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Published: October 10th 2007
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The main pyramid
Chichén Itzá, Mexico Hi all,
Well, I´m still in Mexico, although this part of my adventure ends on Saturday and I´m just about ready to move on now. Don´t get me wrong, I´m still having a great time, but I feel it´s time to meet a new set of people now (and my new roomate is very much into doing his own thing, so I´m finding myself on my own quite a bit).
After a couple more nights in Playa del Carmen, we headed off early on Monday morning for the Mayan ruins of Tulum. Whilst these were far from the most impressive ruins that we´ve seen, they did benefit from a stunning location, right on the Caribbean coast. After wandering around for an hour in the searing heat, we took advantage of this and had a refreshing dip in the sea before heading back to Playa. I´m not sure if it was caused by moving from freezing air-conditioned hotels and vans to the boiling heat outside, but I felt feverish and fluey during the night and didn´t sleep a wink.
In the morning, we left Playa del Carmen and visited the Mayan ruins at Chichén Itzá , one of the
Me outside the ruins
Chichén Itzá, Mexico new Seven Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was a large and interesting site, but in my opinion, not as impressive as Tikal (where we had the sunrise that never was), and it's probably the wonderfully-preserved main pyramid that swung the vote. It didn't help that by this time I was feeling awful, and that our guide wasn´t the best (we found out afterwards that he neglected to show us half the site). Also, there were hundreds of indigenous people hassling us to buy their goods, which spoilt things a bit.
We then had a 4 hour wait for the bus to Mérida, and by the time I got there, I was practically begging Chimi to take me to a pharmacy. Still, priorities first, he hadn´t finished drinking his beer or arranging his sex life for later that evening yet, so I still had another hour of sweating and shivering before I could finally buy some medicine! As we walked back from the pharmacy, through the main town square, a guy had a large telescope pointing at the sky and was charging a few pesos for a view of Jupiter. I saw four of
its moons as well as some of the lines on its surface, so that was pretty cool.
Mérida is the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán, but, given that I now had the joys of diarrhoea to add to my man-flu, I didn´t experience it in all its glory. In fact, I was sitting in the town square watching the world go by when I had this great urge to run back to the hotel and take some Immodium before I had an accident!
On Thursday, we had a nine-hour bus ride to Palenque, and fortunately the pills I bought had done their job and I felt fine. The main, or should I say only, reason for visiting Palenque is the presence of more Mayan ruins, which were just up the road from our hotel which was situated in the middle of a rainforest. Smaller in size to Tikal, the ruins were nonetheless very impressive, and our guide took us for a walk in the rainforest to show us how little of the site has actually been excavated - most of it still lies beneath the trees.
The following day we took what we were lead
Mayan ruins
Palenque, Mexico to believe would be a private van to San Cristóbal de las Casas, but turned out to be packed full of other tourists, so we were ripped off a bit there. On the way, we stopped off at a couple of waterfalls which, on a normal day, are a stunning blue and great for swimming in. Unfortunately, this wasn't a normal day. It had chucked it down the night before and the falls were a lovely shade of chocolate, and the current was way too fast for swimming, so it turned out to be a bit of a wasted day really, expecially as San Cristóbal de las Casas turned out to be a lovely city, one in which I would have love to have spent more time.
The city is located in the Mexican state of Chiapas, in the central highlands, 2100m above sea level, and the temperature there was much cooler than we´ve been used to, which was a welcome relief compared to the heat and humidity of Palenque. It´s a lovely city to walk around, full of old colonial buildings, cafes, and lots of indegenous people walking around in their traditional costumes trying to sell things. There
Waterfall
Palenque, Mexico was a local election going on this weekend, which meant no alcohol could be sold for two days, as otherwise the locals would drink rather than vote. It didn't bother me too much, but Chimi was devastated - apparently this is normally a good party town! I still don´t know how he coped.
Yesterday, we had a trip to a couple of local Mayan villages, Chamula and Zincantan, where we learned about the local customs and way of life. In these remote mountainous villages, the people speak their own Mayan language (Spanish is the second language) and dress in their colourful costumes, with each village having a different costume. They are very poor villages with around a 35% literacy rate, but they are very happy people who don't want much to do with the rest of Mexico. They refuse to change their clocks with the rest of the country, preferring to stay on ´God´s time', so they were an hour behind the rest of us whilst we were there. There was a religious festival going on, which meant men riding horses through the market square, and others letting off very loud firecrackers (I'm sure I wasn't the only person
Night lights
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico who thought they were being shot at when I first heard them, this being near where the armed revolutionary group the Zapatista are based).
We also visited a local church which was very different to a Christian church in that it had no seats, pine leaves were scattered on the floor, and a 'medicine man' was waving a chicken in the air above some candles before wringing its neck (which unfortunately we didn't get to see).
Our tour guide was a very passionate, enthusatic man, partly of Mayan descent, who told us how he became sceptical about the local customs when he was growing up, but his mum kept on proving that the local remedies and potions really worked. He also spoke strongly against the American Jehova's Witnesses and Mormons, etc, who have been trying to convert the local people to Chistianity. It was undoubtedly the best tour of the trip so far, and precisely the reason why I go travelling, to learn about and experience different cultures first hand.
What capped it was a lovely deaf old lady who was selling woven goods on the street. I bought a bracelet for 1 peso (5 pence), and
Nice colours
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico in return she allowed me to take her photo. When I showed it to her she gave a little jig of delight! I don´t think I've ever seen anyone so happy, and bearing in mind how poor she was, as well as being deaf, it warmed my heart.
OK, soppiness over.
Last night at 10.45 we took a 12-hour ride on an overnight bus to Oaxaca. I hardly slept a wink, mainly due to the fact that my roommate Ariel, who was sitting next to me, decided he wasn´t going to even try and sleep for the first few hours and had his reading light on, which was nice. But around 4 hours into the journey, the bus started to skid and came to a halt with a thud. It wasn´t immediately obvious what happened, but it turned out we'd hit a cow! The windscreen was completely smashed, and the front of the van was a mess, so I can only imagine the state of the cow! Luckily, we managed to continue with the journey and arrived here around 11am, so I´m off to get some sleep before dinner.
Speak soon,
D x
Night scene
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico
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Annie D
non-member comment
Chicken Barbeque!
Another good blog to make me smile in the morning... the Chicken barbeque in the church made me smile... it's probably how KFC started in the 'Deep South'! stay safe... hugs Annie x