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Just so you don't get confused, yes we are back home in Australia, but the 'blog Jen and Jeff' are still back in Mexico. We were always a few weeks behind on the blog when we were travelling, so why change things now? Palenque Greetings from Palenque, where we are having a great time wandering around this amazing ancient Mayan city. (ok, joke over, back to the past tense.) Jen was still hobbling about with her sore ankle, which meant that she generally stayed at the bottom of each of the temples whilst I scrambled up them in the hot sun and reported back on what I saw. Palenque is known is often talked about as the most romantic of the Mayan ruins and with good reason. Buildings are well preserved, there's a nice creek and waterfall on the site, and some amazing carvings are preserved within the ruins. In fact, it was the discovery of these well preserved carvings when Palenque was unearthed that shed a whole lot of light into Mayan cultures and practices, which furthered the understanding of other ruins throughout the former empire as well. Highlights within the sight were the pyramid and tomb of Pakal,
one of most important rulers, carvings of a shaman smoking some unknown substance, yet another 'ball game court' and an intricate palace with all sorts of rooms, tunnels and carvings in the middle of the site. There was also a great museum on the site housing plenty more restored carvings and models of the site as it would have appeared in its full colour and glory.
The next stops on the same afternoon were a waterfall, followed by Agua Azul - a massive series of pools and small waterfalls along a river. Being school holidays, Agua Azul was absolutely packed with bodies, both in and out of the water. Thankfully we managed a nice swim and found a relatively quiet piece of grass to snooze away a couple of hours in the afternoon, before getting back in the van, then a bus, to San Cristobal de las Casas.
Thankfully Jen had already been to
San Cristobal de las Casas back in 2004, as this time around she was confined to a hotel room and bathroom for most of our stay. In between tending to the patient I took trips wandering about this very pretty, and very busy (still
Mexican holidays) city. San Cristobal shot to world attention on January 1 1994 when the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) or 'Zapatista' rebel arming took the city in protest of the plight of indigenous farmers of soutern Mexico. Today there is little sign of this, with the exception of the many EZLN t-shirts on sale to tourists and a slightly higher than normal military presence. San Cristobal is also at the centre of a coffee growing, so I managed to enjoy a couple while Jen was on a diet of dry crackers and gatorade. Jen takes the lead for the very first time in the trip: Jen 4 - Jeff 3 (you know what I'm talking about).
In
Oaxaca our roles were reversed as I now became sick, though thankfully for a shorter amount of time. Jen kindly showed me the highlights of this town in which she had lived for a month learning Spanish. There was the amazingly active Zocalo (main square), full of cafes, mariachi bands, shoeshiners, and most of all balloon sellers! We had hoped to catch a few local bands on the Saturday night, but unfortunately my condition didn't allow it, so it was
Agua Azul
welcome to school holiday madness!lots of short walks around the block in an attempt to take in some of the city. The scores are level once more at 4-all!
A picturesque afternoon bus ride took us through some classically Mexican terrain - i.e. more cactuses than you could poke a taco at - and brought us into one of the biggest cities in the world,
Mexico City, or 'de effe' (D.F. short for Distrito Federal) as it is locally known. Now we had heard plenty of horror stories about just how dangerous DF could be, but then again we'd been hearing similar stories about every other big city we've been to in the past 12 months! Just one more to survive... And we did. Staying right near the Zocalo, one of the largest city squares in the whole world, we did plenty of walking about. Unfortunately Jen fell slightly ill yet again (5 - 4), somewhat limiting our chances of exploration. We did however manage a couple of noteworthy excursions. First off we headed to one of the more bohemian suburbs of the city which was a hub of politics and art in the 1930s. We visited the former house of two of
Mexico's most famous artists, Frida Kahlo and her one-time husband Diego Rivera. This extensive blue house is now a gallery showcasing some of the artworks of both Frida and Diego, as well as the usual 'house of a famous person' type of displays. Interestingly it was Frida and Diego that put up one Leon Trotsky and his wife, when they fled Stalin's USSR for exile in Mexico. Whilst things seemed happy in the blue house for a while, apparently somebody slept with somebody else's partner (wasn't this rife in bohemia anyway??) and there was a fallout.
So Leon and his wife moved a few blocks away, and their house became our next stop on the excursion. A museum attached to the house informed us about the power struggles in post-revolutionary USSR, the exile of the Trotskys to Mexico and the plots of Stalin and his people to systematically eliminate anyone who may have posed a threat to his hold on power (including as it turned out some of his closest revolutionary allies). In the house itself we saw some of the usual things (ie. their kitchen with original 1930s pots and pans, etc.). But far more compelling was our
first site of the bullet holes in the wall from the first attempt to assassinate Trotsky and his family in their house. Whilst they were able to hide and dodge bullets in this attempt, Leon would not be so fortunate the next time. An infiltrator who had managed to gain the confidence of Trotsky by dating one of his staff members, one day walked into Leon's study with some papers for him to look at. He then pulled out an ice pick, and killed the former revolutionary. Thankfully there were no gory recreations of this event, however just seeing the small study set up with everything else as it was when the assassination took place was moving and disturbing enough. And so we paid our respects at the headstone monument in the back garden and continued on, albeit in a somewhat sombre mood.
Our second big excursion was an organised tour to a Lucha Libre night to witness first hand the crazy, crazy world of Mexican fake wrestling. Think WWE, but with smaller more athletic wrestlers, all with cool colourful face masks, and with the limited dialogue being in Spanish. A few complimentary shots of Mescal started the evening
Oaxaca
city of churches well, and it soon became evident that tonight's festivities would also be doubling as a bit of a leaving party - not only was it our last night out in Latin America, but it was also the last night of travelling for the Israeli and French guys which were out with us at the wrestling. Now unfortunately they don't let you take cameras into the wrestling arena so instead some re-enactments were done later in the night as we tried on the wrestling masks that we each got! Now our re-enactments don't quite capture the screaming and booing of the audience, the spectators (of all ages) dressing up in support of their favourite hero or villain, nor the popcorn, taco and beer sellers all on hand. Normally as sceptics of fake wrestling, both Jen and I admitted to be converts to the cause - it was such a hilarious and entertaining night! And we all had a great party afterwards.
And so we were at the end of our big Latin American trip, and nearly at the end of our year long adventure. Unfortunately we weren't able to change our flight home (originally booked to be from Vancouver, but
Oaxaca
city of balloons we didn't quite get that far!), so had to make a connecting flight. But it wasn't all bad news! A stopover in Phoenix, Arizona gave us an introduction to US customs - we don't know what all the fuss is about, they were very friendly, no grilling!- and a sprint through the airport to make a connecting flight right as the aeroplane doors were about to be closed! And a couple of hours later we were in Vancouver!
At the beginning of our 4 days in
Vancouver we we're lucky enough to have one friend in town - the lovely Sarah, a friend from Australia. Sarah was kind enough to let us sleep on her blow up mattress, and show us some of the funky places around Main Street. By the end of the four days, however we had managed to make a whole heap of new friends! A simple chat with bar waitress Katrina about our plans for the night, led to her and friend Phil joining us to go see the crazy, funny and very entertaining band Foxy Shazam playing at a local venue called, well, 'Venue.' Before long these fantastic Canadians had taught us all sorts
Oaxaca
city of strange, tall people of things about the local nightlife, taking us from bar to bar to meet new people and have an all-round good time. And here we were worried that we wouldn't have any friends when we finally return to Vancouver for a stint of living there!
Other highlights in Vancouver included a tour of the city in Aaron's (another of Sarah's friends from back home) hummer; a wander around the harbour and Stanley Park (including getting a clip over the head by a slightly angry, but very large Canada Goose, and our first sighting of a raccoon!), and being in town for International Record Store Day (where Sarah and Kristal took us from record store to record store to catch a heap of awesome local bands all playing for free!). Having had such an awesome introduction to Vancouver has certainly made us feel a whole lot more excited, and a little less scared, about our grand plans to continue to travelling traveller's roadshow and move to Canada for a year or two!!!
But, first things first. It's time to fly on home to the hugs, kisses and general good times of meeting up with our families and all our
good, good friends! How we have missed you all! See you soon! (if we haven't already...)
The Travelling Travellers, Jeff and Jen
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