The Big Set Piece (December 28 2009)

Chichen Itza - one of the seven ‘new wonders of the world’, We have decided to give it some time and so spend two nights at the Hotel Chichen Itza. This meant that we could walk into the site early in the morning, and get there before the hordes arrived on daytrips from Cancun and the coast.

It was as if we had the place to ourselves as even the tacky souvenir vendors hadn’t set up by the time we got there. Its an impressive site, the large stepped pyramid makes an immediate impact as you enter. Unfortunately, you can no longer climb the 91 steps to the top. Gill has however, been before and made it up five steps last time (well they are steep and there’s no banister….). Neither of us are good at ruins, but we tried and spent a happy few hours wandering about, with lots of rest stops. It is well maintained and looks ok considering it is 1200 years old. The ball court was our favourite, the captain of the losing team was always decapitated. They didn’t re-enact this for us. Like us, the people who built it had travelled from Guatemala.

We walked to the cenote – a limestone sink hole, in which in 1900 a combination of huge amounts of Mayan relics and jewels and bones were dredged up. The American guy who bought the area in 1900 for 750 pesos must have go the deal of the century.

Our entrance ticket allowed us to go back at nightfall for the son et lumiere. It was great to be there in the dark, even if the show was a tad dull. We left early. All in Spanish, the show explains the intricacies of the Mayan calendar – we realised we would not have been too good at this as this morning neither of us could even work out what day it was! The Mayan calendar also foretells big changes in the world in 2012 – we need to check out the film of the same name now out in the cinema.

This trip has been so relaxed and today was no different, we had a very lazy afternoon doing absolutely nothing apart from deciding on our next stops. The coast is so expensive, obviously Cancun is a no no, the rest may be attractive but at a minimum of 125 USD a night for a sand floor shared bathroom cabana, (for that read palm shed), no fan, no aircon, we were really stuck for ideas. However, some research unearthed Isla Mujeres, which whilst still expensive at least had a tiled bathroom for Gill. So that is where we plan to spend New Year.

Feliz Navidad (24 - 26 December 2009)

If truth be known, a bit of a dull Christmas. We had chosen to go to ground for three nights in Merida until it was all over. The costal options were so gross, full of charter tourists, cruise line passengers and $1000 a night rooms. Therefore, we are stalling our arrival at the coast resorts until early Jan, as then prices will have fallen and the tourists gone home, leaving us travellers to ourselves. So that’s why we decided to Christmas here and also because its quite trophy as who the hell comes to Merida for Xmas!! It’s a very Mexican city of ¾ million people, cultural capital of Yucatan State. It has the usual Mexican city layout, north south even number streets, east - west odd numbers. Low storey house, squares, churches, neighbourhoods etc. Very familiar to us now. It has a reputation as being sexy and cosmopolitan, but to be honest – we struggled to find it amongst the hammock sellers. We know it was Xmas, and things are quite, but it was mostly local tourists and nothing metropolitan about it all.

We had splurged on the hotel (Luz de Yucatan) which is cute and we are paying $70 a night as opposed to our more usual $20, so the showers are good! It’s a mix of 16th century Spanish colonial and modern, with a small pool, lush courtyards and the largest palm and banana trees ever. But despite giving us unlimited rum and tequila it was also very quiet – although supposedly full.

We whiled away the three days doing very little. The central square was always busy with markets and food sellers. They closed the main street off at 9 and opened it to pop up bars and salsa. It was here that we had turkey on Xmas, we sat on a balcony overlooking the street -they originated here in Mexico, as did the poinsettia which we’ve seen everywhere.

After turkey, we hung around till midnight mass, only to find that there wasn’t one! We went to mass on Xmas day instead. The cathedral is the oldest on the American continent, and had a great big Christ on a cross and a fab Peter being rude to Mary– see photo.

The food we ate on Xmas day was the worst ever selection of food we have come cross on out travels. Suddenly Brussels sprouts seemed appealing!

On Boxing day we decided to go to the seaside to ease the boredom. We took a local bus to Progreso on the Gulf of Mexico (so we have now crossed – by minibus – the American continent from east to west) some 35kms from Merida – think Southend with white sand! But we did get fish and chips and prawns. Lots of souvenir stalls, candy floss and the biggest pier ever – at 7kms long. We didn’t walk it. The sand looked very Caribbean, but as usual the weather was actually more Southend than Mexico – see the photo of Gill wrapped up against the cold wind! But wind does have its benefits, we met up with the two kiwis we had met and spent a couple of hours flying a kite they had with them. Ant was very good and luckily just managed to not decapitate local beach strollers as he occasionally crashed his kite to the sand. It was after this we found the beach restaurant full of local Meridano’s on the weekend (it was Saturday) full of waiters dressed as blue Santa’s! On arrival back in Merida we bowed to pressure and bought a hammock each – but not from the street traders. We went to a lovely old fashioned clothes and hammock shop. It’s interesting – hammocks are not just for tourists as we thought. They really are used for sleeping on the hot nights – we haven’t had a hot night yet but are sure they happen some times! We went for a hammock “individual “ each as we decided the doubles and king sizes were a little on the large side.

So we had spent Xmas in Merida, really disappointed by the level of sophistication promised in the guide books but not delivered. On our last evening we walk to a square a few blocks north where there was a local show and market thinking we could find decent food- but yet again it was stalls of empanadas, taco’s and other unintelligible Mexican fare. We meet up yet again with the Kiwis – just shows how few tourists there are around – we keep seeing people we have met before which is nice. We were musing on just what we could eat when they told us to walk north a few yards on Paseo de Montejo, where there were some nice restaurants. We had been searching for these, had not found them so were a little sceptical. But lo and behold a whole new Merida opened up – stylish bars, pavement cafes, boutique hotels……. It turned out that this street was designed to rival Paris’ Champs Elysee, when Merida had more millionaires than any city in the world. It was once rich on the sisal trade. We found the new hotel Rosas y Xocolate – perfect! We were amazed and delighted to have decent wine, good service and fab food, followed by a drink on the roof terrace overlooking the stylish promenaders below! We even got a Brussels sprout with our perfectly grilled steaks. Moral of the story – if the guide books say it is a stylish city make the effort and look for it first night – don’t wait till the last!

We then choose to take the few blocks back to the main square where dancing in the streets was promised by a slightly less sophisticated route – we had been a bit sniffy about the rather sweet and highly decorated horse and cart “tourist trap taxis” that are around – we chose a rather fetching one with an array of yellow and blue dried flowers – not sure if we looked like Jordan at her wedding or contestants on Mr and Mrs. At least horses looked well fed, which was just as well, as suddenly so were we.

The eight hour journey that passed in the wink of an eye.....(23 December 2009)

….. for some. We got to the bus station an hour ahead of time – waiting rooms don’t feature here so we ended up sitting on the dusty pathway trying desperately to understand the departures information. Think of the usual British Rail incomprehensible announcements but also in Mexican accented Spanish – am sure you understand our issue! The eight hour overnight bus from Palenque to the warmer plains and Merida, some 346 miles was something like a usual British Airways flight. First of all it was late – about an hour so it was well past midnight when we left. It was quite like premium economy as the seats went back a bit further than World Traveller and the leg room wasn’t too bad. And the turbulence was so bad all the way, no drinks or anything were served! Actually there wasn’t a trolley service but it was really bumpy for the whole time, just like a bad flight. Mexican roads, even these main ones are full of potholes and speed bumps so the driver speeds up, slows down over the bumps and a mile or so later the whole thing is repeated, again and again ad infinitum…. There was one other difference to a flight too – five times during the trip, we were stopped and searched by a variety of police and army – the last stop was conducted by two army guys, complete with machine guns. One stood at the front of the bus by the driver, machine gun aloft, and the other, machine gun by his side strolled slowly up and down the bus giving us all searching looks. Oh, and to add to the disruption of the night we stopped at two other places where passengers got on and off. But the other similarity to a BA flight is that Ant slept the whole way – he always says turbulence rocks him to sleep, and that is what happened! He didn’t even wake at each search stop, so poor Gill had to cope with machine guns alone! He went to sleep before we had pulled out of Palenque bus station, woke up sleepily at the Campeche stop for at least thirty seconds, and then was finally woken at 8.15am when his watch alarm went off (it does this every day and our joint technical skills can’t sort it out…..) He sleepily turned off the alarm about thirty seconds before we turned into Merida bus station. So from now on he has no excuse to always travel business as “I won’t get any sleep in economy….” holds no water any longer. Gill on the other hand was awake all night, so now has an excuse to have to go first in future!


So we arrived safely in Merida, the cultural capital of the Yucatan peninsula. It’s Xmas eve so click this link for our Xmas greeting….. (take care it’s almost as bad as “Crazy”!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLLSxmbNtSw

Hippy hang out in the jungle (December 22 - 23 2009)

We are getting so used to long mini bus shuttles, but at least today’s was punctuated with a few stops. We dropped from 2300m to 80m above sea level, the mountain scenery was great as we descended. Maize fields, small villages, banana groves. This road was the MX199 - which is notorious for highway hold-ups, but we made it!

First stop was Agua Azul, a series of stepped waterfalls, a nice shade of blue. Pretty, a tad touristy and to be honest we’d both seen waterfalls before. The same can be said for stop two, which was Misol Ha – a high waterfall, that had a walkway behind it which was fun, in the green steep sided valley.

We made it to Palenque by mid afternoon and had already decided not to stay in town but in the jungle. We didn’t pre book (you couldn’t!) but we landed on our feet at Ed and Margerita’s, part of a hippy commune known as El Panchan. We were dropped on the main road and had to make our way up a dirt track deeper and deeper into the jungle! But we got delightful little rooms up another dark windy path, a stream on one side. It had a great vibe and we spent the afternoon swapping traveller’s tales in the communal restaurant called Don Mucho which serves the best pizzas in the jungle! We loved the live music, little stalls selling home made hippy jewellery and we are glad to report that the rum and orange juice was up to standard.

The real reason we are here is to visit one of Mexico’s main archaeological sites, those of Palenque. We flagged down a collectivo on the road to take us there. Bearing in mind neither of us are that interested in ruins, we took it slowly but didn’t bother with the guide. But to be fair they are 1400 years old and in quite good nick, and the parkland and jungle surrounding them very well kept. We even had Gill clambering up steep steps like a mountain goat (well perhaps that’s pushing it a bit far…..). After three hours, lunch called!

We have met up again with Emma and Elliot and Chris and Emily (salsa piquante experts!) who have been travelling the same route. (see pics).  The recommended one was Chimay Salsa Habinero Amarillo Extra Piquante - look out for it in Tesco's....  We are sitting here having just finished dinner before we go for the bus and an “artisan” has just come around selling home made chocolate and biscuits – expensive but good.. All made from locally grown chocolate. Must go, the bus is due to leave at 11.35 pm!

Gorillas in the mist (December 20/21 2009)

Whilst we were in San Cristobal de las Casas, we were obviously gluttons for punishment. It was cold enough here, but on the Sunday we climbed yet another 300 metres (well in another minibus, not on foot…). To add insult to injury it rained all day as well. But we are nothing if not intrepid and went on the visit to two of the local indigenous villages. Zincantan was fine but a bit boring – they are quite shy people so you could only go to one “house” were surprisingly there was a shop…. But we saw the old backstrap weaving and went in the kitchen where the women were cooking over the open fire – Ant enjoyed the tortillas they cooked. We also tried “Posh” the alcoholic drink used in their Chrisitian/Mayan strange religious world in which they live. Each village also has its own way of dressing, these were in the usual wrap round skirts, floral tops etc all heavily embroidered.

But nothing could have prepared us for the second village – San Juan Chamula, it was either the Planet of the Apes or this blog title- and the rain had made it misty. The men were all dressed in the most strange gorilla like costumes, white or black depending on their position in the hierarchy. The women wore skirts of the same matted fleece but I guess it kept them warm. It was market day and the fruit, veg and flowers all looked amazing – if Ant could have spoken Mayan he would have been asking for tips for the plot! But stranger things were afoot. The Mayan Gods were shining on us yet again and there was a fantastic ceremony going on in the church. It was so unlike any Christian church – even though there were Saints everywhere and Mary’s galore, there was a lot of Mayan going on. At the back of the church were pairs of people kneeling and lighting candles of different heights and colours. One person was the patient, the other the healer. The patient tells the healer what the problem is and then is advised on which candles to light and in what order and a miracle cure is produced. It’s also quite polite to burp lots to get rid of spirits so everyone is carrying and quaffing bottles of coke and fanta….. At the front of the church the big celebration was going on. No idea what it all meant, but involved loads of the men dressed in their “gorilla” suits, the most fantastic bunches of lilies being waved around in homage to the saint who was on the altar. But what they do here is dress their Saints in the local dress so said saint was also is a gorilla outfit, and along with his white turban was a clear double of Osama bin Laden….. And then he was paraded out of the church to the sounds of a brass band and fire crackers…… Another bizarre moment !

Next day rather than up we went down through the fog to the Sumidero Canyon – you know the drill, boats, life vests, river, birds, caymans, steep kilometre high cliffs, canyon, blah blah blah…. It was just after this that we were dropped off in a town somewhere in Mexico for a random hour and we realised we had no clue as to where we were – not even the name of the town. So we went to the ATM hoping that our bank statements would tell us where we had been!

Shivering in Mexico (18 - 21 December 2009)

Is this Austria or Mexico? You can forget any pre-conceived ideas of scorched Mexican landscapes and adobe villages. We were 2.3km up in the Chiapas highlands, where very cold nights are the norm ( as in almost freezing)!! Gill shivered for 4 days! And wore a record six layers of icebreakers! Our very first drink in Mexico was mulled wine, with tapas!!
Not only was it nippy, but it rained a lot to, so San Cristobel de las Casas wasn’t a highlight of the trip, we did however, have some fun. We also, met some really nice fellow travellers, which is a by-product of the shuttle minibuses. A Kiwi couple, a couple of Dutch girls who live here and a pair from Camden.
San Cristobal de las Casas is a Spanish colonial 16th century highland town, Similar to Antigua de Guatemala in that it is on a grid system, pretty squares with bandstands, many large churches, convents and single storey houses. It is however, much more advanced than Antigua, better shops, restaurants, services, traffic etc – an easier place to live, but a less interesting place to visit.
We have noticed that finding Mexican food is tricky as night one, knackered we settled for an Argentine parilla. It was a lucky choice as right outside the door was the destination for the nightly processions ( posada) that occur for the nine nights up to Christmas. Mary on a donkey, carols, sparklers, Mariachi bands the works – much more genteel than Guatemala and no fire crackers.
Our hostel, slightly away from the centre was La Gite del Sol, it was clean and secure but suffered from incredible traffic noise.
On day one, Gill was under the weather (altitude sickness she reckons …..), so Ant was left to explore alone. The town was fun to wander around, with lots of coffee and cake breaks and it was a two pizza day – which must stop. Lots of silver and amber shops, fabulous churches, Cerro de San Cristobal was a climb of 284 steps, which at this altitude was a struggle.

Our favourite hang out joints were all on Calle de Guadeloupe:
Italian Coffee Shop – lattes obviously
La Vino de Bacca – fab, happening little wine bar, where we got the vino caliente, popcorn and tapas
Terra A - the Zapanista supporting café, where even Jesus in the nativity scene was dressed as a terrorist!
On our last night and upon the unprompted recommendation of a number of fellow travellers we attended a performance of Palenque Rojo – a spectacular modern dance representation of a famous Mayan event from 700AD, it was entirely in Mayan – so we had gone for the spectacle! Our Spanish is improving, but Mayan is a language too far.
We had ‘done’ SCDLC and so were ready to leave after four nights and so at 6am on Tuesday 22 Dec we took the seven hour shuttle (for shuttle, read cramped mini bus) back to sea level, the plain and some warmth.

Ten hours to Mexico (18 December 2009)

Pin Alert.... A new pin to Ant - Gill's already got this on!

A seven o’clock start saw us clamber into our rather small mini van for our 10 hour run across the border from Guatemala to Mexico. Our “hostel to hostel” van was a tight fit we thought, till it got even worse as we collected a few more passengers along the way. The bags all piled on the roof. The trip was made longer than normal by various diversions due to landslides, road works and power cables down. For most of the journey we followed the Trans – American highway that runs from Alaska to Ushuia in Argentina. Ant had been to the extreme southernmost point, The Guatemalan part of the trip was all maize fields, green hills, terraced cultivation and avocadoes, the Mexican side, better roads, larger fields and then the mountains – pine forests and deep ravines. As usual we were well prepared. We had nothing…. The drivers just want to get there and back – they don’t stop for anyone, lunch or toilets. One driver took us to the border where we disgorged into the frantic border town of La Mesilla – a real frontier town with a rough market selling all sorts of tat and money changers everywhere. Gill’s expectation of a Heathrow style duty free were not realised – it was mayhem. Favourite sight was a mangy looking dog wandering around with half a fish in its mouth, given we were as far from the sea as it’s probably possible to be in Mexico it was an odd sight indeed! We had to walk the 500 metres or so across no man’s land (think of the view – Gill like a big red tortoise (see pic). We then get into the Mexican bus and there is an unsightly scramble for the best seats….. We managed reasonable ones we couldn’t face a few more hours on a jump seat – so we forgot all our British reserve and went for it. Our travelling companions were an eclectic mix. They included three very loud Americans who had come from San Pedro (the Lake’s druggie village) – think they were still on something from the night before. Poor Ant was next to 2 Portenos from Argentina – but the were in the hippy uniform and had obviously decided not to wash their hair for the last few months…. Interestingly, we saw them when we arrived playing a guitar in a bar and flogging their home made jewellery – one way to pay for the trip…. The one nice couple were two from New Zealand who are staying in the same hostel as us… We were still starving at the Mexican border – we had eschewed the money changers as “robbers” and fully expected an ATM at Mexico immigration. But we were disappointed. Not a peso to our name we continued staving and dehydrating all the way to San Cristobel de las Casas, high in the Mexican mountains. First port of call the ATM and a drink! It tasted good.

Chi chi chi chi bang bang (17 December 2009)

Gok Wan would be in seventh heaven, bangers everywhere – but more of that later ! Today we go the largest market in Central America at Chichicastanengo, known in these parts as Chichi. The van we went in reminded us of the one from the film bouncing along, The highlands were covered with small maize fields and tiny villages. Chichi was about an hour’s drive away, which was enough for us as we sitting in the jump seats of the van.

We hit a traffic jam on the outskirts of town and had to walk the rest of the way. This was great news as the jam was caused by a local festival/carnival that was parading through the town, The streets were lined with people, mostly in traditional dress ( which they all do anyway), beauty queens on the back of pick ups, marching bands, loads of balloons, colour, fun and of course, bangers and fire crackers, banging everywhere and making Gill jump every time! The bands were playing a variety of tunes from Felice Navidad to Rudolf the Red Nose reindeer in Spanish! There was exuberance and smiling faces all round – the streets were five deep of local people from the villages around, celebrating together. We were two of a handful of tourists – all the books say this is a genuine market but overrun with tourists – maybe we got lucky, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was a privilege to be somewhere where everyone was in local dress because that is what they wear, rather than for show.

We spent the morning walking around the market, the touristic stalls were mainly selling woven fabrics in bright Mayan colours . They were mostly lovely, but what to do with them? So purchases were limited to a few trinkets. The locals areas were much more interesting, in the way that only third world markets can be. Ant especially loved the mountains of chillies.
The church of San Thomas, built in 1540 overlooks the market square and is the centre of the community – it was all you would expect. The steep, uneven steps, painted white were full of flower sellers, people burning incense and resin and we had to pick our way through to get into the church. Inside was probably the most beautiful church Ant had ever seen (andhe doesn’t do churches….). It was naively simple decorated for Navidad, whitewashed, candles everywhere flickering away, a woman making her way up the aisle on her knees. The nativity scene all set up in its glory, but awaiting the baby Jesus, as all nativity scenes are in this part of the world. He is delivered (in more ways than one!) on Xmas eve. This brings us back to bangers! They are everywhere as local women seem to walk round with a child firmly attached suckling happily as she gossips away.
It was obviously a bad day for the traders – as we sat in the minibus to leave, a number of beggars came up – one really old lady almost sang in her pathos “mi tengo nada” (“I have nothing”) – we thought it was Shirley Bassey in disguise!