El verdadero Mejico

Merry Christmas to everybody! Well, while you were probably eating turkey and hoping for a white Christmas (which nearly happened so I heard), I had myself the weirdest Christmas ever! First of all, Christmas trees are a surrealistic sight around here, especially when it´s 30 degrees outside, and you´re looking for shade under a palm tree. Secondly, the jingle bells on the tree sound just like a cell phone ringtone, and moreover, Mexicans like them hanging on every single tree in the street (even a palm tree), preferably in combination with the most kitschy blinking lights you can imagine. And they´re very loud! In general I'd say, Mexicans have a good taste of all that is pink colored, plastic coated and spicy tasting. Ever seen your couch covered in plastic? Probably only when you got it out of the IKEA box, but here they like to keep them that way, so it doesn´t get stained! Next to that, Mexicans love their food hot as hell, even breakfast! Luckily, the salsa and mole sauces are served on the side, so you can save your mouth from 3rd degree burns. And as far as clothes are concerned, extravaganza is in vogue as well : hotpants (very sexy on those juicy Mex-legs), high heels and lots of make-up (pink again). Even babies can´t escape the beauty farm : most of the young ladies have ear rings before they can walk! But Mexicans also know how to party, especially now around Chrismas! And especially in small towns like here, Lagunas, Oaxaca. It´s that small that nearly everybody is family of eachother (they´re all Vasquez, Alvorado, Velasquez, Antonio or Dolores in these parts), and hence, everybody gets invited to ALL the family fiestas. I am here with my roomie Kris, who lived here in an AFS-hostfamily for a year, who invited us over for Christmas. So, together with her buddies from 7 years ago, we´re passing our days in going to all these family fiestas, where even I end up to be a primo, sobrino or tio. Transportation to these parties goes over dusty roads in the back of a Chevy pick up truck (under a broiling sun in the afternoon, slighty boozed out under millions of stars at night), up and down the mountain. Almoloyas, the village next door, hosts such a 4 day fiesta over Christmas, and of course the whole town gets invited. The women arrive in traditional dress, whereas the men take their horses and cowboy outfit to the parade. At the fiesta, women only dance with women, while the hombres lean back, talk and pound away boxes of Corona. Not necessary to tell you on what side I was on!I am not sure what New Year´s eve will look like, but I am pretty sure it will all be Corona, bomba fireworks and lots of yummie Mexican calories over again! Hopefully by then, I´ll manage to upload some pics as well, so you can get a feel of the fiesta for yourself! ¡Hasta luego!

Campeche chill

Hehe! Taking a break can be so nice! Here, in the lovely seaside town of Campeche, I got some time to take a hot shower (just when I was getting used to cold ones), shave and wash my dirty gringo clothes. Too much bus is really something to avoid, that I found out already after a week of travel!I took a major chill time in a super place called Monkey Hostal (which I recommend to everybody!), which has dormitories (so you sleep with a couple of other backpackers), a beautiful view of the pittoresque city church, breakfast and superspeed internet access for just 7 euro per night. A great deal, and also a good spot to meet other travelers. Very few tourists, but lots of guys and girls going somewhere down the road. But it also had another more unpleasant surprise : the first night, a Dutch couple (that I met on the bus from Chichen Itza) and a Portugese guy who were sleeping in my dorm got their wallets stolen! Just right there while they were sleeping! Nothing of my stuff got stolen, probably because the thief slipped in and out when I hadn´t gotten to bed yet, and I still had my money and valuables on me. Well, it was a major wake up call the next morning, in every sense! It could just have been me, especially because I hadn´t bothered to bag up and secure my wallet going to bed... Now I know again what those padlocks and secret pockets are for! Well, besides of that minor setback, the last 3 days have been great, just biking around in this very colorful colonial town, eating yummie Mexican food (viva enchiladas!), reading and enjoying the sun on the rooftop terrace of the hostal. The town centre is an Unesco World Heritage site and great to stroll around in, if you don´t mind the 1m high pavements. Life is pretty slow here, and I am getting nicely adjusted to the pace (although I still walk a lot quicker than any Mexican on the street) and the heat that´s picking up again. Christmas here is a surrealistic thing: Jezus es amor under a palm tree! I am leaving for Villahermosa tomorrow, which will be hectic because half of Mexico is on the move for Christmas. Hopefully I can still catch a bus further into Oaxaca : I have to get to a town called Lagunas, which I still have to find on a map. My roomie Kris, who´s visiting her AFS hostfamily over there, says it´s not even on there. So a great place to celebrate Christmas and New Year I´d say! Her sister is coming over as well, and we might head down to the Pacific coast for some sun, surf and beach afterwards. So if you don´t hear from me for a while from nowhere ville, no worries, I am doing fine! Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!

A trip to Maya wonderland

After 2 days in Tulum I figured it would be time to move on, and since the weather still wasn´t really cooperating very much and stayed Belgian summer cold (thank God for my sleeping bag!), I had no hard feelings leaving the beach that soon. Oh well, I will see enough beach before I head home, but maybe not enough of places like Coba and Chichen Itza, where one can wander around some of the most mysterious marvels ever build. Coba is probably a lot less known as Maya site, but certainly as interesting to visit I think. A lot less tourists, a pyramid even 15m higher than the one in Chichen Itza and most of all, a jungle setting that makes you feel very small once you have climbed the thing and get a 180° look around. How the Mayas managed to build their cities, nobody really knows, which makes it even the more fascinating. The juego de pelota (ball court) in Chichen Itza has the acoustics of a modern opera hall, and the grandeur of a Roman arena. Imagine then too that the captain of the team ´winning´ the Maya soccer game got ritually sacrified afterwards, on a shrine bearing sculptures of birds ripping out human hearts. What a honour. Yummie! Anoher wonder of Maya architecture in Chichen Itza is ´El Castillo´, not just a pyramid, but the Maya version of our Filofax calendar, but with staircases instead of pages. The time temple has 4 staircases with all 91 steps, which makes in total 364, adding to 365 with the step of the temple on top, or the number of days in a whole solar year. Every equinox, on March 20th-21st and September 20th-21st, the sun produces a shadow-and-light illusion of a serpent ascending or descending the side of the pyramid´s staircase. I also went to the night show, where under a star clear sky, the same light effect is optically reproduced. Well, it tops the climb of the pyramid for me. Although that that American tourist - yes the one who couldn´t get up on it in the afternoon - is again next to you, not spoiling the view with his big fat ass this time, but with his camera flash light.Enfin! After that one day in Chichen Itza, I made it safe to Campeche, a very pretty city on the Gulf coast of Yucatan, where I will chill the next few days, before heading South into Chiapas and Oaxaca. So more next week!

Tulum : to the ruins of it all ?

Hi there!! Well, I managed to find a nice and cosy Mexican internetcafe that has all the right plug-ins for updating this site, so here it goes with the first report! I made it safe and sound to Tulum, a small beach town 2 hours drive from Cancun after 14 hours of flights, a chaotic transfer in Miami and a good deal of Mexican busses and taxis. After a first night good sleep in my new found home (a so called cabaña, a hut on the beach), I woke up with pouring rain and heavy winds. Welcome to paradise! Oh well, I didn't let that dampen my spirits and after the rain had stopped, I washed off my jetlag in the cool 29 degrees Caribbean sea, thinking about what the hell on earth I had got myself into. Five months on the road, mostly all by myself, and God knows what is waiting for me next... Well, the first place on the list is Tulum, and I honestly must say that already after 1 day, I have mixed feelings about this place. On one hand, it is truly paradise : it has exotic beaches, Maya temples that reach out over turquoise seas and the most friendly taxi and bus drivers I ever met. But like the whole 'Riviera Maya' , it has fallen in the hands of resort development companies, and it is packed with tourists, although more of the 'alternative' kind. And I am one of them of course. Small and mid-size resorts are been build at such a rate that by 2010, the whole coast line between Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum will be gone. Already the ecological effects are been felt, with for example fewer sea turtles nesting on the beach every year. But tourism had some good sides I do suppose. The whole town of Tulum lives of us backpackers, baking our pancakes, washing our laundry and putting up our internet service. And people know their prices here. But many Maya sites probably were restored thanks to tourism income as well. But don't ask me to get on one of those mega aircon busses visiting them, it just isn't my thing. I like my vacation package all exclusive, although I am probably tricked into just the same tourist traps as well. And am I not just like the next tourist, coming, passing by and leaving again, up to the next snapshot along the road? Well of course, but hopefully, only much slower and speaking much more Spanish. I hope these five months will give those I pass by some moments to remember too. ¡Buenas noches y hasta la proxima cuenta del PanAm!