m literally dying, and they said they could fill my bottle from the tap. Well. If you know anything about traveling to Mexico, not drinking tap water is like rule numero uno. I knew that, and my face conveyed that I knew it to the guy who offered, because he quickly added “the water is filtered from this tap.” And honestly, I didn’t know if filtered meant safe for my weak ass tumnus, but I was going to find out because I needed water. Luckily, I am happy to report I did not get sick. PROCEED WITH VISIT!

So, a museum of anthropology is not full of cute dresses that are supes overpriced until they go on sale and you have to root through those overstuffed racks and honestly in the past few years it’s not even worth it anymore; whoever is doing their buying should be working at Free People because the aesthetic is off. ANYWAY, no, anthropology is the scientific study of humans, human behavior, and past and present societies. (The study of (near-) future societies is called Idiocracy by Mike Judge.) The museum is packed with archaeological and anthropological artifacts from Mexico’s pre-Columbian heritage, with lots of Aztec finds. Even if you don’t think you are interested in anthropology, you gotta see the big f-ing thing, okay?

Considering the extent of what we saw on our first day literally fills four years’ worth of college anthro courses (I took one and it was too cold in the hall so I did not learn SHITE), I’m going to just share my highlights from the museum instead of like, leading you through it. There are tons of good highlight guides online if you need guidance for when you are there.

Considering my line of work (you can ask if you want), I loved that my visit began with a sign calling humans chumps for trying to feel superior to chimps. I am so going to throw the phrase “nothing but an evidence of anthropocentric arrogance” at some bitches.

The museum is laid out like a big rectangle, with each room opening to the inner courtyard on the inside and having outdoor exhibit extensions on the perimeter. I was grateful for these outdoor sections because no one can yell at you for drinking water outside! It rains!

Below is the Aztec sun stone, maybe the most famous Aztec sculpture. Its complexity has attracted tons of interpretations from scholars but I bet none of them are right.

So that was a quick and dirty tour through…the things I took pictures of, so if you are in CDMX, know that you must go and you must devote lots of time to a proper visit. (And let me know what’s on the second floor; we never made it!)

After all that learning, we all deserve a delicious reward:

MOAR TACOS! We treated our time in CDMX as any wise person should: as a chance to do the taco cleanse and to do it right. La Pitahaya was on my list because it’s hundo p vegan and had great reviews on trusty old HappyCow. Also, it was a 20 minute walk from our hotel, which is pretty much as close as anything could be in this city.

We enjoyed delicious tamales, a special from Mama that day (I’m assuming), and AMAZ tacos. They have six or so taco kinds, so we thought it would be normal to have 3 each, but fork being normal – if you go just get one of each. WHY NOT. They also have INCREDIBLE sounding mains like enchiladas and enfrijoladas, and if we weren’t committed to our cleanse/if we had more time, I would have been back for all of it.

We got a ‘carnitas michoacanas’ which is meaty mushrooms, with raw nopales; we got my FAVE the scrambled tofu with black salt and guacamole (I mean, a perfect food circle); and I think the masala curry potatoes? Just get them all. Man alive, these were great. I definitely recommend a visit. And the staff was SO super amazing and nice and I wanted to be friends and not only because they gave me tacos.

The last thing I’ll share from this neighborhood is our visit to a pulcheria, a thing we had to do because culture. Pulcherias sell pulque, a Mexican alcoholic drink made by fermenting sap from the maguey plant, which is a kind of large agave plant. Cool! I thought. It’s like an agave nectar drink! No, pulque is like the initial, unfiltered substance that can be distilled into mezcal (which can be tequila). I was told this was like kombucha, like a low-alcohol drink that I’d be fine with, which was FALSE. The kind we tried at L’Nuclear Pulcheria (about 20 minutes from our hotel) (I mean honestly the name should have given it away) was 20% alcohol! That’s like A LOT. It wasn’t an unpleasant drink though, which is a huge thing considering it’s famous for its OKRA-LIKE VISCOSITY. It really is…quite viscous. But if you can consume alcohol, it’s worth a try. I didn’t hate it but I will be sticking with kombucha.

So that’s our first look into Mexico City! Next time – Coyoacán! And more tacos of course.

Oman wasn’t on our list for very long – in fact, it might be the fastest we’ve ever decided to go somewhere and then gone. Last year we heard several unrelated wonderful reports about this gem of a country in the Middle East and then suddenly, we were off! (And I was going to be so close to Chandler next door in Yemen, living it up with that rando he met on the plane and/or at 15 Yemen Road.) Between the charming little city of Muscat and the incredible wadis (like my favorite place, Wadi Shab) and sinkholes we swam in around the country, we had a fabulous time. Whether you’re an explorer, a history buff, a water-feature-lover (me), or just in the mood for a super fancy resort vacation (but don’t only stay in the resort), I highly recommend a visit to Oman.

You will definitely need to rent a car, which sucks for people like me who hate driving, especially in foreign lands where you don’t read the language. So, after our super pleasant and short flight from Dubai (which you read about last week, right?) on Swiss Air (which was outfitted like an old professor; I don’t know something about the light wooden detail and the tweed vibe on that plane read ‘professor’), we landed at Muscat International Airport SUPER late at night and SUPER needing to do two specific things: 1) get a SIM card for the phone, and 2) pick up our rental car. You’d think these would be simple since they are most everyone’s 2 things to do! Both the SIM and the Budget rental car people were the. worst. ever. So rude and they took forever so we were well into the wee hours of the morning before we were on our way to the hotel. And that wasn’t even the worst part: I had a full panic attack driving to the hotel because I am the navigatrix, and Google maps had NO IDEA ABOUT MUSCAT. Just never heard about it, I guess. So I was flipping, and I mean flipping, out because I had no idea what to tell Z to do and we kept getting farther away from the city center and we don’t read Arabic so it was terrifying.

Finally somehow we found our hotel. (If you’re driving, print out directions from the airport just in case your maps app also decides it needs 24 hours to start working properly.) During our time exploring, we stayed at the Intercontinental Muscat, which sounds fance because the IC usually is, but this was (known in advance to be) a quite dingy one, with motel-looking rooms. It was more affordable this way, and it was undergoing an extensive remodel while we were there, so while we were lucky to snag the lower prices, we missed out on the nicer rooms. But since we were going to be busy sightseeing (and driving around the country) all day, we didn’t need to be anywhere fancy. No, we were saving that for the second half of our trip, which you’ll see in the next Oman post.

After sleeping, omg sleeping is THE BEST, we explored Muscat the next morning, first by making our way up to the fort area at the north of the city. It’s like a bunch of forts and government buildings and noooo one around, which was cool for exploring and…interesting for my usual fear of “has the world I Am Legended or something?”

Muscat curves along the water (the Gulf of Oman) with various corniches lined with mosques, souks, and cafes (and banks and all other markings of civilization, except we don’t have Habib Bank which is a shame because it’s so close to my favorite thing to shout (HABIBI!) and if there was a Habibi bank I’d be like here take my money). What I consider the main drag of the waterfront, along Al Bahri Road, is right where Mutrah Souk and the Gold Souk are located.

You have to pay to park along the corniche, and while there are plenty of spots, it’s kind of annoying because it’s those newfangled machines (I hate MACHINES) and they only take 50p coins (I know it’s ‘p’ but I don’t know their abbreviations for the smaller denominations) so you have to go buy a tea or something in a nearby cafe and ask for change in 50p coins. But now you know so you can just make sure to have them handy! Who says you don’t learn from me?

I guess this is as good a time as any to share some DEETS about their currency in Oman. It’s the Omani rial! One rial breaks into 1000 baisa, so when I said 50p coins you (like me originally) probably brained that as ‘half their dollar or whatever’, but it’s not half, it’s 1/20!!!! That’s rial small! I hope I did that math right otherwise I’ll be rially embarrassed. One rial is about $2.6 USD, so 10 rials is like $26 and you can generally figure out whether most things are cheap or pricey knowing that. As a destination, it’s cheaper than most of Western Europe, but more expensive than I assumed. You can find super cheap food and stuff but overall it’s much less of a post-Dubai steal than I wanted.

Before or after exploring the coastline and the souks, you’ll want to hit the main cultural museum to learn about Oman and Omani culture. That’s why you’re here! The very nice and informative museum is called the Bait Al Zubair, opened to the public since 1998. Comprising six different buildings and lots of outdoor space, the museum features exhibits on Omani culture and heritage in terms of dress, jewelry, weapons, food, history, furniture, money, housing, and more, including two big ass cannons.

We learned all sorts of info from the museum, but honestly the most compelling info-graphic was about the first postal stamp. Whoever wrote the sign explaining how Britain issued the first government-printed postage stamp on May 6, 1840 was INTO the history of stamps. They honestly sounded like a nerdier version of me, using all caps and everything to make a point! I KNOW! In a museum! It was adorbs. They were like ‘before 1840 the RECEIVER of the letter had to pay for the costs of delivery, but then Mister Sir Rowland Hill became British Postmaster General and he thought the SENDER should pay the price and that was the first time this happened aren’t stamps EXHILARATING?’ no but it’s a good change, Rowland. Could you imagine having to pay for the shitty mail you get? I’d be like hard pass.

Maybe you want to learn about Muscat and not the history of stamps in the U.K. So that means it’s time for our favorite Laughfrodisiac travel feature, your completely accurate history lesson.

So Oman is a Sultanate, along with Brunei and parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, which makes it baby’s first Sultanate visited! I did not see that pudgy little doofus who let Jafar manipulate him, no I did not, I would have given him a talking to. A talking down to, if you will, because I’m still mad at his initial treatment of his daughter and also because he so smol. (I’m OBVIOUSLY joking, Omani officials, and would never speak ill of your actual sultan who is also prime minister? It’s an absolute monarchy over there. (that’s the actual phrase I’m not saying like oh it’s an absolute monarchy; no it’s an ‘absolute monarchy’ it’s a thing.)) My fave thing is that there’s no clear answer about where the name came from (probably someone just saying ‘oh mannn’ like I did) but some think it’s related to writing from Pliny the Elder, which tickles me because I forking LOVE Pliny the Elder, one of my fave elders.

Muscat is Oman’s capital and largest city, and archaeological finds (fishermen graves, so sinister) date the city, an important port, as having communities since 6,000 years before Jesus was like ‘oh hayyyy oh you don’t care about me.’ And then pre-Iranians invaded dun dun dunnn and then they all converted to Islam and then there were all these battles between different tribes and then Marcos Baghdatis’s people invaded (not Cyprus, Baghdad…I see how this gets confusing but stick with me) but then Omani tribes were like gtfO Marcos, it’s Wimbledon time, and then power shifted between native tribes for a bit and all this time the importance of Muscat as a port city between powerful civilizations grew and grew, causing some animosity from people not by the city/water, like how England hates Londoners because we’re the most important.

But then in the 1500s the Portuguese were like ‘o bom dia I’ma gonna takeover you nowah’ (the Portuguese sounded Italian!) and they fought but the Portuguese won and they were like ‘Muito prazer em conhecê-lo but I’ma burna your city to the groundah!’ and they did. They ruled till later in the 1600s when the Imam was finally like FORK THIS and sent troops to Muscat and toppled the power of the Portos. Then there were civil wars which are NEVER good and the Persians kept interfering and trying to take over like ‘oh but itsa my turn to ah rule you!’ (they sound Italian too) but they even though they didn’t get the chance they still contributed to the whole region being destabilized which is rude. The need for cohesive rule let the Al Bu Sa’id dynasty emerge and rule ever since, but not without lots of dramaaaz like even in the last century there was a civil war, from friction between the sultan and the imams and all the interior tribes being like what gives and the sultan asked the British to help quell the rebels (they’re good at that, and stamps), and then the sultan’s son, current ruler Qaboos bin Said al Said, famously staged a bloodless coup to take the seat of power from his father, with the help of the British. It was a very William vs. Charles in the play King Charles III situation.

Well that’s enough history for lunatics so let’s go to one of Qaboos’s favorite places, the mosque. How do I know it’s one of his favorite places? It’s called the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. Construction of the mosque took six years seven months in the 1990s, which is fun because the American version, Six Days Seven Nights, also took place in the 1990s.

It’s an incredibly beautiful, tranquil place, despite having so many tourists visiting – it’s so big that you’re not even bothered by other people (ew other people). Civilians like me (non-Muslims) are allowed to visit the Grand Mosque in the mornings from Saturday to Thursday, so make sure to plan accordingly. You must cover all your damn skin, which you should do in the serious sunshine anyway, but women must also cover their hair. And they are serious about this. I had the pictured headscarf dutifully wrapping me up, but I have hella long and unmanageable hair, and a lock of it fell through the bottom at the back, and a guard yelled at Z to tell me to fix it. (Obviously he spoke to Z and not me, because the man is in charge of the women, because religion.) The language barrier made for a fun exercise in ‘but my hair is covered!’ arguments, not being able to see that a tiny piece was visible on my back. Stupid sinful lady hair!

Aside from mean old guard, it was a really lovely visit. It’s confusing to know where to park and where to enter properly, but we just followed other people from the first parking lot we found and figured it out.

Aside from food-related activities and hotel swimming, which come in their own post (the fun one with the previously hinted resort vacation), that’s pretty much what we did in Muscat! From our base in the city, we took several day trips out into the country, to various sinkholes for more swimming (yay!), to Wadi Shab (my FAVORITE part of this trip (you’ll see that in its own post, with the sinkholes)), and to Nizwa, for the Nizwa Fort and Souqs. Although we enjoyed Nizwa Fort, it was a long way to go (about 2 hours each way) on really busy roads, when we could have used that time to see a lot more educational stuff left in Muscat. I’d only recommend going if you’re heading out of Muscat to stay in another town, or if you have a ton of time.

Even though we admit we probably should have used this day better, it was nice to see the Nizwa Fort. It was built in the 1600s by the Imam Sultan (both things!) Bin Saif Al Ya’rubi, but the underlying structure of this gigantic fort dates back to the 1200s. It’s really architecturally impressive, with a giant drum tower, enormous underground foundations, and endless sections and rooms on different levels showcasing all the good stuff you normally find in defensive structures: battlements, turrets, cannons, food storage, housing, jails, and literally MURDER HOLES: if the windy stairs and secret passages and defensive attacks weren’t enough to impede enemies, there were shafts above each set of doors that people poured boiling oil or water through to stop them. Murder holes. Cool guys. Can’t you just hear Mindy St. Clair going “I call it my murder hole.”

Entry to the Nizwa Fort cost us 5 rial each, so like almost $30 for the both of us, which is LOADS more than any other tourist attraction in Oman cost us. So that kind of bothered us, even though this was cool.

It was a super hot and sunny day when we visited, which was rough because so much of it is outside in the blazing heat and it’s SO climby. As I said before, the various sections are on all different levels, which means lots of stairs. And just when you think you’ve gotten as high as you can possibly go, to the top section, you’re met with these stairs:

Sure they just go up and then down again, but there’s a VIEW UP THERE. We had to do it! Fun fact: There were four sets of these triangle staircases around this tower, and we climbed up and down each one, to capture all the different views.

The Nizwa Fort did have the g-d coolest bathroom signs I’ve ever seen in my life, so that’s something. Look what the men got, it’s so badass.

Afte the fort, we planned to visit the famous souqs, but they were closed! It’s okay though, we weren’t going to buy vegetables, although it was nice to see where my fave souq would have been.

So we had some fun learning about Muscat and Oman, and the posts to come will be about even more fun stuff! Stay tuned.