Figured I'd provide an update since it's been awhile. I've been back in CDMX for about 3 months which brings my total time here to 4 months. Still completely love the city and the other places in Mexico that I've seen. The place is oozing with awesome people, culture, and food and all at a ridiculously low price. Luckily poker has been continuing to go well. If you can earn money independently, then I couldn't imagine living in the USA over Mexico. At least for my situation and things I enjoy, my quality of life is just as high or higher and monthly costs are about half of what I'd spend in an appealing American city (Austin, Denver, Portland type cities).
Nothing new to report on the Tinder front. It's been going extremely well with the girl I mentioned in post 39. She's got 2 Masters, a PHD, teaches yoga on the side, just got hired as a researcher at a local uni and speaks 3 languages fluently. I read the Asia travel threads often, and it seems a point of frustration is that the girls know little English, are generally uneducated, and are difficult to connect with on a cultural level. That couldn't be further from the case in Mexico. My current gf and several of the girls I was dating before all have a solid grasp of English (except a few), most are well educated with solid jobs, most have been to Europe or other place, and culturally there is a ton in common. Sorry if it sounds like a Mexico infomercial and I'm probably being over the top, but I really love this place and it's shocking to me that these cities exist so close to the USA and there is almost zero interest in visiting anything other than Cancun/PV/Cabos, etc. Not that those places aren't fun, but central Mexico is oozing with interesting stuff.
My girlfriend and I have been visiting a couple new places, so I figured I'd throw in some pics.
Pic 1 is in CDMX. It was an incredible moment b/c Mexico had just defeated Germany in the World Cup and the main drag had hundreds of thousands of Mexicans just partying and celebrating:
Back in May my gf and I visited Puebla, which is one of the largest cities in Mexico and only a couple hours by bus:
That last pic was a Church in Puebla. It's difficult to see, but that room is completely plated in gold and pretty amazing to see.
Puebla in general is a great city, and even rivals many Euro cities among some of my favorites. I was pleasantly surprised.
Very close to Puebla is a small city called Cholula. There is actually a pyramid underneath this hill built by a pre-hispanic civilization. It's actually the largest pyramid that exists in the world today. Normally the Spanish would destroy any religious edifices b/c they saw them as a threat to Catholicism, but they didn't realize it existed below the soil:
Next we visited a little town just outside of CDMX called Tepoztlan. It's a little town full of hippies and foreigners and surrounded by mountains. We walked the hour path up el Tepozteco and were rewarded with a nice view:
Our most recent stop was another small town called Zacatlan, also a couple hours by bus from CDMX. We were able to stay in a sweet cabin with amazing views of the mountains and surrounding valley for ~$40/night:
My gf has a month off before she starts her new job, so we're gonna visit a nearby state called Michoacan. The capital, Morelia, looks really interesting and there are a bunch of great towns littered around the state.