Third Week of Journey

Campeche

It was my first time on the Mexican Gulf Coast. Campeche is a town that's been around for over 400 years. It was frequently raided by pirates in the 1600's. After a particularly brutal invasion in 1663, Spain decided to build a wall around the town. Much of it is still standing. The town is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I stayed in Hostal del Pirata. It has a nice terrace with a kitchen that I liked to chill on. I went looking around town for some beer to throw in the fridge. I couldn't get a straight answer as to where to get some. After much searching I find out that stores aren't allowed to sell beer in the centro part of town. I had to go outside the wall to the MEGA. Not a far walk. I met a lot of cool people at the hostel. I explored the town on my first day there. The sun is brutal and humidity seems to be at 100%. I got to walk atop some of the walls.

Edzna

On my second full day in Campeche, I grabbed a beat-up bus to Edzna. It's an hour ride with a couple stops in small villages along the way. I was the only Gringo on the bus. I open the window wide to let the sweat dry in the natural AC and watch the countryside slide by. It's much nicer in this part of Mexico than the northern part of the peninsula. Many ranches and orchards and a few hills here and there. I walk from the bus stop to the ruins, happy to see only two cars on the lot. There are three people hiding from the glaring sun in the shade of the ancient grandstands on the site and a couple on the Acropolis. The three people leave and it's just the three of us left to share the site. There were never more than six people there until I was on my way out and ran into a group of 8 two hours later. I go out to wait for a bus and a car pulls up. The driver rolls his window down and asks, "Campeche?" I look inside to see a school girl and a young man with a red Campeche Tourist Board shirt. Looked safe enough so I took the ride. He drove like a maniac with his Mexican polka turned up full blast. I saved half hour on the ride back and found out he was charging for the ride. Only 5 pesos more than the bus though. Almost would've rather taken the bus but "a bird in the hand..." ya know. Bus service can be irregular at times.  
Calakmul and Balamku

After looking into renting a car, I found it to be more appealing to take a tour to Calakmul and Balamku, ruins 3 hours out of Campeche. All I have is a debit card and they want credit card for car rental. There are two young guys from Mexico City on the tour with me. We take a nice 4-door VW out of Campeche before sunrise, watching the full moon set into the mists as we head out on the new freeway. Beautiful sunrise burns off the mists of the surrounding jungle. Only one of the city boys talks a little English so we mostly speak Spanish. We get to the turnoff for Calakmul 3 hours later. We go through the park gate, paying a road maintenance toll, and ride another 35 miles down a narrow, paved road into the jungle to the parking lot, where there is one tour bus and a few cars. It's a one kilometer hike to the ruins. I get to the first pyramid and climb up. On top are a lot of the tourists. Not a typical tour group. It's mostly grey-haired German hippies meditating and absorbing energies in various poses. One man is telling someone his fortune while looking at an egg he had broken into a glass. Pretty earthy bunch. I look across the tree-filled plaza and see two more giant pyramids sticking out of the sea of green. I end up climbing both of them. I sat on top of the biggest one, only two Romanian ladies for company, and had a picnic on top of the world, jungles spread out for miles in all directions. We had three hours to explore here.

We got back to the main road and got to Balamku soon after. We just took 45 minutes here, the main attraction being a well preserved stucco freize inside one of the pyramids. Caretaker had to unlock the door to let us in. The driver had a challenge riding home, but did a great job. He had to drive into the setting sun for an hour, then look out for bicyclists and people after dark. They appear quite suddenly out of the dark. I didn't see a single reflector on any of the bicycles and many of the walkers dress in dark clothes. Mexican fatalism to the extreme. Almost took out a lady crossing at an angle in front of us on her bike, making no effort to avoid being hit. I think 50% of the drivers would have hit her under the same circumstances. Made it back to Campeche, exhausted after 7:00pm.


Villahermosa

After four nights in Campeche, it was time to move on. I get comfortable on the bus and prepare for the 6-hour ride. The first movie was "Hannah Montana - The Movie". I came close to throwing up in my mouth a couple times before turning on my ipod and getting into the passing scenery. At least it was dubbed in Spanish so it was harder to tell what a poor actor she is. We followed the Gulf Coast almost the whole way. Lots of undeveloped beachfront, small fishing villages, long bridges, and wetlands with grazing cattle accompanied by white egrets or herons. I arrive in the city at sunset. It's still light so I walk the 1km to the hotel area. I go like a juggernaut with my load. I don't run anyone over that's walking in front of me but some Mexicans who didn't want to give me space walking at me bounced off here and there. I learned it from watching them, man. The city is flowing with oil money so people seem pretty well off. I get a room at an old budget hotel on the main shopping strip. The old lady showing me to my room explains the nasty smell in the elevator. She points to the wall in the elevator at about chest height and explains that that's where the floods crested back in 2007 when Tabasco State got hit hard. Still evidence around town of buildings vacant and moldy near the river. I get in my room and turn on the TV. LFL is on. That's the Lingerie Football League. The announcers are doing color commentating in Spanish, but it's in America, LA vs Chicago. How long has this been around?

I spend two nights in Villahermosa. I explore the town and go to Parque-Museo Venta to see the Olmec sculpture garden. There is a zoo at the entry area. It reconfirms my dislike of zoos. Most of the animals look unhappy or downright crazy. The sculpture garden is filled with giant stone heads and other Olmec relics unearthed from areas to the west, dating 1200-400BC.

Palenque

I arrived in the town of Palenque on Sunday the 23rd. I turn on my TV and see the Chicago-Green Bay game is on. I go out to see if any bars are showing it. There are very few American tourists here so I don't find any bars showing the game. I get a big bottle of beer and bring it back to my room to watch the rest of the game. I watch news in English for the first time on this trip on CNN International. I decide to take a full day of rest on my first full day here. I sleep in while all my laundry is getting done and finish a book. I head out and get a haircut for 50 pesos and arrange a tour for next day. This is the first place I've been to previously that I've visited on this trip. The town is a bit less grungy than it was three years ago.

Yixchimal and Bonampek

I took a tour to some ruins on the Guatemala border yesterday. We took off before sunrise and rode the border highway about 100 miles to the border river. There were a couple of English people and two couples from Mexico City, one young and one about my age. I hit it off best with the older Mexican couple. He owns a bakery south of the big city. We catch a boat and go downriver, Mexico to the left and Guatemala to the right. We land 10-15 miles downstream on the Mexican side and go uphill to check out Yixchimal in the jungle. Haunting sounds of howler monkeys fill the air as we explore. Great carvings on stelae on the grounds. Much more hilly than other sites so far. Many buildings overlook the river. It takes a bit longer to head back upstream. We get to Bonampek after eating lunch back by immigrations. Bonampek has amazing artwork including paintings covering the walls of three rooms that are over 1200 years old depicting battles, rituals, and human sacrifice. They are pretty well presereved and very colorful considering they used just natural materials to paint with. I've never seen Mayan paintings before this site.

We passed through many Mayan villages on the road there and back, driving through them slowly because of numerous topes (speedbumps). Many of the villagers were waiting for the school bus on the way out. Many more were just hanging out on or near the road near sunset on the way back. Many of the youngest children wave as the vans go by. We follow another tourist van closely all the way back to Palenque. Safety in numbers I think. the driver was constantly on his CB talking, I think, to the driver in front of us. This is Zapatista territory so there are a few checkpoints on the road. I notice at each one that there is a thin wire on the road going into a box alongside the road. I look in the open end of the box as we pass and see a bed of spikes, the other end of the wire going to a sandbag emplacement on the other side of the road. One quick tug, instant road spikes.

We make it back in time for me to grab a big bottle of beer and kick back to watch the State of the Union Address with both responses. One response for normal people and one, coming from the representative of the area where I grew up, for gradeschool bullies who thinking learnin' is for fags. What a mean-spirited embarassment! The people who voted for her should be ashamed.

I'm off to San Cristobal de Las Casas tomorrow.

Second Week of Journey

Merida

I spent my second full day in Merida exploring the city some and lazing around the hostel, taking advantage of it's hammocks. It's the biggest city on the Yucatan Peninsula. It was Sunday. I stepped into a restaurant and watched some of the snowy Chicago-Seattle game. I had forgotten about the playoffs. I finally found a decent bowl of Sopa Azteca (tortilla soup). I guess I shouldn't expect the Mayans to make Aztec soup correctly. The center of town was closed off to traffic and there was a carnival-like atmosphere with many fair food stands. I met a guy from London at the hostel who is on his way back north on his BMW motorcycle. I noticed him because he had a patch from every country in South America on the back of his jacket. He's been traveling the Americas for well over two years now. He was at most of the obscure places I was at in Ecuador and Peru, including a wicked highway between Chachapoya and Cajamarca at close to the same time as me. His video blog is at brainrotting.com. I haven't had a chance to check it yet. It will be cool to see some of the places that I had my photos of stolen. I rolled into Campeche yesterday. My first time on the Mexican Gulf Coast. This town is a Unesco World Heritage Sight. Most of the walls around the town are intact. They were built in late 1600's to fend off pirates after a particularly brutal attack in 1663 that devastated the city. I'm going to spend 3 or 4 nights here.




Cha Cha in Merida

Main cathedral
Merida

Gran Plaza on a Sunday
Merida

Chichen Itza and Uxmel

Valladolid and Chitchen Itza

I spent three nights in Valladolid. I spend first full day exploring the town, getting laundry done, reading, writing, and drinking beer. It was a pleasantly rainy day so it seemed like the right things to do. On the second day, I went to Chichen Itza. I took the 2nd class bus out of town and arrived to see dozens of tourist buses in the parking lot. Worse than all the tourists from Cancun were all the vendors. They allow them in the park for some reason. It's sad how many people come to this amazing site just to shop and look at the ruins like some kind of elaborate mall decorations. The worst vendors were the ones with just one or two items in their hands. How many times do I have to say, "no quiero" (I don't want) before the guy will get out of my way so I can take a photo. With much patience, I managed to get some good shots with little or no people in them.

Merida and Uxmal

I spend three nights in Merida. On the first full day I spent the morning talking to people in the hostel over multiple coffees. Met an interesting lady from Germany who just turned 50 and is in the middle of a one-year sabbatical. I take the noon bus to the ruins and get there after 1:00. Perfect time. Only two other tourists get off the bus and I see only one bus in the parking lot. Good signs. Past the ticket counter, I notice another good sign; no vendors! I soon get to places where it feels like I have the place to myself. The sky is partly cloudy with fluffy clouds with some dark underbellies. It's not too hot. Perfect weather for exploring ruins and taking photos. I spend nearly 4 hours wandering around slowly. The sculptures are some of the best I've seen on Mayan ruins yet. Very well preserved. There are iguanas all over the grounds. We kept startling each other. It was very tranquil until the end when I climbed the steps of one of the pyramids only to have the peace disturbed by a group of American college students. They get to the top and make a lot of noise as half of them light up their cigarettes. I hear one girl say, "it would be cool if they had a bar up here." One of the guys starts climbing up the ancient ornamentation on the walls. I'm glad there was local security to yell at him or I would have. I was irritated enough to ask, "do you all go to the same high school?" He says, "same college" with a slightly chastised look. "Really," I reply, not letting it sound like a question. "Hard to tell sometimes," one of the ladies in the group said, getting it. Am I turning into a crabby old dude, or was that appropriate? They finally go away and I have peace again. I close the place and take the sunset bus back.

Chichen Itza

Largest ball court discovered in Mayan territories.
Chichen Itza

Observatory
Chichen Itza

First sight inside entrance to Uxmal

Quadrangle of the Nuns
Uxmal

Posing Iguana

Ball Court
Uxmal

Uxmal

House of the Turtles
Uxmal

Uxmal

El Palomar
Uxmal

View from the Grand Pyramid
Uxmal

Casa del Adivino
Uxmal

I have dug it
Uxmal

Week One of Mayan Adventure

I have my camera plugged unto the computer but can't seem to get the photos to transfer. I am in Valladolid now, about 2 hours east of Cancun. I spent the first week on the coast.

Cancun

Can't say I explored much. I wasn't impressed by the downtown and spent only one night in a paper-walled hotel where I could hear everyone's TV as well as mine. As soon as the TVs started turning off, the house music from a club a block away started shaking the hotel and continued to do so until 6am or so. I changed my plan of staying in Cancun for 2 nights and head right out to Isla Mujeres the next morning.

Isla Mujeres

A little touristy but it's hard not to like the tourqoise waters and fine sand beaches. The Euro-boobies weren't bad to look at either. I managed not to stare. I spent five nights on the island. I spent a couple days scuba diving and mostly relaxed the rest of the time. My first day of diving was a refresher course and a couple of easy dives. I was face to face with a barracuda at one point. It's the first time I've seen one open it's mouth. Now I see what's scary about them. They have teeth like inch-long spikes.

I walked around the island on Sunday. It's about a 10-mile walk. There is a little bit of Mayan ruins at the south end of the island. Walking back, I cut through a large town much bigger than the town on the north end where most of the tourists stay. I think this is where most of the workers and their families live. It's easy to forget you're on an island here. It's more like the Mexico I remember from my travels in the interior. It was dark when I got back to my hotel.

I did another day of diving on Monday, the 10th of Jan. It was some of the scariest waves I've been on when we got to the south point of the island on our small boat. I was the only diver with the divemaster, captain, and helper. The divemaster and I agreed to submerge right away instead of getting knocked around by the waves. It was a wicked drift dive, where you just let the current take you. We were moving very fast with the current until we went around the point where things calmed down a bit. We spotted three separate sea turtles. I huffed through my air pretty quickly because of some nervousness over the conditions. The dive lasted only 30 minutes. The second dive was on the calmer side of the island around a reef with caves. We did a couple cave swim throughs. I had never done that before. We weren't far from escape at any point, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. It was cool looking up at the CO2 pockets on the ceiling created by our exhalations. That dive was more relaxing. It lasted over 40 minutes. The dive master is Mexican and was doing a little fishing with his Mexican harpoon. It's a thin steel rod, sharpened on one end with an elastic strap on the other. He killed a lion fish. It's a beautiful fish but it doesn't belong in these waters. Some douchebag with an aquarium let some loose and now they are invading the Caribbean. They are venomous to the touch also. They come from Australia. He speared it repeatedly and I could hear it every time the spear passed through it. It was still moving when we left it to die. We saw lobsters and he asked, with signals, whether he should get one. I signaled "no". I still am just an observer and don't feel right hunting down there yet. Maybe I'll be feeding myself that way someday when I become a beach bum sometime in my 50s. I think I got some bruises trying to get my equipment off while get bounced off the boat by the waves.

Valladolid

I grabbed a bus out of Cancun yesterday and am now two hours to the west. The scenery is pretty non-existent in this part of Mexico. Shrek the Third dubbed in Spanish is the bus entertainment. I forgot how much I enjoy getting in touch with my music collection on my ipod while riding Mexican buses. We went through a torrential rainstorm and the bus was flinging water higher than the roof as we went through standing water. I found a nice room two blocks from the bus station, two blocks from the main square. Nice little city of about 50,000 people. Feels more like real Mexico now, right down to the familiar smells. I plan on staying here three nights, checking out Chitzen Itza tomorrow. It was cool and rainy today. Good day to get laundry done and do this blog.

I hope to be including photos next time.

Photos above are views of Isla Mujeres and one shot of Valladolid.

Almost Outta Here!

I am just about ready to go on another journey. I have to drop off the cat today. Tomorrow the truck goes into storage. I will be waiting at the cold bus stop on Wed morning to catch a bus to the light rail to the airport. I can't wait to have the bags checked and be chilling in the airport. I don't mind waiting in airports. It's always a prelude to big things. I will be landing in Cancun Wed afternoon. Not sure where my travels will take me, but sure it will include a lot of Mayan ruins and scuba diving. I won't be straying from the Mayan territories. Mayab encompasses Chiapas, Yucatan, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Not sure how much I'll see, but I will share it with you on a weekly basis until I return on March 16th.