Ruins, rebels and relaxation

Following five hours of one of the windiest bus rides of our lives we arrived yesterday in picture postcard San Cristobel Del La Casa. The town is set among the mountains at a very high altitude so at night its freezing cold, in the day crisp and sunny. Visually it´s a gorgeous place with pedestrianised streets, lots of cafes and funky restaurants. Students and tourists abound.The streets are lined with brightly painted mainly single story houses and shops in shades of yellows, reds, blues and oranges and with slanting roofs of Spanish-style red tiles. It does have a very clean, made for tourism image, but it still has very Mexican in feel and is the perfect place to wander, sit and sip a coffee or beer and people watch.

The town is in the state of Chiapas, home to the famous Zapatista rebel movement. You can buy rebel dolls, paintings of rebels and postcards of rebels with guns criss-crossed across their chests (and scary steely stares). The movie house down the road is showing a documentary about the Zapatistas tomorrow night so clearly there is a lot of sympathy for the movement and a good deal of romanticising too. I know very little about it except that it allegedly ´controls´ some of the towns in Mexico, has a sort of uneasy truce with the Mexican government and seems to represents the poor and lower classes, of which there are many amongst the bright coloured buildings and relaxed feel. So many young kids, looking like little Mexican men, walking about selling souvenirs or cigar boxes full of sweets and gum. It´s heartbreaking looking at these kids having to act like grown-ups so young.

We enjoyed a tiring day and night in Palenque before getting the bus to San Cristobel. The principle reason was to see the Mayan ruins set among the jungle. If nine hours on an overnight bus were not enough, we decided to walk the 9km to the ruins. Sadists we are sometimes! The ruins were wondefully atmospheric, far better than Chichen Itza, with the jungle actually stretching out and covering some of the temples and ancient structures. We also walked through a rainforest with cascades and waterfalls. The only disappointment - not seeing any howler monkeys.

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year from Merida. Sitting contently in the hammock is Fidel, the charcoal poodle who belongs to the owners of our hostel. Clearly he is a Mexican dog and a very cute one at that!

We had a great night last night to see in the New Year starting with a meal of fresh pasta, some good red wine and even better company (our friends Kate and Adam) and later we sat at a bar and listened to live Mexican salsa as the locals jived on the street outside. It was the kind of scene I always imagined experiencing in Latin America. Mexicans appear very comfortable with their body shapes and no matter what size or form, they let it all hang out as they sway their hips and shake their asses. Larna swirled on the street with one of the locals. Even the oldies have great rhythmn. There was a guy hanging onto a walking stick and even he was doing the moves.

Merida is the capital of the Yucatan region and full of old colonial buildings, heaps of atmosphere, colour and life. Yesterday afternoon we walked down Paseo Montejo, a shady boulevard with overhanging trees with grand old mansions and amazing bronze sculptures of mythical Mexican creatures lining the road.

There was a hotel along the route called "La Conquistador" and it made me wonder how the local Mayans feel about this given that the Spanish conquerers were extremely cruel to the local people when they ruled Mexico and the Yucatan. Yesterday we visited an old palace on the square with giant murals depicting the cruelty met out to the Mayans by the Spanish. One showed a Mayan rebel being quartered with hot pokers.

A highlight of the last few days was a visit to a "cenote" just outside Vallodolid. A cenote is an underground limestone cave filled with fresh, incredibly clear water and limestone drippings (not sure if the correct term is stalactite or stalagmite) coming down from the ceiling. The water was surprisingly warm.

Tomorrow we will be moving on from Merida making our way South through the Yucatan to Palenka to visit more ruins, this time set in the jungle. We have long, overnight bus ride ahead of us and a couple more after that - Mexico is a big place!

Larna and I wish all our family and friends a happy New Year and all the best for 2011!

"Very cheap, almost free..."

These were the cajoling words of one of the many souvenir vendors as we wandered around the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Chitzen Itza today. We all cracked up laughing when we heard this line. Mexicans have a way of speaking in that lazy drawl that makes it hard not to smile and feel good about life.

The ruins themselves were quite fascinating, dating back to a time when human sacrifices were made to appease the gods and the Mayans built stepped stone pyramids, such as "El Castillo" (the one I am standing in front of) as part of their religious ceremonies. A bit of trivia, this pyramid has exactly 365 steps corresponding to the Mayan calender, which I guess must have been the same as the one we use today.

So we wandered about looking at the ruins trying to find tortoises, snails, eagles with human hearts in their claws, and ancient football players with severed heads all apparently carved in the old stone blocks. This turned into a bit of a game (we spent the day with our friends Adam and Kate) trying to spot these creatures and figures in the discoloured and often disintegrating blocks.

Among the things we did spot were these grizly skulls that lined the bottom of a platform where the severed heads of those sacrificed were put on display 800 years ago. Rather then pay gringo prices (50 pesos, about $4 for a coffee) we had a picnic lunch of tacos stuffed with avocado and spicy chipolata tuna sitting under some trees watching the tour groups hustling their charges along.

We were really glad we arrived before 10am this morning. By this time we left Chichen Itza at about 2.30pm it was the site of a major invasion of tourist buses which lined up outside the parking lot for at least a kilometre.

We are staying in an old colonial town called Valladolid about 40kms from Chichen Itza. It is a town of colourful one story buildings built on a grid system around a plaza where Mexican music fills the air from cool shop fronts and time drifts. Yesterday, after we arrived from Tulum we sat in the square and ate frozen lollies watching the locals chatting in the park, examining their purchases and checking their emails. It is the kind of place you could while a way a few days without the need to do very much. People smile at you from their little red, orange and blue houses. Their are nativity scenes outside many of them and rather than put candles in front of altars to Jesus and Mary, the locals use energy saving light bulbs!

Continuing down the Carribean coast

Since I last wrote we have meandered our way further down the Carribeean coastline and are now in the town of Tulum which is famous for two things - the ancient Mayan ruins (which we visited this afternoon) and the long stretch of beach, which is meant to be amazing and which we plan to visit tomorrow. The hostel we are staying at - Los Lobos - provides free bicycle hire so we plan to cycle down to the beach about 6kms away.

As for this guy on our left, I took his (or her) picture in Playa del Carmen just up the coast where we spent Xmas with friends from Australia who are currently travelling around Mexico. He lives in a little alcove in the roof of their hostel. Very cute indeed.

We really loved Isle Mujeres, the island off Cancun and could easily have stayed a few more days. This pic was taken on the beach in the afternoon. A very relaxing spot to read a book, nap and go for a dip!

We had a real Mexican Xmas dinner on Friday night. We ordered an enormous barbeque of meats, which was big enough for five of us to share. They are big meat eaters over here. I have also sampled some of the local beers, and am now quite partial to a particular one called Dos Equis (literally means ¨two Xs¨). Last night I confused our waiter by asking for " Uno Dos Equis" (translated literally as "one two Xs") because the locals call it just "Equis" ("Xs"). I hope that makes sense!

From Tulum we plan to make our way to Valledolid where we will go and see the famous Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. Larna did not appreciate my joke that they should open a chain of fastfood chicken places called "Chicken Eatsa"

A pic below taken of one of the Tulum mayan ruins. Very cool indeed!

Feliz Navidad and Adios amigos. Catch you laaater!

Mexican colour and beach life

Mexico is full of bright colours and this reminds me a little of Thailand. The people are far less pushy though then their Asian compadres when it comes to selling you things. The most common response to saying¨No gracias¨ to a request to visit a shop or look at a menu is ¨OK senor¨.

The locals speak English in that lazy drawl you here in the movies. Our Aussie friends, who we caught up with over here, were asked if they wanted to go an on a whale trip one day. They said no thanks and as they walked away, the guy piped up with...¨Lotta whaales¨. Classic!

Yesterday we spent most of the day lying on the beach. We found a quiet spot under palm trees, but out of the way of any falling coconuts. An iguana was sitting on top of a ledge behind us and people were coming up to take photos of the giant lizard (and stupidly in the case of one family, trying to feed it corn chips).

Once we walked away from the resorts, restaurants and expensive deck chairs, we found the quieter and cheaper end of the beach. There was more a family vibe and fewer people showing off their tans and figures. The water was a little bit on the cool side and you had to wade out for ages to get to any great depth but the view back to the beach was picture perfect: white sand, still palm trees, hammocks strung between them and the turqoise blue sea in front of it all. The water is so clear you can see your feet perfectly.

Downtown Isle Mujeres is just a few quiet streets just like this one in the photo. We have been trying to pick up a few Spanish phrases here and there. I now know how to ask for the bill: ¨La cuenta por favor¨.



The pic below was taken in Cancun where we boarded the ferry to get to Isle Mujeres. They look like old pirate galley ships. I think they are probably used for some kind of themed pirate dinner.

You know you are in Mexico when...

There is a Tequila Bar right outside the airport. Yep, just as we stepped out of Cancun airport, there was one just waiting for the Tequila-hungry traveller (not us on this occasion).

Since arriving in Mexico yesterday we have eaten a lot of tacos (they serve only the soft bread variety topped with chicken, salad and your choice of condiments) and caught up on some much needed sleep after leaving New York at 4am. We have also experienced a complete change in season - it is warm and sunny, there are palm trees everywhere; New York was freezing and the only trees we saw were either Xmas trees or those without leaves in Central Park. No complaints from us on the change in season.

We are now staying on a little Island (really little - just 8km long and 1km wide) called Isles Mujeros just off Cancun in a cute hotel nestled among the shops and restaurants. Most of the island is pedestrianised and the streets are great for strolling and saying ¨No Gracias¨ to dinner offers, scuba diving and whale watching. Speaking of water, I went for a swim this afternoon. The beaches are incredible over here, made up of fine white sand and the water is an incredible turqoise.

We only had a night in Cancun staying in a real dive of a hostel. We had an en suite room. The toilet and shower were next to each other divided by a green plastic curtain coming off the rails. The guy who ran the place was this little hunched over Mexican man (everyone seems short in Mexico) who moved very slowly up the two flights of stairs to make our beds when we went out for lunch. Anyway, we survived and are now enjoying a little bit of island paradise.

"I'm walkin here!"

Larna and I have been doing bad imitations of Dustin Hoffman's famous line in 'Midnight Cowboy' (playing Ratzo 'Rizzo)- "I'm walkin' here, I'm walking here!" - while crossing the streets of Manhattan. We've also drunk lots of "cawfee" and seen lots of stylishly dressed "gooyls". Ok, so we have been behaving like dorks!

Yesterday we walked all the way from east 63rd Street to the Brooklyn Bridge and the financial district at the bottom of Manhattan. En route we stopped for a coffee in a tiny little Italian place in Greenwich Village, meandered through Little Italy and had lunch in Chinatown, which appears to be steadily swamping it's next door neighbour. It is fascinating how one Manhattan neighbourhood gives way to another as you cross a street. One city block we crossed was full of Indian restaurants and shops, the next lined with Vietnamese, Chinese and other Asian eateries.


It is so energizing walking these streets. And I don't know why I had this perception in my head that New Yorkians are rude and unfriendly, because everyone has in fact been super helpful, courteous and friendly. People have come up to us while we have been studying our map to ask if we need any help, cars slow down for old ladies, even the taxis appear to move at almost normal speeds. Certainly things are very normal and orderly compared to some of the other cities we have visited, and not just those in the third world.

Today we walked into Greenwich Village and Soho. Very cool neighbourhoods with their specialist shops (one store had a giant enamel bath shaped like a high heel shoe and covered in gold mosaic tiles) and those old brick loft apartments with the zig-zag steel staircases running down the outside.

Oh and the other cool thing about New York, all those people walking their dogs. Some of the dogs wear more outrageous outfits then their owners. We had a look in one pet store called "Unleashed" and it had biscotti and other dog biscuits that I would have munched on if I did not know they were baked for canines.

We have loved staying in my brother and his wife's super swanky upper East side apartment. It will be quite an adjustment going back to hostels and backpacker pads in Mexico. We depart Monday morning for Cancun.