NYE in the Mexican jungle!

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Hola, still no pix as my camera is still RUBBISH and apparently knackered. I{m in Palenque, which really is in the middle of the jungle! The modern town of Palenque is hell, but we are staying at the gates of the National Park where the ancient hidden Mayan city of Palenque is - my accommodation is a hut in the trees!! Very basic but brilliant for a couple of nights. No roof in the bathroom, just mosquito mesh, and whilst showering last night I heard the (not) dainty foot/clawsteps of a howler monkey! The hut enclave is called El Panchan and is a stinky dreaded type hangout. How I enjoy receiving their looks of disdain whilst they think I am a mainstream cog with normal hair, when I had a matted barnet when theirs was still short back and sides. Ha! Anyway, despite this there is a great open air restaurant amongst the trees with cheap cocktails, so tonight we are going into town for a meal at a place the guide assures us is worth going to, then heading back to El Panchan for midnight. Hopefully I can contain myself and have no drunken stumbles into bushes which contain scorpions etc as got a 7am bus tomorrow for 8 hrs (the logistics of this trip are ridiculous) so I will be staying up past midnight tonight but not for much longer (I hope. Can{t take another hangover like the one in Oaxaca...)

I have just got back from the ancient ruins of Palenque. Oh. My. God. They basically got forgotten about for centuries and a whole forest has grown over the site. Only 10% of it has been excavated - and it is an other-worldly experience to see this small portion - which is still huge to visit. Some people there today said it was very similar to being in Macchu Piccu. There is still so much of the site covered by jungle - it is amazing to see.

OK better go as this pikey travellers joint charges skyhigh prices for internet use and my time is nearly up. It{s 3pm here and therefore 9pm in UK - happy new year!!! Will be in Merida tomorrow afternoon hopefully not feeling like death. XXX

Zapatista village - San Cristobal

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The dreaded night bus was actually ok, and I arrived high up in the mountains at San Cristobal de las Casas at 9am yesterday. It was freezing. I piled on the layers, including my thick woollen poncho, and set out discovering the town. By 11am I was feeling sick with heat and sweat and had to go back to the hotel to take my shoes and socks off and change my jeans for shorts. Holy mother it gets hot here during the day. It's a very traditional town with most locals wearing traditional dress. There are lots of other traveller/backpackers wandering around, a large portion seem to be Scandinavians, so I'm getting my Scando-fix with so many marvevllous fringes and knitwear about. The cafes are great and do loads of lovely fruit and yoghurt combos for breakfast, and there is a coffee museum which I visited yesterday which has a very good cafe selling its wares.

This is now in the Chiapas region of Mexico, which is (or aims to be) autonomous in many ways, especially with workers unions etc getting together to sell regional goods as collectives. I went to the Mayan Medicine museum which was very interesting, but highly scary. It had a video showing a woman giving birth in the Mayan style (on her knees kneeling on the floor, hanging her arms round the husband's neck who is sitting on a chair facing her) with the midwife behind yanking away. Then just in case you didn't get the message there was a papier mache model re-enactment in a mock up hut. It has only heightened my phobia of childbirth and I didn't think that was possible.

Today I went to visit a Zapatista stronghold, high up in the mountains. The Zapatistas are identified by the Bush administration as a terrorist group. They are indigenous communities, originally from the Chiapas region but their support and allies are now worldwide, who are fighting the Mexican government for recognition of their lifestyles and customs. The govt arrest Zapatistas as they protested and took over several towns in this region (including San Cristobal) in 1994 because the govt was ignoring them and threatening their way of life. It sounds like the govt is trying to ignore and/or exclude the indigenous communities by not providing them with schools, amenities and sending out of date food supplies to them. I also know that by taking several towns in 1994 a war was fought for over two weeks and hundreds, maybe thousands, of people died in the conflict. The Zapatistas used weapons and will do so again. Therefore I wanted to find out more about this whilst I was here and in a relatively peaceful period.

We were met by village leaders wearing balaclavas who took our passports and were taken to a small room for a basic lecture on the movement. From this I could gather that after the 1994 uprising against poverty and exclusion of the indigenous people, a treaty was drawn up where the govt agreed to certain conditions, most of which it has since failed to honour, The Zapatistas now live completely separately from the rest of Mexico, running their own schools (bilingual with native language Tzotzil and spanish), clinics and communities. The govt gives them no support so they have to make everything themselves. They are keeping their languages and traditions alive but it seems they are struggling. I felt completely safe up there today and understand their cause absolutely, but I don't know enough to comment on the morality of this situation. As far as I could tell, they still have weapons just in case. They will use them again if the govt doesn't budge. The likelihood of them taking San Cristobal again in the future is very real.

So all in all it's a typical terrorist quandry. I wouldn't call them terrorists but they are a movement that uses force and kills. I'm going to have to do a lot more reading on this before I can say, write or think any more on the subject.

On the way back I went to a strange church which is Catholic mixed up with Mayan beliefs - a product of the scheming Catholic missionaries who noticed the local population coincidentally used crosses and other Catholic images in their traditional worshipping. So they introduced Roman Catholicism as a form of the local beliefs. It is totally bonkers now and has principles from all sorts of influences. The people worship St Christopher mainly and Christ is on the sidelines as less important. In the church there was healing going on with medicine men and women cleansing people with eggs, or chickens, if their illness was more severe. The strangest thing is that everyone drinks Coke in the church because burping releases the bad spirits, and plastered all over the villages in the area are Coca-Cola ads/signs. I also noticed in the town that many people had metal teeth - a side effect from drinking so much Coke??? I shudder to think. Whatever, I'm sure Coca-Cola are very happy about their dominance in the area.

This post sounds like an anti-establishment rant but I'm just reporting what I've seen today. Despite all this San Cristobal is a lovely place - possibly my favourite so far. Am heading to the complete opposite tomorrow AM - down to Palenque, a huge Mayan ruin in the middle of the jungle. I have been told to expect bugs, mosquitos, hideous heat and humidity, and howler monkeys who steal things. I'll be there for 2 nights so will be seeing new year in wrestling my beer from monkeys and trying not to get eaten alive by insects. Bravo!

Oaxaca - Boxing Day

Well I made it to the hotel last night despite my desperate mescal-fuelled tragi-poetic attempts of not going mad on a bus driving through 5 hours of cactus-festooned desert, and this town is an absolute treat. Nothing is above 2 storeys due to the high frequency of earthquake tremors, which in turn means the whole place looks a spaghetti western film set. I had the best meal yet last night and my first pudding so far - cheese-stuffed peppers with rice, guacamole and refrito (refried beans) followed by a moist almond cake thing - a perfect Xmas Day meal. Tonight there is a reggae/roots live band session in town, and thanks to a tour at a mescal factory this afternoon I am stocked up and ready to go. Others in my hostel also stocked up so we have a rendezvous on the hostel roof in a while to savour the different blends - how marvellous. I also bought a poncho today from a family of weavers using natural dyes and lovely smelling wool - I am so happy I could cry. I might later, depending on the mescal intake.

Horror of horrors tomorrow night I have a 12 hr bus trip - a night bus - to get to San Cristobal in the mountains. Leaving at 9pm tomorrow, I arrive at 9am the next day (I have no idea what day it is, I can only guess in a linear sense). It's going to be harsh but San Cristobal is worth the effort I am told. It's also cold up there so I get to christen my poncho!!

Hope everyone at home is having a good Xmas - and Carnegies please say happy Xmas to the Aunties for me!!! XXXXXX

Xmas Day - Somewhere in the Oaxan desert

Spending Xmas Day on a long distance bus trip is never a great idea (although mescal helps pass the time) but today I found love for the humble cactus through the bus window.

Ode To The Cactus - A Xmas Day rhyme to an unlikely saviour

There you stand, indifferent yet proud
Smudging the horizon for miles around
Your shape so clean, even on a slant
Respect is due oh mighty plant
Oh Saguaro your silhouette so iconic and fine
You are a gringo's dream - certainly mine
For all it takes is a hillside hemmed in
With a patchwork of you to remind me again
Gone is the Tube, Gordon Brown and sleet
I am where I should be, in the searing heat
With refrito and spanglish to keep me going
Getting fat on tacos, and the mescal flowing
Quick, - I'm sobering up, I need some more
Before my face smashes into the bus floor
*THUD*

Xmas Eve, Puebla

Puebla is a lovely place with a beautiful zocalo/central square (although every town in Mexico seems to so far). It's Xmas Eve yet it still feels nothing like Xmas, although there are more hints of the festive season here than in Mexico City, with huge pinatas hanging in the streets and more decorations around town. Life went on as normal today though with shops showing no sign of closing early, although lots of restaurants were not operating.

We found a nice cafe called Vittorio's on the zocalo to sit on the outdoor tables and have celebratory Xmas Eve cocktails this afternoon in the sun. It all started off innocently enough, then ended in total chaos. And for once it was nothing to do with me.

A brand new Audi pulled up alongside our pavement table and a well-to-do Mexican gent in his 40s wound down his window and eloquently called out to the waitress, ordering a beer from his car. Whilst still sitting in his car he bagan, chatting to various people around my table and rightly guessing where each one was from by their accents. French Canada/Quebec, Korea, Florida, and so it went on... We began to realise he was a highly educated man to be able to recognise accents so precisely. He was well-dressed in a Ralf Lauren shirt, with style notes from the school of Magnum, with a dapper moustache, rayban sunglasses, and chinos.

He began to tell us that he was a surgeon and had just got back from a week in Austria. Still from the comfort of the driving seat, he offered to buy us all a beer (ten in total), and suddenly the cracks in his otherwise cool veneer began to appear - revealing the madman (or a misunderstood saint?) lurking within.

Maybe it was his boast that he had two or three children (he couldn't quite recall), or the brag that he could perform any operation in the world and had the handbook in his car to prove it, that made it apparent that he may well be drunk, or mental, or both. Yet he was displaying no signs of intoxication, spoke excellent english and was obviously loaded. The waitress had not brought him his beer and the police had noticed his car pulled up on the sidewalk, but instead of moving on he just put his bonnet up so it looked like he had broken down. Now out of the car, he became more animated, and more excitable at guessing people's nationalities.

He began to assess my heritage – and his astonishing accuracy came to a grinding halt. I was plainly Greek, he announced. I mentioned I was from the UK. He was bereft that he had got it wrong, then told me about his love of Scotland, particularly Aberdeen. I foolishly told him I was half scottish, and the flood gates opened. He began to shout "Rod Stewart" and nodding at me, flung open the door of his car and turned up his stereo which was playing some terrible 70s acoustic rock. The tranquility of the zocalo came to an abrupt end. The rest of my group, and restaurant, started to look uncomfortable - I was just flabbergasted. He then reached into a shopping bag from his car and pulled out a cellophane-wrapped Rod Stewart CD – and handed it to me. It was one of his wife's Xmas presents but he insisted I have it.

Then he turned to the pale blonde irish girl next to me, the last nationality to decipher, and started goosestepping/hailing Hitler. The atmosphere became tense. The restaurant staff came over and told him to move on. His music was drowning out the restaurant saxophonist who had been employed especially for Xmas.And so he got in his car, blew us all kisses – and vanished into the traffic. And we sat there in disbelief. Did this really happen? Was it a dream?

The weary-looking restaurant staff closed the edge of the restaurant off by pulling screens around our table, and then one of them muttered: “he does this all the time”.

But still, I got an unexpected present hand-delivered to me on Xmas Eve, even though my hatred of Rod Stewart increases with every picture of him from the 70s that I see. This CD is covered in classic soft-focus romantic shots of him - my kind of hell in every sense. But the plus side of this Mum if you are reading this - look out for an exotically sourced 'Rod Stewart The Best Of...' in the post fresh from Mexico some time soon...

10 days on...

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I'm back in Mexico City and back to reality after my little trip to the countryside. I arrived yesterday morning from Malinalco, the peaceful rural bubble where cows walk across the road with no regard for oncoming traffic, and there was a live nativity scene with children and animals built in the church grounds in a lifesize re-enactment of a village with pens and stalls and everything, and where I did loads of yoga and not much else - bliss. The bus I was on got steadily more packed as we picked up people from the roadside towards Mexico City. When I got to the Observatorio bus station I remembered it is nearly Xmas - it was thronging and seriously hectic - it was a bit of a shock. I really have been in my own little world this last week! I have now hooked up with the GAP group but we have no agenda until we leave Mexico City tomorrow so I've been happily doing my own thing and taking it easy around town.

And so from one world to another, I went to check out the Zocalo in Historio Centro in Mexico City yesterday. It is a massive plaza hemmed in by variously impressive architecture from Aztec, colonial and prerevolutionary eras. The square is also the ceremonial centre of Aztec Tenochtitlan, although the ruins aren't as impressive as I'd hoped - more a mound of rubble really. In normal circumstances it would be exciting to have even this remaining from such an ancient age, but in Mexico there are so many impressive ruins that this one is a bit of an anticlimax! On the way back I popped into a couple of art galleries and strolled through the Alameda which is a lovely peaceful park dotted with fountains and lots of shaded areas to laze away the time under the poplars. I did so involuntarily due to some particularly nasty blisters I had acccumulated. So I lied there waiting for the pain to subside before squeezing my sandals back on and wincing all the way back to the hotel.

I have one more day today in town and I'm heading to Chapultepec, 'hill of grasshoppers' in Nahuatl, which is a huge park with a zoo and the Anthropology museum. This avo I'm planning on heading south to the San Angel neighbourhood to see The Frida Kahlo's Blue House which featured in the film 'Frida'. I have decided to save the day trip to Tepotzotlan, which is an hour outside of the city, to when I am back in town next year. There is so much to see in Mexico City - I don't want to rush it. There is no point now that I am in the rare position of being a bum for the next few months!

Tomorrow AM I am heading to Puebla with the group where we will spend Xmas. It's strongly Catholic and conservative, with a Spanish affinity maintained here for much longer than other parts of Mexico, so I imagine Xmas will be a full on affair there. Although there are Xmas decorations around Mexico City it feels much more lowkey here and therefore is easy to forget the time of year. In some ways I like this as I get to avoid the Xmas mayhem of UK high streets, but it also makes it easier to forget that I won't be at home for Xmas. Maybe when I get to Puebla tomorrow afternoon on Xmas Eve I will feel sad that I won't see the Carnegie crew for the first time at Xmas! I have no doubt they will make up for my absence by consuming my share of alcohol at The Crown on Xmas day and more though. Any excuse. Ahem.

Not sure if I will be online at Puebla so if not, Happy Xmas to anyone reading this!

Made it to Mexico City!

I´m here, although only just. Air Canada were great for the Heathrow - Toronto leg, then it all went downhill. The plane started to freeze in Toronto whilst we were waiting to take off, so then had to wait for a slot in the de-icing bay. Then we were too heavy so had to burn off some fuel (actually these two may have been the other way round) so eventually we took off, then on arrival at Mexico City baggage hall it was clear that many of the bags had also been, well, misplaced. Not ideal at 2.30am when you have been on the go for 23 hours!

I have filled in a form and handed it someone at a desk in the airport, and apparently the luggage will arrive tomorrow AM. So I am staying an extra night in Mexico City at my lovely hostel http://www.hostelhome.com.mx/ and fingers crossed my bag gets delivered - I am in limbo til they do as I can´t leave! It has all my chargers (laptop, camera etc) in it so I am punching away at the hostel keyboard right now which has many stiff keys and is most fatiguing for the fingers.




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Mexico City smells lovely. Sultry, thick with intent, the morning air wafting in the window reminded me I was somewhere new and suddenly I felt highly excitable and finally on track.

Tomorrow I am heading out to my first WWOOF placement at the Earthsoundz project, which makes instruments out of vegetables, 2.5 hours southwest of Mexico City near a place called Malinalco.

I am highly excited about this little trip, for the obvious vegetable utilising factor but also because it looks beautiful out there and I can´t wait to get stuck into some countryside.

I had my first surreal Mexico experience this morning when I was walking around the Colonia Roma neighbourhood looking for a supermercado to buy some emergency toiletries and clothing. At a huge intersection with loads of traffic were eleven 7 foot pink Duracell bunnies banging on drums clogging up the sidewalk. They looked pretty lairy, pushing each other around and generally owning the pavement. I got a bit closer, and I still couldn´t tell if they had men inside them or if they were inflatables. Two started humping each other so I think they were humans who had obviously reached the boredom threshold that I imagine one would reach with this as a day job, but the rest were in a line banging their drums, then they would start to deflate, then jump to attention and start banging all over again.



If it wasn´t so early I´d put it down to the Mescal. Just wait til I do get stuck into the Mescal...