Mexican Wanderlust

After spending three months with the guys I found myself alone for the first time. This was actually a welcome change - I could use some "me" time. I could probably have used some "they" time as well but there was none to be found. So me and myself went on to Tulum, a couple of hours south of Cancun. The town of Tulum is of little interest but the ancient city of Tulum is great - it was built on a cliff overlooking the ocean with its white sand beaches and multicolored water.


Over a year ago I wrote this in the blog, as a summary of my visit in Mexico City back then, “I have to come here again”. So back I went - I spread my wings and flew to Mexico City. I stayed at a cool hostel at the very center of the city and I spent the days just walking around.
Walking the streets of Mexico City is quite an interesting experience. I'm not sure it would be appropriate for everyone but since the locals seemed to think I was Mexican I had no problems. So much so in fact that I was even interviewed for a local TV show where I got to say hi to everyone back home and to the people in Mexico. I hope I didn't mess it up too much.


I also used the time to go and see some of the standard tourist attractions - the present day "Aztec" shamans performing cleansing rituals and ceremonial dances in the main plaza,

the voladores jumping off their high pole,

and the flower market of Xochimilco.


I ended up staying in Mexico City a lot longer than I had originally planned - just over three weeks. I met lots of great people at the hostel: Steve and Raj who are now traveling around Guatemala- I'll see you guys again before I go home, I can just feel it; Yshai and Dolev with their somewhat dubious experiences in Mexico City (strange doctors, pickpocketing, armed robbery of internet cafes, etc.); Teresa and Misa... more about these lovely ladies later - for now I'll just say I'm lounging on their sofa and writing this post using Teresa's laptop.

This has all happened quite some time ago - since then I've been to Guatemala and back to Mexico City again. To be continued...

I hate lines - especially dead ones

As the days passed in San Cristobal so did Guy's deadline for returning home approached. And so we left San Cristobal and set out towards Cancun. On the way we stopped in Villahermosa where we saw some solemn Olmec statues staring at us silently.


The road then went through Campeche and Merida. From Merida we went to see the nature reserve at Celestun where we boarded a boat. The water is very shallow and there are plenty of Flamingos doing their thing there. I decided it was time to show them some skin and gave them the privilege of being a part of one of my world renowned feet shots.


After harassing the Flamingos for a while we kept going deeper into the Mangrove canals and we were expecting the indigenous population to come out of the green pointing their spears at us. Quite disappointingly none of this happened and we had to settle for a couple of birds.


Merida also provided us with a peek into local customs. Luckily this didn't involve any forms in triplicates or cavity searches - we just got to see some traditional dances. These included the ribbon dance and the ever popular "dancing with a bottle of beer on your head" dance.


A friendly bus driver then took us to Valladolid. Well, I don't really know if he was friendly or not. We paid the bus company, they presumably paid him, and he drove us there.
We found Valladolid to be a smallish town - they didn't even have a Burger King branch there.
Despite the lack of large American conglomerates we chose Valladolid as our base for exploration of the immediate area.
Our first destination was Chichen Itza - a famous Mayan site which was also chosen to be one of the new seven wonders of the world.
We wandered around the various temples, gigantic snake heads, columns, and skull-lined walls. Apparently the Indiana Jones set builders had based at least some of their work on real life.


That same evening we were strolling through the streets of Valladolid and happened upon a group of dancers performing traditional Aztec dances. They were dressed in colorful clothes and were brandishing impressive shields and feathered headgear.


The following day we decided to explore what is locally known as a cenote - "Cenotes are surface connections to subterranean water bodies" (wikipedia). As is almost always the case, the scientific definition falls short in terms of actually describing these dramatic underground lakes.


We left Valladolid with a heavy heart - we had only one day left before Guy had to go home. We got to spend this day in Cancun and were actually quite pleased we got to see this non-wonder of the world.

Our arrival at Cancun also meant that both of my travel buddies would now be gone - It's been a great run guys! Thanks for sharing these experiences with me, carrying my bag when my back was out, letting me sleep on the better bed when my butt was out, and generally putting up with me.



And so now, quite literally, rakanikan...

Alla Easter

And so we arrived at San Cristobal de las Casas - where we were to spend Easter week. This is usually a troublesome time to be traveling in because all of the hostels fill up and you really have to plan in advance where you want to be. I hate that.
De las Casas, as Igal calls it (and which will be referred to as DLC from now on), turned out to be a nice colonial town with cobbled streets and tons of churches. The place had a nice feel to it and we were pretty pleased with our choice. We didn't know the half of it at the time. Not even a quarter.
After hanging around the town for a while we took a tour to the surrounding villages. The first was San Juan Chamula which is a religious and political center for the local indigenous people (Tzotzil). I would normally shoot the brains out of my camera in a place like this but the village people (no, not those village people) don't really like the whole taking pictures thing so I decided not to risk incurring the wrath of the gods (and of the local police who carry very big sticks strapped to their backs).


Back in DLC I was still in a walk-about mood so I wandered about. In one of the plazas I found a series of piñata like puppets hanging from strings in a line. Each was protesting something and after a short inquiry I found out that they were to be burned later that night. The whole thing is called the "Quema de Judas" - yaanu - burning of the traitor.


There was still some time to kill so I kept walking and eventually met up with Guy who had gone for a little rest after the village people tour. We found a band playing on one of the stages and later on we also ran into a batucada playing Brazilian-style drums.


We then made our way back to the plaza with the puppets - we thought that since they were going to burn them we had better have a good position up front so we could get nice pictures.
Rookie mistake (or beginners luck, depending on your point of view).
The crowd was huge and we all waited for the fire to be lit. And lit it was. What we didn't know was that inside the puppets they had stuffed several tons of TNT, gun powder, and apparently a Russian RS-24 multi-warhead ICBM.
When the first puppet was lit we were still innocent and were expecting a little flame. Maybe a small fire. When the whole thing exploded everyone screamed and ducked and I think that was the first time I really understood the potential power of a stampede - people started fleeing for their lives and unfortunately decided to do it in our direction.


After several other puppets had been lit and exploded we got the hang of it and regained partial control of our bladders. That's also when my brain started working again and I finally shot a video of one of the puppets.
Just for reference - this is the same rat from before...


The following morning saw the inauguration of the spring festival. The festival queen was crowned (Priscilla I) and a colorful parade followed - floats, bands, and dancers. The streets and balconies were full of people who were all trying to catch (or duck) the candy being thrown at them from the floats.


To finish off our DLC experience we went to a Mexican wrestling (Lucha Libre) match which was being staged as part of the festivities. The fight night was held at the bull fighting ring and since we had purchased the "good" tickets we got to sit in the first row. The problem with this is that there was an annoying light rain (known as chippi chippi) throughout the event so we were rather chippied out by the end of the night.
Still, it was worth it - the fights were hilarious. For each match six fighters went on stage and with them were a couple of "referees". I say "referees" because they occasionally take part in the fight - holding a fighter down, smacking him on the face, whatever they feel like at the moment. The fighters kept cursing each other, yelling at the crowd, performing outrageous stunts, and generally putting on a great show.


To sum it up - Easter in DLC rocks!

East to Easter

I'll keep the Belize part of the story short - it was in the East, it was hot, it was very expensive, some guy started talking to us about bomb making on the bus. But it did give my butt some time to recuperate (and that's the last time you'll hear about my butt unless I hurt it again or I get specific requests from the audience).


From Belize we made our way back to Guatemala where the people are nice and the prices are nicer. We crossed the border and went to Tikal - a major Mayan site. We hiked around the park, surrounded by dozens of spider monkeys, some of which gave us the evil eye.


The huge Mayan temples poke through the jungle and provide great views. The sight of these pyramids basking in the sea of green was truly impressive. And if it looks somewhat familiar it's surely because:

1. You've already been there and have seen it yourself, or
2. You have some other friends who have been there and have already bothered you with their photos, or
3. You've watched the Star Wars movies which used Tikal as the site of the hidden rebel base.


In addition to visiting the site on our own we decided to join a "morning" tour of the park. A more appropriate name would be the "sh'at efes" tour (we had to wake up at 4:15). The idea behind the tour is to walk into the park while it's still dark, climb up one of the temples, and watch the sun rise. We did our part. The sun didn't. There was a nice, big, fluffy cloud which covered the sky and the sun so basically what we saw was a bunch of tourists sitting in silence waiting for the sun to rise.


After Tikal we stopped shortly in Flores and from there crossed the border into Mexico and our second major Mayan site - Palenque. The excavated part of Palenque is smaller than that of Tikal but it was still nice. And we did get to see the elusive Homo Americanus Borealis roaming around freely in big groups. In Tikal they were hidden by the jungle and their presence was not felt.


While in the area we also went to see a nice waterfall at Misol Ha (nothing to write home about so I won't write about it) and a nice nature reserve with lots of small falls and crystal blue pools bearing the original name Agua Azul ("blue water").


Easter was just around the corner so we took another bus to San Cristobal de las Casas. There was a brief mention of a spring festival there in the good book (i.e. the Footprint Mexico & Central America Handbook) so we decided it would be a nice place to spend Easter.

We were right :) But that's for the next post...

Post-Purim post

Just wanted to share with you a couple of pictures from a Purim party, that was held by the company I work for. As you can see me and Alona wore "painter" costumes:

Note the pencil behind my ear! :)


We even participated in a costume contest, but didn't win :(