Last Few Notes about Mexico before Belize

(Map and pictures up to date!)

Over these last few days we have finished up our journey on the Yucatan Peninsula, seeing a quite few interesting places and now we are heading off to Belize tomorrow. We did not visit some of the more well known Yucatan beaches, such as Cancun, Cozumel or Playa del Carmen, as these would break our budget and are loaded with American resort tourists. However, we wanted to share a quick update with you of what we have done since our last post.

While staying in Valladolid, we took a day trip up to Rio Lagartos to see the flamingos which nest there. Unfortunately, it is flamingo low season, and the trip up there was a bit more adventurous than we orginally anticipated (missed busses, bus detours to completely different towns, and so on), but lots of fun! After all of that, we were very thankful to actually see some flamingos, a hundred or so. Almost as enjoyable as actually seeing the flamingos themselves, was the hour long private boat ride out to the preserve, which brought back great memories of boating on the Illinois river, except of course the lack of smell and the clear water.

After Valladolid, we headed to Tulum, which is famous for their amazing beaches and Mayan ruins set right on the water. We definitely agree that the beaches are amazing, soft white sand, warm clear water, and gentle waves. We did spend one glorious afternoon on the beaches. However, the town itself was overrun with tourists from larger resort towns. This held even more true when we went to visit the ruins. The ruins were not particularly spectacular, but they were nice next to the water. However, the whole experience was less magical as you were herded through the complex like cattle. We were even asked at one point what tour bus number we were with. To make matters worse, the hostel we stayed in, although it looked great on paper (free breakfast, hot showers, bike rental), was kind of dirty and rough around the edges (no toilet paper, cold showers, busted bicycles).

Needless to say, we decided to spend more significant beach time in Belize where we have heard of an island 1\2 a mile long next to one of the best snorkeling spots in the world. We head there tomorrow after a holdover tonight in the border town of Chetumal.

Our time in Mexico has been great, although somewhat shorter than we imagined. We feel like we had quite a variety of experiences with food, climate, and culture. It has been a great country to get our travel legs established as the people have been generally friendly and helpful. We have also learned alot more about the Mexican culture which we experienced in Chicago, but did not really fully grasp. For example, when you see the pushcart ice cream vendors on the lakefront in Chicago... those kinds of carts are everywhere in Mexico. There are a lot of little things like that you notice when you travel.

Overall, we are excited to keep moving and are looking forward to the very different and unique culture Belize offers in Central America.

Valladolid

(Rich´s photos from Merida and from Valladolid so far are up! Map updated to include tomorrow´s day trip.)

We are currently in Valladolid, a smaller town on the Yucatan Peninsula (though still Yucatan´s 3rd most populous). Merida was a cool place but we were hoping for something a little more laid back and less touristy and we found it. We´re also in an outstanding hostel here with a great kitchen that we´ve taken full advantage of.

Valladolid, besides the main intersection, is quiet and charming (to use adjectives pulled straight from our travel-writing thesaurus). It´s very clean, the buildings are painted in pastels, the Zocalo is tree shaded and beautifully lit at night, there are several great town squares, and there´s a boulevard that´s cobblestoned and walkable. We´ve enjoyed taking walks and sipping good coffee and just hanging out in a quiet place with not too much to do. It´s a nice change of pace from the big cities and also from the beach and jungle. Come to think of it, we´ve covered quite a few different terrains so far on our trip: cities, weaving villages, mountains, ruins, beaches, jungles, towns.

Today we ventured into another terrain: caves. We visited what´s called a Cenote (say-no-tay). Cenotes are naturally formed undergroud pools of water. They are open here, and in many places on the Yucatan and in Central America, for swimming and very tame cave exploration.

We visited a Cenote today called Dzitnup. We rented bikes from a local shop and rode 30 minutes outside of town along a bumpy trail to the cavern, paid a fee, and crawled our way in. Our unmentionables hurt a lot from the bumpy bike ride, so no better way to relax our muscles than by jumping into the cool water.

We´ve experienced so much heat here in Mexico, it was amazing to get into the cave and experience the cool temperature. The water itself was refreshing too, crystal clear and incredibly clean. Even though it´s Saturday, it wasn´t very crowded and we were able to swim a lot. We chased some of the black fish around too who were very used to human visitors and who you could almost grab with your hands.

Inside the cave, there were stalagtites and stalagmites (can´t remember which is which), and bats flying around on the ceiling of the cave. There was a single hole at the top from the outside and the sun showed through and there was this crazy light spot in the water. All in all very beautiful and we had a ton of fun biking to and from the cave. We also were able to explore a few nooks and crannies of the cave, though at some point in our trip we hope to do some more serious spelunking.

Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to a nature reserve called Rio Lagartos, which is famous for it´s Flamingos. We hope to take a boat tour, but it depends on how far down on the price we can bargain with the guides, they tend to be quite expensive. Bargaining is one of Rich´s new favorite hobbies. If we can´t get a boat at a decent price we´ll eat some seafood and enjoy the views.

At 38 days in, we are really enjoying ourselves and are beginning to get into the lifestyle and think of travel as ¨what we do.¨ Hope everyone is having fun at the office!

Later kids!

1 Month In

We are currently in Merida, a big city on the Yucatan Peninsula that many consider the ¨Cultural Capital¨ of the region. We´ve spent our time here in relaxation mode though, as we needed a few days to recharge our batteries a little bit. We´ve been sightseeing and walking a lot and running around for over a month now, and our nice hostel in Merida has a pool and a lot of secluded hammocks for resting. So we haven´t done too much, though Rich took the afternoon today to visit the Palacio Gobierno and the Contemporary Art Museum. Kendra sat in a hammock and read her book... all day. Yesterday, we saw a concert at the cultural center of two blind guitarists-singers who sang traditional Mexican music. The music was good and the air conditioning amazing. Tonight we went out for traditional Mayan food which was excellent.

Other than that, it´s been a low key few days. Tomorrow we head to a smaller city called Valladolid (see the map) to visit several cenotes (underground swimming holes) and a wildlife reserve famous for Flamingos. Pictures from Merida (and our 10 hour wait in the Palenque bus station) will pop up sometime this weekend for your viewing pleasure.

All that said, what we´ve really celebrated was our 1 month mark of our trip this past Saturday. To celebrate, here are a few fun anecdotes about Mexico that we´ve discovered in our first month:


Top 3 Places (hard! we love them all!)
- San Cristobal de Las Casas
- Sierra Norte
- El Panchan

Top 3 Activities so far...
- Hiking in the Sierra Norte
- Ruins at Palenque
- Shopping at traditional markets

Top 3 Food Items/Meals!
- Entomatadas!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Rich)
- Oaxacan hot chocolate, Horchata, and Chiapas coffee (drinks)
- Flautas (Kendra)

Top 3 Embarrassing Moments
- Ordering not free food on free food night at the restaurant in Mexico City on our first night
- When Rich, practicing his spanish adjectives, called the large policewoman ¨beautiful¨ instead of ¨fat¨ to our neigbor at the Semana Santa procession
- Being tricked by a local ¨Archeology Professor¨ into visiting the hammock store he actually worked for, where he left us with his apparant business partner ready and eager to complete the sale of ¨Authentic¨ Mayan hammocks (this is actually kind of a long story!)

Top 3 Questions About Mexico
- Why do the shoe stores more closely resemble techno clubs?
- For the love of everything mighty, why so many speedbumps?
- Why are the bottom 4 feet of every single Mexican tree painted white?

Top 3 Things We Miss From Home
- Consistent shower temperatures (and water pressure)
- Pequod´s Pizza
- Kitties!
- Honorable mention: Friends and family

Top 3 Friends We´ve Made
- Uncle Paul!
- Our Seattle friends Heidi and Michael... good conversations and fun times
- Our friend the San Cristobal rapping, partying street clown, who we first met while he was drinking ¨Cervezas por desayuno,¨ half his makeup still on at 8am (a really nice guy with a rough past but a clown´s soul)

Top 3 Things We´re Looking Forward To
- Biking to underground swimming holes (called Cenotes) on Friday
- Snorkeling in Belize
- Spanish language school and a homestay in Guatemala

1 Down... 11 to Go!

Palenque: Ruins and a Jungle Hangout

(Map and photos updated! We added a few more San Cristobal photos and all of Rich´s Palenque pictures!)

Why go to the Jungle one might ask? Before going, you might not know. After going, you still might not be sure! It´s hot. Unlike any heat we´ve experienced in a long time, if ever. It´s sticky too, so it´s not a friendly heat. It´s buggy, though surely buggier in the rainy season. The screams of the howler monkeys haunt your dreams.

So for all the discomforts, why go? For the insanely cool ruins at Palenque and the funkiest traveler hangout yet at El Panchan of course, at both of which we ultimately had a great time.

The ruins at Palenque are some of the most famous in Mexico. The Mayans built the city in 100AD and the city was at it´s peak around 650AD. They have only recently been excavated, and the jungle makes a dramatic background to gigantic temples that seem to emerge from nowhere as you walk up the hill and the trees part. The ruins sit at just about the exact place that the hills start to rise out of the jungle. The views from the tops of the temples are amazing. We went in the morning to get good light for photos, and to try and minimize the heat. Minimize, not avoid. It´s always hot. Perpetually and utterly hot.

The ruins are also very different than those we visited at Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan lies in the valley, and the ruins follow a straight road with buildings on either side. Palenque is set in the forest and the jungle. Half of the temples are in a more open field and some of them, less fully excavated, lie along a more tree shaded path through the woods. It was awesome to climb the large temples, then to walk the path through the jungle and see half excavated temples sitting amongst the waterfalls. There were also a lot of opportunities to crawl around through the tunnels in the temples which was not the case at Teotihuacan.

The other thing we dug about Palenque was where we stayed. Palenque town is little more than a transportation hub and a jumping off point for the ruins. So rather than stay in town, we stayed at a famous (the guidebook says ¨legendary¨) travelers hangout called El Panchan.

El Panchan is complex of cabanas and restaurants along the road to the ruins. There´s a bookstore and a piercing shop. It´s in a dense part of the jungle, and the pathways are lined with giant plants, flowers, trees, vines, and streams run throughout the complex. We stayed in a private cabana at a place calle ¨Jungle Palace.¨ We had screened windows and a ceiling fan, a bed, and that´s about it. It was really cool actually.

There are animals too. Ants march up and down the trees carrying big leaves. Howler Monkeys scream in the distance, each day at around 5am. They are the roosters of the jungle. There are lizards too, small ones, and some giant ones. All in all, it was a hot sweaty experience but a lot of fun.

The rest of El Panchan is full of artsy folks and current and ex-hippies. A lot of people sell colorful art and some of the people have lived at El Panchan for years. There are a lot of interesting characters. There are a couple of great restaurants that have live music. So after visiting the ruins yesterday, we spent the day napping, hanging out trying unsuccessfully to ward off the heat (in desperate times, how many cold showers can one take in a day? At least 4, just ask Kendra), eating insanely good pizza and listening to music.

Tonight we take an overnight bus to Merida, a city that´s our jumping off point for exploring the Yucatan Peninsula. ¡Adios!

Food Shopping in Mexico on a Budget

(First off, note we are posting two posts simultaneously. Also, pictures and the map are fully updated!)

Something we love about Mexico are all of the traditional markets. Many cities have a Mercado, and they´re an unbelievable array of food, crafts, and culture. The food is fresh and grown locally. You buy veggies direct from the grower. The chickens are killed early in the morning and brought to market that day, whereas the average chicken breast in a grocery store in the US was killed 3 weeks before you see it on the shelf.

Besides the freshness of the food, we also love the price! Since we are traveling on a small budget, we always try to find hostels with kitchens so we can cook ourselves. We love to shop at the market too, so to give you an idea of how we keep our costs down, here was our menu yesterday. All of our food except for breakfast was bought at the Mercado Principal in San Cristobal.

For the prices, we are using today´s exchange rate of $1 US to $12.2 Mexican Pesos. This is a particularly cheap group of meals (we do go out a bit sometimes), but we wanted to give you an idea of what is possible.

Breakfast – bread and pastries with jam, and 2 eggs each

Our hostel provides free bread with jam, pastries, and coffee - $0
4 Eggs bought at the Convenient Store - MX$5 (US $0.41)

Total for breakfast: MX $5 (US $0.41) which is US $0.20 per person


Lunch – Fruit Salad and fresh rolls with butter and jam

2 Rolls – MX $3 (US $0.25)
2 Mangos – MX $5 (US $0.41)
2 Banannas – MX $3 (US $0.25)
1 Piece of Pineapple – MX $2 (US $0.16)
Blackberrys – MX $10 (US $0.82)
1 Lime – MX $1 (US $0.08)

Total for Lunch: MX $24 (US $1.96) which is US $0.98 per person



Dinner – Chicken and Veggie Stir Fry over Rice

½ Bag of Rice – MX $2.5 (US $0.20)
1 Chicken Breast – MX $15 (US $1.23)
1 Head of Broccoli – MX $5 (US $0.41)
1 Carrot – MX $2 (US $0.16)
1 Jalapeno – MX $2 (US $0.16)
1 Piece of Pineapple – MX $3 (US $0.25)
1 Cucumber - MX $2 (US $0.16)
2 Small Onions - MX $3 (US $0.25)
Small amount of Soy Sauce – Negligible

Total for Dinner: MX $34.5 (US $2.83) which is US $1.41 per person. That is 3 meals for the day for a total of $2.59 US Dollars per person!


¡Buen Provecho!

San Juan Chamula and Horses!

Today marks our fifth day in San Cristobal. San Cristobal is medium-sized colonial town that is bordered by many traditional communities. There are quite a few tourists and even some expats that have settled into San Cristobal, giving the town a little bit of an international flare. Overall, the people who live within the city center have a laid back vibe. The San Cristobal area is known for their coffee and amber, both being some of the best in the world.

Although there are some sites to see in the area, we have enjoyed most of our time going to their amazing traditional produce market and sipping on their rich coffee. It has been a great town to spend time just wandering around a little. However, we did spend one day here taking a horseback ride tour to a local traditional village. We left in the morning, taking a shared colectivo to a nearby farm. They assigned horses based on whether or not you have had experience riding. We discovered it is always better to say that you have no horse riding experience, as some of the other people on the tour ended up with independently spirited horses.

Rich was lucky enough to get a nice healthy horse. Kendra´s horse resembled a starving pony. We were unfortunately unable to ride next to each other for very long since Kendra´s horse lacked the ambition to keep up with the others horses, and Rich´s horse kept biting any horse within a foot or two. All said, no one was bucked off and no horse attempted a break away, so we considered it a pretty good trip.

After riding for about an hour, we arrived at a local village that is known for its traditional dress and unique religious practices. We are unable to show any pictures of the town as we were told several times that we could not take pictures of the people or their religious services, only of ourselves. The town center was composed of a large church, with an open market in front. We were able to go and visit the church, which has worshipers everyday of the week except for Wednesday, which they consider to be bad luck. The church was built in the Spanish colonial style, but it was clear that the people had retained much of their previous beliefs from before the Spanish conquered the area.

Inside the church, there were no pews, rather the floor was covered with fresh pine needles. Space was cleared on the floor for thousands of candles, spread out throughout the church. Local worshipers sat on the floor praying. They incorporate burping into their prayers and use carbonated beverages, like Coke, to assist them in burping. They cracked eggs to help tell the direction of sicknesses, and even occasionally sacrificed chickens inside the church. We did see a live chicken inside, but did not stay around long enough to see it meet its fate. Although statues of saints line the walls all the way to the front of the church, it was Saint John the Baptist, not Jesus, that took the prominent place a the front. It was a very interesting experience, although the many tourists (of which we are included) did seems to delute the natural feel of the town.

Puerto Escondido and San Agustinillo

Tuesday we took a six hour bus from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido. After a stay in the mountains, we figured that it was time to move to the beaches. Puerto Escondido was raved as a can´t miss beach town with a cool vibe. By the time we got off the bus (six hours of hairpin turns around the mountains), we would have been satified with any place as long as it wasn´t giving us motion sickness.

In truth we found that Puerto Escondido was OK, but was not the type of vibe we were really looking for. The town seemed kind of quiet since it was not their busy season, but those who were there had nice tans and surfboards in tow. The town kind of reminded us of an average California beach town. From what we understand, they have some of the best surfing in the world there. The waves were big enough to make swimming challenging, if not impossible at times.

We decided to pack our bags and head east to see if we could find a more local beach with better swimming, somewhere that would let us in with our farmer's tans. We settled on San Agustinillo, a small town of about 300 people. It was a perfect location for the few days we stayed. We found a small room right on the beach. In the morning we could open our door, walk past our two hammocks on our balcony, and watch the waves crash up onto the soft sand. If you are not jealous yet, please take a glance at the pictures.

It was also their slow season, so it was a little hard to find open resturants, but it saved us some money on the room, so we can´t really complain. We swam a little, climbed on some rocks, ate, napped, read on our hammocks, napped again, and then went to sleep. Perfect. As great as it seems, we feel the call of the road again and have bus tickets in hand for a 11 hour ride to San Cristobal de Las Casas.

Hiking the Sierra Norte, or Why We Quit Our Jobs

(First and foremost, we have updated our map to include our next destination of Puerto Escondido. We have also updated the pictures to include the last few pictures of Puebla, all of Oaxaca including our side trip, and our recent hiking trip, so check them out!)

Early Saturday morning we both boarded a second class bus to head up to the mountain chain north of Oaxaca. Although the mountains are not far away, it did take a full two hours to reach our starting town Cuajimoloyas, as the bus hugged the thin ascending road (dirt in places). Saturday we hiked a total of 6 hours with our guide, and even coincidentally joined up with a few other friends from our hostel on the same path.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning we hiked a total of 25miles, most of which was steeply up or down the mountain side as we trekked from village to village. Within the general area they have found 7 different ecosystems. This was extremely evident during our hike, as we saw cactus, evergreens, and rain forest flowers in the span of several hours. Weather over the weekend was perfect, with only a short shower one evening.

In total we saw 4 different villages, of which we spent the night in two. The smallest village was comprised of only 80 people. Within the past decade these villages have formed a co-op, developing a good ecoturism organization with hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, and ziplining. We kept the venture simple with just the hiking, although we did hire a guide as few of the trails are even marked. Not only did we get the opportunity to see the beautiful natural surroundings, we also got the chance to see some small farms that we passed by and farmers herding cattle. Local residents were very friendly and eager to answer our questions or just have a conversation.

Our favorite village would have to be where we stayed the first evening. Perched on the top of one of the mountain, the village had amazing, unobstructed views from every direction. Our cabin was built right on the ledge so that we could watch the sunset from inside our cozy room, or outside on the hammocks. That's right, hammocks... now you see why this one was our favorite.

Although we had a great time, we are both extremely tired and sore. We are definitely looking forward to our next destination - THE BEACH! - where we are heading tomorrow.

More on Oaxaca

Oaxaca is a pretty cool city, and we spent a good amount of time here before we headed off to the Sierra Norte mountains this weekend. There are quite a few tourists but we can see why that is warranted.

One of the big draws to Oaxaca are the towns in the surrounding area known as the Valles Centrales. There are 3 valleys that intersect here, and there are a number of towns and villages in the valley you can easily access from Oaxaca. Many of the villages are known for a particular craft such as pottery, weaving, or wood carving.

This past Thursday we visited two of them. We took a Colectivo, which is basically a bus you wave down at the side of the road (you can do the same with basically any bus... they stop a lot). The first was called Santo Tomas Jalieza and it is a weaving village. ¨Village¨ is a generous term because when we got there we were amazed at how small it was. There was nothing more than a tiny town center where women worked on old fashioned looms and sold some of their goods. There were some farms... plenty of livestock and chickens roaming about. We were the only tourists in town, children gave us some pretty good stares as we walked around (two blindingly white people is a rarity there). Kendra made a few purchases there, but moreso it was an amazing experience to see such a small town surrounded by desert with the mountains in the background.

We walked the 1.5 miles from Santo Tomas down the main road to San Martin. We also stopped along the way and had an awesome lunch at a restaurant made out of wooden posts (Rich´s Enchiladas on the right).

San Martin is a bit bigger but is still very small. They are known for a particular wood craft known as Abrijales which are these super brightly colored fantasy creatures that are particularly psychedelic in nature (hmmm). You can find them in markets all over Mexico, but they originate here, and people sell them from their homes. We visited a few of these people´s homes where they literally had hundreds of carvings for you to look at. Very very cool. Check out the ¨Our Pictures¨ link.

On Friday, Kendra took a relaxation day while Rich took a cooking class. The class was with an Australian chef (pictured) who specialized in Oaxacan cooking (Oaxaca is famous for food). Funny enough, nobody else signed up for the class so it ended up being only Rich. Funnier, the kitchen was double booked so the class moved to his apartment. Nonetheless, Rich cooked up Mexican Sopes and Mole Coloradito (Oaxaca is famous for Mole) as well as Horacho, the most amazing drink he´s ever had (and no alcohol even!). It was a really cool experience and we´re looking forward to impressing you all when we get back.

All in all, we spent a bit more time in Oaxaca than we expected, but with good reason. We hiked all weekend (see the next post) and can´t wait to hit the beach!

Oaxaca

Today is our third day visiting Oaxaca, 14th day into our trip. We arrived to Oaxaca late Monday afternoon and took the rather lengthy walk from the bus terminal into the center of the city (looked a lot shorter on the map). We found an absolutely beautiful hostel in town, which we have really appreciated. It includes a great breakfast with eggs made to order.

Yesterday we went to the traditional market in town and picked up enough food for a couple of meals. However, two Austrian travelers were gracious enough to cook some of their favorite dishes for the entire hostel, so we got a break from cooking that evening.

Today we set out to taste the famous Oaxacan chocolate. To Kendra´s dismay they do not set up beautiful chocolate shops filled with small tasty treats; rather, they use the chocolate mainly for cooking and drinking hot chocolate. No matter, we had one of the best hot chocolates we have ever had in our lives. The chocolate was rich and had hints of cinnamon and nutmeg.

After that we headed out to taste the local Mezcal drink, a close cousin to Tequila. Rich found a truly local bottling shop, barrels and a slowly rotting Agave plant (gnats included) sitting in the entrance.


All that said, the place was charming in a rustic sort of way. Two local gentlemen, Miguel and Manuel, attempted to tell us all about the different types of Mezcal, how each is made, and why some were better than others. Neither of us could understand that much of the converstation except that the drink is good for our stomachs and will make us strong, or so they say.

Tomorrow we are going to be heading down into a nearby valley to visit a smaller town, and hopefully will be able to see some of the local craft workshops. We are both looking forward to heading up into the mountains for some guided hikes between several small villages (100-600 people) this weekend.

Our plan of staying here only a few days has quickly been sidetracked, as we have really fallen in love with the colonial city of Oaxaca.

Puebla and Tlaxcala

New pictures posted and the map is updated to include our trip to Oaxaca tomorrow. Check it out.

We've spent the last 3 nights and will spend tonight in Puebla, about 2 hours south (and a little east) of Mexico City. It's a very colonial town, meaning the architecture is typical of when the Spanish colonized Mexico. Most of the buildings are from the 16th to 18th century. The streets are brick or some sort of stone, they are narrow and there are lot of little balconies, it actually looks a bit like the French Quarter in New Orleans. They have a great tree shaded Zocalo at the center of town with an enormous Cathedral. Very cool.

Totally different atmosphere than Mexico City. It's still a big city, and there are a lot of people visiting for the Easter holiday, but still not close to the craziness of MC. Also, most shops and things are closed for the holidays, so it's been mostly low key.

We've spent some of our time watching Semana Santa festivities. There was a huge procession on Good Friday that was cool to watch. The atmosphere was part festive and part solemn. Anyone who wanted could march behind the "floats" (for lack of a better term). People carried relics they'd made themselves and carried balloons and threw confetti. Very interesting. Rich practiced his spanish with the man next to him, and tried to make a joke that a policewoman was kind of fat ("gordo"), but accidentally called her beautiful ("guapo")... regardless, the man laughed so point taken.

We've also been enjoying the food a lot and hanging out with some friends from our hostel. We met some very cool people yesterday evening and had a great time.

Yesterday during the day we took a side trip to Tlaxcala (pic on left), which is a small city that is very cool and draws some Mexican tourists. It's set in between a bunch of hills and we hiked up to the top of one to a very cool church where supposedly Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in the 16th Century. We also saw an old convent and stumbled upon a bullfight which we could see from atop one of the hills! Rich watched, Kendra didn't.

We also ate at one of the cafes in the square and had one of our more interesting lunches so far. Taco Placero (pictured) was tortillas with cheese, guacamole, fried cactus leaves, served with pork rinds. We also had deep fried chipotle peppers stuffed with cheese which Rich loved on hard!

We head to Oaxaca City (it's also a state) tomorrow which is famous for chocolate and cheese and is supposed to be very very cool. We are then considering doing some hiking in the mountains north of the city of Oaxaca. ¡Adios!

Friendly Neighbors

We´ve been in Puebla for 3 days now and are really enjoying it. The city is largely closed because of the holiday weekend, but we´ve managed to find fun things to do including Semana Santa (Holy Week\Easter) festivities. We also took a fun side trip today, more coming on that stuff tomorrow or Monday.

We just wanted to share a funny story about the way people seem to be here much of the time. We booked our ticket 3 days in advance for the bus from Mexico City to Puebla. There are plenty of buses but we knew it was a big holiday weekend so wanted to get it early. We made the reservation for a 12 noon bus. We figured we would show up a bit early because it was our first bus trip and we like to be early in general, plus the holiday. So we arrive with our backpacks and all of our stuff and the bus station is packed. Think airports on Thanksgiving and then some. This is one of the most populous cities in the world on a weekend where tons of people travel to visit family.

So we figure, it´s no problem, it´s busy but that´s why we have a reservation. When we got to the gate our bus was supposed to leave from there was a line literally hundreds of people long. We had about 45 minutes before we were scheduled to leave.

But why the line if everyone has reservations? Well, we asked around to make sure we didn´t have to wait in line. Rich found a guy who spoke a little (very broken) English, and he told us that most people don´t have specific times on their tickets, so they were waiting in the stand-by line. Since we had a time, we were cool and could just walk past everyone at 11:50.

So we waited for 15 minutes outside the line, then double checked with a security guard, and then a 2nd security guard, and we figured out that we DID have to wait in line. Turns out they were running buses every 20 minutes and just boarding people 1st come 1st serve because the crowds were so large. The guy who spoke some English from before came back and confirmed this with us and apologized for giving us bad info. Damn you broken-English-wrong-information-man!

This was bad news... with the length of the line we were looking at a 2 or 3 hour wait. Waaayyy past when we were supposed to leave. We were totally bummed and obviously it was not fun or what we wanted for our first bus trip.

So we sat for 15 minutes at the back of an enormous, snaking line as the length of the delay and the weight of having to stand with our packs on in the unbelievable crowd and heat sunk in. Then, the damned English speaking fellow came back to us at the very back of the line. Keep in mind, English speaking does not mean he spoke much English. But now, he says, ¨My name is Paul, I can help more, I told them you were my family, we can go now.¨ Huh? Kinda pale aren´t we? A bit confused, we said, ¨are you sure?¨ And he said yes, just tell them we´re his family.

This was a bit weird, given that we are two very obviously white, very obviously not spanish speaking, very obviously not his family. He walked us to his spot in line, which was literally NEXT to board on the next bus. He tucked us under the velvet rope, as jealous onlookers gawked, and there we were 2nd in line. He convinced security we were his cousins from the US and we boarded the next bus and left at 11:50am, 10 minutes earlier than our reservation.

Our Mexican friend Paul lied for us. Thank you Paul. You completely redeemed yourself. Props for helping out two strange backpackers for no real reason. ¡Muy Excelente!

One week in...

Hey everyone! First off, if you click on the "Our Pictures" link on the left it will take you to some up to date albums. Kendra´s pictures are better, but too big to upload to Picasa, but this is good for now.

Tomorrow we are leaving Mexico City and taking a (very) short two hour bus ride to Puebla. Puebla is known for it´s Colonial Architecture, especially the tilework, and it has tons of Churches. It´s Easter Weekend which is a huge deal in Mexico, so we´re hoping to see some fun festivities. We are looking to take a day trip to a nearby town for some more local celebrations, one we have in mind is called Huamantla but we´ll keep you posted on what we do. Puebla is also famous for some sort of giant sandwich called a Cemanita which has been described as a big sandwich with some indigestible fillings, Rich is extremely excited.

Yesterday we visited the ruins at a site called Teotihuacan. We made a mistake in our last post saying they were Aztec, they are not. This site pre-dates the Aztecs by about 1000 years. Not much is known about Teotihuacan except that at its peak had about 80,000 residents and covered about 24 square Kilometers. Pretty impressive for a culture dating to 100BC-650AD. We took the bus 1 hour from Mexico city, and climbed the three large temples, including the Temple of the Sun which was the largest. Temple of the Sun is the 3rd largest by volume in the world. It was a lot of fun and we got some good exercise.

Before we leave Mexico City, here are a few things we learned about the city:

1. Pedestrians use caution! Cars never give the right of way even when there are stop signs or red lights... Suppose we understand given the traffic...

2. Toilet paper doesn´t go in the toilet. Trash can only, otherwise mass chaos in the plumbing systems. We assume this will be true for us most of the next year.

3. Public Display of Affection. Prudes need not apply. People seem to make-out wherever they want... trains, parks, buses... sloppy too.

4. Saying "No Thank You" (even in spanish) to vendors in tourist places must mean "Please, follow me down the street and harass me relentlessly." Good times!

First Impressions aka 3/365ths

We arrived on Thursday around 1:00pm. We took the Metro (subway/El) to the Hostel, which was more complicated but less expensive than a taxi. The Mexico City Metro is incredibly cheap, just about 25 cents a ride with unlimited transfers. The trains also arrive about every 2-3 minutes, so generally it blows the public trans in Chicago completely away. We've also felt very safe and the people are incredibly helpful.

We've spent our first three days in the Historic Center of the city. There is a giant "Zocalo" which is like a colonial town square. A lot of cities in Mexico have a Zocalo, but Mexico City's is huge. It's kind of the equivalent of the loop area in Chicago, near a lot of the primary tourist attractions and very crowded. Tomorrow we are moving to a new hostel in more of a neighborhood rather than such a busy area, so we can get a different perspective of the city.

We took a brief walking tour where we saw the National Palace, a huge bakery, and a photography exhibit. We also have hung out with some hostel friends, and visited a huge indoor market where they sell... pretty much everything. We had Tostadas for lunch there (picture on the right), and basically you could pick between probably 15-20 different types of tostadas. Rich had Ceviche (fish) and Kendra had chicken.

We enjoyed the sunset tonight on the observation deck of the tallest building in the city (and the highest in the world if you include the elevation), and tomorrow we're going to check out Chapultepec Park which is the largest urban park in the world.