Blogs from Mexico, North America - page 718

So convinced of his less than popular reception throughout Mexico, the new mexican president Felipe Calderón banned alcohol until midnight for his inaugural day in office. Quite rightly he supposed many that mexicans would drink all day; would let off fireworks through the night; and that others would riot. He was wrong in thinking that an alcohol ban would be upheld. At a restaurant in the colonial city of San Cristobal de Las Casas we discovered the alcohol ban when looking to order some cervesas with our meal. When we learnt the reason for the ban we immediately drew our conclusions about the new president and pressed the staff that whilst we were apaulled at the presidents first act, a couple of cervesas were not going to drive us to take up arms. After five minutes, ... read more

Hi guys, So we´ve made it safe and sound except yet to see a beach or to make it to any site seeing, is only our second day but argh!! Very frustrating because we just arrived by bus to Tulum yesterday and planned to just head to the beach and chill out today but its pouring with rain ' oh well ' so Dougs has headed off to check the bus times to head to the border of Belize but this means we miss the Coba ruins - they´re supposed to be great. Must buy a picture instead. So I hope everyone´s well and a slight word of warning for anyone coming over here LEARN SPANISH IT WILL MAKE IT HEAPS EASIER!... read more

Queue Palenque, much hyped Mayan city in the jungle. Unlike Calakmul, Palenque has an extensive tourist network set up around it, together with the hordes of coach trips, hawkers and touting tour guides. Getting past all the hype and hullabaloo to try to enjoy the ruins can prove a bit tricky. We had arrived, courtesy of the only bus out of Xpujil serving Palenque at 3-30am more or less. Despite our best efforts we had not managed to penetrate the Mexican long distance telephone calling system to reserve accomodation (just like Xpujil we comprised Keith, Anna and me). So we were arriving unexpected and not knowing which hostel or hostel or cabañas had a 24hr reception. We tried the much touted El Panchan, but there was no one on recpetion at Maragarita & Ed Cabañas. We ... read more

Travelling in earnest now on the excellent mexican coach services. Seats need to be booked, luggaged checked in the hold and in flight movies everywhere you go. The journey down to Xpujil (pronounced Ish-pu-heel) went very smoothly arriving in 4 hours (against the 8 hours it had said on the timetable). A barely one horse town, Xpujil is the stopping off point for the ruins of Calakmul and other smaller, though no less remarkable ruins in and around Reserva de la Biosfera Calakmul. The Reserva de la Biosfera Calakmul is a biosphere reserved to protect the rain-forest and its wildlife in a vast tract of jungle bordering Guatemala. The wildlife apparently includes jaguars, pumas, ocelots and spider monkeys, though all we got to see were wild turkeys! However it makes a fanatasic backdrop for the ruins. ... read more

I am sitting here in a Mexican internet shop with many people around me; let’s just say that the smell in here isn’t the best. Everyone must have eaten some Taco’s or bad burritos. Never the less it is internet that I can use for the moment, and its only 2 $. Here is the latest update. We have all passed our Safety tests and now are well on our way to be seamen, hahaha get your minds out of the gutter´. We have seen some great sights as the past trips through Catalina and Ensenada have been with great weather. Today we went on a tour as it was the first day in 16 days that we have had off so I’m exhausted yet excited. The group of us went to the Fox studios on ... read more