The crossing into Honduras was a nightmare. Everything that I had feared up until then, but had happily not happened, all came on one day, just when I was thinking I'd got the whole border thing sewn up.
It cost me nearly US$70 to finally get into Honduras with the car, including having to bribe the police twice due to an alleged missing fire extinguisher. Hmmm. It's scary being pulled over on a mountain road by a military-uniformed surly-looking man with gold teeth and a machine gun. Yes, the fine would be 2,000 lempiras. Or I could pay him $20 right here, he implied. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have even $20, after my thorough rinsing at the border (apparently, a permit to bring a car through Honduras for a few days costs US$25. Ah, plus a number of "administration fees".) I showed the nice man the five one-dollar bills I did have left, sweating profusely. Miraculously, unpredictably, he accepted them and wished me a safe trip.
There are a bunch of criminals at every border, tramitadores they like to be called, and you pay them a few dollars to help you through the process. You might expect to even be helped. But mostly, they just make sure that the relevant palms get greased. To be fair, the entry into Honduras was the most complex thing I've ever seen, taking several hours between innumerable offices, each box-like room with a couple of shifty-looking individuals playing solitaire on 386s, who would take 2 photocopies of form X4c and print and stamp form Zn9 and give you form PP1 to sign and ask for $5. So the guy probably did help me somewhat. But it's not like you have any choice anyway: the only way to get the shouting mass of dishevelled gold-toothed louts to desist is to accept the "help" of one of them.
Today, four days later, I had finally managed to screw up the courage to attempt to cross into Nicaragua. I had prepared plenty of cash, in various currencies and denominations, spread around my person. After the Honduran police robbed me again ($10 this time) a mile or so before the border, I was ready to face hell to get into Nicaragua. And then... it was a breeze. There was hardly anyone there, everyone was polite and quick, and no-one charged me anything, except for the official $7 entry fee. Nothing at all for the car.
It's all very strange. One would almost think that the alternating horrendous and straightforward crossings had been set up by a master of psychological torture.
So apart from the border crossings... Choluteca was horribly hot, and I should have even paid for air conditioning. I spent a lot of time lying under the ceiling fan in my pants in the hotel room going "urgh", not sleeping well, and having many cold showers a day. I did however meet some lovely and interesting people the few times I did go out and brave the baking gringoless streets. Some people were a little surly but I spent a great evening drinking with the owner of a restaurant and his friends and family, and another morning talking with the sister of the owner of the comedor I ate breakfast at while she was waiting for college. Had almost forgotten what white people look like until I got to Estelí today: I think I am back on the tourist trail.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Monday, March 13, 2006
Some extremely out of date pictures
"Warning, mountains in rear view mirror are closer than they appear" -- crossing the Rockies, Colorado.
A beautiful clear day near Boulder.
The Burban in the Sierras, California.
Perched on a rock above the Grand Canyon watching the sunset.
Caroline the beautiful Quebecoise poses in the Burban in Zacatecas, Mexico.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Revolutionary zeal
At the Guatemalan-Salvadorean border I avoided paying the US$80 "exit fee" that a shifty looking man in sportswear tried to levy. They were rank amateurs though: starting with an amount that just made me stare, then laugh, then immediately halving the alleged tax. No, I thought, I'll just chance my luck without this vitally important signature.
Mayan-Guatemalan women are slim, dressed in loose-fitting traditional skirts and blouses, have long clean hair and wear no makeup. They are beautiful. Salvadorean women are fat, wear tight cheap fashions that make them look fatter, put makeup on with a trowel, and apparently comb their hair with goose fat every morning. They are not beautiful. The men look at you suspiciously. Certainly this is a country less used to outsiders. However, when I have actually stopped to talk to people, I have found everyone to be more than welcoming, and helpful and friendly. Eating breakfast pupusas in Sonsonate, the owner came down with a big grin and invited me to stay in his house! Lots of people here speak some English, as a huge proportion of people are or have worked in the US.
San Salvador is odd. The affluent and leafy Western suburbs (where my hostel is situated) seem like a North American city, in lots of ways. There are three malls, and many gas stations and US fast-food establishments. Then, you can take a bus or a 30 minute walk to the centre, which resembles nothing so much as a huge 30-block street market, with a Cathedral and Plaza more or less buried in the middle, and pretty much not a lot else. I went looking for the Science Museum but didn't have the exact address, and two sets of other Museum curators plus the Sheraton staff couldn't tell me where it was. In fact they thought it didn't exist. It was about two blocks away.
So apart from the capital, I've been hiking in Bosque El Impossible (swimming in the river yay!), and hung out for a day on Lago Coatepeque. I managed to be present for the FMLN's political rallies in both Suchitoto and San Salvador -- quite an experience! They are the party that formed out of the guerillas of the Civil War, and the revolutionary spirit is still very much alive. It was quite fun standing in a city Plaza packed with people wearing red chanting "Hasta La Victoria Siempre!"
Now east, through Eastern El Salvador, then skipping through a very small and by all accounts unremarkable corner of Honduras to Nicaragua. It's hot here!
Mayan-Guatemalan women are slim, dressed in loose-fitting traditional skirts and blouses, have long clean hair and wear no makeup. They are beautiful. Salvadorean women are fat, wear tight cheap fashions that make them look fatter, put makeup on with a trowel, and apparently comb their hair with goose fat every morning. They are not beautiful. The men look at you suspiciously. Certainly this is a country less used to outsiders. However, when I have actually stopped to talk to people, I have found everyone to be more than welcoming, and helpful and friendly. Eating breakfast pupusas in Sonsonate, the owner came down with a big grin and invited me to stay in his house! Lots of people here speak some English, as a huge proportion of people are or have worked in the US.
San Salvador is odd. The affluent and leafy Western suburbs (where my hostel is situated) seem like a North American city, in lots of ways. There are three malls, and many gas stations and US fast-food establishments. Then, you can take a bus or a 30 minute walk to the centre, which resembles nothing so much as a huge 30-block street market, with a Cathedral and Plaza more or less buried in the middle, and pretty much not a lot else. I went looking for the Science Museum but didn't have the exact address, and two sets of other Museum curators plus the Sheraton staff couldn't tell me where it was. In fact they thought it didn't exist. It was about two blocks away.
So apart from the capital, I've been hiking in Bosque El Impossible (swimming in the river yay!), and hung out for a day on Lago Coatepeque. I managed to be present for the FMLN's political rallies in both Suchitoto and San Salvador -- quite an experience! They are the party that formed out of the guerillas of the Civil War, and the revolutionary spirit is still very much alive. It was quite fun standing in a city Plaza packed with people wearing red chanting "Hasta La Victoria Siempre!"
Now east, through Eastern El Salvador, then skipping through a very small and by all accounts unremarkable corner of Honduras to Nicaragua. It's hot here!
Monday, February 27, 2006
avoiding bandits, meeting friends
On the road down into San Pedro La Laguna, Lago Atitlán, I encountered a broken down chicken bus blocking the carriageway. A man optimistically waved me through, so I pulled forward, only to find that the gap was pretty much not Suburban-sized. Trying to reverse back up the hairpin, I only slid further forward, and when the bus to my right itself slipped off the rocks holding it, 6 inches toward me, I just gave up and breathing in, slithered the ´Burban through the gap. I am starting to get pretty proud of my ability to navigate the beast. Which probably means I am due a crash. Actually, I did have a pranglet in Santa Cruz, as I left, in the parking lot. I had to do some crazy N-point turns to get out the gate, and the rear windows were all muddy. I tried to do it on intuition but misjudged the length of the car by about 2 inches. I made a two-inch dent in a Toyota truck's bull bars. Needless to say the Suburban was unscathed, yet again. Unfortunately the owner was standing right there: fortunately, they were two super-nice guys from Guatemala city, and although they started off a bit upset (reasonably enough!) when I was contrite, they were very friendly. I ended up giving them 100 quetzales to get the bar knocked back into place. Actually I have the best conversations with people through car-related events (just to counter those people who thought that by travelling by car I wouldn't meet people!).
Since there was two chicken-buses-worth of passengers milling about in the road, a good hour's walk in the sun to the nearest town, I offered lifts to one group, 8 schoolteachers from San Pedro. They were very helpful with directions, and interesting to chat to. Although I generally feel guilty driving such a huge car, I do really enjoy all the conversations with the people I give rides to.
Lago Atitlán is pretty. I had never really thought before how much volcanoes add to the beauty of a place. I think because they are a bit like the mountains in children's books -- conical, wooded, with tops shrouded in clouds. The place I stayed was odd. It resembled nothing so much as the greenfields area in Glastonbury. Lots of nice places to hang out run by hippies, with reggae music, fruit smoothies, good organic coffee and fresh bread, all that sort of thing. After spending a few hours one afternoon chilling out in one place, reading a book on Central America, I came out onto the footpath and was actually surprised to see Guatemalans there. Still, the local people seem to generally like the hippies. There are lots of friendly women and kids selling cakes and ice-creams and handcrafts, and they are super good-natured, even when you never buy anything. I have found that from the Maya: when you politely, with a smile, decline whatever they are offering, they smile back and move on. Intimidation seems not to be a part of their culture. It makes for a pleasant atmosphere.
I think every one of the four days that I spent in San Pedro, I met at least one person who I knew from previous encounters on the gringo trail. It's surreal. It's so nice to see people you thought maybe you'd never see again, and find out what they've been up to. So there was no shortage of friends to hang out with, and rooms were just a few dollars a night. I can understand why people stay there a while! However, I still began to feel after a few days that it was time to move on. I heard so many warnings about bandits on various roads around San Pedro that I was almost disappointed when I got all the back to the Carretera Interamericana without meeting a single one. Perhaps they don't work Sundays.
Antigua is really one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Every corner seems is a photograph waiting to be taken. Bright sunshine and clear blue skies frame time-faded or brightly-painted colonial houses, and lilac and bougainvillea trees fill the courtyards of crumbling ruins of convents, churches and monasteries. The colourful Maya handcraft and produce markets crowd the cobbled streets. And always the green slopes of one of the three volcanoes surrounding the city visible beyond. It is very touristy, with a lot of rich Guatemalans and El Salvadorean tourists as well as gringos, but really they don't spoil the picturesqueness. It is so expensive I am only staying one day, but it is definitely somewhere I would love to return to, with money. It is slightly less good for a solo traveller than other places, because it isn't really possibly to "lose yourself" in the city.
But I have bought a map of El Salvador, and will cross the border tomorrow. It has been a very rapid two-week tour of Guatemala, but I have done pretty well at seeing a diverse range of places. I don't even know what to expect of El Salvador, which is quite exciting in a way!
Since there was two chicken-buses-worth of passengers milling about in the road, a good hour's walk in the sun to the nearest town, I offered lifts to one group, 8 schoolteachers from San Pedro. They were very helpful with directions, and interesting to chat to. Although I generally feel guilty driving such a huge car, I do really enjoy all the conversations with the people I give rides to.
Lago Atitlán is pretty. I had never really thought before how much volcanoes add to the beauty of a place. I think because they are a bit like the mountains in children's books -- conical, wooded, with tops shrouded in clouds. The place I stayed was odd. It resembled nothing so much as the greenfields area in Glastonbury. Lots of nice places to hang out run by hippies, with reggae music, fruit smoothies, good organic coffee and fresh bread, all that sort of thing. After spending a few hours one afternoon chilling out in one place, reading a book on Central America, I came out onto the footpath and was actually surprised to see Guatemalans there. Still, the local people seem to generally like the hippies. There are lots of friendly women and kids selling cakes and ice-creams and handcrafts, and they are super good-natured, even when you never buy anything. I have found that from the Maya: when you politely, with a smile, decline whatever they are offering, they smile back and move on. Intimidation seems not to be a part of their culture. It makes for a pleasant atmosphere.
I think every one of the four days that I spent in San Pedro, I met at least one person who I knew from previous encounters on the gringo trail. It's surreal. It's so nice to see people you thought maybe you'd never see again, and find out what they've been up to. So there was no shortage of friends to hang out with, and rooms were just a few dollars a night. I can understand why people stay there a while! However, I still began to feel after a few days that it was time to move on. I heard so many warnings about bandits on various roads around San Pedro that I was almost disappointed when I got all the back to the Carretera Interamericana without meeting a single one. Perhaps they don't work Sundays.
Antigua is really one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Every corner seems is a photograph waiting to be taken. Bright sunshine and clear blue skies frame time-faded or brightly-painted colonial houses, and lilac and bougainvillea trees fill the courtyards of crumbling ruins of convents, churches and monasteries. The colourful Maya handcraft and produce markets crowd the cobbled streets. And always the green slopes of one of the three volcanoes surrounding the city visible beyond. It is very touristy, with a lot of rich Guatemalans and El Salvadorean tourists as well as gringos, but really they don't spoil the picturesqueness. It is so expensive I am only staying one day, but it is definitely somewhere I would love to return to, with money. It is slightly less good for a solo traveller than other places, because it isn't really possibly to "lose yourself" in the city.
But I have bought a map of El Salvador, and will cross the border tomorrow. It has been a very rapid two-week tour of Guatemala, but I have done pretty well at seeing a diverse range of places. I don't even know what to expect of El Salvador, which is quite exciting in a way!
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Four punctures in two days
So... sometime around Valentine's day I left Belize and braved the corruption and anarchy of Guatemala. I should immediately say that I have seen no sign of anything like this. The border was very straightforward, and the helpful man who took me through all the steps was interesting, friendly, and didn't even ask me for any money. I offered him 10 quetzales to thank him, about 70p, and he seemed cheerful enough!
Northern Guatemala is somewhat like Belize -- sparsely populated, forested, and with villages strung along the road in which everyone will smile and return waves and greetings as you pass through. I find it so soul-nourishing to have these little encounters with people. I was talking last night to the Finn who I have been travelling with for the last four days, since Tikal, about friendships. It seems that, unable to deal with the temporary nature of life (we all die), we like to separate our relationships into the "temporary" and the "permanent". It can easily seem that only the permanent relationships have value, or meaning. But once you accept that in fact all your relationships are temporary, just shorter or longer, it is a great liberation and you realise that therefore all relationships have value. I have enjoyed travelling with Tuomas for four days, and the fact that we may never see each other again does not reduce that. Equally, I have valued exchanging genuinely happy greetings with men doing road repairs, women carrying packages on their heads, and children drawing water at wells, beside the road.
Tikal was pretty groovy. It is really a big rainforest, with huge enormous trees with monkeys, birds, and other wildlife in them, which incidentally contains a few giant stone pyramids! It is lovely to walk around, and I spent nearly a day there. Then, along with a Canadian couple and Tuomas I drove down to Lago Atitlan, taking four days and stopping often along the way. Apart from managing to get four punctures, and leaving my sandals and my towel in various hotels, it has been a fun trip. Actually things going wrong with the car has proved a great opportunity for meeting people. The guys who fixed my puncture in Fray Bartolome one evening for 15 quetzales (1 gbp) were super-friendly, and were so amused when I returned the next morning with another tyre that they fixed it for free! By the fourth wheel-change, I was getting pretty quick, at least.
So there we are. One night, we decided to stay in this hostel. It was so weird being suddenly transported back into gringolandia, with fruit smoothies and organic dinner, bonobo on the stereo, etc etc. Basically I found it pretty unpleasant, even though the riverside setting was beautiful, the people interesting and international and open to talking to strangers, and the prices good. I would have loved it in England, for sure. I suppose I've become so used to (so addicted to) extreme cultural dislocation that just sitting in a bar boozing with some Europeans somehow lacked lustre. I couldn't face going straight to Lago Atitlan, the next stop on the gringo trail, so I have stopped in Santa Cruz del Quiche for two days. There is absolutely nothing to do here, and I am pretty much the only gringo. The others have gone on to their various destinations. I will go to Atitlan though, and Antigua. I have to overcome my stupid cultural prejudice against First Worlders (or whatever you call us), since they are likely to be some of the most interesting First Worlders I'll ever meet. And I can at least hang out with them as equals.
So, probably another week in Guatemala, and then on into El Salvador, which I'm really looking forward to -- it has no traveller trail to speak of. Tuomas is generally of a like mind to me, so wants to go to El Savador too, so I hope we can join up again further down the road.
This morning I came across my 90 Doxycycline tablets, supposedly for three months travel in malarial parts of South America. The idea of continuing this rate of experience-exposure for another 7 months and 15 countries sometimes makes my mind feel like exploding. And makes me go hide in an Internet cafe ;). Presumably that's why most travellers stop from time to time for a few weeks in nice, safe, culturally easy gringo hangouts. But now that I've had the full on 100% cultural immersion experience, I find it hard to accept it diluted, even though keeping taking it neat might make my head explode!
Travel really is a drug.
Northern Guatemala is somewhat like Belize -- sparsely populated, forested, and with villages strung along the road in which everyone will smile and return waves and greetings as you pass through. I find it so soul-nourishing to have these little encounters with people. I was talking last night to the Finn who I have been travelling with for the last four days, since Tikal, about friendships. It seems that, unable to deal with the temporary nature of life (we all die), we like to separate our relationships into the "temporary" and the "permanent". It can easily seem that only the permanent relationships have value, or meaning. But once you accept that in fact all your relationships are temporary, just shorter or longer, it is a great liberation and you realise that therefore all relationships have value. I have enjoyed travelling with Tuomas for four days, and the fact that we may never see each other again does not reduce that. Equally, I have valued exchanging genuinely happy greetings with men doing road repairs, women carrying packages on their heads, and children drawing water at wells, beside the road.
Tikal was pretty groovy. It is really a big rainforest, with huge enormous trees with monkeys, birds, and other wildlife in them, which incidentally contains a few giant stone pyramids! It is lovely to walk around, and I spent nearly a day there. Then, along with a Canadian couple and Tuomas I drove down to Lago Atitlan, taking four days and stopping often along the way. Apart from managing to get four punctures, and leaving my sandals and my towel in various hotels, it has been a fun trip. Actually things going wrong with the car has proved a great opportunity for meeting people. The guys who fixed my puncture in Fray Bartolome one evening for 15 quetzales (1 gbp) were super-friendly, and were so amused when I returned the next morning with another tyre that they fixed it for free! By the fourth wheel-change, I was getting pretty quick, at least.
So there we are. One night, we decided to stay in this hostel. It was so weird being suddenly transported back into gringolandia, with fruit smoothies and organic dinner, bonobo on the stereo, etc etc. Basically I found it pretty unpleasant, even though the riverside setting was beautiful, the people interesting and international and open to talking to strangers, and the prices good. I would have loved it in England, for sure. I suppose I've become so used to (so addicted to) extreme cultural dislocation that just sitting in a bar boozing with some Europeans somehow lacked lustre. I couldn't face going straight to Lago Atitlan, the next stop on the gringo trail, so I have stopped in Santa Cruz del Quiche for two days. There is absolutely nothing to do here, and I am pretty much the only gringo. The others have gone on to their various destinations. I will go to Atitlan though, and Antigua. I have to overcome my stupid cultural prejudice against First Worlders (or whatever you call us), since they are likely to be some of the most interesting First Worlders I'll ever meet. And I can at least hang out with them as equals.
So, probably another week in Guatemala, and then on into El Salvador, which I'm really looking forward to -- it has no traveller trail to speak of. Tuomas is generally of a like mind to me, so wants to go to El Savador too, so I hope we can join up again further down the road.
This morning I came across my 90 Doxycycline tablets, supposedly for three months travel in malarial parts of South America. The idea of continuing this rate of experience-exposure for another 7 months and 15 countries sometimes makes my mind feel like exploding. And makes me go hide in an Internet cafe ;). Presumably that's why most travellers stop from time to time for a few weeks in nice, safe, culturally easy gringo hangouts. But now that I've had the full on 100% cultural immersion experience, I find it hard to accept it diluted, even though keeping taking it neat might make my head explode!
Travel really is a drug.
Monday, February 13, 2006
A week in Toledo
I have just spent four days in two Maya villages, Blue Creek and San Jose, in Toledo district in Southern Belize. One of the poorest regions in the country, it is incidentally where Maya Gold chocolate comes from. I stayed two days in a guesthouse, and two days with a family. I didn't take any pictures, due to my usual reticence in treating humans as photo opportunities. Here though are a few of my crowded impressions from those impression-filled few days.
Sharing the joy in accomplishment of reading with Juni, 8. Doing English by pointing at pictures with the smallest daughter. Eating hot bowls of chicken or pork caldo with fingers, accompanied by huge calabash-pots of corn tortillas, freshly cut, milled, patted and fried.
Many first-time experiences. Seeing glow-worms glimmering in the grass, like a trip. Riding with seven guys in the back of a pickup going to the village meeting. Sleeping (just) in a hammock. Washing in a stream surrounded by rainforest. Watching the mother wring a chicken's neck, helping to pull out its feathers, then only four hours later eating it.
Listening with growing incredulity as the village school principal talks enthusiastically, in complete seriousness, about the discovery of the lost city of Atlantis in 2004. "Somwair neeah Japan I tink." They are Maya, but they learn the Caribbean-inflected English used throughout Belize. It fits them, somehow.
Being interrupted mid-shave one morning by two giggling, wriggling sisters, hiding smiling behind shocks of jet-black hair, holding onto each other for support, feet bare, toes splayed, as they inform me: "Yur brekfass reddy!"
Finding myself naturally helping the women (sweeping the floor, plucking the chickens, playing with the children), unable to sit idly by while they work. Yet shying from offering my services with the men's work (raising a roof), embarrassed by my soft hands, weak arms, unsuitable for the task.
The 14-year-old neighbour sitting on the porch with me, telling me about the Romans, and his plans to study history. But when bidden inside by Valentino, he says his goodbyes; he won't come inside the other man's house.
No electricity: at night, the only light is from candles. And in San Jose, old mustard jars filled with kerosene, a length of wick piercing the lid. Sophia knocks one over in her excitement to show me the Maya Atlas. I, worried grownuply about fire hazard, recruit Valentino to help clear up, forgetting that he has been drinking. He snarls at the children and they scatter. He violently mops the tabletop with a nearby pair of trousers, spilling the vase of plastic flowers. Sophia appears, too late, meek and crestfallen, with the Toilet Peepah.
The children wonder at my truck. "It beautiful!" says Juni, simply. I demur: I well remember what a wreck it has looked in parking lots along the way. Yet here, 15 miles of dirt track between us and the rest of world, yes, it somehow does seem quite luxurious. Embarrasingly so.
Eggs and oranges undescribably delicious, eggy and orangey beyond where I had calibrated Eggness and Orangeness to be. Yet their chicken, free-range, organic, freshly killed, is surprisingly tough, gristly and dry.
Mostly, I am inspired and glow from the primal joyousness, the wholehearted dedication to living, the cheerfullness of the children (Valentino has 10, 2 boys and 8 girls. He tells me matter-of-factly that two have died: one in infancy, one at 19, of Hepatitis.) According to the Atlas, in most Maya villages children account for 60% of the population. Into adulthood, harder truths are apparent. The subordinate nature of the women's role. The alcoholism amongst the men, and the status games, the playing at being important, speechifying, self-congratulation.
But what has worked for centuries ought, perhaps, to be left to work now. They are paving the road to the villages, they say. Things will, of course, change. But the Maya people have been around since before the Romans: somehow I don't doubt that they will survive whatever comes their way.
Sharing the joy in accomplishment of reading with Juni, 8. Doing English by pointing at pictures with the smallest daughter. Eating hot bowls of chicken or pork caldo with fingers, accompanied by huge calabash-pots of corn tortillas, freshly cut, milled, patted and fried.
Many first-time experiences. Seeing glow-worms glimmering in the grass, like a trip. Riding with seven guys in the back of a pickup going to the village meeting. Sleeping (just) in a hammock. Washing in a stream surrounded by rainforest. Watching the mother wring a chicken's neck, helping to pull out its feathers, then only four hours later eating it.
Listening with growing incredulity as the village school principal talks enthusiastically, in complete seriousness, about the discovery of the lost city of Atlantis in 2004. "Somwair neeah Japan I tink." They are Maya, but they learn the Caribbean-inflected English used throughout Belize. It fits them, somehow.
Being interrupted mid-shave one morning by two giggling, wriggling sisters, hiding smiling behind shocks of jet-black hair, holding onto each other for support, feet bare, toes splayed, as they inform me: "Yur brekfass reddy!"
Finding myself naturally helping the women (sweeping the floor, plucking the chickens, playing with the children), unable to sit idly by while they work. Yet shying from offering my services with the men's work (raising a roof), embarrassed by my soft hands, weak arms, unsuitable for the task.
The 14-year-old neighbour sitting on the porch with me, telling me about the Romans, and his plans to study history. But when bidden inside by Valentino, he says his goodbyes; he won't come inside the other man's house.
No electricity: at night, the only light is from candles. And in San Jose, old mustard jars filled with kerosene, a length of wick piercing the lid. Sophia knocks one over in her excitement to show me the Maya Atlas. I, worried grownuply about fire hazard, recruit Valentino to help clear up, forgetting that he has been drinking. He snarls at the children and they scatter. He violently mops the tabletop with a nearby pair of trousers, spilling the vase of plastic flowers. Sophia appears, too late, meek and crestfallen, with the Toilet Peepah.
The children wonder at my truck. "It beautiful!" says Juni, simply. I demur: I well remember what a wreck it has looked in parking lots along the way. Yet here, 15 miles of dirt track between us and the rest of world, yes, it somehow does seem quite luxurious. Embarrasingly so.
Eggs and oranges undescribably delicious, eggy and orangey beyond where I had calibrated Eggness and Orangeness to be. Yet their chicken, free-range, organic, freshly killed, is surprisingly tough, gristly and dry.
Mostly, I am inspired and glow from the primal joyousness, the wholehearted dedication to living, the cheerfullness of the children (Valentino has 10, 2 boys and 8 girls. He tells me matter-of-factly that two have died: one in infancy, one at 19, of Hepatitis.) According to the Atlas, in most Maya villages children account for 60% of the population. Into adulthood, harder truths are apparent. The subordinate nature of the women's role. The alcoholism amongst the men, and the status games, the playing at being important, speechifying, self-congratulation.
But what has worked for centuries ought, perhaps, to be left to work now. They are paving the road to the villages, they say. Things will, of course, change. But the Maya people have been around since before the Romans: somehow I don't doubt that they will survive whatever comes their way.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
things
my 43things
although in fact, only 37 things (so far). how lacking in imagination i must be. or possibly just short of internet time.
what are yours?
although in fact, only 37 things (so far). how lacking in imagination i must be. or possibly just short of internet time.
what are yours?
Friday, February 03, 2006
frontiers
frontiers are wierd. discontinuities in the desert. i can't get my head round them. why is it that from tijuana to tulum, every cafe in mexico has a paper-napkin holder made of a vertical U of metal, but 3 miles south, across the belize border, suddenly everyone has decided that the correct object to hold paper napkins is a wooden tray with a sprung metal loop?
why is it that from vancouver to halifax, donuts are provided as a de rigeur snack on every street corner by tim horton; yet in america (an equally if not more snack-obsessed country) no such chain was to be seen?
why from baja california to patagonia do they speak spanish, yet in belize it is considered normal to speak english, instead? why do belizeans write their street names in paint on bits of wood, while mexicans get theirs sponsored by car manufacturers and printed on metal? why do mexicans drive like their pregnant wife is in the passenger seat, and belizeans like tomorrow would be soon enough?
the fact that differences in culture exist, i can understand (although even that question does bear reflection). what i find hard to understand is that one culture spans a large area of land, running right up to what is after all an imaginary line, and then suddenly, for no reason at all, just stops.
why is it that from vancouver to halifax, donuts are provided as a de rigeur snack on every street corner by tim horton; yet in america (an equally if not more snack-obsessed country) no such chain was to be seen?
why from baja california to patagonia do they speak spanish, yet in belize it is considered normal to speak english, instead? why do belizeans write their street names in paint on bits of wood, while mexicans get theirs sponsored by car manufacturers and printed on metal? why do mexicans drive like their pregnant wife is in the passenger seat, and belizeans like tomorrow would be soon enough?
the fact that differences in culture exist, i can understand (although even that question does bear reflection). what i find hard to understand is that one culture spans a large area of land, running right up to what is after all an imaginary line, and then suddenly, for no reason at all, just stops.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
beautiful belize
well the border crossing from mexico was superbly easy. they speak english here again! to begin with i kept addressing all officials in spanish, before i remembered. in the north there's lots of hispanic-looking people, some of whom actually don't speak english, so it's highly confusing.
it feels like a very civilised country, unlike mexico. everybody drives nice and slow, and coruzal, the first town on the road through belize, is so laid back its amazing. there's hardly any cars at all, everyone's biking around, and everyone smiles and says hilloo deer, or stops to chat. it feels a lot like, say, the Scilly Isles -- like the England of thirty or fifty years ago. today i am leaving this lovely place and going to a nature reserve, one of many. belize is all nature reserves and relaxed people, as far as i can tell.
it's going to be a struggle to face other central american countries after this, that's for sure, with their corruption and lack of civilised infrastructure.
oh, and the houses here are all faded clapboard affairs on stilts, rather than the concrete and breezeblock structures so favored by the mexicans. often with attendant old black man sitting in rocking chair on the stoop.
met david and naomi the first night i was here, in the guesthouse: the first fellow-brightonian travellers of the trip! like me, of course, they aren't from brighton at all, they just moved there. it was wierd to sit and talk about brighton house prices over a couple of belikins, but all that was brought to a stop by the other people in the bar who came over to talk to us. an interesting mix of locals and ex-pats.
finally, no more maize tortillas! here it's good old rice, beans and chikin. and deep-fried flour tortillas called "fry jacks", if you want a heart attack on a plate. oh yeah, as well as everyone talking english with accents that sound to me like jamaicans (even the hispanics which seems kind of incongruous), most people also speaks creole which is so cool to listen to. "ah won't ya cut out ya foolishness bwah."
it feels like a very civilised country, unlike mexico. everybody drives nice and slow, and coruzal, the first town on the road through belize, is so laid back its amazing. there's hardly any cars at all, everyone's biking around, and everyone smiles and says hilloo deer, or stops to chat. it feels a lot like, say, the Scilly Isles -- like the England of thirty or fifty years ago. today i am leaving this lovely place and going to a nature reserve, one of many. belize is all nature reserves and relaxed people, as far as i can tell.
it's going to be a struggle to face other central american countries after this, that's for sure, with their corruption and lack of civilised infrastructure.
oh, and the houses here are all faded clapboard affairs on stilts, rather than the concrete and breezeblock structures so favored by the mexicans. often with attendant old black man sitting in rocking chair on the stoop.
met david and naomi the first night i was here, in the guesthouse: the first fellow-brightonian travellers of the trip! like me, of course, they aren't from brighton at all, they just moved there. it was wierd to sit and talk about brighton house prices over a couple of belikins, but all that was brought to a stop by the other people in the bar who came over to talk to us. an interesting mix of locals and ex-pats.
finally, no more maize tortillas! here it's good old rice, beans and chikin. and deep-fried flour tortillas called "fry jacks", if you want a heart attack on a plate. oh yeah, as well as everyone talking english with accents that sound to me like jamaicans (even the hispanics which seems kind of incongruous), most people also speaks creole which is so cool to listen to. "ah won't ya cut out ya foolishness bwah."
Saturday, January 28, 2006
rising tide
So I left San Cristóbal earlyish tuesday morning, taking the winding road through the mountains to Palenque. As I reached the outskirts of the town, it began to rain, and with the window down and the damp lush jungle rain smell wafting in, I actually felt a sort of nostalgia for England and rainy winters! The road was fairly empty and in good condition, and it swept back and forth between beautiful jungled mountains, with small villages dotted along the way. The major thing of note to happen on the journey was the indigenous people trying to sell some kind of fruit to passers-by. in one village, small children were rushing into the path of oncoming traffic in order to try to force it to stop, while their father looked on critically. Presumably he would beat them if they didn't reach their quota. A little further along, a Mayan woman and a small girl had actually erected a rope-and-flag barrier across the road on a blind mountainside bend. I did the only thing I could do in the circumstances: hit the gas. Presumably the contraption fell to the road, and didn't wrap itself around the rear axle of the ´burban (possibly with Maya family still attached).
When I arrived at Palenque, it was still raining. I began to get the first feelings that maybe actually rain wasn't all that cool. I had never noticed it before, but in England when it's raining, that usually means it's going to stop sometime soon. So I had a sort of subconscious expectation that kept being denied, which was unsettling. I decided not to go up to the ruins but to stay at El Panchan, a sort of grotto in the jungle, and hope the rain might have stopped in the morning.
I met Haken a Swede (who I'd first met in Oaxaca) in the bar whilst I was wandering around unsuccessfully trying to find a bed. His roommates of the previous night were leaving so we decided to try going halves on a cabaña: it only came to US$5 each. The only one she had left was on the first floor, so we left our bags and went back to the bar to eat drink and socialise. I met a Canadian family of two teachers and three children aged probably 6 to 12 who had bought an A-Team style van, and taken a year off travelling down through the US and Mexico. How totally inspirational. It became clear in conversation that having kids is the best ice-breaker and cultural ambassador you can have!
The next morning I went to see the ruins, and the rain mercifully held out for the four hours I was there. Back at the hostel, the rain began again, so I abandoned plans to visit Agua Azul
and we instead went into town on a supplies mission. The following morning, we would leave to drive to Chetumal with Veronika, an Austrian girl.
As we sat in the bar that night, eating, drinking, and watching first a fairly appalling harpist, then an amazing fire dancer (and I have seen quite a few), the rain just kept on coming. I began to wish I had driven the few hundred yards from the cabaña to the restaurant. At about 1am, we finally decided it just wasn't going to stop, and as we planned to wake up and leave early the next day, we made a run for it.
I arrived a little after Haken, to the first surprise of many that night. He was butt naked (Swedes eh). He explained, between slightly hysterical laughter, that he had decided to run back with the room key in his mouth, as he was using both his hands to hold a plastic bar chair he had stolen above his head as a makeshift umbrella. As he reached the top of the iron spiral-staircase to our room, the key had fallen from his mouth, dropping straight into the growing muddy puddles below. Being one to confront unpleasant situations head-on, he quickly realised that his only option was to strip naked and swim around in the mud looking for the key. Absolutely incredibly, 15 minutes later he actually found it, and ran naked and mud-coated to the shower blocks to clean off. Needless to say there was no hot water. I can't imagine what other people must have thought if they saw him.
Anyway, relatively unfazeable, I just (after laughing quite a bit) put out the light, and got into my bed. The rain was still torrential, and it was so loud, sleep was slow in coming. In fact before it did, we heard a commotion outside: the American girls from the neighbouring cabaña were screaming into the night: "Don't do it! It's too dangerous! Muy peligroso! Come back!". Kneeling up to see what was going on, I couldn't believe what I saw. The river had risen so high with the rain that it had burst it's banks entirely. Our bridge back to the main area was underwater except in the middle, with a fierce-looking current rushing all around it. The entire cabaña area was at least a metre deep in water. And it was still raining like it would never stop.
The five guys whose (ground-floor) cabaña had been flooded, and who had been considering attempting a swim to higher ground, became the first of many refugees in our first-floor cabaña building. As more and more came, lured upward by the sight of others, each had a crazy story to tell. Some poor fools had camped, and had simply abandoned tents full of possessions to the rising water. Some had been fast asleep and only awakened when the water rose above their mattress. A Canadian couple were in a very bad way: the girl was suffering from shock and was shovering uncontrollably and vomiting off the blacony. Another Canadian girl had left her bike, which she'd ridden all the way down from Toronto, chained to a tree. It was anybody's guess whether tree or bike would be there come morning.
The girls next door got the iPod going, and made everyone cups of mushroom tea. Soggy rizla came out, and joints started to circulate. Our room became a sort of changing-room and chillout room, with Haken, incredibly, still trying to sleep through everything. I had gotten up, and whilst I was chatting to some people, a wet Quebecois guy and a wet Mexican guy decided to occupy my bed. At 4am, the rain continued unabated. I had had quite bad diarrhoea that day, but since we were effectively ship-wrecked, I just clenched butt-cheeks harder and grimly held on. At this point, there were about 10 people passed out on beds and floor and packs in the girls' two-bed room. The Canadian couple were sharing the end of Haken's single bed; myself and Erica from Michigan joined Francois and Gaika on my bed. Then, whilst trying desperately to keep my sphincter closed, a feat which took almost all my attention, and yet also having to fight the growing need to just shut my eyes and sleep, I lay and listened to Erica (a recent Biochemistry graduate, it transpired) from Michigan talk for three hours about how life on this planet originated, how life can be detected on other planets, what dengue fever is, and other topics that are now lost forever to me.
At 0630, when I was feeling horribly bloated and uncomfortable, and really thinking I could no longer control my body, a guy appeared in the doorway looking grim. "I've been," he said. I thought he meant he had finally given in and relieved himself in the raging waters. Feeling slightly better for not having to be the first, I decided I had no option but to do likewise. But it turned out that in fact, in those fews hours, with the slackening rain, the water level had falled dramatically. It was now possible to squelch barefoot through marsh to the toilet block where, incredibly, the tide-marks indicated that the water had stopped rising just before overflowing into the toilet bowl. Ah unalloyed delight. Ah blessed relief. An eruption fit to wake a campsite, but I didn't care. And somehow, my emergency toilet paper had survived dry through everything. Never was a man happier. When I returned to my wet, already-full bed, I pulled a bit of damp unused cover over my head, and within minutes was asleep. Sorry Erica: I must have seemed terribly rude.
In the morning (well, later that morning), we were made aware that the following night's stay would be free. But what with a guy coming in with a bleeding ankle, saying on of the El Panchan dogs had bitten him, and the whole place being a marsh, and the rain restarting again, we all were very keen to leave as soon as humanly possible, even though it meant fording the river with the ´burban. But it started and forded like a trooper, and we were on our way without a backward glance.
Three minutes down the road, the rain suddenly, and completely, stopped. Was it just one raincloud, with a Mayan-cursed vengeance against hippy campers, that had caused all that destruction? Difficult to know. But as the sun came out, and the car and ourselves began to dry out, I decided that perhaps I didn't really miss the rain, after all.
When I arrived at Palenque, it was still raining. I began to get the first feelings that maybe actually rain wasn't all that cool. I had never noticed it before, but in England when it's raining, that usually means it's going to stop sometime soon. So I had a sort of subconscious expectation that kept being denied, which was unsettling. I decided not to go up to the ruins but to stay at El Panchan, a sort of grotto in the jungle, and hope the rain might have stopped in the morning.
I met Haken a Swede (who I'd first met in Oaxaca) in the bar whilst I was wandering around unsuccessfully trying to find a bed. His roommates of the previous night were leaving so we decided to try going halves on a cabaña: it only came to US$5 each. The only one she had left was on the first floor, so we left our bags and went back to the bar to eat drink and socialise. I met a Canadian family of two teachers and three children aged probably 6 to 12 who had bought an A-Team style van, and taken a year off travelling down through the US and Mexico. How totally inspirational. It became clear in conversation that having kids is the best ice-breaker and cultural ambassador you can have!
The next morning I went to see the ruins, and the rain mercifully held out for the four hours I was there. Back at the hostel, the rain began again, so I abandoned plans to visit Agua Azul
and we instead went into town on a supplies mission. The following morning, we would leave to drive to Chetumal with Veronika, an Austrian girl.
As we sat in the bar that night, eating, drinking, and watching first a fairly appalling harpist, then an amazing fire dancer (and I have seen quite a few), the rain just kept on coming. I began to wish I had driven the few hundred yards from the cabaña to the restaurant. At about 1am, we finally decided it just wasn't going to stop, and as we planned to wake up and leave early the next day, we made a run for it.
I arrived a little after Haken, to the first surprise of many that night. He was butt naked (Swedes eh). He explained, between slightly hysterical laughter, that he had decided to run back with the room key in his mouth, as he was using both his hands to hold a plastic bar chair he had stolen above his head as a makeshift umbrella. As he reached the top of the iron spiral-staircase to our room, the key had fallen from his mouth, dropping straight into the growing muddy puddles below. Being one to confront unpleasant situations head-on, he quickly realised that his only option was to strip naked and swim around in the mud looking for the key. Absolutely incredibly, 15 minutes later he actually found it, and ran naked and mud-coated to the shower blocks to clean off. Needless to say there was no hot water. I can't imagine what other people must have thought if they saw him.
Anyway, relatively unfazeable, I just (after laughing quite a bit) put out the light, and got into my bed. The rain was still torrential, and it was so loud, sleep was slow in coming. In fact before it did, we heard a commotion outside: the American girls from the neighbouring cabaña were screaming into the night: "Don't do it! It's too dangerous! Muy peligroso! Come back!". Kneeling up to see what was going on, I couldn't believe what I saw. The river had risen so high with the rain that it had burst it's banks entirely. Our bridge back to the main area was underwater except in the middle, with a fierce-looking current rushing all around it. The entire cabaña area was at least a metre deep in water. And it was still raining like it would never stop.
The five guys whose (ground-floor) cabaña had been flooded, and who had been considering attempting a swim to higher ground, became the first of many refugees in our first-floor cabaña building. As more and more came, lured upward by the sight of others, each had a crazy story to tell. Some poor fools had camped, and had simply abandoned tents full of possessions to the rising water. Some had been fast asleep and only awakened when the water rose above their mattress. A Canadian couple were in a very bad way: the girl was suffering from shock and was shovering uncontrollably and vomiting off the blacony. Another Canadian girl had left her bike, which she'd ridden all the way down from Toronto, chained to a tree. It was anybody's guess whether tree or bike would be there come morning.
The girls next door got the iPod going, and made everyone cups of mushroom tea. Soggy rizla came out, and joints started to circulate. Our room became a sort of changing-room and chillout room, with Haken, incredibly, still trying to sleep through everything. I had gotten up, and whilst I was chatting to some people, a wet Quebecois guy and a wet Mexican guy decided to occupy my bed. At 4am, the rain continued unabated. I had had quite bad diarrhoea that day, but since we were effectively ship-wrecked, I just clenched butt-cheeks harder and grimly held on. At this point, there were about 10 people passed out on beds and floor and packs in the girls' two-bed room. The Canadian couple were sharing the end of Haken's single bed; myself and Erica from Michigan joined Francois and Gaika on my bed. Then, whilst trying desperately to keep my sphincter closed, a feat which took almost all my attention, and yet also having to fight the growing need to just shut my eyes and sleep, I lay and listened to Erica (a recent Biochemistry graduate, it transpired) from Michigan talk for three hours about how life on this planet originated, how life can be detected on other planets, what dengue fever is, and other topics that are now lost forever to me.
At 0630, when I was feeling horribly bloated and uncomfortable, and really thinking I could no longer control my body, a guy appeared in the doorway looking grim. "I've been," he said. I thought he meant he had finally given in and relieved himself in the raging waters. Feeling slightly better for not having to be the first, I decided I had no option but to do likewise. But it turned out that in fact, in those fews hours, with the slackening rain, the water level had falled dramatically. It was now possible to squelch barefoot through marsh to the toilet block where, incredibly, the tide-marks indicated that the water had stopped rising just before overflowing into the toilet bowl. Ah unalloyed delight. Ah blessed relief. An eruption fit to wake a campsite, but I didn't care. And somehow, my emergency toilet paper had survived dry through everything. Never was a man happier. When I returned to my wet, already-full bed, I pulled a bit of damp unused cover over my head, and within minutes was asleep. Sorry Erica: I must have seemed terribly rude.
In the morning (well, later that morning), we were made aware that the following night's stay would be free. But what with a guy coming in with a bleeding ankle, saying on of the El Panchan dogs had bitten him, and the whole place being a marsh, and the rain restarting again, we all were very keen to leave as soon as humanly possible, even though it meant fording the river with the ´burban. But it started and forded like a trooper, and we were on our way without a backward glance.
Three minutes down the road, the rain suddenly, and completely, stopped. Was it just one raincloud, with a Mayan-cursed vengeance against hippy campers, that had caused all that destruction? Difficult to know. But as the sun came out, and the car and ourselves began to dry out, I decided that perhaps I didn't really miss the rain, after all.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
miscellanea
Get hold of some of this. Oaxaca has the most amazing hot chocolate i have ever tasted. I guess you'd expect it from the land of chocolate! And, as usual, google, the net, and american commerce conspire to make it available to anyone with a credit card. I bought some to send home, but I lost it. It may be hiding somewhere in the suburban, its hard to be sure.
Also there are some pictures of New Year on the net now. Thanks Maaike :)!
Wow amazing jungle-surrounded mist-wreathed rain-drenched maya ruins here at palenque. Tomorrow early taking the never-taken road cutting across the Yucatan peninsular through hopefully tourist-free ruin sites to Chetumal where I make only my third international border-crossing of the trip, into Belize. Tips Graham? Thinking of going to Orange Walk and Belize City, then taking the road to Tikal in Guatemala.
Also there are some pictures of New Year on the net now. Thanks Maaike :)!
Wow amazing jungle-surrounded mist-wreathed rain-drenched maya ruins here at palenque. Tomorrow early taking the never-taken road cutting across the Yucatan peninsular through hopefully tourist-free ruin sites to Chetumal where I make only my third international border-crossing of the trip, into Belize. Tips Graham? Thinking of going to Orange Walk and Belize City, then taking the road to Tikal in Guatemala.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
christmas pictures
Relaxing over christmas on the beach at maruata.
And at one in the morning, watching a sea turtle lay her eggs.
(Pics courtesy of Mahi, ta!)
And now I'm off to Palenque to view some ruins! I decided to go into Guatemala via Belize in the end, so that is my next border crossing in a few days probably!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
photographs
i spent yesterday at an indigenous village fiesta at zincanatán with an israeli couple. the guy was really into photography: he took about 70 pictures in a few hours. i preferred to just watch and experience than try to record, but looking at
his website i can't deny that he has got some amazing pictures in the past.
the pictures of yesterday are not there yet, but there's some great ones of central america, particularly "people". i'd highly recommend a quick browse, especially on work time. and check back later for the ones of yesterday.
his website i can't deny that he has got some amazing pictures in the past.
the pictures of yesterday are not there yet, but there's some great ones of central america, particularly "people". i'd highly recommend a quick browse, especially on work time. and check back later for the ones of yesterday.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
tourist or traveller
i think i have finally hit upon the distinction. unfortunately i have to report that i am (i could optimistically add "as yet") by this definition firmly in the "tourist" camp.
you can recognise tourists, because they lack a role. they are observers. when you watch a TV documentary about aztec ruins, you see only the ruins themselves. never the cameraman, the sound guy, the mic and the camera. you have the impression of a single subjective experience. it is as if you are a ghost in the scene. if the camera spun round and showed you the process of making the programme you are watching, you would get an unpleasant shock.
when a tourist encounters other tourists, he gets a similar feeling. the tourist wishes, ghostlike, to observe without participating. when it is just you, you can make believe that you don't exist. but when you are forced to confront other tourists, the truth of your own role-less presence is forced upon you.
a traveller, by contrast, i believe, has a role. he really engages in the situation. perhaps he stays in one village for three weeks, makes some friends, learns how to make tostadas, and teaches some english. since he has a role, he is not a ghost and does not have the same crisis of self. even though his presence also is transitory, it is concrete.
actually i doubt whether i myself will ever achieve "travellerhood". part of the fun of travelling for me, is being sometimes the only person of my own culture. you can make believe you are anyone, and place any interpretation you please on what you see. it's so much more diverting than at home, when through long familiarity you know always what people are thinking and why they are acting the way they are, and you know that everyone else understands you in the same way.
you can recognise tourists, because they lack a role. they are observers. when you watch a TV documentary about aztec ruins, you see only the ruins themselves. never the cameraman, the sound guy, the mic and the camera. you have the impression of a single subjective experience. it is as if you are a ghost in the scene. if the camera spun round and showed you the process of making the programme you are watching, you would get an unpleasant shock.
when a tourist encounters other tourists, he gets a similar feeling. the tourist wishes, ghostlike, to observe without participating. when it is just you, you can make believe that you don't exist. but when you are forced to confront other tourists, the truth of your own role-less presence is forced upon you.
a traveller, by contrast, i believe, has a role. he really engages in the situation. perhaps he stays in one village for three weeks, makes some friends, learns how to make tostadas, and teaches some english. since he has a role, he is not a ghost and does not have the same crisis of self. even though his presence also is transitory, it is concrete.
actually i doubt whether i myself will ever achieve "travellerhood". part of the fun of travelling for me, is being sometimes the only person of my own culture. you can make believe you are anyone, and place any interpretation you please on what you see. it's so much more diverting than at home, when through long familiarity you know always what people are thinking and why they are acting the way they are, and you know that everyone else understands you in the same way.
Friday, January 13, 2006
De Monteczuma y gringos
Well, finally after 6 weeks it happened. Monteczuma, in the form of two Zapoteca girls serving us tacos at the side of the Puebla-Oaxaca Expressway in between laughing at our Spanish, took his revenge. I woke up at 5am in general discomfort, and spent the morning issuing forth from various orifices. Unpleasant.
Actually, although I felt generally pretty grim, and didn't get out of bed much for a couple of days, really I had it pretty mild. I'm not sure whether the lesson is not to buy street-food from laughing Zapotecas, or just not to care too much about getting ill. tbh, getting ill for two days in what is now four months of travel is probably better than i average at home, over the winter months.
So yesterday I finally got to see more of Oaxaca than the inside of a hostel. It is totally unlike everywhere else i've been: it's "Gringolandia" as somebody said. Full of american seniors in luminous orange shorts and Europeans in ridiculous holiday-chic "indigenous" clothing sipping lattes in absurdly overpriced restaurants. pretty funny really, a good diversion from the rest of my trip. There are about 10 hostels here at least, and the HI one is huge and as clean and organised as any I saw in the US. So there are a lot of travellers here too, so plenty of interesting inter-beer international chat.
Tourists piss me off though. Blundering about, looking at stuff even though they don't know why, just to fill up their day. And make no mistake, I include so-called "travellers" in this too. What the futtock are they doing? Don't they have homes to go to, jobs to do, like normal people? What do they expect to find inside a 17th century cathedral, at an indigenous market, or among pre-Hispanic ruins? I mean, if you're really interested in some subject, sure, read books about it, study it properly from home, see photographs, and perhaps culminate many years of study with visits to specific sights. But coming to a country, following a set path through a set of historically and culturally unrelated "sights" which just happen to be within bussing distance of one another, loitering aimlessly in the streets and squares of some poor town, spending absurd amounts of money buying rubbish that you will only use to clutter your stupid homes, using people's genuine poverty and culture ancestry as a backdrop for your idiotic notion of the perfect holiday. Bleugh. You all make me sick. And what the hell will you do with all those photographs of the inside of churches and ruins and buildings? You're not a professional photographer: your pictures will be rubbish. A church is the house of God. It is a sacred building where people go to pray. Ruins are just old things that haven't been used for a while. Buildings... are buildings! Where people live, or work. They are not freaking tourist attractions! Go home, I say, go home!
Somehow, I manage not to include myself in this group. Just because the stupid tourist clothes I wear don't happen to be luminous orange, or because I speak a few words of broken Spanish, or because I look at things instead of buying or photographing them. Interesting hypocrisy.
Actually, although I felt generally pretty grim, and didn't get out of bed much for a couple of days, really I had it pretty mild. I'm not sure whether the lesson is not to buy street-food from laughing Zapotecas, or just not to care too much about getting ill. tbh, getting ill for two days in what is now four months of travel is probably better than i average at home, over the winter months.
So yesterday I finally got to see more of Oaxaca than the inside of a hostel. It is totally unlike everywhere else i've been: it's "Gringolandia" as somebody said. Full of american seniors in luminous orange shorts and Europeans in ridiculous holiday-chic "indigenous" clothing sipping lattes in absurdly overpriced restaurants. pretty funny really, a good diversion from the rest of my trip. There are about 10 hostels here at least, and the HI one is huge and as clean and organised as any I saw in the US. So there are a lot of travellers here too, so plenty of interesting inter-beer international chat.
Tourists piss me off though. Blundering about, looking at stuff even though they don't know why, just to fill up their day. And make no mistake, I include so-called "travellers" in this too. What the futtock are they doing? Don't they have homes to go to, jobs to do, like normal people? What do they expect to find inside a 17th century cathedral, at an indigenous market, or among pre-Hispanic ruins? I mean, if you're really interested in some subject, sure, read books about it, study it properly from home, see photographs, and perhaps culminate many years of study with visits to specific sights. But coming to a country, following a set path through a set of historically and culturally unrelated "sights" which just happen to be within bussing distance of one another, loitering aimlessly in the streets and squares of some poor town, spending absurd amounts of money buying rubbish that you will only use to clutter your stupid homes, using people's genuine poverty and culture ancestry as a backdrop for your idiotic notion of the perfect holiday. Bleugh. You all make me sick. And what the hell will you do with all those photographs of the inside of churches and ruins and buildings? You're not a professional photographer: your pictures will be rubbish. A church is the house of God. It is a sacred building where people go to pray. Ruins are just old things that haven't been used for a while. Buildings... are buildings! Where people live, or work. They are not freaking tourist attractions! Go home, I say, go home!
Somehow, I manage not to include myself in this group. Just because the stupid tourist clothes I wear don't happen to be luminous orange, or because I speak a few words of broken Spanish, or because I look at things instead of buying or photographing them. Interesting hypocrisy.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
bad day turned good
Two bad things happened today: I lost my money belt (with passport, tourist permit, credit card and traveller's cheques), and somebody crashed into my car.
I left Cholula yesterday morning for Puebla, got into town to find the hostel full, so booked into a grim but cheap hotel. Using the baños in a restaurant at lunchtime, I realised I wasn't wearing my money belt. Yes, I had put it in my pillow case in the Cholula hostel so it was safe overnight, then had left without it. Wag point. I frantically called them, but the person answering didn't speak english or understand my spanish, so I just drove over there, narrowly avoiding running over a man, sideswiping a taxi, and being run into by a bus -- all this on a 30 minute journey :/. When I arrived the guy from the previous night was nowhere to be found, and the new guy in charge had no idea. The bed had been stripped: no sign of money or belt.
I was told the original guy would be back the next day, so I figured all I could do was return to Puebla. This morning, I called Cholula again, and -- thank god -- original guy says yes, he has the money belt. So I drive over there yet again (incident-free -- on the weekend all the mentalists (mostly bus drivers) stay off the roads, apparently), and with much gratefullness, pick up the goods. I incidentally offer the others a lift to Puebla -- and, randomly, they all accept. So eight of us pile into the truck and I make the Cholula-Puebla trip for what feels like the 100th time. Just on the outskirts of Puebla, I pull up at some traffic lights: unfortunately, what I don't spot is the guy in the 'parked cars' lane to my right, who is reversing into a spot. He is obviously looking back and not forward, and as he reverses in manages to swipe me with his front wing. I am not too bothered, given that I am driving a tank, although my passengers are a little taken aback by my sangfroid. When the lights go green, I pull away, but apparently the guy hasn't bothered to move back out of my way, because as I do my rear bumper catches his front bumper, and rips it half off. All of this relayed to me after the fact by my passenger watching in the wing-mirror. I drive on: when in Mexico, etc. When I drop the others off, I check the truck but it hasn't suffered a bruise. American overengineering: one point.
. . .
Yes, the Dutch girls, plus a Mexican-French couple, and some Mexicans, helped me share the Tequila. I found out afterwards that cheap tequila gives bad hangovers. I finally got over the headache 2 days later. But we had fun, randomly crashing the party of the Mexican girl's family. Thanks, Elisabeth and Carlos (who I think was her uncle.)
. . .
Actually, today, I'm bored of travelling. I'm sick of the neverending change, the impermanence of anything of value. And there's a lot to confront, all by yourself. Well I kind of was, but then I met some Swiss-Germans and they invited me to join them for a beer -- and I forgot about all that again.
I left Cholula yesterday morning for Puebla, got into town to find the hostel full, so booked into a grim but cheap hotel. Using the baños in a restaurant at lunchtime, I realised I wasn't wearing my money belt. Yes, I had put it in my pillow case in the Cholula hostel so it was safe overnight, then had left without it. Wag point. I frantically called them, but the person answering didn't speak english or understand my spanish, so I just drove over there, narrowly avoiding running over a man, sideswiping a taxi, and being run into by a bus -- all this on a 30 minute journey :/. When I arrived the guy from the previous night was nowhere to be found, and the new guy in charge had no idea. The bed had been stripped: no sign of money or belt.
I was told the original guy would be back the next day, so I figured all I could do was return to Puebla. This morning, I called Cholula again, and -- thank god -- original guy says yes, he has the money belt. So I drive over there yet again (incident-free -- on the weekend all the mentalists (mostly bus drivers) stay off the roads, apparently), and with much gratefullness, pick up the goods. I incidentally offer the others a lift to Puebla -- and, randomly, they all accept. So eight of us pile into the truck and I make the Cholula-Puebla trip for what feels like the 100th time. Just on the outskirts of Puebla, I pull up at some traffic lights: unfortunately, what I don't spot is the guy in the 'parked cars' lane to my right, who is reversing into a spot. He is obviously looking back and not forward, and as he reverses in manages to swipe me with his front wing. I am not too bothered, given that I am driving a tank, although my passengers are a little taken aback by my sangfroid. When the lights go green, I pull away, but apparently the guy hasn't bothered to move back out of my way, because as I do my rear bumper catches his front bumper, and rips it half off. All of this relayed to me after the fact by my passenger watching in the wing-mirror. I drive on: when in Mexico, etc. When I drop the others off, I check the truck but it hasn't suffered a bruise. American overengineering: one point.
Yes, the Dutch girls, plus a Mexican-French couple, and some Mexicans, helped me share the Tequila. I found out afterwards that cheap tequila gives bad hangovers. I finally got over the headache 2 days later. But we had fun, randomly crashing the party of the Mexican girl's family. Thanks, Elisabeth and Carlos (who I think was her uncle.)
Actually, today, I'm bored of travelling. I'm sick of the neverending change, the impermanence of anything of value. And there's a lot to confront, all by yourself. Well I kind of was, but then I met some Swiss-Germans and they invited me to join them for a beer -- and I forgot about all that again.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Saturday, December 31, 2005
¿what's the spanish for wavicle?
OK. Still no word from yahoo about my email. I have started using my gmail account instead. Actually it is much better (yes i realise i am somewhat behind the curve only realising that now.) pmg102@gmail.com it is, pmg101 was already taken.
So, not having email meant i missed all your christmas wishes, or perhaps you're all just cabrones and you didn't send me any. I'm joking! Actually, what it did do is totally scupper my plans to meet up with les françaises in puebla for new year's, since i only heard from them today, and it's already the 31st! However, the flipside of that is that I therefore stayed in Morelia a little longer, and had the pleasure yesterday to spend the day discussing philosophy of physics, among many other things, with a charming local girl! But i get ahead of myself.
I had a good time in Guadalajara. I left my car parked in the street, just outside the parking meters zone. After four days, I thought I should check on it, for peace of mind, so I walked up there, to find the driver's window smashed! On closer inspection, I realised that actually it was just open -- in my half-asleep idiocy on Monday morning when I moved it, I had left the window open. Nothing had been touched -- there wasn't even a homeless man asleep in it. So take what lesson you like about crime versus fear-of-crime. I did shut the window though, before I left it again.
It was also the festival of the Virgen de Guadalupe whilst I was there, so with a few others from the hostel we went and consumed remarkably unhealthy mexican street food, consisting mainly of deep fried things with sugar, whilst not buying things from the many artisan stalls. And we saw some Aztec dancing! Apparently they dance for days on end.
The hostel is dead cool, they hook you up with fun local things each night. Guadalajara has a big art scene, so a couple of times there were trips to galleries and things like that. One girl from the States was staying at the hostel, but had been working in a local community for the previous six months, and she took us to meet her host family for a birthday party. It was great to leave the centre and go out into the real Mexican suburbs, even if they did take advantage of our offer to buy beer and tricked us into buying 50 bottles.
I missed the opportunity to see more french films (seems to be a theme) and/or a bullfight by deciding after a week to leave, for the pretty towns of Colima and Ciudad Guzman, on the way to Maruata's empty beaches for Christmas week. That was amazing. Especially creeping around the beach at one in the morning looking for turtles laying eggs! They are a 400-million-year-old species, and it is amazing to watch them. That was where I met the turtle girl and her boyfriend, Canadians, who (since there were so few people staying) I saw every day. When the time came for leaving, it turned out we were all headed to Morelia, so I offered them a lift, and was then invited to dinner with her family, which was where I met her sister the quantum physicist. Hopefully I will be able to put some of the pictures that they took up here.
Both of my cameras are now used up: I am trying to decide whether to develop them here to paper, or CD, or send the films home, or what. I also have realised (OK, it was obvious to everyone else) that not having a digital camera was a mistake. I am thinking about buying one, but it's pretty galling when they're more expensive here even than home, and certainly than the States.
On the way into Morelia, for a joke but not really, we stopped at a Burger King. You have to marvel at the fact that they can make a Whopper taste identical in Morelia, Mexico, Great Bend, Kansas, and Brighton, England. Or you might think it is a bit sinister. Apart from that, its been tacos, quesadillas, and comida corrida all the way! Oh, and fish, at the beach. Mmmmm.
So, I hope everyone else had pleasant Christmases, and a Feliz Año Nuevo to you all. I have tequila and limes: hopefully I will be able to persuade the Dutch girls at the hostel to share them with me. Apart from that, I had my hair cut. The poor man was very mystified that I wanted those clippers for cutting the side and back pushed all over my head. But he came through bravely. And all for GBP 1.75. I love this country!
So, not having email meant i missed all your christmas wishes, or perhaps you're all just cabrones and you didn't send me any. I'm joking! Actually, what it did do is totally scupper my plans to meet up with les françaises in puebla for new year's, since i only heard from them today, and it's already the 31st! However, the flipside of that is that I therefore stayed in Morelia a little longer, and had the pleasure yesterday to spend the day discussing philosophy of physics, among many other things, with a charming local girl! But i get ahead of myself.
I had a good time in Guadalajara. I left my car parked in the street, just outside the parking meters zone. After four days, I thought I should check on it, for peace of mind, so I walked up there, to find the driver's window smashed! On closer inspection, I realised that actually it was just open -- in my half-asleep idiocy on Monday morning when I moved it, I had left the window open. Nothing had been touched -- there wasn't even a homeless man asleep in it. So take what lesson you like about crime versus fear-of-crime. I did shut the window though, before I left it again.
It was also the festival of the Virgen de Guadalupe whilst I was there, so with a few others from the hostel we went and consumed remarkably unhealthy mexican street food, consisting mainly of deep fried things with sugar, whilst not buying things from the many artisan stalls. And we saw some Aztec dancing! Apparently they dance for days on end.
The hostel is dead cool, they hook you up with fun local things each night. Guadalajara has a big art scene, so a couple of times there were trips to galleries and things like that. One girl from the States was staying at the hostel, but had been working in a local community for the previous six months, and she took us to meet her host family for a birthday party. It was great to leave the centre and go out into the real Mexican suburbs, even if they did take advantage of our offer to buy beer and tricked us into buying 50 bottles.
I missed the opportunity to see more french films (seems to be a theme) and/or a bullfight by deciding after a week to leave, for the pretty towns of Colima and Ciudad Guzman, on the way to Maruata's empty beaches for Christmas week. That was amazing. Especially creeping around the beach at one in the morning looking for turtles laying eggs! They are a 400-million-year-old species, and it is amazing to watch them. That was where I met the turtle girl and her boyfriend, Canadians, who (since there were so few people staying) I saw every day. When the time came for leaving, it turned out we were all headed to Morelia, so I offered them a lift, and was then invited to dinner with her family, which was where I met her sister the quantum physicist. Hopefully I will be able to put some of the pictures that they took up here.
Both of my cameras are now used up: I am trying to decide whether to develop them here to paper, or CD, or send the films home, or what. I also have realised (OK, it was obvious to everyone else) that not having a digital camera was a mistake. I am thinking about buying one, but it's pretty galling when they're more expensive here even than home, and certainly than the States.
On the way into Morelia, for a joke but not really, we stopped at a Burger King. You have to marvel at the fact that they can make a Whopper taste identical in Morelia, Mexico, Great Bend, Kansas, and Brighton, England. Or you might think it is a bit sinister. Apart from that, its been tacos, quesadillas, and comida corrida all the way! Oh, and fish, at the beach. Mmmmm.
So, I hope everyone else had pleasant Christmases, and a Feliz Año Nuevo to you all. I have tequila and limes: hopefully I will be able to persuade the Dutch girls at the hostel to share them with me. Apart from that, I had my hair cut. The poor man was very mystified that I wanted those clippers for cutting the side and back pushed all over my head. But he came through bravely. And all for GBP 1.75. I love this country!
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
no email :(
if anyone has tried to email me, i am not receiving emails at the moment. thanks, yahoo. i have contacted them to ask what is going on. i have had that account for over 5 years and never had a problem, and now that i need it it goes pear-shaped!
had a very relaxing xmas getting a tan, swimming with turtles, drinking coconuts and sleeping under palm palapas on the beach at maruata. hoping to make it to puebla for new year!
happy holidays a todo :)
had a very relaxing xmas getting a tan, swimming with turtles, drinking coconuts and sleeping under palm palapas on the beach at maruata. hoping to make it to puebla for new year!
happy holidays a todo :)
Friday, December 16, 2005
¡viva mexico!
the cadence of my journey has changed somewhat now
that i am across the border. i have slowed down quite
a bit. partly this is because the US being in many
ways culturally similar to home meant that i could do
a sort of high-speed trip. actually i covered over
10,000 miles in the two months i was there. and partly
it is because driving in mexico is a rather different
proposition than driving in the US. i think this is a
trend which will only continue...
so, first i spent one week in monterrey, as it turned
out, staying with a family which was pretty cool.
except that she wanted to practise her english on me
so i didnt really get much of a chance to practise my
spanish! but i got by, during the day when she was at
work, in my conversations with shopkeepers and museum
attendants, so was kind of chuffed. middle-class
monterrejians aspire to be USAian. it seemed a shame,
but i suppose inevitable.
i started off being very circumspect with respect to
food and water. however nothing went wrong so i became
more and more adventurous. now i pretty much eat
everything, yes including salad, and i clean my teeth
under the tap, and i am pleased to report i have had
no ill-effects as yet!
so after a lovely week in monterrey, i drove down to
zacatecas, a lovely colonial town in the middle of
mexico, where i liked the hostel so much i stayed a
week. i decided to take spanish lessons there too,
since a teacher at the university language centre
would do 1-on-1 for 4 GBP an hour. i tried to speak
spanish in the hostel as much as possible too, as some
of the other guests were trying to improve their
spanish, and i bought (randomly) an agatha christie
book in spanish and a diccionario, the former i have
conquered the first two chapters of with the aid of
the latter.
and yesterday, i finally left and drove down here to
guadalajara, mexico's second biggest city (mexico city
the first, monterrey is the third), with two absurdly
beautiful french-canadian girls whose university has
an exchange program with the university in puebla.
both, alas, have mexican boyfriends... during the
journey, we conversed in a melange of french, spanish,
and english. the early stages of learning a language
are really fun and rewarding, as you pick up new
vocabulary daily.
the city is, well, big, (7mi ppl i think). the hostel
seems to be a little too anglophone for me. i have
already met two people who had been at zacatecas --
i'm not sure i like the 'gringo trail' factor too
much. i will probably stay here a few days (perhaps a
week, true to form), then swing by morelia to see the
monarch butterfly migration, whence to the michoacan
coast to find a playa for christmas :).
nada mas, hasta la proxima!
that i am across the border. i have slowed down quite
a bit. partly this is because the US being in many
ways culturally similar to home meant that i could do
a sort of high-speed trip. actually i covered over
10,000 miles in the two months i was there. and partly
it is because driving in mexico is a rather different
proposition than driving in the US. i think this is a
trend which will only continue...
so, first i spent one week in monterrey, as it turned
out, staying with a family which was pretty cool.
except that she wanted to practise her english on me
so i didnt really get much of a chance to practise my
spanish! but i got by, during the day when she was at
work, in my conversations with shopkeepers and museum
attendants, so was kind of chuffed. middle-class
monterrejians aspire to be USAian. it seemed a shame,
but i suppose inevitable.
i started off being very circumspect with respect to
food and water. however nothing went wrong so i became
more and more adventurous. now i pretty much eat
everything, yes including salad, and i clean my teeth
under the tap, and i am pleased to report i have had
no ill-effects as yet!
so after a lovely week in monterrey, i drove down to
zacatecas, a lovely colonial town in the middle of
mexico, where i liked the hostel so much i stayed a
week. i decided to take spanish lessons there too,
since a teacher at the university language centre
would do 1-on-1 for 4 GBP an hour. i tried to speak
spanish in the hostel as much as possible too, as some
of the other guests were trying to improve their
spanish, and i bought (randomly) an agatha christie
book in spanish and a diccionario, the former i have
conquered the first two chapters of with the aid of
the latter.
and yesterday, i finally left and drove down here to
guadalajara, mexico's second biggest city (mexico city
the first, monterrey is the third), with two absurdly
beautiful french-canadian girls whose university has
an exchange program with the university in puebla.
both, alas, have mexican boyfriends... during the
journey, we conversed in a melange of french, spanish,
and english. the early stages of learning a language
are really fun and rewarding, as you pick up new
vocabulary daily.
the city is, well, big, (7mi ppl i think). the hostel
seems to be a little too anglophone for me. i have
already met two people who had been at zacatecas --
i'm not sure i like the 'gringo trail' factor too
much. i will probably stay here a few days (perhaps a
week, true to form), then swing by morelia to see the
monarch butterfly migration, whence to the michoacan
coast to find a playa for christmas :).
nada mas, hasta la proxima!
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