Dear Schmeeta

And that's a wrap

2006-05-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

And so our journey comes to an end. Many stories remain untold in this forum - in the last couple of weeks alone we've ridden horses in Butch and Sundance territory, driven across a salt plain that covers 1200 square km, felt the heat of geysers in the freezing cold of an early Bolivian morning and bathed in hot springs surrounded by volcanoes. But we can bore you with all that next time we see you.
We had a simple plan for the last few days - lounge around a pool in the kind of hotel we would never normally allow ourselves, soaking up our last few rays of sun and reflecting on all we've seen and done. We were exhausted. Bolivia is a country that is long on extraordinary natural beauty, but short on oxygen. There's no heating, and we've been sleeping in temperatures as low as -15 degrees. It's hard work.
But "sweltering" Santa Cruz in the lowlands proved to be windy, rainy and not warm enough that I could allow my sole remaining pair of trousers the laundering they so desperately need. We had to spend most of our last few days on the phone attempting to ensure we actually had a flight home after the two airlines and Expedia got their wires well and truly crossed. Add in a farewell case of food poisoning, and you don't have the greatest note to end on.
But that doesn't matter. The truth is that we are ready to come home - and that's the highlight we're waiting for. This has been a life-altering experience in many ways. We're happier and we're healthier. We have hundreds of memories and thousands of pictures to take with us, we've made new friends, we've learnt a new language and discovered a new passion in diving. We feel better than we have in years. And now we want to come home, feeling good, and to appreciate what we have there - the friends, the family, the future that we're going to share together.
Thank you for waiting for us - we'll see you soon.

Marmalade sandwiches

2006-05-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

At least, that´s what I´d been let to expect we´d get to eat here. But perhaps that´s only in deepest, darkest Peru. We´re in high, bright and slightly chilly Peru right now, and here they apparently have Jam for breakfast instead.

So this is Cuzco, Peru - jumping off point to visit Machu Picchu, an allegedly stunning set of Inca ruins nestled in the Andes. Unfortunately, Montezuma´s revenge has struck once again and Lizzie has yet to leave the hotel we checked into yesterday morning. But she´s doing better today, and hopefully we´ll be able to make it in the next day or two. Meantime, I´m soaking up the local culture - as ever an uneasy mix of traditional, tourist and American modern. I´ve had a overpriced shoe shine from a young boy, bought a replacement Swiss Army knife and persuaded a restaurant specialing in grilled Guinea Pig to do me spaghetti and pesto.

South America has been friendly, and with slight differences in flora and fauna. The pigeons, for instance, are often brown and white rather than grey. The trees seem to have enormous blooms, almost as if a parisitical species has set up camp on their branches. Subtle changes, but a little unsettling. FYI - we´ve worked out that we´re currently at somthing like a 90 degree angle compared to the UK. Look over at the wall, and imagine having to walk along that instead of the floor. Welcome to our world.

We spent a day or so in Lima, which is shrouded in fog for much of the year - quite alarming when we landed there and lost visibilty about 100ft off the ground. But we found a brightish day to wander the streets and tick off a series of closed attractions in our tourist leaflet. Apparently bank holidays are for everyone and everything here, and tourism is either not expected or not welcomed.

Lima did provide an tremendously exciting supermarket, however, with decent red wine, and lots of nice bread and vegetables. Having been used to the Central American style of ´White or yellow´ cheese, it was quite a shock to encounter Brie, Gorgonzola and Edam again.

So more to come when we get out into the mountains, so far only seen from a distance.

A rush and a push and Panama is ours

2006-04-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Travel tip no. 3
If you find yourself in a hotel with the first bathtub you've seen in months, only to discover that the hotel has no plugs, you may feel a heart-wrenching disappointment, particuarly if you spent the previous night sleeping fitfully on a bus. But do not despair - simply fill a balloon with water, to a size slightly larger than the plug-hole, and you'll find it makes a surprisingly effective seal.

So we bit off more than we could chew. San Diego to Bolivia overground, in four and a half months, cannot be done if you keep blowing the timetable - one week over in Mexico, two weeks over in Guatemala, one week over the revised timetable in Honduras. This left us with about 3 days each in Nicaragua and Panama, not counting the several 18-hour travel slogs we needed to get there, and about 20 knackered hours in San Jose, Costa Rica. And we are now down to only 3 weeks in South America.
Have I captured your pity yet? Doth your heart bleed for us? Perhaps not, but it has been a tiring week. Fortunately for us, the budgetish hotel our taxi driver led us to in Panama City has a small rooftop swimming pool, and we have whiled away the impossibly hot afternoons playing Underwater Hunt with a scuba mask and leftover Costa Rican change - Lizzie usually wins.
We did manage to catch a little of this city. And it's been a while since we've seen a skyline like this one.

Our paltry remaining budget would not stretch to cruising the canal, or diving in it - which we would have loved to do. But on today, our last day here, we did manage to venture out to see the mammoth locks at Miraflores, where Atlantic bounds cargo ships take an hour or so to raise up about 80ft in three stages, to meet the elevated water level of the canal itself. This process results in the loss of around 50 million gallons of freshwater into the sea - for every single ship that comes through. That's more than enough to slake the daily thirst of the entire UK population.

The ships we saw were Panamax - the biggest size the canal can accommodate - 294.1m by 32.3m, no more than 57.91m high and with a draft of no more than 12m. Bet you didn't know that. And trust me, that's plenty big.

We also went for a walk in the local Panama City woods. Except, this being South America, it's a slice of full-on rainforest inside city limits. We're relatively old hands at jungle walking by now, but I am still always astonished by the amount of moisture I am capable of unleashing in the course of a gentle stroll.

My favourite jungle creature is the humble ant, who maintains his own pristine six-inch wide highways and spends the days transporting bits of leaf to and fro. Theirs paths intertwined continually with the tourist walkways, but this didn't seem to bother them much.

I'm still shooting for Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year. But this time Lizzie has an entry too.

Tomorrow we fly for the first time since we got to San Diego - all the way to Lima. A whirlwind tour of Peru and Bolivia will follow, and 21 days later we fly again - this time, we're coming home.

Postscript

Despite the great times we've been having, it has often been hard to be so far away from home, missing births and engagements, the cat and of course just seeing and talking to all you great folks. But it is has never been harder than the last few weeks. Ben, we miss you and we love you, and you're in our thoughts constantly. Say the word and we're on a plane tomorrow, but you knew that. We hear all signs are good, which is fantastic, but we won't feel like we're home until we see you again. Take care of yourself.

Moving on

2006-04-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

Amusing Country Song title #1 (in an occasional series)

'It's hard to kiss the lips, at night, that chew your ass out all night long'

Stupid question #? (no point in even trying to keep track of these)

Why do all female dogs south of the US Mexican border have udders?

The song of the above title was heard in a bar on Pigeon Caye, one of 10 or so Cayes lying off the Honduran Bay Island of Utila, where we bacame so damned good at diving. Pigeon Caye is connected to Jewel Caye, where the dive school is, by a wooden bridge. To walk from the end of one caye to the end of the other you'd have to allow a good five minutes if you were sauntering in the heat of the day and about 30 seconds if you're riding four to a bike like the local kids do. There's a Norwegian anthropologist staying on Pigeon Caye at the moment writing an ethnography of the Utila Cayes, as well she might: these keys are mighty strange to gringos like us. Jewel and Pigeon Cayes have a population of about 250 people which is small but diverse, with a pretty even spread of white, black carib and spanish people. This population manages to support 7, yes 7, churches. Combine that fact with the song title above and you're starting to get the picture. With the clapboard houses and everyone going by the name of 'Miss Daphne', 'Miss Ruth' or 'Mr Donald' we felt a little like we'd stumbled into a kind of Caribbean Steel Magnolias. Even the dive boat was called Miss - Miss Kary, which I have to admit, made me suspicious. It's not a name that quite inspires the confidence you require from a boat that carries your emergency oxygen. The cayes, like the Bay islands, are pretty much bilingual. Whilst everyone can speak spanish, you're more likely to be spoken to in a kind of pidgen english which sounds like a cross between a deep southern US accent and a more kind of trademark Caribbean accent. When we were confused over whether or not to speak spanish or english to someone, one of the dive instructors advised us; 'if they're white speak english, if they're not, speak spanish'. That's all well and good but when you get a reply it's one thing to not be able to understand spanish (and after 2 1/2 months in spanish speaking countries, 3 weeks of which was at a spanish school, that's bad enough), but when you don't understand english when it's spoken to you, you just feel plain daft. A strange, confusing and beautiful place!

Anyway, enough of the cod anthropology, what, dear Schmeeta are we doing now? Well, at present we're in San Juan del Sur, a small fishing town in the south east corner of Nicaragua. We came here hoping to hear of Sandanistas, revolution and to learn a little more about Nicaragua's recent bloody history which has led it to be one of the poorest countries in the region, second only to Haiti. So far, however, we've spent more time listening to northamericans tell us how much profit they're going to make off their newly purchased Nicaraguan real estate and advising us on the best place to start building a hotel than having ad-hoc history lessons from former revolutionaries. Apparantly, if you buy land in Nica at the moment you get 10 years grace on income tax (30% the man said, disgustedly) and 5 years duty free import rights. I appreciate why, after years of war, corruption and poverty the Nicaraguan government is trying to promote tourism. But this seems to be to the extent that Nicaraguans don't stand a chance of reaping any of the benefits. Anyway, I appear to have digressed into cod economics now, on with the show...

So, we've reached a bit of an impasse in our plans, a figurative brother to the physical impasse of the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia. We've got four weeks left and Bolivia is still a hell of a long way away. Whilst we really wanted to get to know Nicaragua and Panama a little we've come to the conclusion that we're better off getting south as quickly as possible from this point. We could go to a few other places in both countries, but to be honest our time now is so limited that we don't feel we've got enough days to spare getting off the beaten track enough to avoid the Canadian and American real estate junkies, the backpacker trail, and bars called things like 'Dave's Wave Bar'. Dave's wave bar is a very nice place, don't get me wrong. But it feels like a while, what with our two weeks in the curious cayes and the fact that so much land in beautiful places and so much of the tourist infrastructure in central america is owned by foreigners, since we've been able to spend any time with people who are actually from here! So, we hope to be in Peru by the end of the week, ready for a bit of Inca action and Bolivia soon after to follow the trail of Butch and Sundance. Still the tourist trail, clearly, for that is what we are, but in a whole new continent...

We like diving in our mar...

2006-04-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

Dearest Schmeet, so sorry for 'going dark' as Peter says, we have been busy with the fishes in Honduras - no, looking at them not eating them you naughty cat!

I would like to do a little visualization with you, imagine, if you will, a fully grown Evans male. He walks along level ground unencumbered. He will manage to perform this exercise well enough but may look a little ungainly, if not clumsy. Now dress this Evans in scuba gear - fins, 14lbs on a weight belt, huge walloping tank on the back and drop him in the water to a depth where he should be able to control his position in the water using only the volume of air in his lungs, where he should not be flapping his arms around and should in fact glide or hang motionless in the water. I'll leave it to you to picture the passage of this Evans through the water. Once you've done that, turn out the lights and imagine him diving at night..! Strewth, now imagine the poor person who has to be this Evans' 'buddy'. Who as it happens, looks a little like a seal herself, a seal on dry land that is...

No really, we were actually rather good in the water, and only destroyed a few pieces of irreplacable coral reef whilst clattering round under the waves. We can't have been too bad anyway, because, dear schmeeta, believe it or not (probably not, seeing as at times over the last year, you yourself have made me feel guilty with your levels of 'activity' compared to my sloth), but we are now Advanced at a sport. Well, maybe not a competitive sport but a physical activity anyway.

We have been in the beautiful Bay Islands, off the Caribbean coast of Honduras and have been diving our wetsuits off. We went there to do our Open Water course - 4 dives and a bit of an exam about buoyancy, decompression sickness and neoprene - and came away, 14 dives later, with our Advanced Open Water qualification, and an addiction that might not be so easy to sate back in the UK. Every dive was splendid but the highlights include diving at night, diving deep (90ft), diving a wreck, seeing a shark, southern stingrays and eagle rays, and finally, diving all on our own with no divemaster, no boat, no problem! The coral reefs around the Bay Islands are a magical place full of life and many many busy fishes. The fish we have seen can be grouped into several broad categories:

Fish named after other animals, i.e. cowfish (triangle shaped with horns), squirrelfish (big eyes, bushy tail), toadfish (they croak), parrotfish (scoff the coral like nobody's business with their great big beaks), hogfish, frogfish (look like a Simpsons frog), goatfish (they have a beard!) and porcupinefish (pretty eyes and yes, lots of spines).

Fish named after stationery, bits of other animals and random objects i.e filefish (an 'odd shaped swimmer'), needlefish, trunkfish (has no discernible trunk and doesn't look remotely like a trunk), triggerfish, trumpetfish.

Fish named after occupations i.e. nurse shark, sergeant major, surgeonfish, doctorfish,

Fish named after people i.e. bar jack

As you can see, many fish derive their names from other animals. What I want to know is why are there so few other animals named after fish? Por ejemplo, you can have a cat fish but not a fish cat, goatfishes but not fishgoats, you get the idea. There is however a fisheagle, but no eagle-fish, GO FIGURE!!!!!!!!

Still alive

2006-04-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

Please forgive our slack blogging habits. We have been enjoying spending a few weeks in one place, learning Spanish and - despite the grumpiness of a previous post - making friends in English with a great bunch of fellow travellers at the school. We also got to know some of the local people, and to see some of their problems - more on that another time. We´re on the move again now so more news soon.

The Daily Grind of San Pedro la Laguna, Lago de Atitlan

2006-03-17T12:55:00.000-08:00

Alas! the crushing monotony of a daily routine.... check out ours

6.30 a.m Arise and have warm if not hot shower

7.00a.m. Eat porridge and a huge bowl of melon, watermelon and banana

7.30 a.m.Leave for our classes at Casa Rosario, our spanish school. This is what we see on our way to school:

8.00-10.00 a.m. One to one Spanish tuition with Jose (Lizzie) and Concepcion (Jos) in the garden of the school that looks something like this:

10.00 a.m. Break to eat either watermelon, pineapple or guacamole

10.30 - 12 noon Second half of Spanish lesson. This is Chepe, Lizzie's teacher, at the top of the 'Indio Nariz' mountain that he took us up:

12 noon Return to our temporary home with the Bixchul family for lunch

1p.m. approx Return to Casa Rosario to lounge in hammocks on beach overlooking lake. Gaze dreamily at the 3 volcanoes surrounding the lake, watch reeds wave gently in breeze, gasp at startling blue of water, see lanchas skidding across the water or kayakers slowly paddling, watch shadows change on mountains across the bay as sun moves through sky, doze, read.

2.30p.m. approx Scramble over rocks to best swimming place. Enter cool refreshing water. Swim leisurely.

3.00 p.m. Either, laze on rock to dry off whilst doing Spanish homework
Or, scramble back over rocks, trying to avoid catching the eye of various naked people lounging, swimming or washing in the lake and continue to the school garden to complete homework.

5.00p.m. Walk slowly back home. On the way stop for coffee and cake at small cafe. Maybe read a little more.

6.30 p.m. Eat dinner of tortillas, eggs, beans, various veg, often avocado etc. Sit around with Bixchuls and try out our Spanish on them.

Later Something along the lines of- Head down to one of the bars by the dock, drink two litros de Gallo and play cards, watch bonfires across the bay, discuss rainbows with 11yr old Meyra, say no gracias to many pieces of delicious looking cake because we are too damned stuffed from the 3 octagonal meals already eaten...

10.00 - 10.30 pm Retire to bed

Antigua, Guatemala

2006-03-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

Antigua was the old colonial capital of Guatemala, and is a small, beautiful town ringed by volcanos. The restaurants serve terrific international cuisine at reasonable prices, you can get a pint of Guiness (for a price) and it´s one of the most popular choices in Central America to attend a language school and learn Spanish.
So why don´t we like it?
It´s hard to explain. Perhaps it´s the fact that the majority of people you see here are foreigners, and that you hear more English than Spanish on the street and in the bars. Perhaps we´re a little older than most of the backpackers here, and no longer have the same need to forge endless friendships and travel in a pack. Perhaps we just spent 3 days in the jungle with Mayans and are on our way to a language school by a secluded lagoon, and this town is just a mood mistake.
Don´t get me wrong - we are happy to make friends with other travellers and spend the odd evening getting drunk with them. We don´t put ourselves above them. It´s just not why we came here.
Still, we leave tomorrow for the language school (www.casarosario.com), and are both very excited about developing our lingustic skills. Spending time here, having to communicate in the Spanish we can muster has given us a taste and a hunger to learn how to converse properly, outside of a restaurant or hotel setting.
We also had some consolation on a day trip we took earlier today. Another quite gruelling day after our rainforest adventures but worth it as we scrambled to the peak of an active volcano. This was a tough walk - the ash-covered slope for the last 1km or so was like climbing up sanddunes, and coming down was more like skiing than walking. But right at the top, we saw this: Choking on sulphorous fumes, and a little scared, we were only allowed to stay a few minutes at the top amid the whirling smoke. But despite the harsh activity, and the aggravation of our respective old injuries, the sights were soothing enough to make this a beautiful day.

PS The above was written a few days ago, and left unpublished so we could swank about our jungle trek (see below if you haven't already) rather than whinge about tourists. We are now two days into our language course, reeling from the brainwork but stimulated - and living in probably the most beautiful place either of has ever seen. Contentment beckons.

A walk in the woods

2006-03-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday Christobal, Andres and Herman set off for work - a little pootle around the rainforest that surrounds their village, Cruce de las dos Aguadas, in the northern Guatemalan province of Peten. They were accompanied by two gringos, Jose and Eliza who were okay, but a bit thick (they can only speak one language properly and squawk at the sight of a scorpion) and slower than the horses when it came to walking! But it wasn't a bad three days work for them and the tourists seemed suitably pleased with the usual bats, monkeys and ants (Jose seemed particularly impressed by the latter), just the average really, a wander round their backyard that just happens to be filled to the gills with Maya temples, 500 year old trees, snakes, spiders, jaguars and howler monkeys...
That may or may not have been what it was like for our guides to trek 60km through the jungle with 2 horses, Chepe (Joseph's Kechi Maya name) and Eliza. This is how it was for us:

Stats:
Distance: 60km
Time: 3 days 2 nights
Hours walking: 14
Participants: 3 Maya, 2 horses, 2 ingles
Venomous animals SEEN: 1 scorpion (in hammock), 1 snake (in the trees overhead)
Blisters: 2
Litres of water drunk: countless
Maya temples sites visited: 3
Maya temples sat on whilst having a break that we almost didn't even notice: 2
Ridiculous stories told by Cristobal:3
Number of times Cristobal or Herman said 'Cuidado' (careful) due to thorns, ants, huge roots, snakes etc: thousands.
Number of times we were more amazed than we'd ever been before in our lives: infinite
Number of trees drunk from: 2
Number of fruits used to make 'tattoos' on our clothes:1
Number of monkey species seen: 2 - howler and spider
Number of bats seen emerging from a cave at dusk: a huge bloomin' cloud
Amount of knowledge about the dyes, water sources, medicines and musical instruments to be found in the forest, held by Cristobal, Herman and Andres: total
Number of Ketchi Maya words learned by Chepe y Eliza: Approx 10 ('learned' being a very loose term)
Amount of time taken for Cristobal and Herman to shed the jungle simply by putting on a clean shirt and untucking their boots: 30 seconds
Amount of time taken by Chepe and Eliza to recover from rainforest trek: TBC
Blessings counted: chairs, water, BATH, fridge, duvet, SHOWER, cat, sofa

Photos and a bit of blurb:

Waiting for the bats to emerge from their cave. They all fly from the caves together within about three minutes of eachother like a huge black cloud dispersing into the night. We loved them, but there was something sinister about their flight as the whole colony took to the skies to gorge on insects and fruit (at the same time eagles were circling above them gorging on the bats). The bats seemed so Other in the deepening darkess, so at home in the night and the jungle whereas we could only stumble around, falling over tree roots, vainly swatting bugs and skidding down tangled slopes.

A spider plus egg sac lurking in the toilet at campsite number two which, like the first, was gloriously basic. No electricity, so we ate by candlelight, no running water so we washed at a brackish pond and pooed into a proud white ceramic throne. Perched atop a cess pit - actually not too bad!

Day two in the jungle. This track was actually huge compared to the one the day after, which we would dispute giving the title of 'path' atall! As a Geography teacher this is what I know about the rainforest: It is made up of four layers - emergents, canopy, shrub layer, undergrowth. Everything fits together nicely and has its niche. Sounds pretty neat huh? What we SAW was a riotous tangle of growth, plants climbing all over eathother in a attempt to reach the limited daylight, a mass of organic matter containing lianasshrubsfernsvinestallskinnytreeshugebutressrootsleaflitter brownleavesyellowleavesgreenleavesfruitflowersofyellowredpurple butterfliescrazyscreechingbirdstoucansmonkeyshugethickfallentrees hanginglimbsantsrottenwoodandmoremoremore. It wasn't neat and sometimes it wasn't even pretty but it was alive. Jungles are sweaty, smelly, anarchic places that seem far from the dominion of humans. Without our fabulous guides we wouldn't have survived for two minutes without being eaten by bugs or jaguars (chance would have been a fine thing, they're very elusive), getting some tropical sickness, or putting a toxic plant on our sunburn. And all that was the appeal of this glorious, wild, beautiful and sometimes uncomfortable place.

Spot the snake - muy peligroso!

'Chepe' looking like a banana in his hamaca

The spider monkey, the creature where spider meets human and Chepe's entry for Wildlife Photograher of the Year (his dream apparantly - the things you find out about your husband in the jungle!)

A howler monkey. They have barnies across the jungle and sound not like sweet furry monkeys but booming lions!

'El padre de la jungla' a 500 year old cedar tree. Geography teachers! Check out the buttresses on that! Finally we reached Tikal, tired, well fed, elated. This ancient Maya city rises out of the jungle (well most of it, some of it's still covered in forest) and simply blows the mind. This photo was taken the next day, of the sunrise over the pyramids. The jungle is unnervingly quiet just before it gets light - I guess that darkest hour is the hour before dawn stuff is right - and then then birds and howler monkeys crank up their voice boxes, the mists begin to clear and this is what you see. One of those moments where you can almost feel the earth turning, bringing you in sight of the sun.

Back in a bed

2006-03-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

Hi folks - just a quick note to say we´re still alive after spending three days in the jungle - with scorpions, snakes, bats and spiders. It was an incredible, exhilerating experience - but bver 60km of jungle trails, chilly hammocks and some very early starts have left us exhausted and in need of some pizza and beer right now. We have many pictures and stories to share, and will do so in a couple of days, once we have reached Antigua (Guatemala) and caught a little shuteye. Remind us to tell you the secret of the Jaguar...

Guatemala

2006-03-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

We're here, after saying for days we'll be in Guatemala tomorrow, or the next day, we finally made it to Flores yesterday afternoon. It's beautiful here, a very small town on an island in the middle of Lago Peten Itza. We had what was certainly my best single moment yet when we arrived. We found a hotel with a terrace on the lake side, it was still baking hot at 5pm and the water was calling us. So, without further ado we sat and had an icy litro of Gallo beer, I fortified myself with a cigarrette or two and we ploughed into the lake (we were having a drink with a Swiss lifeguard - I know, all those rough seas they have in Switzerland - so don't worry about us swimming under the influence, he was ready to save us at the drop of a swiss army knife). It was the most gorgeous experience of my life so far I think. Okay so maybe I exaggerate, but we were so hot and dusty from the journey and the beer was so cold and the water was so sweet and cool, it was just magic. We're off on a rainforest tour tomorrow - three days of hiking and pootling round ruined maya cities and swatting mosquitoes, the itinerary says something like 'dawn jungle wake-up call' every morning and I don't think they mean that they've got a digital clock with a synthesised rainforest alarm. More when we return, ciao bellos and bellas,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Quiztime!

2006-02-28T11:09:00.001-08:00

Okay, our time in Mexico is pretty much over bar some ruins in the rainforest and a river border crossing, sooooooo I thought it was time we did a little quiz to see how much you've been paying attention. We'll be checking your comments for the answers, no peeking at other people's answers before you submit your own. Answers will be posted in about a week, or when we feel like it, or when we feel there's a critical mass of answers from you, our public.

Nice and easy to start with a couple of geography questions...

1. The world's longest peninsula can be found in Mexico, what is it called and which two Mexican States are found on it?

2. Four seas, oceans and gulfs surround Mexico, what are they?

Now for some history...

3. The Mexican flag is a tricolor of green, white and red. What image is in the middle of the flag?

4. True or false? The conquistador, Cortes, managed to prevent attacks by the Aztecs and ultimately defeat them by pretending to be an avenging god king?

5. Four of the following were unknown to the Americas before they were brought over by the Spanish during the conquest of 1521. Which four?
Beards, glass, dogs, horses, small pox, marble, pigs.

6. The Maya, Mexica (Aztecs), Toltecs, Tlaxcalans and many others had erected huge pyramidical temples, and immense city states of stone without the use of which key invention?

7. If, during a war against the Aztecs you were captured, what would be your likely fate?

And now for some present day nonsense...

8. In Mexico, rolling tobacco is
a) Sold by every man, woman and child b) Made from coconut hair c) rare as hens' teeth

9. How do you say 'very naughty' in Spanish?

Happy quizzing!

There was a young lady who swallowed an amoeba

2006-02-28T11:09:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've finally worked out why my appetite has absconded and there's been a strange gurgling and rumbling in my tummy for the last fornight. I have amoebic dysentry, hurray! It's gone now so no need to worry, folks that do that sort of thing, and I'm sorry to keep going on about my guts but I wanted to tell you all about what a lovely trip to the doctor I had. I don't know about everyone else but I have found that now that I'm all growed up visiting the doctor isn't what it used to be. They don't use any of their exciting gadgets on you, not even a pen as the prescriptions are done by computer. Not so the esteemed Dr Morales in San Christobal! I quite impressively managed to convey in pidgin Spanish the recent history of my bowel movements and he nodded and listened all the while surrounded by his vast collection of clocks. He has 90 in total apparantly, not fancy carriage clocks or grandfather clocks, just ordinary digital or plastic wall clocks, but a fine collection nevertheless. He then gave me an examination (in a room with his second collection, of mugs) which took me right back to the days of endless trailing to the docotor when you're little for mumps, measles, chickenpox etc etc and in my case tonsilitis, anenoid trouble and so on. He had one of those little light thingummys do you remember? Have to say that I've never had someone look up my nose with one of those before. He listened to my guts with a stethoscpe which was very exciting as the closest I've been to a stethoscope for years is talking to myself through Sarah's. All that was missing was a circular mirror attached to his forehead. He even typed out my prescription on a real typewriter! Anyway, not the most thrilling adventure so far, but it touched me so please excuse me for sharing such silliness.

Standing still

2006-02-23T11:45:00.000-08:00

Travel tip no. 2

The effective lifetime of your brand
new Swiss Army penknife corkscrew is maybe 2 or 3 bottles before it snaps off.
Use with caution.
Our southward odyssey hit paydirt about a week ago as we arrived on the Oaxaca (WA-HA-KA) coast, and the little turtle town of Mazunte. We have definitely found the sun, and have the scars to prove it. Apart from vacating a beach cabana that was more romantic in the abstract than the reality of the plumbing and the rats, we have scarcely moved since.

You know that beach lined with quiet, cheap little bars - where you sit out in a baking sun for as long as you can bear before rushing into a cooling sea with waves that wash over you. Well, that´s where we live now. There´s even a great pizzeria. And after all those overnight bus journeys, the warmth and sea are doing wonders for my back.

Until the 90s, Mazunte was dependent on hunting sea turtles and selling their eggs, laid on the local beaches. Since this was outlawed, the town has reinvented itself as an ecotourist centre - focused on conservation and education. The local turtle ´museum´ makes slightly uncomfortable viewing, with these ancient giants of the sea confined to grimy pools. But there are no shows, no riding the turtles. It seems a genuine effort to understand and restore the population of the extraordinary creatures.

We´ve now both been laid low somewhat by stomach bugs. I promise you we are drinking only bottled water and being careful what we eat, but our English stomachs are just not used to this environment. The Mexican style of doctoring seems to be a drop-in clinic attached to a pharmacy, where the consultation fee is not high, but you get quite a bag of prescriptions for your ailment. I think they call it the ´razors and blades´ business model. I like that they can tell what kind of bug you have by poking your guts around and taking your temperature - no need to send samples to the lab like you would back home.

Aside from that, we are feeling rested and holidayed and ready for some meatier challenges. We´re nearly done with Mexico and will move on to Guatemala in the next week, hopefully finding a language school to hone our conversational skills. Next stop, rainforest.

Torville and Dean

2006-02-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

Didn´t you just love em? I did, I really did and Im reminded of them as i sit here in an internet cafe in La Ciudad de Mexico, city of Peter´s heart, centre of the universe (to the Aztecs anyway), because the guy flogging DVDs on the street outside is obviously also a fan of the wondrous T+D and a mean CD mixer to boot - Ravel´s Bolero mixed with La Bamba. Not sure if it works but it´s certainly special.
So what about this city? It was the place where the prophesised vision of the eagle was seen, standing on a cactus with a serpent in its beak, which became the symbol of the peoples of Mexico from that moment (a very very long time ago!); the centre of the universe to the Aztecs (and they had a big one, no less than 13 heavens and 9 hells - 13 heavens and 9 hells that were balancing on the back of a turtle, no less, I always thought Terry Pratchett was a bit unoriginal, I think it´s the hat that gives him away); Leon Trotsky fled here when the Russian Revolution (am I right students of history? you know which my chosen humanity is..) didn´t go his way and it was here that he was murdered with the ice pick, obviously providing the inspiration forBasic Instinct; Okay,I seem to have mined that vein plenty now, lets just say its a wicked cool city with lots of history and stuff, if you want to know more about all the monuments and stuff you can read a Lonely Planet. I have more personal things to impart such as... the state of my guts! Just a smidgen of gastroentiritis (sounds a bit severe but thats what the doctor wrote down, maybe it´s a generic term here though) . After spending the last five days in possession of the startling ability to sh** though the eye of a needle, my stools are now viable again, hurray!
Okay, back to Mexico DF, city of the stars etc etc. We´ve had a tremendous time here, as with many capital cities (okay, maybe not Dodoma) you could spend a year here and never run out of things to do and we did manage to tick a few things off the list of must-sees. The Anthropology Museum was astounding and we basically walked around slack jawed from start to finish; Diego Rivera´s mural of Mexican life were also wonderful, I especially liked their context in the Education Department. No song and dance, just an ordinary government building with a very small and dark entrance, that just so happens to hold many, many murals by one of the C20th´s most feted artists; Bosque de Chapultepec was beautiful and more than anywhere else reminded us of London; the ancient city of Teotihuacan was also unmissable with its Piramide del Sol (third biggest in the world I think) and Piramide de la Lune, built well over 1500 years ago.

However, by far the most amazing thing about this city has been wandering the streets around the historic heart of the city where national government rubs shoulders with Aztec ruins, devil stick twirlers with international church of christ food stalls. The streets are packed with stalls of a variety i´ve never seen anywhere for instance the order of stalls as you walk down one street may be as follows; massage balls, cheap books, tortillas, batteries, supports for injured knees, elbows, wrists etc, lottery tickets (this week including astrological signs. Though I didn´t go to see the draw, which is open to any old punter who wanders in, I fancy that the Mexican lottery would make Camelot´s look like a tombola at a cricket club fete), orthopaedic shoes, balloons, huge pieces (roughly 40cm x140cm) of roasted pig skin - a scratching lovers´dream - and everything else you could think of.

As you can probably tell from this rambling account, there´s a lot to get your head round in this city (some of it´s bad too, there´s a lot more poverty evident than elsewhere, unsurprisingly, the air is godawful, taxis aren´t too safe, and sometimes it smells of poo - sound familiar, londoners?) but we´ve loved it and are now eager to resume our southwards path. Tonight we are getting the overnight bus to Oaxaca City and may even be on the coast of Oaxaca state by tomorrow afternoon. We´ll probably spend a few days there hopefully helping out a few sea turtles by rescuing, counting, hatching or whatever else needs doing to their eggs (what more do they want, the moon on a stick?) , oh, and getting some sun, sea, snorkelling and sand aswell.

Adios amigos (I´m not leaving you out girls, it´s just that the mixed plural always takes the masculine form, bloody, macho... schnrllscnarl), hope all is happy in your lalalands

Lilbette.xxxxx

P.S. by the way ladies who advised me to get a henna rather than a real tatoo on my neck, look what happened!

Lucha Libre

2006-02-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

We have now been in Mexico City for four or five days, and it's been fantastic. Miles upon miles of street markets, street food that even vegetarians can enjoy, music everywhere and the most hustly bustle I've ever seen. We're staying in the historical centre, near the Zocalo - a plaza that seems to be the equivalent of Leicester Square plonked in the middle of Westminster. Surrounded by government buildings, the square fills with Aztec dancers, vendors of miscellaneous tat and political protestors targeting the presidential offices.
Lizzie is in a slightly sorry state today. She has succumbed to our first bout of food poisoning - nothing serious, but I've left her dozing with several gallons of water and coke to keep her company. Meanwhile, I thought I'd fill you in on one of my personal highlights to date - Mexican wrestling.
I've been interested in professional wrestling for years, since the early 90s when Sky started showing the WWF. This was when Hulk Hogan still ruled the roost, and the shows were cartoon-like and simple to follow - but the feuds were compelling. Faces (good guys) would be locked in a vendetta with heels (the bad guys). Not that I knew the terminology back then, I just enjoyed the drama and the atheleticism. Sure, it didn't quite seem like a real sport - it was better than that.
Years later, I started idly surfing the internet to find out what this show was really all about. I discovered sites full of backstage gossip, explaining who was playing politics to win or keep the championship, why the writers were all morons, and the real reasons performers would leave (storyline: suspension. real reason: making movies). The last 10 years were momentous in the wrestling world. The rise of the internet had lifted the curtain, and no-one but a few old-timers would even pretend that it was on the level. The WWF had even started a Pop Idol style contest to find new wrestlers, revealing the tricks of the trade to an MTV audience.
I kept looking, and discovered a community of old-school wrestling fans. These guys hate the WWF, and look back to their childhood viewing in the 50s and 60s and 70s, and even further back. I learnt that professional (i.e. fake, though they don't like that word) wrestling dates backs over a century, to travelling carnivals where two wrestlers would put on a show every night. They had to fake it. First, there was no way that their bodies could stand up the punishment of a true contest on a nightly basis. Second, true shootfighting is very slow and dull to watch. It could go on for hours, with two men laying on the ground and hardly twitching.
But these guys could really fight too. Part of the show would be for an audience member to challenge one of the wrestlers for prize money, and of course it wouldn't do for a punter to walk away with the purse.
Different territories around the US emerged over time, each running their own shows with their own local heros. A national champion would go from area to area defending his title - this guy also had to be the real thing, as local tough guys were liable to try it on and steal the championship given half a chance. More and more showbiz crept in. By the 1980s, Vince McMahon expanded his New York promotion to a national spectacle with Wrestlemania, putting most of the other groups out of business and eventually creating an international presence.
I haven't actually watched much wrestling in years, but the world of it fascinates me. Somewhere between sport, circus and theatre, it's like nothing else. Or perhaps, everything else. Once you understand the concept of Kayfabe - the pretence that this is all real, though everyone kind of knows it's a show - it gives you a new perspective on politics and all aspects of society. You start seeing George Bush 'cut a promo' on Saddam rather than give a speech about Iraq. You start seeing Question Time as the equivalent of Smackdown, with the on-screen opponents playing carefully rehearsed parts and giving away nothing of their backstage relationships.
But wrestling is not confined to America, and it isn't all in the WWF mould. Lucha Libre (free fighting) is a huge sport here - second only to football. And it's a much simpler style. Most of the wrestlers wear masks. There are no chairs or weapons, a great deal of high-flying atheleticism, and a large element of comedy. It's not particularly realistic, but it's a lot of fun and the crowds lose themselves in it week after week.
I'd never seen a live show before, and figured Mexico would be a good place to start. I turned up at the Arena Coliseo for the Sunday show - having gathered that this was the top place to see the stars. My cheap Balcon ticket bought me a seat on a concrete step in a tatty arena, alive with candyfloss hawkers and tooting horns. There was a wire mesh between us and the ring, presumably to catch projectiles. There were probably 1500 people there, a near-full house in any case. The show was being filmed for TV, and consisted mostly of trios - tag teams with 3 on each side. In theory, I believe only two guys should be in the ring at the same time. But this was rarely observed, and the two referees appear to be both ineffectual and rather dense. All part of the show.
I was nervous beforehand, about the violence, about the crowd. But the whole thing was incredibly good natured. The crowd smiled as they booed, laughed as a fat comic wrestler did his shtick, being thrown out of the ring and falling onto the poor punters in the front row. They roared as one heel would hold a face down to be attacked, only for the face to escape at the last minute leaving the two villains to collide. They booed and barracked as one wrestler was carried out on a stretcher, and his opponent kicked him off. And at the end, everyone left satisfied.
It was more like Panto than sport, but the acrobatics were impressive, and every match had both comedy and drama. I didn't know who anyone was, or anything about the backstage politics. It was just a wrestling show, and it reminded me how to enjoy that.
To end, a few shots of Mexico city. Then I'd best be off to check on the wife. Next stop, Oaxaca and - we hope - a nice tranquil beach cabana to read and write and think in.

Barranca del Cobre

2006-02-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

Travel Tip no. 1 (in an occasional series)

If you find yourself sitting near the rear of a coach with a stinking chemical toilet, for 12 hours or so, a dab of camphor lip-balm under the nose will help to mask the offensive odour.

So this is our progress to date. We last left you in La Paz, which was the first really warm place we managed to get to, and a great place to spend a couple of days chilling out on white sand/turquoise ocean beaches. But if your eyesight is good enough, you should be able to see how far we have managed to come since then.

Taking a detour from our urge to travel South, we headed over to the mainland and took the famous Copper Canyon railway to Creel. This was something special - 20 canyons carved by 6 rivers, collectively dwarfing the Grand one. And they built a railway over the top of it - now largely used by tourists like us, and running to a very approximate timetable.

The most awesome view was probably our first glimpse of the hidden depths. We had departed at 6am, on a scratch of sleep, and the journey so far was interesting if not stunning. Giant cacti, numerous shacks and savannah-style landscapes. Suddenly, the rocky wall to our right fell away, revealing a glorious shimmering lake several hundred metres below, surrounded by greenery. Two flocks of bird chose that moment to take flight over the water, conjuring a breathtaking hidden world beneath us. So we took a picture of it.

Unfortunately, the windows were both dirty and reflective, and you cant capture that kind of thing. Still, you get the idea. We passed another 5 or 6 hours enjoying this kind of splendour, before stopping in the mountain town of Creel.

Creel is a popular stop-off for travellers, and we had a lovely time staying in a Cabana and cooking our evening meals on a wood-fired oven. Baked potatos and onions, with cream cheese and salad. Yum.

Since then we have mostly been travelling - had a cup of coffee in Chihuahua and then overnighted to the mining town of Zacetacas, which is where we now find ourselves. Next stop Mexico city.

Thanks for all your comments and good wishes. We are missing home, and are occasionally weary of Quesedillas and Cervezas. But we are also having a wonderful time. We still feel a little like tourists doing tourist things, but as we travel south and hit the likes of Guatemala (hopefully by riverboat) and Ecuador, this should start to feel more like the adventure we came here for. The graduation from the safety of Seattle, to the US-dominated Baja California, and now to the heart of Mexico has been tangible, and welcome.

Whale Whatching (sic)

2006-02-03T16:21:00.000-08:00

We left Ensenada, and the security of Frances and her rental car, on a comfortable bus, which was just as well as we were on a 10-hour overnight journey to Guerrero Negro. We arrived at 6am at this dusty town in the middle of nowhere - but it´s still early enough in our trip for that to be quite fun. Waking up took some time - coffee at the bus station, a reviving shower at the Motel Ballenas which wonderfully let us check in at abut 8am, and hot cakes (pancakes) at a local restaurant. At this point we were ready to think about what had brought us here.
There were two reasons we had come to Guerrero Negro - probably the same two reasons any tourist comes here. The first is that it is a convenient midway point between the north tip and south tip of the Baja peninsular. The second may already be apparent to any Spanish speakers reading - ballenas is Spanish for whales.
Guerrero Negro is a town built on salt. As we drove out of town, there was nothing but great piles of salt and shallow seawater lakes drying in the sun. Quite spectacular in its way, almost like an arctic landscape.
But we hadn´t come here for salt. We had come to see the hundreds of grey whales gathered to breed in the local lagoon. They come down from Alaska during a six month migration cycle each year. Having fed themselves silly on the icy fish they seek out the warmth of Mexico to breed.
Whale gestation takes just over a year, we were told. They breed one year, calve the next, and the cycle continues throughout their lifetime.
The boat trip was extraordinary - we saw dozens of whales - mothers and calves, males competing for a mate, dolphins and whales playing together. And there was no doubt whose neighbourhood we were in.
Now, we know that wildlife photography is a specialist field. But we nevertheless filled half a camera card with pictures that mostly turned out to be mostly open water. Still, we got a few, and they are ours. So here are our greatest hits.
We´re now at the bottom of Baja, enjoying the beaches of La Paz before heading to the mainland and the Copper Canyon Railway.

San Diego to Ensenada the long way round

2006-01-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

Last time we left you on a knife edge, no doubt, wondering how on earth we managed to get into Mexico with only a fully functioning rental car, an almost fully functioning driver, our passports and our most certainly semi-functioning wits. Go back the way we came and seek amnesty in San Diego for one more night? Decide that - being a 24 hour border crossing only 1 hrs drive away - Tijuana was actually our best bet? Sleep in the car? Get taken in by gringo bandidos? No, fools! Of course we drove about a two hours east away from Tecate, Ensenada and all we knew. With Frances fuelled by coffee and the childhood dream of reaching Calexico on the Californian side of the border from its Mexican counterpart Mexicali (geddit? geddit? kinda sweet dontcha think?), we drove on into the night. Finally, we reached Calexico, town of gas stations and a motel that kindly agreed to take us in once we'd handed over a fair amount of dollars. Phew! We crossed into Mexico at Mexicali (I still think it's sort of romantic, Calexico/Mexicali, aw) Jos and I having momentary panic that we might need some sort of tourist card to get in. As it turned out, we were welcomed to Mexico with a green light and no formalities whatsoever.

Mexicali was pretty uneventful, though obviously more exciting than Calexico it being in Mexicocococococococo (will make no further comment on the town names)! We tasted our first quesadillas and drank pints of fresh jugo de naranja, gave the cathedral a quick once over and headed south once again, beckoned by the brewery at Tecate and, further south, Baja's wine country (are you detecting a theme?). Tecate did indeed provide us with a welcome pitstop, the nice brewery people gave us nice free beer. On our way out of town we managed to avoid being siphoned across the border back to the US by the skin of our teeth and a bit of spirited driving by Frances. The drive through Baja wine country to Ensenada was stunning. We passed through mountains with incredible views, the rocks absolutely shatted by some kind of weathering that, as a geography teacher, I really should be able to identify. Practically no vegetation and small white crosses and shrines dotted across the mountainsides. We stopped at a vineyard on the Ruta del Vino and again were given free booze. We tasted the first truly dry white we've had since arriving in the Americas - Napa valley has a lot to answer for - and stocked up for the days ahead. We arrived at Ensenada in the afternoon buoyed by the incredible drive and ready for anything!

Mountains along the Mexican border

Breakfast in Mexicali

Sunset in Ensenada

California Bound!

2006-01-28T17:17:00.000-08:00

Baja California, that is.

We are now in Mexico and officially on our adventures. Frances drove us over the border yesterday morning, and we are currently residing in the Frat-Boy favourite town of Ensenada. Lots of shops selling cheap pharmaceuticals and cuban cigars, and US-style bars with fully-fledged gift shops so that you can prove you got drunk there. But we don't care - this is Mexico, with the sun and the Pacific Ocean and the mountains and Quesedillas for breakfast.
The mountain scenery has been magnificent, particularly when driving along the border. Pictures will follow once we remember the connectors and things.
Our first stab at a border crossing was on Thursday night. We flew down to San Diego, with the aim of picking up a rental car and crossing the border at Tecate - a civilised little village with a brewery - rather than the hotbed of sin that constitues Tijuana. The only constraint was the the crossing closed at midnight. But our flight got in at 8pm, so we weren't worried.
A catologue of delays ensued - the flight was late, the Thrifty car rental staff were operating at half speed, and there turned out to virtually no road signs. Still, by the time we made it to the crossing it was still only 11pm. Actually, 11.03 and those three minutes made all the difference. The guide books had let us down - and Tecate had just closed. So we found ourselves stranded miles from the nearest border crossing, hotel, tourist information centre or helpful bystander. Still, we had our big California-style Ford Taurus, and we were on an adventure. No turning back for us.
Stay tuned for the conclusion of this exciting tale. It's getting dark, and another night in Ensenada beckons. Love to all.

Dear Schmeeta,

2006-01-26T14:13:00.000-08:00

We hope you can take some time out of your busy schedule of napping and yowling to read our blog. You may remember us, the bald one and the one with the beard to rub your cheek on...

Enough of all that, we do realise that even a cat as astute and talented as Schmeeta will have a hard time logging on. This is, of course, a thinly veiled conceit, through which we will communicate with YOU during our travels and who knows, maybe afterwards too (if you're really lucky). We've spent the last two weeks living it up in Washington State with Frances, living in a manner to which we had better not become accustomed if our money is to last until May.

Today the adventure really begins, we fly to San Diego this pm and all being well should cross the border into Mexico at Tecate some time this evening. We'll spend a weekend with Frances in Ensenada (wine country!) before she heads off to a gruelling business trip in NYC and we, well, we don't really know what we'll do next but it should involve Baja California, mating (humping?) hump back whales, the old colonial city of La Paz and the Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon railway) for starters.

More to follow once we find the sunshine...

L & J xx