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Published: September 14th 2008
6th September - San Cristobal
Had a little explore of San Cristobal - very pretty, colourful colonial city. Found a temple in the morning with a view over the city - lots of golden Jesuses everywhere. Had breakfast at Fanny´s Cafe, just because.
Everywhere is covered in Mexican flags and there are sombreros on sale at every corner in preparation for Independence day on the 15th. Then, having laughed at the ridiculous amount we bought in Chichi we managed to stumble across another market and yes, bought more stuff. It´s so garishly colourful we cant help but be attracted to everything!
Spent a very cultured afternoon in the Na Bolom museum learning about a Mayan tribe. Museum was in an old mansion where 2 Danish explorers lived. They discovered the tribe and then dedicated their whole lives to helping them and working with them. The Danish lady was really amazing and was still making trips into the Jungle to visit the tribe at the age of 96. We were all very impressed and slightly upset that we would probably never achieve that much, or get her amazing wardrobe.
Had a couple of bottles of wine that evening to
help us on our 15 hour overnight coach journey to Oaxaca. It worked.
7th September - Oaxaca
Arrived feeling slightly confused and dazed, didnt help when we arrived at an empty hostel with no one working there and were greeted only by very hungover smelly travellers.
Spent the day wandering around Oaxaca, another pretty city. We followed our ears to the main square where there was a big band playing music and a big procession going on in the cathedral. Oaxaca is famous for its Chocolate so we felt that it was only right that we throw ourselves fully into the culture and try many many free samples. Its freshly made from ground cocoa beans, almonds and sugar and we can confirm that it is justifiably famous. Spent the rest of the day feeling quite sick but dont worry - theres some coming home for you all.
Had another over night bus to do that night so we killed a few hours at the cinema before embarking on another mammoth journey.
8th September - Zipolite
Another dazed and confused arrival at 6.30 am. Stepped into the blinding sun to have TAXI TAXI shouted in our
faces - all very confusing. Got in a collectivo - a pick up truck with benches in the back - we travel like real locals nowadays.
Zipolite is on the Pacific coast and is one of Mexicos only nudist beaches. We spotted one single naked man in a hat as soon as we arrived who was positively striding up and down the beach looking very proud of his all over tan. Slung our hammocks up on an open balcony overlooking the sea. The waves were absolutely HUGE here, never seen anything like it. You would be standing ankle deep and then 2 seconds later be completely submerged - the pull was so strong we all got thrown around quite a lot. After lunch our 2 overnight journeys got the better of us and we all fell asleep on top of each other in a hammock at a restaurant guarded by our trusty new dog friend. Woke up with some amused Mexicans staring at us.
Went out for Pina Coladas with a Pacific sunset backdrop - after a few more cocktails ended up making friends with the Nudist guy, now wearing some clothes, Andres (sounds like undress in Spanish
much to his amusement) He was really nice and showed us the best restaurant in town. Fell asleep in our hammocks with the crashing of waves in the background.
9th, 10th, 11th Septemeber - Puerto Escondido
Having all used the great washing facilities consisting of a bucket in a cupboard we werent feeling too fresh and then embarked on a sticky journey to our next beach stop. Had to actually prise our dog friend off the side of the collectivo - very sweet!
Puerto Escondido is another beach town, famous for its surfing. Not exactly swimming friendly - still cant paddle past your ankles without being swept straight out to sea. Gorgeous beach and had a very lazy afternoon sunning ourselves. Made friends with the guys who own the hostel and some Irish girls who invited us out with them. We tried the local delicacy - coffee flavoured Mezcal (a strong version of Tequila) and then spent the evening learning to Salsa with Mexican men who were embarrassingly good and made us feel sweaty and uncoordinated.
Feeling slightly wobbly the next morning (apparently the Mezcal does that) we had yet another lazy day on the beach
Lagoon Swimming
Unfortunately you cant actually see the algae..but you can see us insteadand went for a beautiful sunset walk in the evening. That evening when it was dark we went on a very exciting trip to the nearby Lagoons. We got in a boat and went out onto the Lagoon in the moonlight, it was just the 3 of us and the guide. The lagoons are full of phosphoresing algae which glow when you move through them. The trails of water behind the boat lit up in a silver blue glow - really magical. Then we got into the water and swam. It really was incredible having your limbs lit up by blue flames as you moved through the water and then the algae runs off you in sparkling streams when you get out. It was so enchanting. We all pretended to be in Harry Potter and cast spells on each other with our green flame hands before reluctantly climbing back into the boat.
As we were in such a famous surf spot we decided to try our hand at surfing. Nervously eyeing the humongous waves we climbed into the truck of Roger, the coolest and most famous surf dude in town apparently. He took us to a beautiful secluded bay
where the sea was thankfully less terrifying and skipped out the hours of jumping around on the beach that English surf lessons seem to consist of and chucked us straight in the sea with boards. It seemed to work though because we all managed to stand up a few times surprisingly quickly! Was great fun and feeling like officially cool surf chicks we went out with our new surfing buddies that evening.
12th September - Acapulco
Decided to break up the journey to Mexico City with a quick stopover in Acapulco. Long boring day of coach journey and then arrived in the glitzy, sky scrapered town of Acapulco. We decided to treat ourselves and splash out on a posh hotel (cost a whopping 20 quid for a night) As we drove to our hotel we were all hanging out of the taxi window gawping at all the lights and huge buildings - then realised we felt like George of the Jungle when he first goes to a city so we tried to calm down a bit. But arriving in our marbled hotel foyer and having our disgustingly scruffy rucksacks portered up to our room was almost too much
for us. Stared in wonder at the sparkly bathroom and played with the air con for a few hours.
Treated ourselves to room service breakfast in bed the next morning and then spent a few hours by the pool. Bliss!
13th, 14th, 15th, 16th September - Mexico City
Our last coach journey, our last bus station, our last destination - it´s all getting very sad and nearing the end. We can´t believe we´ve only got a few days left. The city of 25 million people was less overwhelming than we´d expected. Only took us an hour of driving through traffic-packed streets with a grumpy taxi driver huffing and puffing in Spanish to find our Hostel. Bit of a scary bar man at the hostel who tried to force us all to do Tequila shots while we were writing the blog.
Today we have managed to navigate our way around a large part of Mexico city using the Metro - trains have been very exciting for us as we haven´t seen one for 7 weeks. Went to a huge market this morning - a labyrinth of stalls selling fruits, spices, vegetables, cheeses, chilies, piñatas and flowers. The
senses were assaulted at every turn by a myriad of colours, sounds and smells - felt quite surreal and dream like! Swung through an art market with all sorts of strange paintings then went from there to a large, clean, shiny shopping mall with posh shops. Finished off the day with a stroll around all the stalls selling garish Mexican stuff - flags, jewellery, confetti, bangers. So to fully prepare ourselves for tomorrows festivities we carefully selected 3 very large sombreros, 3 big black fake moustaches and 3 sets of Mexican plag fake eyelashes. Perfect. Wore the sombreros all the way home and had streets full of cars honking at us and shouting ´Viva Mexico!´ out of their windows. Starting to feel really quite patriotic.
Tash xx
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Daddykins
non-member comment
Great story Tash
Hi Tash Just read this, sounds amazing, love the sound of that beach and the sea, especialy falling asleep in the hammock Have just decided to have a party on 4 October, will sort you and hannah train tickets if you want Cant wait to see you, we are all fine although the decking lights have stopped working so I am a little frustrated Lots of love Dad xxx