Mexico City

Mexico City is crazy. The second largest city in the world with more people in it than all of Australia. It took me a few days and a lot of exploring to realise that it is in fact about 20 cities all rolled into one. I made some great friends who took me to some strange corners of the city. I timed it perfectly to catch up with Dabs and Myla who were working on a project for Adidas. They laughed at me rocking up with my little bottle of watered down paint and no name spraypaint to do a piece. They gave me a few cans and I did a couple of quick pieces with the 2 hours I had spare.

Mexico

So far southern Mexico has been great. Every town I've been to has been completely different to the last. I was lucky enough to be in the old colonial town of San Cristobal De Las Casas for Easter. They take religion very serious in this part of the world. I didn't see not one Easter egg or rabbit. But instead I saw processions and religious re-enactments. I saw a spot I wanted to paint from the bus and then spent three hours trying to find it again. At one stage I found myself stuffed in the back of a ute with a bunch of indigenous people from the area driving through the countryside. At that stage I knew I was lost. From there I ended up walking around some indigenous village for a while where I came across these pieces. I managed to paint a spot on a busy road there. I found a spot that had political graffiti that had been covered up. Within 5 minutes of painting I found myself getting honked at by every car that went past and a lot of people were hurling abuse at me. I abandoned my original sketch wrapped the whole thing up in about 10 minutes and got out of there. The next day I found out that there are really strict laws on graffiti in the town and I was lucky that no cops saw me. I found it strange as the whole place is bombed. Mexico also has a lot of great beaches. Unfortunately it's not safe to walk around at night due to the corrupt cops everywhere. They are poorly paid and armed to the teeth. A few friends of mine were hanging out on the beach just after the sun went down and they found themselves getting searched by a bunch of cops. The cops planted some weed in their pockets and demanded cash out of them. A few locals came over to see what was going on and explained that the only thing to do is pay them off. They would never leave or otherwise take you to jail. The street food has been great. They also have some pretty hard looking men on their money. I managed to squeeze in a quick piece in on the side of a baseball stadium in the city of Oaxaca. They don't use many bill posters over here. Instead they paint the bands name and gig details on the highways. It's everywhere and it's all really well done. I'm pretty sure it's all done illegally. And the awesome signage continues.