Annie & Safe Go West

Day 15.  The jewel in the crown of Mexico’s Piles of Rocks is the pyramid at Chichen-Itza, two hours out of Merida, and we were guided by the very able Manuel Jesus Gonzalez Mendez.  First off, he showed us a gum arabic tree.  Apparently, when the Spanish arrived in Mexico, they were shown this tree by the Mayans who stripped off the bark and said, “Chick-Le,” which means “chew with the mouth”.  We’re guessing that’s where the chewing gum “Chicklets” got its name.

Chichen-Itza

Priest at the ball game

King in mouth of serpent

Elton John

After the tour of Chicken Pizza, we caught the bus to Cancun.  The bus was late so Annie took the opportunity to teach our compadres, Jodie, Val and Justine, some Kung-Fu Yoga Moves.

Yoga in the park

Captain Sulu kindly gave up piloting the U.S.S. Enterprise for a day to cart us in his bus to Cancun.  Perhaps he too was looking for a bit of nightlife.

Sulu

Cancun is the Blackpool of Mexico but not quite as nice.  We took the opportunity to sample the nightlife and witness the mating behaviour of American college kids on tour.  Our chosen waterside nightspot was Señor Frog complete with indoor water-slide.  Getting there was as interesting as the nightclub itself.  We had a run in with a lying cheating dirty scoundrel Taxi Driver who wanted twice as much as we’d agreed after dropping us off.  Safe called his bluff and said he’d call the police … unfortunately the taxi drive kindly obliged and called the police himself.  After a bit of gentle shouting and T-shirt pulling and no help whatsoever from the policia, we settled unamicably.  The encouter with the taxi driver was fun (mainly because no one ended up in jail) and confirmed our suspicions about Cancun.

Señor Frog was a spectacle, a mix betweeen a disco and a game-show.  The highlight was the Frozen T-shirt Contest.  While standing half naked on the stage, the contestants had to down their beers then unfreeze a T-shirt sufficiently to be able to put it on as quickly as possible.  The crowd jeered and the waiters poured shots into punters’ mouths from a communal bottle.  Nice!

Frog

Factoid: The guide books quite accurately tell us that Mexicans tend not to like saying “no”, and if they don’t know the directions to somewhere, will often confidently give you their best guess to be helpful.

Factoid: A Cenote is a “sink-hole”, a naturally occurring underground limestone cave filled-with mineral spring water pools and beautiful rock formations, stalactites and stalagmites.

Sink-hole

Annie and Safe in sink-hole

After dipping in the Cenote of San Ignacio, clients are required to pet the baby goats.  We didn’t question why.

Goat

Factoid: Merida is a university town with a large scientific community and a more notable American presence.  It is also the capital of Yucatan province as sung in “Hit me with your Rhythm Stick” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads:

In the deserts of Sudan,

And the gardens of Japan,

From Milan to Yucatan,

Every woman, every man!

Hit Me .... Hit Me ...

We checked into the Hotel Colonial right opposite the confusingly similar sounding Hotel Colon (which would have been more appropriate for Annie today).

Colon

It was a Sunday evening, enough excuse in Mexico for organising a street party.  Annie was whisked away by an elderly but agile gentleman for her first Mexican Latino dance lesson.  Thankfully the cocktail of bowel-plugging drugs were still in effect.  Her teacher was quite strict and told her off whenever she put a foot wrong.

Factoid: The head honcho in the heyday of Palenque was the Mayan King, Pikal.  We saw the relief on the lid of his sarcophagus which some experts have claimed represents Pikal riding a spaceship.  (If you look carefully, there are rocket flames at the back of the ship to the right … and his feet are working the pedals .. apparently).  This has led to all sorts of speculation that aliens from oututer space helped the Mayans build temples, Egyptians build pyramids, crop circles, Big Foot, and George Bush in the White House.

Spaceship

Next stop, the Waterfalls of Misol-Ha, a name which surely belongs in an episode of Doctor Who.

Misol-Ha

Next stop, Aqua Azul, also a name which belongs in an episode of Doctor Who, perhaps as an evil Time Lord … or perhaps it’s the name of a dodgy aftershave.  Anyway, as the name suggests, Aqua Azul is an oasis in the jungle with pool after pool of clear azure blue water connected by waterfalls.  The driver seemed to pay two entrance fees, one at the site itself, and one for safe passage to a bunch of Zapatistas about a mile before we reached the site.  Both Safe and Willie decided they would be Teenage Tarzans and swing from ropes into the water, nothing amazing until you realise that Willie is pushing 70 years old.  Annie decided to be Jane and lay looking helpless clutching her tummy by the side of the water whilst minding everyone’s bags and keeping an eye out for Zapatistas.  A small boy trained in the art of looking cute approached Annie for money.  When he got no response from the lifeless Annie, he placed pesos on her eyelids “to pay the ferryman”.  Annie was not amused … cute-factor zero as far as she was concerned.

Tarzan

Day 11.  Most of today was spent on the bus travelling from San Cristobal to Palenque.  Unfortunately there was a traffic jam on the way out of San Cristobal which delayed us by a couple of hours, so all told, we spent seven hours in transit.

The day wasn’t entirely uneventful.  Firstly, one of our compadres, Emma, lost her purse 15 minutes before we were due to get on the bus.  Panic! We all felt really bad for her.  She stayed behind to catch a later bus and set off for the hotel to see if they had found it.  Hurray! It was waiting for her at the hotel …

En route, apart from a few suicidal dogs and chickens (which don’t respond to beeping), and the odd unplanned stop so the drivers could buy fruit or corn, the most interesting event was the oversized bull that decided to share the highway with us.  The rosary beads that hang from the windscreen of every bus are there for  a reason!

Holy Cow!

Palenque is a lot warmer and a lot more “Mexican” than San Cristobal.  Tomorrow, off to another pile of bricks in the middle of the jungle.

Day 10.  Dropped 1000m to take a boat ride up the Rio Grijalva in the Sumidero Canyon.  We checked out the wildlife and the scenery and saw:

• One canyon
• One river
• Two crocodiles (possibly stuffed)
• Some turkey vultures
• Even more cranes
• A few cheeky monkeys swinging from the trees
• Pelicans hanging by the hydroelectric dam

The tour was in Spanish so we can’t really say any more about it, but the link above is quite informative.

Croc

Sumidero Canyon

Happy Birthday, RTony!

Day 9.  There are many indigenous hill tribes in the area surrounding San Cristobal including the Chamulla who we visited today.  We were guided by the excellent Cezar, whose grandfather was from Chamulla.

Factoid: The Chamulla consider themselves Catholic, however they recently expelled their Spanish Catholic priest and re-adopted their traditional Mayan rituals which they perform within the 16th century church in the town square.  No photography was allowed within the church because they believe that photography can remove the Spirit of the Saints and of those within the church.  The church had no pews and the floor was covered with pine needles.  Statues of the Saints wearing mirrors round their necks in traditional Mayan style lined the walls.  No formal Mass is held, rather, small groups of people perform rituals to their chosen Saint depending on their need.  Ritual practices include the lighting of coloured candles and the offering of  coloured fizzy drinks to the Saints.  Chickens are sacrificed and eggs are placed on body for healing the sick.

We were invited to a traditional tribal home where we were shown the ancient ritual of tortilla cooking and got to sample the end product.  We learnt how to “non-stick” the tortilla pan with a liberal dusting of ground limestone instead of Teflon!

We found the restaurant that Patti recommended only to discover that James’s recommended Northern Spanish red wine, Ribera Del Duerro was waiting for us on the table.  We took it as a sign to spend the rest of the afternoon celebrating.

RPattiz recommendation

James's recommendation

Celebration

Day 8.  We survived our 11 hour overnight bus journey no thanks to our kamikaze driver who kept himself awake on the winding mountain roads by:

1. Accelerating into bends so that the back end of the bus was hanging off the cliff.
2. Playing Disney’s Little Chicken at full volume until 1am … in Spanish.
3. Playing Big Chicken with the oncoming traffic.

Annie narrowly escaped a vomitous journey by bailing out of existence with the help of a sleeping tablet.  One of our travelling compadres, Valerie (from Ireland), wasn’t quite so lucky, and was hurling (not the Irish sport) all through the night.

We finally disembarked at 8am in San Cristobal, a mountainous hippy hideaway.  We spent the afternoon practising to be extras with Clint Eastwood in a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western and headed for the hills on horseback.   Safe was “The Good”, and even named his horse “Hey, Blondie”.  Annie was “The Bad (Egg)” because of her flatulent horse.  We expected to be led by “The Ugly”, or at least a rugged looking bandito, instead we were led by “El Fonzo”, the Mexican version of The Fonz with hair gel, leather jacket, cowboy boots and novelty ring tone.

Valerie, El Fonzo, Safe and "Hey, Blondie"

Day 7.  Our time spent in Oaxaca (ph. War-Hair-Care) has been a never-ending feast. Here’s a list of the most interesting food and drink we’ve sampled. These have been categorised in the most sensible way for Mexico … (a) foods with chilli and lime (b) foods without chilli and lime (c) foods with chocolate:

Foods with chilli and lime:

• Chapulitas (grasshoppers)
• Peanuts
• Sueno Beer (marguerita style with salt)
• Cucumber
• Mixed barbeque meat platter
• Barbequed spring onions
• Elotes (corn on the cob with cheese)

Foods without chilli and lime:

• Mamey milkshake (dubious looking fruit reminiscent of pumpkin pie)
• Tuna sorbet (sounds fishy, but tuna is prickly pear)
• Nopal salad (cactus … not the Flemish variety)

Foods with chocolate:

• Breakfast hot chocolate with water or milk served in a clay dish with corn bread
• Tejate (drink of the gods … an Aztec drink made with roasted cocoa beans, corn, mamey seeds and rosita flowers)
• Seven types of Mole of all colours of the rainbow
• Atoles (hot chocolate thickened with maize)
• Eating chocolate (crumbly and sweet)

Cucumber with ... chilli and lime

Mamey (to be said in the style of Al Jolson)

Tejate

The next piccy is for James.  Would you like us to bring any seeds back?

Red chill, black chilli, Jamaican chilli, chipotle chilli, costillo chilli ...

Safe decided to get a hair cut and shave today, mainly to prevent being patted down more than once before getting onto a bus.  He didn’t quite bank on getting as close a shave as he did … pretty sure you’re only supposed to remove the hair and not the skin.  The bleeding did stop eventually, though it’s debatable whether the neat alcohol rubbed into the skin post-shave helped with that.

Thought: Does the  insurance cover close shaves?

A close shave

After a heavy day’s eating, we parked our bums on a bench to steal some free wifi from a bar nearby.  We were accosted by a bunch of children who claimed to be trying to sell us a hand-made orange scarf, but were really more interested in playing the latest golf game on our iPhones (which we’ve never played ourselves).  Thanks, Jonathan for installing the game apps on our phones.  We made a lot of friends today!

Anyone for golf?

Factoid: Although we spent most of the day sampling food, we did manage to visit a pile of rocks in the morning.  Monte Alban (not to be confused with Ricardo Montalban who lived much later) was built by the Zapotecs on a mountain, the top of which they flattened by hand.

Monte Alban

About to get onto an overnight bus to San Cristobal. Very glamourous!

By the way, Happy Birthday, Ron!  Tonight’s refried beans will be eaten in your honour!

Day 6. Arrived in Oaxaca, considered food capital of Mexico. Here’s the starter … more to come!

Grasshoppers with ... you guessed it ... chilli and lime!