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Published: December 2nd 2007
¡hola amigos!
Buenos dias from puerto escondido, mexico. So far we (Derek and I) have travelled from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Coast of Mexico, from the yucatan to chiapas and finally to P. Dido. we began our journey in cancun, the tourist town on the east coast, only because the flight was cheap. After booking my flight for the wrong day (a day before Derek´s), and switching it, after a brief period of slight panic, my first of three connecting flights was delayed in Edmonton (due to "engine malfunctions" - after two hours of "maintenance" said flight took off anyway - note to self and others - US Air is not a particularly recommendable airline), and then I had to spend the night in Pheonix while D arrived in mexico by himself, waited at the airport for many hours, and eventually made it to the hostel i booked in cancun. i was put up at a nice hotel in pheonix, where the tropical weather was enough to make up for the three hours spent waiting for the bus in jasper, in sub-zero weather, with no winter clothes to speak of, only several layers of t-shirts. Anyway, boring details (mostly) aside, we stayed in a hostel in downtown cancun, which was extremely nice and almost free, due to mistakes made by the owner on the internet and followed by her employee´s failure to take any money from us when we arrived. downtown cancun is pretty typical of smallish mexican cities, small shops, many touristy ones in this case, lots of rowdy traffic, lots of cement which seems to be the favoured building material here. We took a bus down to the "Zona Hotelera" - a section of beach which the government had designated, a few decades ago, as Mexico´s prime resort destination. The Zona is packed with side-by-side luxury hotels where package tourists and alcholholics lay on the beach or watch t.v. in their rooms. The beaches themselves are quite beautiful, when you can manage to sneak through the lobby of an expensive hotel to get to one. A memorable pina colada was had from one of the hotel bars, which consisted of perhaps a quart of the stuff (as opposed to a later one, which amounted to perhaps a few shots of the stuff for eight american dollars - perhaps it was the fancy garnish that we were paying for?) The water was bright turquoise blue, and calm, the sand white and fluffy, the sun nice and hot. There are many fancy tourist malls in the area, along with bars, restaurants, and souvenier shops. We were out one day, wandering down the road, trying to figure out how to get through one of the really expensive hotels in the area (the marriot, the hyatt, etc.) which had guarded parking lots and would not let us through without a ticket, when a lady came out and offered us a free jungle tour and buffet as a promotion for a new hotel. The catch was that you had to be married and over thirty, which i claimed i was, but due to our lack of id´s we did not get the promotion...we did, however, get escorted through the hotel to the beach, so all in all it was a good deal. We were serenaded by mariachi´s while eating dinner one night, i was trying not to laugh through most of it as D. appeared dismayed...(he claims he wasn´t, which í´m sure was true). Another classic D. moment which occured later: when he said to a wandering vendor "we don´t speak english" (this actually occured twice, and both times the vendor seemed to understand perfectly). Also: "no, please", and "meeeleeeeamo" for "my name is", actually pronounced "me yamo". well, perhaps you had to be there. I amuse myself by making fun of D.s spanish attempts, much to his chargrin. At any rate, after three (i think?) days in cancun, four for D, we caught a bus to Piste, a small town outside of Chichen Itza, the famous Mayan ruins, one of the seven wonders of the world, where our room was damp like a sauna, but the ruins themselves were tall and imposing, with perfect accoustics so that if you clapped in front of one of the pyramids, your clap was echoed back to you perfectly several times, and you could have a conversation, at normal volumes, with someone at the other end of the massive ball court. The losers at the ball court were apparently sacrificed (had their hearts removed). The pyramids were designed for the priests and rulers, and there were smaller dwellings nearby. (don´t worry, there will be pictures, D isn´t as bad as me when it comes to taking them). After chichen itza, we took the bus to what was described as the "beautiful colonial town" of Merida, which was rather unattractive, but mostly we just went from the bus station to our hotel, and ate a pile of greasy mexican food from a street vendor. (Mexican food generally involves heavily fried corn tortillas, beans, eggs, cheese, and salsa, the latter being the best part, the rest, in my opinion, rather gross.) After our brief stay in Merida, we caught another bus for Palenque, near more ruins. We stayed at El Panchan, a series of jungle bungalows, which were really very jungley and cool. A small footpath led to our cabana and it almost felt like we were in the middle of the jungle. We ate at Don Mucho´s every night, which was full of only white people and hippies, and bands playing mexican music, covered by a palm frond roof. Our room was mouldy and dank, and the windows on the bathroom door so low that D and I could look people directly in the face while we were in there..."hey..." was pretty much all you could say. The ruins at Palenque were much more jungle-y, and thus we liked them a lot better. We didn´t see any exotic wildlife though, but we did see some squirrels, which are perhaps exotic in mexico? These ruins weren´t blocked off like Chichen Itza, so you could climb up massive amounts of crumbling steps and wander around in them. There were some creepy burial crypts, and carvings of jaguars, lizards, snakes, and people on the walls. After Palenque, it was the "bus ride of death" to Puerto escondido, 17 hours overnight to Oaxaca and then immediately, practically running, to buy our tickets to p. dido, on a bus which took the "ludicrously long" route, arriving at our destination 10 or 11 hours later, for a grand total of almost 30 hours straight on a bus. It is a wonder we didn´t end up hating each other after that, though we were pretty darn cranky. We caught a cab down to the beach from downtown, bullied by Olga into seeing "Olga´s beautiful casa," which we saw and decided to look for something cheaper. We hadn´t eaten for the whole bus ride, so we went to get dinner, where we asked our waitress about a cheap place to stay. She said she was living in a house for 200 a month. She asked around, and there was a woman who would rent us a room for the same price. So we got a room for 200 US a month with two double beds and a bathroom and actually very nice, only a few minutes from the beach. So we´ve been greatly enjoying ourselves in P. Dido, like lazy bastards. P. Dido is a laid-back surf town, with pleasant little touristy shops, restaurants, and hotels lining the main beach. (did i mention we´re only minutes away from the beach?????) Generally our days go something like this: eat breakfast, go to the beach, sit on the beach, swim, stare, read, repeat for most of the day, until the sun sets, go for dinner, pass out at a generally early hour as there is nothing much to do at night, and repeat again the next day. The waves are very strong here (hence the surfers) so generally we go up to our knees and get buffeted by the waves rather than swimming. The weather is perfect, very sunny and hot, no rain, few clouds. We´ve walked through the main town to check out another beach, and we´ll go snorkelling there as soon as we work up the ambition. We saw a mexican bikini competition on Playa Principal, the main (mexican) beach. We have seen lots of little lizards and some iguanas. Lots of stray dogs, including "The Face of Rabies", a particularly mangy cross-eyed half-eared mutt that has followed us around staring at us like he is possessed. I buried d. completely under the sand and he was struck by a fear that that dog would come and get him while he was helpless.
Anyway, to wrap things up, we will be here another couple of weeks, then my friend Adrianna gets into guatemala city, where she has invited us to spend christmas and new year´s with her. From there we´re going through honduras and nicaragua to costa rica, where we will volunteer at a wildlife reserve-organic farm near Monteverde rainforest and the beach. And from there we fly to Argentina for our last two months in Latin America. But not to think about that now, the adventure has only just begun!!!! I love you all and miss you much, and feel free to pass along any news from Canada. !Buenos dias, te amo todos!
(much love)
Nicole
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Christina Seely
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Typical Nicole travel fun!
Thank you for a classic Nicole travel synopsis. Always highly entertaining! You are having a typical experience so far it appears - somethings going better / worse than expected, finding ways to get deals, memorable animals, hits and misses with the local food, and making helpful connections with those you meet. Can't wait for the next installment!! We wish you both a wonderful journey. Love Chris