Advertisement
Our Mexican adventure started with a bit of a panic! On Monday 14th May, we arrived at the Tecun Uman border crossing at 6pm, having travelled by bus from Xela in Guatemala. Our guidebook reliably informed us it was open 24 hours. It was shut. It was open until 7pm, so the Guatemalan side was open, but since Mexico is on daylight savings time, it had shut 5 minutes before. So we raced to the 24 hour border crossing at Talisman by bicycle taxi, foot, 2 combi van collectivos and a taxi, which makes it sounds a bit hectic, which it was, but luckily in Latin America people actually use public transport, so there’s loads of it and it only took about 1 hour. Kez’s hard earned mexican visa got her in without too many questions, and Nick breezed in with his trusted passport. Another taxi ride got us to Tapachula, where we had our first Mexican Tacos before boarding the night bus to Puerto Escondido. The Norwegian girls we were travelling with were impressed with our quick wits, organisation and taxi bargaining skills during the ad-hoc travelling plans.
Oaxaxa state Puerto Escondido is on the pacific coast
of Mexico, in Oaxaca (pronounced wa-ha-ka) state. There, we met up with Andy, our english friend from Vienna. And it was so great to see him, not only because he had booked us into the great Mayflower hostel, or prepared us melon with Yogurt 5 mins after we arrived. It was really exciting to meet an old friend, catch up with the gossip....um...ooops... news, and get an extra injection of energy from a newly started traveller. He also had a great place for lunch sorted, on Zicatela beach where we could watch the MASSIVE surf waves of the mexican pipeline, up to 4 stories high. We finished off the day with a walk along the beach, the obligatory sundowners, a wicked hamburger from a street stall and some amazing mango daquiris at a beach bar.
On Wednesday, Andy and Nick started their surf lessons on the smaller waves at La Punta. We were great! Both of us surfed pretty well, and Nick even went to the kitchen twice - surfer lingo for surfing the wave all the way to the beach. We had this surfing lark cracked, including the cool handshake. We were swiftly brought back down to earth,
or water, when we decided to practice alone. The waves had died down, were a bit harder to catch and we were left very frustrated. It also didn’t help that we no longer had a teacher to push us onto the waves. The afternoon was spent relaxing in hammocks, before a busy evening of cooking a great bacon pasta and getting hammered on rum.
Our dodgy surfing continued the next 2 mornings, but the few waves we did catch proved that we could do it, it was just the waves were a bit rubbish - even the other surfers said so. It wasn’t just us! Andy was really frustrated by the bad waves though, compounded by the fact that La Punta is a point break, meaning many surfers trying to catch the same few waves in a small place. The final nail in the coffin was when he and Nick got tangled up and Andy got rather uncomfortably dragged along underwater.
We certainly didn’t go hungry in Puerto Escondido. We ate amazing whole fish at the local market, that we guessed was going to be pretty fresh when the restaurant ran across to the fishmongers to buy the fish
that we’d just ordered. We had great local mexican food, especially Nick’s Tlayuda, a filled tortilla local to Oaxaca.
Our last afternoon, on the Friday, was spent at Carrizalillo beach, beautifully situated in a cove with turquoise water, palm thatched bars and great swimming. Sundowners were followed by some amazing nachos, cooked by our fair selves, and a reasonably early night to prepare for the travelling day ahead.
On Saturday 19th May we were up early to get our transfer to Oaxaca city. It was a reasonably hellish 7 hour journey along very windy roads, way up high. Kez was a beautiful green colour most of the way! As soon as we arrived we checked into Hostel Pochon, a very cool hostel that Andy had stayed in a couple of weeks before. After a well deserved late lunch we headed to the main square to soak up the city vibes. Oaxaca is a beautiful old colonial town, the centre has been restored and the little cobbled streets are full of colourful buildings. It is also famous for chocolate and it is where the famous mole (chilli chocolate sauce) comes from. It is normally served with chicken or pork
and has over 30 ingredients in it! Very delicious but sinfully rich! After exploring a bit and watching the local orchestra in the square for a while, we stopped in a little cafe for the obligatory hot chocolate. Again sinfully rich and full of unexpected flavours like almonds and cinnamon. After a mug each, we decided we didn’t need dinner!
The next morning, in the already sweltering heat, we hopped on mountain bikes and headed up a very steep 400m high hill to visit the Monte Alban ruins. It took us about 90 minutes to get there but it was well worth the sweat, and there was enough of it! The ruins are a mixture of Zapotec (AD 300) and Mixtec (AD 1200) and the city was also conquered by the the Aztecs (AD 1600). It is not nearly as famous as some of the Mayan ruins so it was great to be able to walk around without the hoards of people. We then got back on the bikes and cycled for another 90 minutes or so on some great little farm tracks to the little village of Atzompa where they make some of the most beautiful pottery. Luckily
or unluckily it is a bit too heavy to fit in a backpack! In the evening we had a lovely dinner at a restaurant overlooking the square and then went to a cultural dancing show that recreates the dances perfomed during the famous Guelaguetza festival in July. There are 7 regions in Oaxaca state and each one performs a dance. We both even made it onto the stage for different dances and have video evidence to prove it! It might have helped that just before the show we stopped in at a Mezcal shop and sampled all the various types and flavours and got given free straw hats - stylish!
Our last day in Oaxaca we spent exploring the town a bit more, visiting various churches and the craft market and general market - where you can buy the local delicacy of grasshoppers fried in chilli, yummy. And of course we went into too many chocolate shops where you can taste all the different types for free. They sell this incredible mushy chocolate mixture that you can use for hot chocolate or to make mole. Andy bought some and we have since made our own unbelievably good hot chocolate.
We had an amazing 4 course set lunch at a restaurant with a famous local chef for under 4 pounds/ R50. In the evening we caught a12 hour night bus to San Cristobal, a first for Andy but he survived just fine!
The State of Chiapas First exciting activity in San Cristobal, in the state of Chiapas, was a 2 hour nap to recover from the bus ride and then we went to a lovely courtyard cafe for lunch and great cappuccinos. In the afternoon we explored the town, also a beautiful colonial town but a bit more touristy and not as well looked after as Oaxaca city. We visited all the usuals - churches, main square, markets and quaint streets and of course made our usual stop for a fresh fruit juice along the way. After dinner we went to a well known little bar called Revolution for a few drinks. We met these 4 really friendly guys there, all from Mexico except for a guy from Ethiopia who had lived in Mellville (funky area in Joburg just down the road from where Kez grew up) for 9 years. So bizarre. But even more bizarre, the father
of one guy owns the surf shop and restaurant where Nick and Andy took lessons in Puerto Escondido and where we ate lunch. So random. They ended up paying for all our beers, nothing we said could convince them that we really wanted to pay and in the end it would have been rude for us to insist any more than we had already tried to. They just seemed so genuinely pleased to have met us!
The next day we were up early again to take a boat trip up the spectacular Sumadero Canyon. The cliffs are huge and the whole canyon is very impressive. Unfortunately our tour included an hour stop in some random town on the way back and some guys convinced the driver to stop for 90 minutes, which in our opinion was 89 minutes too long. Especially because we had timed our trip to make it back to San Cristobal just in time to watch the Champions League final. In the end we saw the 2nd half and in retrospect there was no reason to rush to watch the game anyway.
In the morning we caught a 6 hour bus to Palenque, site of
some famous Mayan ruins. There was some 50 year old American fruitloop sitting behind us who talked to himself loudly the whole way. A 6 hour soliloquy of the biggest load of trash, mostly swear words. Just what you want on a bus ride. We stayed in a little traveller community called El Panchan halfway between the town and the ruins. Very relaxed atmosphere, perfect for a few beers in the evening, it is incredibly hot here so we needed them!
At 8 we were up and ready to visit the ruins. The earlier the better to avoid the midday heat. We splashed out on a guide to show us around and he was really great. We learnt so many interesting things that we would never have known otherwise and he managed to somehow bring the place to life. After visting all the main ruins with him, we walked down the hill past some of the lesser ruins in the jungle. In the afternoon we went for a walk in the jungle to find a waterfall with pools you can swim in. It took us a while to find them because we were expecting something more but it’s the
end of the dry season so there wasn’t much water. We did find them though, right near the start of the walk and had great fun standing in the water and messing around in the pools.
Tomorrow we head back in Guatemala to visit Tikal ruins on our way to Belize. And then we’ll be back for Mexico round 2!
There are loads of photos in this edition so take a look at the second page too!
Oh and now that 2 have become 3, you could get a fresh perspective on our adventures and take a look at Andy's blog site. He is updating way more regularly than us and has a brilliant sense of humour so you might find his entries slightly less daunting than our epistles. AKA Lord Snipleton III, his blog site can be found at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Snipleton/
Advertisement
Tot: 0.138s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0539s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
