15 de Noviembre (A reflection)

We moved from Zipolite on the night of the 13th headed to the city of Palenque. We had originally bought tickets for a 14 hour bus ride heading to San Cristobal de las Casas, but having heard that this mountain town was freezing cold we decided to skip it. Instead, Mari and I bought tickets that circumnavigated the vomitous mountain roads leading to and from San Cristobal, opting on a lesser known path that goes from Zipoite to Huatulco, Huatulco to Juchitan, Juchitan to VillaHermosa, and finally Villahermosa to Palenque. This route was a little more expensive, but proved to be the faster more efficient route in the end. In total it took us around 12 hours from start to finish, but that includes a few short layovers as well.

Having reached the city of Palenque, we quickly hopped in a collectivo headed out to the ruins and a hostel community called El Ponchon. El Ponchon is located out in the jungle just a few kilometers from the ruins themselves, and consists of only 5 different hostel/hotel accomodations and 2 restaurants. We ended up staying at a place aptly named Jungle Palace. It consisted of individual cabañas interspersed in the jungle placed next to a meandering stream. Both mornings we awoke to the gutteral howl of monkeys in the trees above.

The first day we settled in and made reunions with our group of friends as we had all split and taken differing paths and timelines to arrive in Palenque. But the second day we signed up for an all day tour that would allow us 4 hours in the Palenque ruins, 1 hour at Misol Ha, and another 4 hours at Aqua Azul.

Our morning started around 8:00 am with the Palenque ruins.

Palenque was exquisite, and I find that I could walk all of these ancient ruin sites if I had the time and money to reach each and every one of them, as there are many scattered across the landscape of Mexico. The thing I find amazing is the lack of knowledge we have about the civilizations that flourished here in its hey day. Many of the buildings have plaques that explain what experts believe the building may have been used for, but I get the feeling little is absolutely certain.

After leaving the ruins, we headed to a waterfall named Misol Ha.

The waterfall was beautiful, with a large swimming pool for cool refreshment. Mari slipped in for a quick swim, while I made my way around the back beneath the waterfall, doused in the moist mist sweeping up from the crashing impact of the falling water with the pool. Time escaped quickly here, and before we knew it we were racing off to our final destination. A four hour date with Aqua Azul, an exquisite site located roughly 60 kms away.

I have to segway here for a second to better explain what it means to have a site located 60 kms away. This means that one must get into a van or taxi and drive there, as is typically done anywhere in the world. Yet, no one fully explained to me (or prepared me at all) what Mexican roads and driving are like. Coming from a Civil Engineering background, I really want to meet the guys that created the roads here. It seems they were very very averse to any thoughts on creating a straight section of road. Rather, I think they tried to squeeze in as many tight death defying curves as possible per kilometer. This, added to the fact that everyone here drives around 80 kms per hour makes for some white knuckle rides. It was possible for me to relax a bit and enjoy it for what it was - an experience and an adventure, but in no way was it actually acceptable and I feel lucky to still be in one piece. Anyway..... I am here to write again so lets move on.

After a harrowing drive through the Mexican country side, we arrived at the Cascades of Aqua Azul.

A beautiful series of blue water cascades with many swimming pools located both up and downstream. I went swimming here. The water was crisp and cool, but felt good once the initial cold shock had subsided. The site had a wonderfully constructed "boardwalk" that meandered next to the river and allowed easy perusal when moving along the length of the river with local stalls on the other side selling local wares.

As we were outside the rural zone, we were in a location where the locals speak a mayan language named Tzeltal. The locals take the opportunity to sell their products to the foreigners, and there are many cute little children running around selling food products.


Mari was having a great conversation with two little girls that were cousins, asking them about their life, culture and language. Luckily these girls are learning spanish in school and could communicate with us. They were friendly and quite enjoyable, probably loving to speak to us and much as we loved speaking to them. While at the ruins in Palenque Mari tried to strike up a conversation with two little boys playing on an abandoned truck on the side of the road, but the conversation didnt get too far because the boys only spoke the local mayan dialect and not spanish.

Its now morning here in Campeche and we have a wonderful roof top patio at our disposal. I am going to atake this opportunity to catch some morning sun on the roof and read my Spanish Review and Practice book. Take care.

T

16 de Noviembre 2010

Finally! Once again I have found readily available internet for use at my disposal. Mari and I just arrived into the city of Campeche after catching an 8:00 am bus out of Palenque for a 6 hour bus trip through the beautiful and vibrantly green Mexican landscape.


We booked into a beautifully located yet slightly delapidated place named Monkey Hostel, located right downtown near the waterfront in the city of Campeche. We took the morning bus with the Germans Tobi and Claudia and are staying in a dorm room that sleeps four for 100 pesos each per night. Unfortunately, we had to leave the two English/Russian girls behind in Palenque as they are headed to Merida either tonight or tomorrow on the night bus. For those of you who dont know, the night bus is a great way to travel when crossing distances great than 7 or 8 hours. The night bus allows one to avoid spending money on a nights accomodations while simultaneously sweeping you away to a new location, thereby killing two birds with one stone.

We arrived this afternoon with bags full of dirty laundry, in desperate need of a warm shower and craving some cheap good food. Upon arrival we hand washed all the clothes that we werent personally wearing and hung them out to dry in the hot sun, took showers, and headed out for food.

I had chicken tamales. The tamales here are delicious and I never pass up the chance to eat ´em. They came with some delicious red salsa atop, but I also slathered my entire plate with the hot green salsa sitting on the table. My mouth was on fire, but it was absolutely delicious. Mariana ate chicken milanesa with french fries and a salad. She wasnt very impressed. This meal marked our most expensive meal to date, racking up to an all time high of 160 pesos ($13.80). But starving from the long bus ride with no food, we dove into the first spot that looked habitable. We bought a single 12 oz beer that cost us 28 pesos ($2.40), much higher than the typical 15 - 20 pesos we have payed in the past. Guess we can chalk it up to a warm welcome back to the city I suppose.

As we were out in the boondocks the last couple days with limited to no internet services, I will post a back log of our adventures soon.

As I sit in the hostel writing this, my view out the open veranda window is this cathedral lit up spectacularly for the night. Unfortunately I couldnt locate a picture of my exact view, and I still cannot transfer photos from my camera... so this found picture off the net will have to do for now. Its an incredibly warm beautiful night here with this magnificent view.

09 de Noviembre 2010

Well, we passed two nights in Puerto Escondido. We stayed at cheap little hotel set up named Cabañas Edda. It was a quaint little place, and our first room with a pre-installed mosquito net hung above the bed. It cost us a whopping 150 pesos per night ($12.80). The beach was beautiful, the sun was shining, the temperatures were warm, and the beer was cool and refreshing. It was a very safe area and we felt very comfortable in the area. The only downside was our cabaña was right next to the major road in the area. Thus there were loads of truck and bus traffic passing all night long. Luckily Claudia, our German friend, had some extra ear plugs packed away in her bag and they have been utilized by me for the last three nights.

This morning we awoke, quickly packed, and hit the little beachfront strip for breakfast. After, Mari and I caught a local bus headed East to a smaller beach town named Zipolite, roughly a little over an hour away.


Zipolite is quite small, and very beautiful. We have been playing in the ocean all day after our arrival, and I have to question if there is a more picturesque, more peaceful looking paradise than this. The only problem with the beaches here is the monsterous forces at work within the waves. The waves are incredibly powerful, both coming onto the shore and sucking back out. It is quite dangerous to venture far into the water here, and I use the word far in very conservative terms.

At around the thigh and buttocks water level, the forces are impressive and shocking. The wave crashes into you forcing you backwards up towards the beach. Then, as the water retreats the suction pulling back into the ocean is intimidating. Here I have been far more conservative than I was in Puerto Escondido, where for several seconds I was losing the battle. But keeping a level head and using the force of the oncoming waves to quide me back to shore, I returned to the safety and security of the sandy beach. It was pretty scary for a few seconds. Its a good lesson to be learned, and gives me admiration for the powerful erosive force that is the sea.

Our 6-some is still effect here as the two English girls and two Germans joined us later in the day. I am headed for food and beer right now.

Hasta Tarde

T

06 de Noviembre 2010

Although the city of Oaxaca has been fun, we are leaving tonight after staying only 4 nights and 5 days. We are heading south to a town called Puerto Escondido.



We head out at 11 pm on a night bus and arrive in Puerto Escondido tomorrow morning at 7 am. We purchased first class tickets for 270 pesos each ($23).

There are six of us traveling together now heading out of Hostal Pochon and heading south. Two sisters, Anya and Sasha are from England, but are both originally from Russia. When communicating together they speak a mix of english and russian back and forth. There are a traveling pair of Germans, Toby and Claudia, who both just finished their masters degrees and are taking a Mexican respite before continuing with their educations. Then of course, there is Mari and I.

As we are trying to stick to a budget, we are hanging around the hostal today killing time and chatting waiting for a night bus. We went to the markets and bought fruits and veggies to make lunch and dinner. Luckily, our hostal has a communal kitchen area where we can cook. The food here is very cheap, we spent a total of 69 pesos ($5.90) for a light lunch and magnificent dinner. Plus I bought beer basically on a bottle exchange.

Here, when you purchase a liter of beer (as in Uruguay and Argentina as well), you purchase the bottle of beer for 22 pesos, but then you pay an additional 12 pesos for the "bottle rental" that is returned to you once you bring the bottle back to the store. As this is a hostal, and not many people know of this elusive 12 peso bottle exchange, I picked up 5 left over bottles and returned them for 2 new, full bottles of beer paying some rediculous rate of around 7 pesos or so. I lucked out with such a brilliant plan.

One bottle down and one to go. Its 4:15 now. Going to start cooking dinner in an hour or so and tap into that second bottle. Cheers!

T

05 de Noviembre 2010

From my last update Mari and I have switched accomodations. When we initially arrived we stayed in a hotel named Posada Don Mario. This place was three floors with an open inner courtyard containing tables and chairs on the pirmary floor for breakfast and general lounging. We stayed two nights on the top floor in a private room with full bath. It was a nice way to start the trip, and we had to upscale it for a few nights upon our initial arrival because the festival dias de los muertos (Day of the Dead) was still in celebration. We passed two fine days and nights at the Posada Don Mario, but we quickly realized to maintain our budget we needed to downgrade our accomodations a notch or two.

Thus, we are now staying at a place called Hostal Pochon. Its relatively close to Posada Don Mario and has more of a young vibrant feel to it. There are several long term travelers staying here, and we have made several friends during our two day stay. Tonight will be our second nights stay in this hostal. While chatting with the other travelers stationing here, we´ve made sure to comb everyones travel histories for tips, ideas, and routes. While on the other hand, several people are planning roughly the same routes and times of travel as us. Its nice to meet such grand people in a traveling environment. We have banded together to explore distant locales, cultures, cuisines, and languages.

Today, seven of us took a trip just outside Oaxaca to a site called Monte Alban. (Click the link to learn more about it). For 40 pesos each (around $3.40), we bought roundtrip bus tickets to and from the site from downtown Oaxaca. The bus chugged out of downtown, crossed a local river and headed towards a nearby mountain where we began to ascend through quaint hilltop communities. 20 to 30 minutes later we were parked, offloading, and heading to the site. We paid 51 pesos each ($4.40) to enter and were quickly blown away by the spectacular mountain top ruins. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and made all the photos that much more appealing by lending a brilliant blue backdrop to all the degrading stone structures. The site is quite big, containing a massive plaza stretching between the north and south structures. Several structures dabble on the outskirts fo the plaza running along the east and west as well.

I urge you to read a little about Monte Alban from the link supplied above, and google some pictures. It was absolutely breathtaking. I really wish I had the ability to add a few to this thread, but as of now we are still unable to offload photos off the camera.

One major breakthrough today: We purchased a new ipod charger!! That will come in quite useful in the near future.

Now we need to decide exactly what we are going to be doing in the next couple days.

Hasta Tarde!

Flights, Luggage and Theft

Well, Mari and I left at 11:50 pm on November 1st on a 3.5 hour flight headed to Houston Texas. This means we are arriving in Houston at 3:30 am Seattle time, or 5:30 am Houston time. In Houston we had a two hour layover as our next flight departed at 7:30 am (5:30 Seattle time) for a 1.75 hour flight from Houston to Mexico City. We came really close to missing this flight. At the last minute Mari wanted a coffee. We worked our way back through the airport searching for the last seen Starbucks. When we returned to the gate all passengers were already loaded and the doors were closed. They even went so far as to tell us it was too late to board. Yet miraculously, the doors of fate shined upon us and they allowed us to scurry onto the plane with our heads held in shame. We boarded an EMB-145 - a quite small plane. Only 20 rows, with one seat on the right and two on the left. This flight was uneventful in the fact that Mari and I were not sitting together, and my lack of sleep left me nodding in and out over the duration of the flight.

Arriving in Mexico City, we found out that our luggage had not been transferred from our Seattle-Houston Continental flight to the Houston-Mexico City AeroMexico flight. Our bags were lagging behind us a couple hours and we were assured they would be arriving in Oaxaca about 5 hours after our arrival. We spoke to a very fine gentlemen who told us our bags would be delivered to our hotel shortly after their arrival. Without options, we headed off to find our new gate with hopes of grabbing a little shut eye.

Gaining an hour as we headed into Mexico City, we now had a 4 hour layover until our final flight of the trip, Mexico City to Oaxaca, which boarded around 12:40 in the afternoon. Killing hours, nodding in and out, snacking a bit, we finally boarded another EMB-145. After takeoff the view of Mexico City from the air was mesmerizing. There were a string of volcanoes that cut their way through the dense housing areas that from the sky left me in awe, able to look into several of the ancient calderas. And once above the cloud cover we flew through wonderfully bright white and stunning puffy structures jutting up and above the normal cloud layer. This flight was more memorable, not only because of the beautiful views but also because the plane shuffled and jostled around in the sky and left Mariana yearning for a less tumultuous ride. Eventually we landed safe and sound in Oaxaca, willing and ready to start our journey for real.

Exiting the airport we double checked on our bags and were informed we would need to return to the airport for a customs inspection, as our bags were not in tow with us as we arrived in Mexico City for a normal customs inspection. Frustrated, yet accepting of the chaos, we grabbed a taxi and headed to Posada Don Mario - our hotel for the next couple days.

Arriving in the historic district of Oaxaca we found the weather in the upper 80´s, cloud cover a minimum, and the infastructure vibrant and inviting. We situated ourselves and rushed out to see a bit of the sites, knowing that our two days of no sleep would soon be catching up with us. In need of food, we stopped by a little restaurant named La Casa del Tio Guero. For starters - Mari had a blackbean/pepper soup with tortilla chips inside, covered in cheese called Sopa Conde - that was absolutely delicious. I had a vegetable chicken soup that was equally, yet differently delicious. For our plates, Mari had sliced pork with rice and veggies, while I had a poblano chile relleno with chicken placed within an outer breading shell served with rice and veggies. After a quick tour we retired and took a long needed nap.

Around 9 pm we were awoken by the senoritas that run the Posada because our bags had been delivered and were now on premises. We were excited by the fact that we didn't need to return to the airport the next day and happy that they were once again in our possession. But.... this happiness quickly faded when opening my bag I realized it had been pilfered somewhere along the way. The ladrones eventually ended up stealing my steripen water purifier mentioned in an earlier post, as well as all my camera equipment minus the camera (which I had with me on my carry on). This included my battery charger, all the cables for downloading and moving photos, as well as the extra memory card I had purchases before leaving Seattle. Also gone.... a Leatherman multi-tool I borrowed from a friend (Sorry Blake) and my ipod charger.

At this point we were steaming and upset (as usual in situations like this), but overall we understood that ultimately nothing was stolen that could ruin our trip. We still had all our clothes and money and travel books, and we took it as a learning experience. In the future we vow to never leave anything in a checked bag worth losing. The following morning we returned to the Oaxacan airport and tried in vain to file a formal complaint, yet to no avail. Ultimately, no one really cared. So we cut our losses, and spent no further time worrying about it. We have everything we need for the moment and will be replacing those missing items in the near future.

Overall, Oaxaca has been wonderful. The weather is gorgeous, the food is delicious, and the people are open and inviting. There are tons of gringos here, which is both good and bad, yet it makes settling in a very easy thing to do. The problems of our initial arrival have been put behind us and we are moving forward with our adventure. As all cables for the camera have been lost thus far, we have no pictures to accompany this post. But we will be working to cure this pictureless thread in the near future.

Hasta luego. Travis y Mariana

SteriPEN - UV Water Purifier

There are amazing technological advances for the everyday casual international backpacker like Mari and myself. Yesterday, I purchased this SteriPEN adventurer handheld ultraviolet water purifier from REI. This compact uv penlight replaces the older, more bulky pump system water purifiers I remember as a kid backpacking with my father in the North Cascades. This "light saber" will come in handy as we make our way through develping nations with water systems containing less quality control measures than our stomaches are used to (or can handle).
Ultraviolet light is being used in many wastewater and drinking water facilities because it works quite well against microbiological species like bacteria, viruses and protozoa. It doesnt necessarily kill the microbes, instead what it does is disrupts the DNA of the microbes - basically sterilizing them - so they can no longer reproduce. This limit on their exponential growth potential creates a "clean", more drinkable water.

Hopefully this will help fend off potential boutes of diarrhea, dysentary, influenza, cholera, giardia, cryptosporidium and other waterborne illnesses of the same ilk.

Now, I have to open the package, install the batteries and make sure the unit works.