After a day of travel and another spent chilling, I spent the next one a little more actively. First off I visited the Castillo de San Felipe, built and rebuilt numerous times, it´s main purpose being the area´s main defense against pirates. It also served as a prison at one point, it is interesting as Guatemala isn´t the first place you think of when you think of castles. But in many ways the history is more interesting the actual site. After another bumpy, crowded bus ride on a typically nackered ex-US school bus I arrived in El Estor, promised a beautiful [View Full Entry]

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From Palenque I took a crowded collectivo to Tenosique with a small girl asleep on my side, the mother seemed happy as long as I was. Frustated by the seemingly way out-of-date bits and pieces, and the general confusing nature of my guide-book, I managed to find a much cheaper, quicker and easy border crossing point than the one they mentioned. I came across it accidently by asking locals who were dumbfounded by why I would want to cross the way the guide suggested. Very much proving the point that it is only a rough guide (thought not actually a Rough [View Full Entry]

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After a long, tedious bus journey bus (speed bumps in all of the many villages) I eventually arrrived in Palenque. However, the road was through lush jungle and numerous Indigenous villages and it´s interest couldn´t be denied but a long bus journey is a long bus journey and I´ve done many in my time. With this being a fairly major road with steep cliffs either side, one rising the other falling, the imaginative folk had built road sides stalls on stilts in order to reclaim some of the lost slope and allow them to catch the passing trade. They looked kinda [View Full Entry]

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Having been informed that the security situation and openess to visitors can be a little suspect in the villages surrounding San Cristobal, I booked on a tour. First up, was Zinacantan, and a indigenous house where one women was weaving away and our guide expained how their clothes, traditionally with limited colours due to the natural dyes available and later with more colours from synthetics, were made. They also showed as the traditional way of making tortillas (much the same as you see in town) and the local drink alcholic drink Posh (normally forbided for outsiders to drink, but with mone [View Full Entry]

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Wanting to see more small town life I hopped on to a bus to the above with no real idea of what was there. Two hours later, up a slow road I reached the town and it´s community ran tourist office. I said I wanted to do some trekking and after paying 50pesos for some reason and armed with a basic handrawn map they drove me to the entrance. The track seemed basically a farm track, and although it was all very natural and attractive, it seemed to lack any particular focus to make it more than pleasant. A little dismayed [View Full Entry]

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In the morning I got a bus out the town of Mitla, best known for its ruins mixed into the towns. However there was also some kind of religous event going on at the time, which I had probably suspect was the Guadalope (excuse the spelling) celebrations in hindsight, though I don´t recall the exact date. I had already noted the Mexicans had a bit of a soft spot for the old Virgin Mary, with Jesus not seeming as popular figure to depict. Maybe the image of a caring mother over a guy in agony slowly dying is preferable. Anyway this [View Full Entry]

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The bus rode through some beautiful landscape en route to Oaxaca, glorious mountainous landscape, with cacti taking the place of trees. After a while the land flattened and lost some of its interest. At this point my mind drifted on how to liven up my trip a bit. Slow progress with the Spanish had been frustrating me, which so many of my plans and options revolved around. Uncertainty over what to do about work and a general concern about spending too much time and money drifting from city to city and not seeing the more interesting and less accessible places. I [View Full Entry]

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Puebla to Tehaucan: I think the guy at the bus terminal found it hard to believe that I didn´t really have a clue on how to say the namen of the place I wanted to go to (Tay-woo-can, more or less). Hence he emphaised to me where I was at the moment, just to avoid any confusion. I found this just a tad patronising, thinking along the lines of just because I don´t speak your language all that well, I´m not stupid. Although saying this I remember a guy in Argentina telling me how people had frequently got off at either [View Full Entry]

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The Little things: One of the great interests in travelling is the little things. The frequency of opportunities to part with money is definetly one thing. Whether it is Indigenous Mothers with a small child asleep on their lap or to their side, selling supposebly hand-made goods, Mexican guys selling tack; cheaply made little toys, keyrings, battery powered cars etc. The sort of thing with about a five minute lifespan before disappearing deep into a drawer not to be seen again until you move house. Particularly in Markets and especially in Mexico City the take-away stand seems popular he [View Full Entry]

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My last few days in Mexico City passed reasonably uneventfully. However, one personal highlight was seeing the Diego Rivera Museum, having been greatly interested by the other work I had already seen of his around the city. The sole mural in the Museum was a huge ´who´s who´ of Mexican History. A cross-section of over 60 figures, some actual people such as Benito Juarez and Hernan Cortes, others representive of different types of people in society across the ages. It´s a fascinating piece of work, well thought out, greatly enhanced with some basic knowledge of Mexican history (easily picked [View Full Entry]

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