Viva Mexico!

O.K. as for me, I left you last installment in Semuc Champey… from there I went to Flores, it was an uneventful tourist minibus, soulless but really convenient, now Flores in itself is nothing much to rave about, it is an almost island on lake Peten, which is quite pretty, though difficult to appreciate after the beauty of Semuc Champey. My visa was due to expire and there were still things I wanted to do in Guatemala so I did what any normal person would do under the circumstances and went diving in Belize.

I caught a bus to Guatemala city and a boat straight out to Caye Caulker, met a brilliant English chick on the way, so we planned to get a room together on arrival, we arrived and met one of those "Ex-patriot alright g'uvnor I'm your man" types, wicked, fixed us up with an Irish and a Scottish girl and we got a really cheap place together, terrific. As luck would have her way, we had arrived on lobster festival weekend! So we ate lobster (seriously every day we were there) it was delicious! Every time!
I had a marvelous few days scuba diving, went to the "blue hole" an undersea cave system, stalagmites and sharks everywhere, it was great fun swimming in and out of the limestone formations, some serious cave diving practice, but I was really glad to get back above the thermocline (freezing). The next dive site was called the aquarium and seriously, I have never seen so many rays in my life, massive mantas, I love the way they swim, like flying through water, they are truly beautiful to watch.
We stopped on another little caye for lunch, the home of… wait for it… RED FOOTED BOOBIES! O.k so not the blue footed ones I've set my heart on going to the Galapagos to see but still, Half moon caye, is the nesting place for hundreds of these birds, the look out is so close you can almost reach out and touch them, i was such a kid in a candy shop… excited!!!! All round an excellent week. How does that Jaques Cousteau guy get it right every time? Not bad for a dead French guy.

I arrived back from Belize in time to find a group hiking to "El Mirador" the next day, great, so I get in on that, we have been warned, about the mud, we have been warned about the mosquitos, we have been warned about the hike, but I'm still game.
The day before the hike begins it rains, the night before the hike begins, it rains. The morning of the hike we are packed into our mini van and heading out into the jungle, we drive till there is no road left and then we (well not we actually some other local type dudes) load up the mules and we head into the jungle proper.
Ah yes, the we, no it's not the royal we, there are six of us in our party, yours truly (defying simple superficial categorisation). Sandra, she is Danish, she is in her last year of med school and an ex-gymnast, she is patient and easy to be around. Rik and Yoyo are Dutch, they are both students and bundles of fun, they live in Amsterdam and act like European big city kids, (aspiring Eurotrash in the nicest sense of the word). Then there are the Germans, the slight pretty almost silent Nadine and her garrulous, bumptious boyfriend Sebastian.
As soon as we pass the sign that declares we have entered the park, a cloud of mosquitos appears, big, black and ominous, I can hear the jaws theme at a high pitched whine in my ears and the mosquito cloud settles in to follow us reminding me exactly of the dust cloud which perpetually follows young Charlie Brown's friend "pigpen" through the "Peanuts" cartoons.
Oh my God, going to the loo was a challenge seriously swarms of mosquitos. Luckily the camp sites were some what less infested then the trails, the Germans went through 5 cans of deet. Anyways, when we finally got to El Mirador we were in luck.
As it is rainy season the archeaologist and his team were working on the site (they can only work two or three months a year in rainy season due to lack of water otherwise) it was great, they showed us around and let us in places and explained stuff, it was great, I actually wouldn't recommend El Mirador to people who aren't real archeaology freaks though as most of the place is still under jungle. The hike is flat but muddy as hell if it rains, apparently the Argentinian ambassador had to wade through chest high mud the week before we went in. Tee hee, but you know me, born under a lucky a star, I had a great trip. Finally dirty, sweaty, muddy, made it back out of the jungle, saw the biggest snake I'd ever seen in my life, loads of spider monkeys, had been awoken by the haunting cries of Howler monkeys and of course saw birds and jaguar footprints. Climbed the biggest (pre-industrial) man made structure in the world, from which you can see nothing but trees in every direction, it must be one of the last places in the world where this is the case! You can see great big mounds under which you know are more pyramids and causeways, and lives lived, it's cool, a whole civilization lived and died here only to be swallowed back into the jungle.

Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

(I know it was written about Ramesses the great in Egypt, but I still got pleasure quoting it here and on the top of the pyramid in El Mirador)


The next day Sandra and I headed for Tikal, we stayed in a tent next to the site so we could see sunrise and sunset, the early morning fog was eerie and cool but there was too much cloud cover for a real sunrise (or set). still it was fabulous to wander round the ruins. I got attacked by a Coatimundi (hillarious) it wanted my snack, but all it did was make a hole in my new raincoat (curses), ah well at least I escaped with my life (tee hee) saw lots of Tucan's, for some inexplicable reason that bird just makes me happy every time I see it, one of my favourite books as a child was about a Tucan. I think that is why they make me so happy, that and the fact that they look totally preposterous!

So then finally I crossed the border into Mexico and threw away all that dodgy paperwork from Honduras, here they are really generous with visas and give you six months on arrival!!! Wow, I am super impressed, and they asked no difficult questions at the border, it was sweet, I blended with all the other tourists (imagine it, me blending, how's that working for ya?).

So Mexcio, first stop Palenque, Yes, more ruins, I am kinda getting over ruins a bit at this stage, but I heard good things so I went, it was very manicured, I don't like my ruins manicured, I like them wild, so maybe EL Mirador is more my thing after all. Having said that the reliefs are amazing here, I went to the museum and the tomb is incredible, carved out of one giant slab of rock, (how on earth did they ever get that thing up the stairs and into the pyramid???). It was definitely the coolest thing about the whole place, I wasn't though very impressed with Palenque town and headed out to San Cristobal las casas as soon as I could.

San Cristobal is fabulous, I fell in love with it immediately, what a cool little town full of funky bars and cafes, bizzare churches and cobblestone streets. Every time I think I have seen everything I walk into another church and there is something even weirder going on. This time it was a baby Jesus, dressed up as a Dr!!?! Yes he even had a stethoscope, white coat and Dr's bag (with the inscription Dr Jesus on it). and the temples here also love the grovelling Jesus, weird, a humiliated crawling Jesus, this time I really have seen everything right?

Then there was the day I spent visiting Sumidero canyon, crocodiles, pelicans, yellow footed storks, iguanas, waterfalls and of course the place where hundreds of Indians threw themselves into the canyon rather than surrender to the Spanish, the stuff legends are made of.

Onwards, I kind of had to move on faster than I wanted at this point as there was a festival happening the next weekend in Oaxaca and I wanted to be there! so I pushed on. When I got here I discovered Oaxaca is even nicer than San Critobal, I love the place, poor old Pachuca is really going to have a lot to live up to. Oaxaca rocks, it has bars, it has dancing and pool playing (yes I brushed off the old cue, and you will be pleased to know I am still as shit as I ever was) but luckily I had met a Scottish lass who absolutely kicked ass (not to mention who has the amazing ability to make men fall in love with her at 50 paces) hillarious to watch, she is amazing!, more churches, the Santo Domingo church is the most baroque over done gold curlicued thing I have ever seen, the art here is so much fun, the dancing, did I mention the dancing (wait breathe N.J., breathe), OMG I am having so much fun, did I mention the mescal, it''s all kinds of flavours here (trust me that does nothing to improve the actual joy of consuming it though). all I can say is FIESTA.


So now I am back in Oaxaca, from the beach, tomorrow I have to wise up, get serious, get on a bus and go get aquainted with my new home, cross your fingers and toes for me.

Besos y abrasos N.J.