tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88040241454006481832024-03-06T04:10:47.614+00:00Losing LuggageWe are a couple in our thirties travelling the world. Up till now, we have lived most of our lives in the UK. Our plan is to visit Africa, South East Asia, Australia and South America.Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.comBlogger117125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-18180362209859732952015-08-04T14:15:00.000+01:002015-08-04T15:33:59.388+01:00The perils of the Internet as a tool for existential optimisation: Part 1 - Conspiracy theoriesI have always considered myself as being in the possession of an open mind. I have always thought of this as a good thing. But it strikes me that if you use the Internet instead of, say, the library, which must be its analogue equivalent, to start looking for 'answers', then there is no end to the queue of people lining up to push all sorts of things through an open mind.<br />
<br />
As this is a travel blog, albeit currently of a non-geographical kind, just a quick note on actual geographical travelling as a tool for existential optimisation: it didn't work. I simply took my issues all the way around the world with me and sometimes they weighed heavier than my actual luggage. Travelling was fantastic for all kinds of things but 'finding myself', Losing Luggage, and anything of that kind, were not among them.<br />
<br />
Another quick aside to explain my use of the term 'existential optimisation'. What I really mean is spiritual fulfilment or something, but even I can't help rolling my eyes at that, it's like an involuntary tick. Given that I don't think I'll actually know what I'm looking for until I find it, 'external optimisation' seems like the best fit name for this journey, which obviously has its own eye-rolling qualities, for which I can only apologise. Or I could just stick with Losing Luggage.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the Internet is not like the library. While you might stumble across the 'Esoteric, Mystic and Occult' section on the way back from 'Philosophy' or 'Religion' in the library, you won't have a bunch of strangers in the aisles who probably have viruses chucking pamphlets at you about how we're made by aliens. At the library, the guy with the sandwich board telling us that The End Is Nigh is not, from what I've seen, allowed inside, but on the Internet they have their own websites to really get into the details. Whatever print publications from established publishing channels that might be accepted in a library might lack or fail to satisfy with fact, the Internet is more than happy to make up for with theory.<br />
<br />
So it is a disadvantage for me that I've always been partial to a conspiracy theory. There was only one when I was a kid - the JFK assassination. The first time I was allowed to watch television past nine o'clock was to see a documentary about it. They'd show one on every possible anniversary. I would look out of the window on car journeys wondering if England had grassy knolls, or if they were just in America. The JFK assassination was followed by the conspiracy fact of Watergate, so the idea that governments and institutions might have a complex and perhaps creative relationship with what others would call the truth has always seemed quite obvious to me, as it must surely do for anyone who has ever been to the cinema. I don't, for example, believe there will be a public service broadcast asking us to calmly make our way to the
eastern hemisphere of the planet, take our seats and fasten our seatbelts as we are
about to experience some celestial turbulence if an asteroid really is hurtling in our general direction. Obviously, a lot has happened since JFK and the conspiracy section on the Internet has it all covered.<br />
<br />
There seems no end to how deep that particular aisle in the Internet library goes. You would have to take me to the pub and get me a beer for me to get into any of that. If you don't already have an idea about what's down there, you probably don't want to know. To satisfy the curious-but-non-commital-minded, you could look to David Cronenberg's <i>Videodrome</i>, or the 1988 film <i>They Live</i> (whose star delivered the immortal lines "I’m here to kick ass and chew bubblegum and I’m all out of bubblegum" and <a href="https://twitter.com/R_Roddy_Piper/status/383693269068050432" target="_blank">"They Live is a documentary!!"</a> RIP Roddy Piper) for an executive summary of the common themes.<br />
<br />
Regardless of whether they're true or not, I find them more interesting than TV, but can't tolerate the following:<br />
<ul>
<li>bad grammar and spelling, a generally poor writing style</li>
<li>extensive use of capital letters and exclamation marks</li>
<li>bad attitude and bossy tone e.g. 'Wake up, sheeple!'</li>
<li>use of the word 'sheeple'</li>
<li>use of the word the word 'repent' and derivations thereof</li>
<li>smugness about having taken out the correct religious cover against an impending apocalypse </li>
</ul>
because they seem to be used by mean-spirited nutjobs. Even then, there's only so many theories you can take before you have to get out in the fresh air. They all seem to trade in the same currency: belief, which is why I leave mine at the desk before I go in. But when I look around, everyone seems to be trading in belief: whether immigrants are taking over or play a vital role in culture and society, whether religion is better or science, Conservative or Labour, Pepsi or Coke. Beliefs appear to be a valuable commodity. To continue any further on this journey, I can see that I will have to be extremely careful with mine. Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-51428343396589258392015-07-17T11:06:00.000+01:002015-07-17T13:29:35.661+01:00What's it all about?When I was a kid, back when adults were strange and boring beings, always sitting about and talking instead of running around, playing and having fun, I asked my dad what philosophy was. "It's when you ask questions like 'Why are we here?'" he explained. That's a silly question, I thought. I got here without anyone asking or explaining why, so what could it matter? It was a silly and also annoying question. It made me not much look forward to being an adult if that was the kind of thing they talked about. I would probably have been mortified to know that some thirty years later (the other day), I would have this conversation with Dad:<br />
<br />
"What's it all about, Dad? Why do you think we're here?"<br />
"Does there have to be a reason?"<br />
"I guess not." I pondered. "But wouldn't it be awful if there was and we never even asked?"<br />
He laughed and buttered some toast.<br />
<br />
So, I'm still stuck with this blasted question and only a rough sketch of an answer, which I didn't even come up with. It was a teacher, on a school report. "Tania has not reached her potential." Annoyingly, this continues to be a problem. I think I'm here to reach my potential and I still haven't. Even a glimpse of it would be nice.<br />
<br />
I mentioned this to my best friend while we were sitting about in the pub and talking. Although she is far too nice and considerate to use these specific words, I believe I can paraphrase what she said to "You're thinking too much," and I don't disagree. She is fully occupied with a gorgeous child, a husband, a house, a good job that she enjoys and I completely understand it if she, and indeed anyone, thinks that looking for an invisible and perhaps fictional concept such as 'potential' is a pointless and wasteful luxury.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, it has led me to some very interesting things. So for now, I will leave you with a fruit of my, er, 'labour' which, hopefully, can show that this journey is not as miserable and pointless as it may well sound.<br />
<br />
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<br />Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-60469900475076328622015-07-15T19:06:00.000+01:002015-07-17T11:45:39.675+01:00The journey continues...It has been just over four years since we returned from our travels. Perhaps the most common question I was asked was 'So, what's it like to get back to normality?' After deciding that they weren't deliberately trying to wind me up or bring me down, it was still a tricky one to answer. What did they mean by 'normality'? Having no job and no money? That the first violent experience I encountered in over two years of travelling happened on the tube when it pulled into my home station on the night of my arrival back to the UK? Finding that a KitKat now cost 60p? Was that 'normal'? And what did they think was going on in everywhere else in the world? Oddness? Obviously, it would have been somewhat abrasive to respond honestly to what was clearly assumed to be an innocuous question (and no one likes it when you answer a question with a question, let alone several). The closest I could get to both truth and courtesy was 'I feel like I haven't stopped travelling,' and even that would trigger a long pause and then an awkward change of subject. It would have been a lot more straightforward if they'd asked me what it was like to come home, because that was great.<br />
<br />
I existed in a quiet and stable state of euphoria right up until I got promoted at work about a year later. My excitement at life and all its possibilities (for a person with a British passport) was slowly and eventually entirely consumed by concern for issues that I'd spend all day trying to sort out, all night worrying about and all weekend zonked in front of the telly trying not to think about. None of which was the problem. The problem was that it was not for what I could describe as a worthy cause. No, I'm not really sure what a worthy cause is either.. maybe meaningful or important or fun or interesting or to support a family or household of my own (which I still don't have)? Or maybe just knowing what you're doing it for? Because I don't think the job provides the meaning - that's up to the person and I can't find it. But if this was the normality they were banging on about, then it was shit. So, six months later, I quit.<br />
<br />
I'm no stranger to existential crises, I have one at least every couple of years, but this one's a humdinger. So, I invite you to join me on another journey. And this time, it's spiritual! Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-63986985919356337492011-08-04T13:45:00.007+01:002012-03-19T07:26:53.880+00:00The Intinerary<span style="font-size: 100%;">So this is where went, pretty much in order - except for Thailand which was split into 2 sections, the second coming after Cambodia, when Nairi and Toby came out to see us. We started the trip on 2nd Feb 2009 and finished on 19 May 2011.</span><span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;"><br />
<br />
Kenya</span> (2 months)<br />
Nairobi (1 month volunteering)<br />
Kibera slum<br />
Nanyuki<br />
Mount Kenya<br />
Amboseli<br />
Mombassa<br />
Lamu island (during Maulid festival)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Tanzania</span> (2 days!)<br />
Dar es Salaam<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Malawi</span> (2 months)<br />
Mzuzu (1 month with Niall Dorey and family)<br />
Nkhata Bay<br />
Likoma island (3 weeks, learning to dive)<br />
Lilongwe<br />
Blantyre<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Mozambique</span> (1 month)<br />
Tete<br />
Chimoio<br />
Pena Longa<br />
Vilankulos<br />
Bazaruto island<br />
Inhambane<br />
Tofo<br />
Maputo<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">South Africa</span> (1 month)<br />
Kruger<br />
Blyde River Canyon <br />
Johannesburg<br />
Soweto<br />
Cape Town<br />
Fish Hoek<br />
Stellenbosch<br />
Swellendam<br />
Mossel Bay<br />
Tsitsikama<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Thailand</span> (2.5 months)<br />
Bangkok<br />
Bang Saphan<br />
Koh Tao island<br />
Krabi<br />
Railay<br />
Loei<br />
Chiang Khan<br />
Pak Chom<br />
Chiang Mai<br />
Trat<br />
Koh Kood island<br />
Koh Jum island<br />
Koh Phi Phi island<br />
Koh Mak island<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Laos</span> (3 weeks)<br />
Luang Namtha<br />
Muang Sing<br />
Luang Prabang<br />
Nam Ou river<br />
Muang Ngoi<br />
Nang Kio<br />
Vang Vieng<br />
Vientiane<br />
Si Phan Don - 4,000 islands<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Cambodia</span> (1 month)<br />
Siem Reap<br />
Angkor Wat<br />
Phnom Penh (3 weeks volunteering)<br />
Kampot<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Myanmar</span> (1 day)<br />
Ranong - Victoria Point visa run<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Vietnam</span> (3 weeks)<br />
Ho Chi Minh<br />
Hoi An<br />
Hue<br />
Hanoi<br />
Halong Bay<br />
Cat Ba island<br />
Sapa<br />
Fan Si Pan mountain<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Australia</span> (1 month)<br />
Sydney<br />
Woolgoolga<br />
Brisbane<br />
Gold Coast<br />
Melbourne<br />
Phillip island<br />
Central Coast<br />
Woy Woy<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">New Zealand</span> (2 weeks)<br />
Christchurch<br />
Punakaiki<br />
Fox Glacier<br />
Mount Cook<br />
Haast<br />
Wanaka<br />
Lake Tekapo<br />
Omarama<br />
Waitohi<br />
Geraldine<br />
Auckland<br />
Rotorua<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">USA</span> (2 months)<br />
San Francisco<br />
Saratoga (6 weeks with Jan and Ania)<br />
Santa Cruz<br />
17 mile drive<br />
Carmel<br />
Hearst Castle<br />
San Luis Obispo<br />
LA<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Mexico</span> (8 months)<br />
Mexico City (lived there 5 months)<br />
Teotiuachan ruins<br />
Tepoztlan<br />
Puebla<br />
Cholula<br />
Oaxaca<br />
Mitla ruins<br />
Monte Alban ruins<br />
Yagul ruins<br />
San Jose del Pacifico<br />
Zipolite<br />
Mazunte<br />
Tapachula<br />
San Cristobal de las Casas<br />
Tonina ruins<br />
Aguas Azules<br />
Misol Ha<br />
Palenque ruins<br />
Campeche<br />
Tulum ruins<br />
Mahahual<br />
Bacalar<br />
Chetumal<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Guatemala</span> (3 months)<br />
Flores<br />
Tikal ruins<br />
Antigua<br />
Pacaya volcano<br />
Lake Atitlan (2.5 months)<br />
Guatemala City<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Belize</span> (0.5 days)<br />
Belize City<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">El Salvador</span> (1 day)<br />
San Salvador<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Costa Rica</span> (1 day)<br />
San Jose<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Nicaragua</span> (1 day)<br />
Managua<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Panama</span> (4 days)<br />
Panama City<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Colombia</span> (2 months)<br />
Cartagena<br />
Playa Blanca<br />
Santa Marta<br />
Taganga<br />
Palomino (Magdalena)<br />
Camarones<br />
Rioacha<br />
San Gil, Santander<br />
Baricharra<br />
Bogota<br />
Villa de Leyva, Boyaca<br />
Popayan<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Ecuador</span> (1 month)<br />
Tulcan<br />
Guandera Reserve<br />
Quito<br />
Papallacta<br />
Machala<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Peru</span> (5 weeks)<br />
Tumbes<br />
Chiclayo<br />
Tucume ruins<br />
Señor de Sipán museum<br />
Trujillo<br />
Lima<br />
Ica<br />
Huacachina<br />
Arequipa<br />
Cuzco<br />
Aguas Calientes<br />
Machu Picchu ruins<br />
Ollantaytambo ruins<br />
Puno<br />
Lake Titicaca<br />
Uros floating islands<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;">Bolivia</span> (3 weeks)<br />
Copacabana<br />
Isla del Sol<br />
La Paz<br />
Cochabamba<br />
Ururo<br />
Uyuni<br />
Altiplano tour, salt flats etc<br />
Potosi<br />
Sucre<br />
Tarabuco <br />
Santa Cruz<br />
Samai Pata ruinsAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-35098002063479594532011-07-18T12:00:00.001+01:002011-07-18T12:01:43.627+01:00BoliviaBolivia was amazing, we ended up wishing we had left more time to do it justice - we missed out on jungle trips and the death road and what look like some of the best ruins anywhere at Tiowanaku. But our 3 week whirlwind tour was very satisfying, particularly due to some local contacts we had through Tania's family (again). And in Bolivia we saw some of the strangest, awe-inspiring landscapes, dissimilar to anything we had previously seen on the trip.<br /><br />We travelled from very cold Puno, on the shores of sacred Lake Titicaca (at 3,811m), to slightly warmer Copacabana, which we liked, even though it is undeniably touristy. From there we got a boat to Isla del Sol where we spent a very pleasant 24 hours, having a nice meal with some new friends in the evening and doing the 3 hour hike from north to south the next day. The water was a stunning azure and the whole thing looked strangely like a Mediterranean island. We then hotfooted it to La Paz, where we paid attention to the spectacular nighttime entrance into the city through El Alto - the many lights start on the right hand side of the bus and it takes a while before you get the scale of the city. It's a bit like an upside down night sky opening up below you.<br /><br />We had 3 nights in La Paz and didn't really do very much but see markets and eat - comfortably conquering the 40 chilli vindaloo at the notorious Star of India, which we enjoyed on 2 visits. Many online reviewers say it's not the real thing, but nothing outside of India is and considering you're in South America.. come on, it's not bad. We did walk down the valley from Plaza San Francisco towards the sports area, which is a pretty amazing sight - in fact, my favourite city view of the trip, well apart from Cape Town maybe. Reflective skyscrapers to the right of the foreground; the huge, multi-level open sports complex filling the bottom of the valley; the eroded, redddish lunar hills in the distance; hillside and top residencial areas to the right and left and this twisting walkway going out over it all, the road passing below. Kind of like Miraflores in Lima, but better. And we took a bus out to La Valle de la Luna, a park of walkways through eroded hills and valleys that is pretty out there.<br /><br />Then we hit Cochabamba, where we met Fabian, Geoff's former student who was just a miracle to us. He helped us arrange our Uyuni tour, took us out for a real Pique Macho (a huge pile of meats, veggies, cheeses and sauces à la Desperate Dan) and Huari draft beer and taught us the local dice game, Cacho. Then it was time to do the tour which everyone recommends and you've all seen photos of, the Uyuni salt flats. The train down from Ururo was very pretty - we saw flamingoes within minutes of leaving. The salt flats were pretty different and quite wet at the time, the place really coming alive when the sun came out which was unfortunately towards the end... but the real wonder was the rest of the 4x4 trip, onto the Altiplano where altitudes approach 5,000m. Photos can do it little justice, descriptions even less - you simply have to be there to understand the scale and the stark beauty. The colours, the colours - I didn't know browns could be so beautiful - and the vivid reds, blues and greens in the many lakes we saw. Very, very different indeed.<br /><br />We had a great group on this trip, one of the best minglings ever. We kept people up on 2 successive nights with our raucous behaviour. We were stupefied that we could find alcohol in the tiny towns where the refuges in which we slept were. A far cry from Mount Kenya, at the same altitude, where I lay quietly hyperventilating, fully wrapped and still freezing, waiting for the 2am summit push.<br /><br />After returning to Uyuni, we caught a bus to Potosi with Lisette and Oscar, our new Dutch friends. We had a very nice day there just wandering about the town and managing to miss both main attractions, the silver mines and the best museum in Bolivia, the Casa de la Moneda. Then onto Sucre, the governmental capital where we were to hook up with Fabian again, drink some Anejo rum with his interesting architect friends and try the amazing chorizo sandwiches at the Siete Lunares restaurant in the central market. A 20 minute flight (infinitely preferable to the alternative 10 hour bus journey) took us to our final city of the whole trip, Santa Cruz, the financial capital which everyone had dissed but we actually liked. I guess it may have been dull for some in comparison to all the spectacular things you can do in Bolivia. We had tea with another contact of Geoff's, ate some river crocodile nuggets, met up with some more friends from the Uyuni trip and went for a more expensive hotel than usual, as it would be the last of the trip - $15 a night!! One last complete unpack/repack (gotta be careful) and it was time to book our taxi to the airport. <br /><br />What would the borders be like, I thought. We were coming from Bolivia and going via Miami, so we were expecting hellish customs and immigration but as usual it was straight through. I was a bit shocked when on the first leg I didn't have my own personal TV screen and was rather squished, but hey ho, this was Bolivia, even if we had forked out for American Airlines. The second leg delivered though, particularly with the extremely nice attendant who kept giving us free drinks, pretending to swipe our proferred card. Some of the views over the Americas and the Caribbean were outstanding, with some amazing cloud formations and islands that I wished we had visited. Then I realised I was really quite excited about going back to London, where I was born, where I grew up, effectively my "home" - even though I had no actual home there, apart from the rather nice one so kindly offered by my surrogate (Tania's) parents. What would immmigration say? "Welcome back Mr Shepherd, it's been a while," perhaps? Nothing. We wondered whether Geoff and Rita would be at the airport, as we couldn't remember specifically arranging anything. Of course they were. Place looked quite nice, people cheery, weather warm. Chatted to a German tourist while enjoying the outdoor smoking area. Felt quite emotional to be back. Let's go and see some Senegalese music tonight near Liverpool street. Walk the dog on Ealing Common. See some good friends - did we have "an announcement" to make? Yeah - we're splitting up! ;-)<br /><br />And then, it wasn't really over. Because after a week in London, we would be getting in a car to go to the south of France to visit my family. Which I have realised it is the most beautiful place on earth. Oh well - had to make sure, didn't I?Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-72200119596639355392011-05-05T17:06:00.002+01:002011-05-05T18:00:21.632+01:00Peru on AlexPeru has generally been invigorating, with incredible landscapes, facsinating culture, very spiritual places (yes, I was actually affected!) and nice people. Coming in from Ecuador in the north and coming down the coast was exhilarating, the first really different scenery we'd seen in a while - desolate desert and coastline. Tumbes, just across the border, had probably the heaviest mosquito arsenal we have ever come across. We got on a very fancy bus; we'd heard they were good in Peru, but this double decker was off the scale - really good food too (food?! on a bus???). We checked out the big market in Chiclayo, with all the shaman stuff - San Pedro cactus and Ayahuasca for trippy cleansing - and loads of remedies for every ailment, including the bedroom variety. Best market since Mexico, definitely. We did a tour to see the weathered Túcume ruins, collections of Moche pottery and the collection made from the tomb of the Señor de Sipán - one of the richest collections of finery we have ever seen. Then onto Trujillo, another big city in the middle of the desert - the centre looks a bit like Ealing or something, with pedestrianised shopping areas. I was amazed at the amount of agriculture around the towns and cities, huge expanses of green cultivation which (I think) must have taken a lot to achieve. Amd then a truly unbelievable top floor trip to Lima - the desert looked just how I imagine Arrakis (the Dune planet from the Frank Herbert books) to look, huge sand dunes everywhere and mountains in the distance. Tania's camera didn't stop clicking.<br /><br />We were just four days in Lima; it was nice but we had to get on. Steve and Connie, whom we had met on the tour in Chiclayo and who actually live on a boat moored off the San Blas islands!!!, had recommended us Ica and particulary Huacachina, with it's sand dunes, buggies and boarding. But I must have been very relaxed on the bus, I put the computer bag on the upper rack for the first time... and it got pinched. We'd been warned about that too. First time anything bad had happened on the whole trip, really - in 2 and a quarter years. We miss you Mac, you were very good to us! So we had to hang in Ica for a bit to get the police report for the insurance and we both got sick with bad tummies (we haven't had much of that on the trip either). <br /><br />After 3 days convalescence we made it to Huacachina, the oasis tourist town. What a crazy, surreal place that is. Tiny and a literal oasis, every hostel has a pool, the dunes are amazing (especially right on the top at sunset) and the weather perfect. The dune buggy ride was nuts - it was like being in Star Wars, on Luke's home planet Tatooine. One of the most amazing sights of the whole trip and I mean that. Managed to come a cropper in spectacular fasion on the board. I optimistically thought I would be a natural, with my extensive skiing and (admittedly) only one time snow bording experience. Oh well, everyone cheered and clapped. I only hurt for a few days.<br /><br />So then it was just a night in Arequipa (lovely from what we saw, we went to the museum with the mummy, one of the best museums anywhere even if Juanita herself was away for investigation) and then onto Cusco, because time was starting to turn against us. Cusco is stunning, all cobbled streets and little alleys and hills - a walker's paradise. We had one night on the English beer they serve there (Old Speckled Hen!) and did a tour of the nearby ruins - all great. Then onto Machu Picchu, by train - we decided not to do the trail a while ago: too expensive and we're hoping to find some less trodden Inka trails later on. The plan was to stay a night in the mountain/jungle tourist town near to the site, Aguas Calientes (there are baths there) and get up really early to climb Huayna Picchu, the mountain that looks down on Machu Picchu. Mission! Up at 2.30am, in the queue for the bus at 3.15am, bus left at 5.30am, queue to get on the list for the climb (they only let 400 people a day do it), then wait till 7.45am to actually start.... It was spitting and everywhere was cloud - probably a good thing, 'cos that mountain is vertiginous to say the least. In fact everything Inka is vertiginous, I think. It was hard, but we got to the top and and promptly managed to lose each other. The clouds parted and we saw Machu Picchu, to claps and cheers. Some hours later, when he sun had come out, we reconvened. I was shattered and slightly traumatised after a scary trip down, my legs were shaking badly - Tania semed fine. And then we did a tour of Machu Picchu, finally leaving the place late afternoon. I didn't want to leave though - the city is impressive because of the quantity of original material (hardly any recon), the scale of it and the setting (a bloody steep mountain side), but the surrounding mountains are just breathtaking and there is definitely something spiritual going on.<br /><br />We stayed at Ollantaytambo on the way back, in the Sacred valley - one of my favourite places anywhere. I actually did feel very spiritually uplifted there. There are crazy ruins on really steep mountainsides again and the face of an Apu (mountain spirit) looking over the village. Did some great walks, met a local archaeologist who showed us an amazing collection of Inka relics including a complete mummy(!!!) and skulls with full heads of hair; and drank a small quantity of pisco sours, and Chicha in a real Chicheria (an old lady's house, with guinea pigs running around on the floor, and mainly women drinking). The Chicha (fermented corn beer) knocked me for six :) I was sad to leave that place.<br /><br />Amd now we are on the banks of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world at 3,810m, about to go into Bolivia, the final country. 24 countries, 2 years 3 months, 5 pairs of shoes, 40 beach locations, god knows how many bottles of insect repellent and sunscreen - and just 2 weeks left. What you sayin', Bolivia?Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-71733967030539067462011-04-29T16:41:00.013+01:002011-05-01T20:33:56.677+01:00Books and Music<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">More books I've been reading </span><br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">A Prayer For Owen Meany</span> by John Irving<br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Bridge</span> by Iain Banks<br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Heart of Darkness</span> by Joseph Conrad<br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Secret Sharer</span> by Joseph Conrad<br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Catch 22</span> by Joseph Heller<br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tortilla Flat</span> by John Steinbeck<br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord</span> by Louis de Bernières<br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The World According to Garp</span> by John Irving<br /><br />It's a good list I think - I really enjoyed all of these books. First time for me with both Conrad and Steinbeck: very good indeed, particularly The Secret Sharer and Tortilla Flat. I seem to have become a real fan of John Irving - I've read and loved four of his books on the trip; he's an amazing story-teller with a devious mind and an intimate touch. Thanks to Erik Gorter, whom we met in Kenya some 26 months ago at the beginning of this trip, for turning me onto him.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Music I've been listening to</span><br /><br />Mainly house mixes, seem to have temporarily taken a break from my world music selection. Did hear a squarepusher band album that was quite interesting.<br /><br /><a href="http://soundcloud.com/r_co/derrick-carter-live-footwork" target="_blank">Derrick Carter Live @ Footwork, Toronto 02/04/2011</a><br />My Number 1 DJ really is a wiz, and particularly slick at eq'ing, filters and fx. He really works the mixer on this one with some great new disco house tunes and the odd acapella.<br /><br /><a href="http://soundcloud.com/r_co/derrick-carter-live-king-king-hollywood-22-01-2011" target="_blank">Derrick Carter Live @ King King, Hollywood 22/01/2011</a><br />Great section where he uses MLK "I have a dream" speech and Malcolm X (I think) too over a cpla tunes, including Armando's Land of Confusion, effecting to great ... effect - and then seques into a track called "house negro". He's really thinking about what he's doing! Also a wicked old disco section, including Teddy Pendergrass's "you can't hide".<br /><br /><a href="http://soundcloud.com/iam-dj/francois-k-deep-space-mix" target="_blank">FRANCOIS K LIVE @ DEEP SPACE, CIELO, NYC - JANUARY 10th 2011</a><br />Best mix I've heard by FK for a long while, didn't like his techno sets much. He's moved to digital right? (although he plays at least one record in this set, you can tell) - I'm not sure whether it's his style or the technology, but I find his mixes sound digital, a little forced, not natural, and his eq'ing a bit ... jerky, at times. However, this is a great selection and he does some great things with a sample and fx at one point.<br /><br /><a href="http://soundcloud.com/r_co/carl-craig-francesco-tristano" target="_blank">Carl Craig, Francesco Tristano & Moritz Von Oswald Live @ Infiné Week, Gaîté Lyrique 14/04/2011</a><br />Only just downloaded this, but what I have heard sounds AMAZING, the real deal, live techno, you don't hear this kind of thing too much. Respect to the masters.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.discogs.com/release/51236" target="_blank">The Philosophy of Sound and Machine</a> <br />My Australian techno fiend, Andy Craswell, whom we met in Laos a year and a half ago, reminded me of this great compilation on one of his facebook updates. I then managed to get very slightly involved in a conversation about bootlegging with Kirk Degiorgio, one of the guys responsible for putting it out, with Mike Dred, Richard D James and B12 copied in. My friend Andy has my heroes as friends.<br /><br /><a href="http://soundcloud.com/r_co/legowelt-juno-plus-podcast-02" target="_blank">Legowelt - Juno Plus Podcast 02/03/2011</a><br />Great selection of old, unknown and new house music and oddities (Lebanese dabke from 1982 anyone?) from Legowelt here - particularly like the mixes in and out of chic "le freak".<br /><br /><a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MarkFarinaPodcasts/~5/zpCMQQh7QAg/GLA07_Hot_Dogs_July_2010.mp3" target="_blank">Mark Farina - Hot Dogs</a><br />My second favourite house dj is a bit patchy IMHO when it comes to recorded mixes - some are incredible and some are in places a bit... 'softcock' as we say in the trade, 'scuse my french. But this is absolute gold, a real spirit of deep house thing, from 2004. <br /><br /><a href="http://drcolonic.co.uk/dr_colonic-the_don.mp3" target="_blank">Dr Colonic - The Don</a><br />One of mine that I made for my friend Chris Don, who I seem to have managed to fall out of touch with. If you're out there Chris, would be great to hear from you, hope you and your family are well. This is the tracklist, classics pretty much all the way...<br /><br />gina x - no gdm<br />joyce sims - all in all (remix)<br />Suzy Q - Get On Up And Do It Again<br />talking heads - once in a lifetime (carl craig edit)<br />Marcel King – Reach For Love<br />jamie principle / frankie knuckles - your love<br />Afrika Bambaataa / Soulsonic Force – Renegades Of Funk<br />Deodato - Keep it in the family<br />eurythmics - love is a stranger<br />telex - moskow diskow<br />gorillaz - dare<br />luke eargoggle - ocarina of time<br />***men - we love<br />Syclops - Mom The Video Broke<br />Unkle Feat Ian Brown - Reign (remix)<br />afx - analord (not sure which one)<br />some ambient tune<br />talk talk - it's my life<br />kraftwerk - tour de france<br />landscape - einstein a go go<br />some jazz tune!Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-33794854912688941962011-04-04T19:27:00.004+01:002011-04-09T19:53:20.308+01:00Alex on EcuadorWe immediately fell in love with it, even though it was very cold and wet when we entered the country at something above 3,000m. In Tulcan, right on the northern border, I met a butcher in the local market while looking for our morning juice. Rodrigo just wouldn’t let me go, he wanted to practise his English so badly, and then meet his son Patricio, so that he could practise too – then his daughter and his wife … you get the idea. We ended up staying there for 5 days when we hadn’t even planned on staying one. And it was so worth it - Rodrigo took us to some local thermal baths, which we reached by walking back over the border with Colombia in a tiny village. No passport control, woo hoo!, v exciting. While in the pool, we chatted to a young army guy who was there protecting some important dude – all the while his machine gun was pointed directly at my head, that was different. Rodrigo also took us to an amazing ecological reserve near Huacha, about 35 km from Tulcan, where we saw real cloud forest for the first time and real ‘Paramo’ (high altitude plains), with weird plants that reminded us of climbing Mount Kenya, which is also on the equator as it goes. This place is like the only place in the world where the Guandera tree grows – check the website <a href="http://www.jatunsacha.org/texto1.php?id_submenu1=1&id_menu=3&id_submenu2=3" TARGET='_blank'>here</a>.<br /><br />So anyway, enough of this writing business - how about a list of the things we will remember about Ecuador?<br /><br />Best hot salsa in Latin America (ok - so far) – looks a bit like satay sauce, loads of chilli, lemon?, something else and loads of red onion. Mayonnaise flavour crisps. Guinea pigs as food. Preachy, semi-religious sellers on the buses. Best quality hooky DVDs in Latin America - apparently. Weird, crap pop music, as well as interesting traditional music, different from the rest. Ridiculous changes in altitude over short distances. Cheap travel – a dollar an hour. Better food than Colombia. Real poverty on the coast. Footballers don’t like to play in Ecuador because you lose your strength on the Equator.<br /><br />Quito is an awesome city. We loved – climbing the towers of the very gothic Basilica (people younger and fitter than us didn’t make it to the top); taking the teleferico up to 4,100m to look down on the city; the incredible Guayasamin (Ecuadorian Picasso) museums; the Jardin Botanico, one of the best I have seen; the massive Parque Metropolitano, which definitely has live bears in it; the Museo Intiñan at the REAL equator, not the monument the French built in the wrong place – and, a 3 hr ride from the city, the absolutely incredible Papallacta thermal baths, beautiful blue-tiled pools amidst mountains in the Amazonas region that every parent will definitely want to go to. I never thought I could spend like a whole day in a bath, but that was very more-ish indeed. And cheap at 7 dollars entry.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-63502605125778281352011-04-04T19:15:00.003+01:002011-04-05T16:33:52.771+01:00Alex on ColombiaThe ubiquitous cry of ‘A la orden!’. Arepas instead of tortillas. Drunken Kogi indians. More bananas than you’ve ever seen before. Tree tomato juice. Tropical music on the Costa Caribe. Aguardiente - aniseed flavoured firewater. Big, edible ants. Hello Colombia!<br /><br />We spent the full two months allocated by the border guy, who kindly double-scribed '60 days' on my passport, so that when we left for Ecuador they thought I had tried to fiddle my allowance. It’s a massive country, over half the size of Mexico, and apparently the 5th most visited in the world over the last year. Many people we have met on the trip said that it was their favourite country, with the friendliest people. For us, it was kind of ... nearly there. <br /><br />Lots of different altitudes and climates, from the sweltering coast to the consistent freezing wet cloud of Bogota. As is my wont, I found some parallels with Mexico – the traditional music on the radio and the dress style in the small rural villages, for example. Instead of Pulque (made from the fermented sap of the Agave plant), Colombians have Chicha – flavoured, fermented maize juice. We found the food in Colombia generally a bit samey and lacking - meat, rice and yucca (cassava), without much flair. But Colombian soups are definitely better than Mexico’s!<br /><br />We loved Palomino, up on the coast – Mary and Vladimir at Pachamama were very kind to us and we were tempted to stay and volunteer as teachers for their project. We were quite taken with Bogota, particularly the hip, graffiti-adorned old quarter, La Candelaria. Many parts of Bogota look just like outer London, a trick which no other city has managed to achieve quite so successfully. And in Bogota, you can buy fairly good imitation English ales – a pale, a ruby and even a porter – at modern pubs such as the Bogota Beer Company (BBC)! We liked quaint Villa de Leyva, which was a bit like the Cotswolds, or the Lake District, without the lakes – and has one of the biggest central plazas in Latin America, kind of ridiculously big for such a small town. Lots of the farmland in Colombia has that English patchwork, hedgerow look, which is a bit weird. It turns out lots of highland Ecuador is even more like that.<br /><br />Colombians don’t say 'provecho' in restaurants, as they do in Mexico and Ecuador. We were a bit shocked by the seemingly nouveau riche day-trippers up around Cartagena, turning up at Playa Blanca in a speedboat to spend a high-profile hour before jetting off to the next stop. Also, the loud party boat on the way to Playa Blanca was a bit Blackpool meets .. Miami?<br /><br />There were many amazing bus journeys in Colombia, with crazy mountainous landscapes (getting up to San Gil, Santander and from Popayan to the border in the south come to mind). Also pretty crazy drivers – we saw an awful lot of recent, lethal accidents on the road and got quite used to having to wait an hour or so, while ... things were sorted out. <br /><br />All in all, Colombia was stunning visually and certainly had enough to keep us there for two whole months – but we wish we’d got closer to the warm heart we are absolutely positive is there.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-23682341069847634032011-02-25T15:17:00.002+00:002011-02-25T15:32:02.626+00:00Film titles in SpanishIt’s nearly impossible to have conversations with Spanish speakers about films because they are usually known by completely different titles. Film studio marketing execs for the Spanish-speaking world seem to have banged their fists on the table in exasperation at the titles before them and lamented, “Too… thinky!” So, they came up with the following alternatives. Take a guess, answers at the bottom. <br /><br />Title in Spanish – Literal translation in English<br /><br />1. <em>La Familia de Mi Novia </em>- <em>The Family of My Girlfriend </em><br />2. <em>¿Cómo Sobrevivir a mi Ex?</em> – <em>Surviving My Ex? </em><br />3. <em>Juegos Sexuales </em>– <em>Sexual Games</em><br />4. <em>Viviendo Con Mi Ex </em>– <em>Living With My Ex </em><br />5. <em>Ligeramente Embarazado </em>- <em>Slightly Pregnant</em><br />6. <em>El Sueño Posible </em>- <em>The Possible Dream </em><br />7. <em>Siempre Hay Tiempo Para Reir </em>- <em>There's Always Time To Laugh</em><br />8. <em>La Maldicion De Las Hermanas </em>- <em>The Curse Of The Sisters </em><br />9. <em>Las Esposas Perfectas </em>– <em>The Perfect Wives</em><br />10. <em>Sintonia De Amor </em>– <em>Love Tune</em><br />11. <em>El Mensajero De La Oscuridad </em>– <em>The Messenger Of Darkness</em><br />12. <em>Estafa De Amor</em> – <em>Love Scam</em><br />13. <em>Perdiendo El Control </em>– <em>Losing Control</em><br /><br />The Titles as we know them:<br />1. <em>Meet The Parents</em><br />2. <em>Forgetting Sarah Marshall</em><br />3. <em>Cruel Intentions</em><br />4. <em>The Break Up</em><br />5. <em>Knocked Up</em><br />6. <em>The Blind Side</em><br />7. <em>Funny People</em><br />8. <em>The Uninvited</em><br />9. <em>The Stepford Wives</em><br />10. <em>Sleepless In Seattle</em> <br />11. <em>The Mothman Prophecies</em><br />12. <em>The Brothers Bloom</em><br />13. <em>Click</em><br /><br />The robot voices in <em>Transformers</em> sound hilarious in Spanish, by the way.Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-3799410371620438532011-02-24T23:15:00.004+00:002011-02-24T23:50:35.927+00:00Palomino, Costa Caribe de ColombiaHere’s the copy for a flyer we made to help promote our friends Vladimir, Mary, Marc and Julia in Palomino – not to forget the adorable, diabolical young Juanita and Lucas. They are running Pachamama guesthouse and the Fundacion de la Madre educational project. We were really affected by Palomino and these guys – we were sorely tempted to stay there and teach, but unfortunately time is pressing on and we feel we should get back to our families within a few months, so we had to pass.<br /><br /><em>Palomino is a small, coastal village only 2 hours from Santa Marta - it has a lot to offer in terms of outdoor activities and is a much cheaper option than entering Parque Tayrona. Palomino offers:<br /><br />- amazing, wild, 10km beach - hardly anyone on it!<br />- stunning 1.5 hour jungle walk and 2 hour tubing trip down the Palomino river<br />- beautiful trails into the Sierra Nevadas<br />- cheap accomodation (under 10,000 pesos)<br />- friendly local indigenous communities<br /><br />Palomino is still relatively undeveloped in terms of tourism. It's a good time to visit - you will have the place pretty much to yourself and your tourism can really help the local community. Pachamama is a guest house based in the village, offering hammocks, camping and rooms. The beach is a pretty 20 mins walk from there. The couple that run it are super helpful and can help with tubing and any tours you want to do. They are also running a project to improve the quality of education in the area. The community is crying out for English teachers - if you are a native speaker and have some time to spare, you can get involved straight away. Or you can support the project simply by staying at Pachamama, or taking their tours.<br /><br />Contact Pachamama<br />phone 320 406 2092 email <a href="mailto:mary_barrigas@hotmail.com">mary_barrigas@hotmail.com</a>, <a href="mailto:vladgj@hotmail.com">vladgj@hotmail.com</a><br /><br />About the writers of this review:<br />We are a mid thirties English couple travelling for two years. We have volunteered in several countries around the world, wanting to get under the skin of places and cultures. We have looked for opportunities on the ground, or from recommendations, rather than paying money via a website. This is one of the best opportunities we have found anywhere - you can give real, tangible help immediately; the local communities are friendly and interesting; the nature is absolutely stunning and it's a cheap place to live. If you can volunteer long term, Pachamama will cover many of your costs - speak to them now. If you would like to ask us any questions, feel free to contact us through our blog, see below.<br /><br />Alex and Tania, <a href="http://www.losingluggage.com/">www.losingluggage.com</a><br /></em><br />Funny story: when we did the tubing down the river Palomino – an incredible experience by the way, the jungle is absolutely stunning – our german friend Patrick wore nothing but some rather modest bathing shorts. Right through the village, with plenty of locals and indigenous Indians to give slightly bemused admiration from the sidelines. With the inner tube diagonally across his body, he looked pretty much naked. He wasn’t bothered in the slightest.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-41322377318249689052011-02-24T23:09:00.005+00:002011-02-24T23:52:44.705+00:00Map - San Pedro to San GilOur route from Guate to Colombia. Click on the icons for more info about a place. You can zoom in using the + and - controls top left and drag the map by clicking on a point and moving it.<br /><br /><iframe width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=es&msa=0&msid=213740933502994466264.00049d0e2f5e278ac6f7c&ll=10.574222,-82.133789&spn=20.627125,28.125&z=5&output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>Ver <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=es&msa=0&msid=213740933502994466264.00049d0e2f5e278ac6f7c&ll=10.574222,-82.133789&spn=20.627125,28.125&z=5&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">San Pedro to San Gil</a> en un mapa más grande</small>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-34946166814323152712011-02-24T20:55:00.006+00:002011-02-25T15:16:26.760+00:0011 Sundays in San Pedro La LagunaEvery time Rick, who we first met on the shuttle from Antigua to San Pedro La Laguna (Lago Atitlan), sees us, he laughs and calls out "You're still here then!" He thinks we’re going to do what he, his wife, the other Rick, Ricardo, Bob, Canadian Bob and all the others have done and stay here forever. Everyone’s story is the same: they were passing through and that was however many years ago. This is the closest to South America some of them ever reached. We have a little kitchen installed on our hammocked balcony where Alex works minor miracles with rice, beans, spaghetti and eggs, sometimes in the same dish. We’ve had two dinner parties, and think of the long-haired tabby cat that steals in through the window whenever it’s open as our own. We could never be sure that Rick wouldn’t turn out to be right. But we also spent around 8 weeks in San Pedro de los Pinos back in D.F., so clearly we have a bit of a thing for San Pedros.<br /><br />Sunday is our big day. It is the anchor of the week. It's how I remember time. We don't have breakfast on Sundays, because of Smokin' Joe's barbecue at La Piscina, known as the Lake's best feed of the week. Bacon-wrapped steak in Jack Daniels, the unfeasible Flintstone burger, Jamaican sausage and so on, accompanied by massive sides and followed by strawberry crumble (though they think it's called a ‘cobbler’!) or chocolate brownie with ice cream or whipped cream. There's table tennis, pool, a pool and giant 'extreme' Jenga (two extra levels). All that’s missing is giant Connect 4.<br /><br />There are a few hours to digest all the food and discover what's been happening in the rest of the world before the pub quiz at El Barrio at 8pm. On our first Sunday, Brian, an expat from Bermuda, approached us and asked if we'd like to join his and Tony's team. They needed cover for music and entertainment, and we needed cover for everything but. We became 4 Candles. We finished second behind team Zig Zag, the regular champions. The following Sunday, we bumped into Brian at the barbecue. Tony, from Germany who runs a business here, had sent him to find team members, thinking we'd gone. Obviously, we hadn't and went on to our first victory.<br /><br />Team Zig Zag was the Bjorn Borg of the quiz - the undisputed champions with 6 victories under their belts. On our first outing, Team 4 Candles, or John McEnroe, if you will, almost ended the run, finishing second (just as Borg defeated McEnroe in the 1980 Men's World Championship Final). As with Borg, it was their last win. Team 4 Candles went on to dominate the tournament - sorry, quiz - in a Roger Federer kind of way, accumulating 6 wins, levelling with Borg. I mean Zig Zag. Then Rick, Teresa et al finally pulled their fingers out and The Lobotomists entered the scene, pushing 4 Candles to the brink on their first outing. A very Rafael Nadal kind of threat. And, sure enough, they hammered their point home the following week, forcing 4 Candles into second place.<br /><br />The El Barrio 'Megabowl' (as the event was touted) between 4 Candles and Zig Zag was still on though with 6 wins each. Then, disaster. Just as Federer did when first beaten by Nadal at the Wimbledon final, 4 Candles crashed out of the tou... quiz in a lowly fourth place ("How the mighty have fallen," commented the compere Ben), The Lobotomists proving again what we were up against. The following week, Nad... The Lobotomists didn't show up (neither did Nadal the year after beating Federer), so 4 Candles' 7th victory was somewhat hollow. But The Lobotomists were there for our 8th and final victory, which was crucial as Federer's wins don't count as much if Nadal doesn't show up.<br /><br />Team Zig Zag advertised for team members in the monthly Sol De Atitlan San Pedro guide. They were looking for "a European female, 30-40s, you keep the beer!”<br /><br />We’ve made friends with many of the expats here. I met John the other day, a USAn* who has just moved into the house opposite. He was glad to hear I was British.<br />“Oh good,” he said, shaking my hand vigorously, “You don’t hate us as much as everyone else.”<br />“Well, we’re as bad as you guys!”<br />“Yeah, man, you are. We’re the Bad Kids On The Block!”<br />Mind you, it’s not so bad for travelling USAns now that Obama’s in charge.<br /><br />I am one of possibly a fraction of people who has not been in the lake. There's no doubt that, from the surface, it's stunning, whether tranquil or choppy, but as you may know by now, I have a testy relationship with water and refused to get in it. It's said that the water here used to be crystal clear with many meters visibility and filled with a huge variety of fish. I've only seen three fish in the lake and they were all dead. Some years ago, a bright Gringo spark had the idea of setting up black bass farming for Gringo tourists and, without any natural predators, the black bass ended up eating nearly everything else in the lake. During our first conversation on the shuttle, Rick told us that the lake had recently risen 10 feet, encroaching inland by 150 feet over crops and properties. Rick's 6 month-old home had become a lake-front property almost overnight. Some buildings have been completely surrounded with front paths leading to water instead of the front door. There's also a problem with a tide of litter washing up from all over the lake, collected by groups of concerned villagers. There’s also the recurring cyanobacteria problem. Locals advise against swimming near the towns, from which a lot of waste makes its way. The state of the lake is a reminder of what happens when a precious resource is taken for granted. None of this bothers Alex. Water always calls Alex in. This water calls to me too, but it says something completely different. But you don’t have to be in the lake to enjoy it.<br /><br />And there are so many other things to do in Lake Atitlan. We've climbed to the tip of the Indian's Nose, which looks exactly like the horizontal profile of a Mayan face, with the forehead physically moulded to slant backwards. We've walked - and ridden hungry and stubborn horses - through San Pedro's narrow alleys and out through the town to the narrow lakeside path lined with tall grasses offering lovely views and access to a tiny beach with a rickety pier (where you can see the dead fish). We've climbed the deceptively tall San Pedro volcano, the oldest of the three that tower the lake, dead for 40,000 years, since when Toliman began to grow, and for the last 10,000 years, volcan Atitlan. For the comfort that's worth, that's the one furthest away from us. We have kayaked across a conveniently calm lake to San Marcos La Laguna where I watched Alex jump from the variously tall vantage points and, eventually, the tallest, a wooden platform some 5 metres (I have no idea how tall it was!) above the lake. Alex has become an expert of the local geography and takes me round the all the paths he’s discovered that don’t deteriorate into landslides. We saw visitors filling the cemetery, bright with candles and flowers, in celebration of the Day of the Dead. We’ve watched the colour of Volcan Fuego’s ashy burps turn from black to burnished gold in the early glow of the rising sun. We saw the shadow of the earth swallow the full moon on the night of the winter solstice, a once every 500 years event, with Venus, Saturn and Mars rising in the east, and followed the moon as it set into the eye of the Indian’s Nose. But we haven’t done the 400-metre zip-line yet.<br /><br />Rick was nearly right, we nearly stayed there forever. And we still might.<br /><br />*We have discovered that the term ‘American’, usually used to refer to people from the USA, strikes a discordant note with a small but distinguished number of Latin Americans who will respond indignantly that they’re Americans too, thanks very much. Gringo aside, I have been unable to identify any other term for people from the USA, therefore, I hereby coin the term USAn (yoo-es-ay-an).<br /><br />For a walk-through in photos of Big Sunday in San Pedro, click <a href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=313865&id=659936317&l=790d75593a" target="_blank">here</a>Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-85159472807910929512011-02-24T20:55:00.004+00:002011-02-25T14:53:01.949+00:00Post from the vault: The Mysterious Life Of BrianAnother old post from Mexico D.F. ......<br /><br />On our way back to the flat after breakfast this morning, a tiny, grey baby (I guess it’s romantic to think that it is anything other than a) rat was quivering in the middle of the pavement. Everything is cute when it’s a baby. Perhaps days old and still blind, she seemed to be okay, if not for very long. I picked her up and stood there with the baby rat quivering in my hands, wondering what to do with her. I took her up to the grassy section of the reservation in the middle of Avenido Patriotismo where, without any obvious food, and without even knowing what a baby rat eats, it was clear I’d be leaving her to die. So, I returned to the flat with her. What to do with a baby rat? There’s a flowerpot on the little balcony of our flat with an attractive looking succulent that looked like it could provide shelter and even a climbing frame for a baby rat. So, I popped her in it while I went to check out her options for breakfast. Not knowing what baby rats eat, I gave her milk, some bread and a piece of mango. When we had to go out, I made her a bed from a sock and created a protective biosphere using a chair, a plastic rain mac and some string. The only other thing I could think of giving her was a name. Her name was Brian. We went out, but I could only think of Brian. I came home to check on her, carefully removed the biosphere and peeked into the sock. Brian wasn’t there. I searched around the base of the pot, all round the plant, even the ground beneath the balcony. She was nowhere to be seen. When I was a kid, I had a Tamagachi electronic pet. I fed it and trained it and let it out to do its business but it seems I didn’t play enough games with it. One day, when I got home from school, the LCD screen had a note on it saying ‘BYE BYE’. My Tamagachi electronic pet had run away from home. History, it seemed, had repeated itself.Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-25084847767423671462011-02-24T20:54:00.007+00:002011-02-25T14:45:33.349+00:00Post from the vault: Mexico City (D.F.)I may not have been posting, but I have been keeping notes. Here's a post from about 7 months ago about life living and working in D.F. .........<br /><br />I begin the day with a freshly squeezed orange and guava juice (Mexico has a much firmer grasp of the concept of ‘freshly squeezed’ than we do) from the little stall universally at the bottom of the road. They get through 50 kilos of oranges per day. Then I carry on to the tube – sorry, metro – station where I descend three escalators down to the earth’s core and wait for the train. What I can't do on London's tube is walk down to the women only section where everyone can do their makeup without being groped. At first, I pooh-poohed the idea. I’m an Independent Woman; I don’t need to be segregated. Now, when I'm with Alex, I’m gutted I <em>can’t</em> go down there. And I’m learning: who needs an eyelash curler when you have a spoon?<br /><br />At first, I was cruising along the metro thinking, ‘wow, this is much better; fast, smooth, loads of trains, the ticket barrier takes my ticket immediately so I can’t lose it, the train vendors always have chewing gum, stationery sets, sewing kits and handcrafted wooden models of cartoon characters like Buttercup from the Powerpuff girls just when I need them’. But, inevitably, when I’m running late, or stuck in the tunnel waiting for someone to turn the train off, wait for 10 seconds, then turn it on again, the romance of it all wears off and I begin to make different observations. Which system is jerkier? El Metro, definitely. It seems a question of dubious skill in London and one of sadistic fun in D.F.. Alex told me that he was on a train once that braked so suddenly that a passenger slid the whole length of the row of empty seats lining the carriage. I’m glad I wasn’t there, I’d have been no help at all. I’d have been in hysterics. Then there’s the mysterious smell of burning on the platforms and such highly polished floors that if you turn a corner too quickly, you can travel much quicker, further and closer to the ground than you intended. But overall, I love those big, square, orange trains, all the tempting donut, taco and hair-accessory stalls and the echoes of different amounts of pesos bouncing around all over the place from all the various vendors.<br /><br />It’s taken me 6 weeks to generate a full-time working week from both schools and private students. Some students are preparing for English exams, others for jobs, and others just like to chat. I have grown very fond of them all. It’s lucky that the private students always remember to pay me because if they didn’t, I’d have a hard time asking for it - students inevitably become friends. It can be difficult to explain the difference between ‘I have been living’ and ‘I have lived’, or to find a ‘rule’ that explains the pronunciation of ‘heard’, ‘heart’, and ‘beard’, so I have been spending almost all my free time creating materials for the IATHIA course in English (I’m A Teacher Honest I Am), either by searching the internet and lovingly crafting pretty PDFs, or straight from my own head: lists of irregular verbs, verbs with prepositions, a dictionary of English idioms which I found on the web and rewrote entirely and an explanation of tenses that my best friend not only doesn’t understand but doesn’t even believe I understand.<br /><br />Most of my students are of an intermediate standard, whose requirements go beyond the nomenclatural. To help them with the meaning, sense and lyricism of the language, I devised this lesson plan: The student and I take turns reading aloud the poem <em>The Spider And The Fly</em> by Mary Howitt. I read with my best Jackanory voice to give them a sense of expression and a little ... drama. Then I play the student <em>Lullaby</em> by The Cure while they read the lyrics. Then I give them interpretations that have been made of the song (that it’s about nightmares, depression, sexual abuse, that it’s based on Mary Howitt’s poem) and ask them to work out how these interpretations have been made and whether they agree with them or not. To do this, they must understand more than the literal translations of the words. It’s also an opportunity to listen to The Cure.<br /><br />Learning works both ways and I’ve learnt at least as much as I’ve taught. Struggling to find the right word during one of our classes, one student explained that his brain was like a room full of documents stacked right up to the ceiling with an old man slowly leafing through them trying to find the right one, and just when he thinks he’s found it, an extractor fan turns on and scatters everything everywhere. Another student knows more English grammar than I do and we spend most of our time trying to get her to use it. When I gave her an exercise on pronunciation, she took one look at it, rolled her eyes at me and said, “Is a joke”, and I have to agree that English pronunciation really is. She is currently planning my parents’ itinerary for when they come to visit in August. Another student’s story about discovering he had a long lost cousin serving a life sentence in prison in Miami and going all the way out there to visit him for the first time was so absorbing that I almost forgot to correct his grammar.<br /><br />During the day, I never have to worry about finding food and not spending much on it. My favourite is the rosticeria near Sevilla station. The site of all those golden brown chickens slowly turning and dripping their delicious juices onto the chunky slices of fresh cabbage and onions, served with either arroz or papas (rice or crisps) and a batch of hot tortillas every time I walk past it, which is almost every day, is a temptation I fail to resist about three times a week. And tortas. Tortas are the mother of all sandwiches. They shame other sandwiches. With tortas, no one even bothers to ask for avocados (of course there are avocados, are you mad?). Or chilli. I like to end up with one bursting with still sizzling chorizo and melted cheese with tomato, onion and general sauce goo. And avocados. And then there is pozole (po-zo-le); a tasty soup that you load with fresh onion, lettuce and radish. And avocado and chilli, of course.<br /><br />At home, I spend an hour or two arranging my schedule for the next day, a harder task than any of the actual lessons. But thanks to the understanding I have with my private students, Carol didn’t mind putting her class back 2 hours so long as Ricardo was happy to take the lesson on Thursday instead of Wednesday (which he was), which meant I could fit in Arturo’s class after all, which was earlier than Ricardo’s, so then I was clear for Sergio right after Arturo and, thanks to Carol, I was also clear in the morning to take the short notice class the school had given me at 11am. With all that sorted out, I can sort out my lesson plans before I get up between 6 and 8 for my first lesson of the day.<br /><br />When we tell people how long we’ve been in Mexico, they immediately say “Wow, so we’re have you been then?” and are stunned when we tell them we’ve only been outside the city once. But we’ve been busy!Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-87693622688551060682011-02-24T20:52:00.008+00:002011-04-05T16:40:59.971+01:00Couple o' pics<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_i086B2vh_uAJPBBtn_rSfUKYZ0Y3oB2pwhXhemsCHxfuAneNvDKCPvkHl-aS08J3qcG2GVqAMhYK0h5HxvZpyyTyChaxSOWtIaKkDgh1r0x52RQ18BpykWH2FY6xTPv3BO6sO7X7yh9K/s1600/DSCF5672.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577364581782976130" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 268px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_i086B2vh_uAJPBBtn_rSfUKYZ0Y3oB2pwhXhemsCHxfuAneNvDKCPvkHl-aS08J3qcG2GVqAMhYK0h5HxvZpyyTyChaxSOWtIaKkDgh1r0x52RQ18BpykWH2FY6xTPv3BO6sO7X7yh9K/s400/DSCF5672.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Couldn't resist. Tania is going to write more extensively about San Pedro, one of our very favourite places. Here's a pic taken from the edge of the lake, about 30 seconds from our apartment, at 6am on the night of the lunar eclipse, 21-22 december 2010. The moon is setting into the eye of the "Mayan's Face", also known as the "Indian's Nose". We spent a lot of time walking up there.<br /></p><p></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577366133731339330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 268px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZs2jGl7iuagCJ8xm3Z4gC8m4fOwbM95LkcO-IZr4TBF5ArCQb1So2SRJ-mZC6YUsgw-_Y8NY86_0CL0o3OwJjMqeu-i_wDzbNA6WrR_kyhCq3s4VSOxWWeVIltFH5FVufoT7cQskziFBf/s400/DSCF8280.jpg" border="0" /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577366384271044930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 268px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHyhDRiCG5i1WrD32AbFk9TXe3ctUzMYd3q5cV2YVJFXKPM1jnFUr1voQJCpj_fOx-NsE9NsGVfe7GW6NT5xjYpCGfulpObf6Un_7cIS5tAnXLI3Bi7qn-Lie40LlG8nvoxHvm6F2Znb4u/s400/DSCF8234.jpg" border="0" /><br />And above are two shots of the mouth of the river Palomino, where we just were. A pretty special spot. The sea's on the right, the river on the left. There's a tiny channel connecting the two and quite a current into the sea. At dusk, fish would robustly leap out of the river to say hello, about one every 10 seconds.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-51789749449666969612010-11-28T17:09:00.010+00:002010-11-29T01:13:51.924+00:00Is that Venus??In this photo, taken on the 2nd January this year, of the moon over the ocean at Woolgoolga (about 6 hours up north from Sydney on the east coast of Australia), I've circled two objects in the sky, to the right of the moon and down a bit:<div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfwzwwFvP2NATDyZRrN2sUbQD5PxtvUh8CQ5B3BsiIO77L4nps9MtHsf5MruJOuCdBJasDzu9FpwttF7XBghawbQXj0V2969YXPxbxFSAvT6GG-1vRlBGYB07h32-Ha95sqX7SLvRAnMKx/s1600/DSCF2452circled.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfwzwwFvP2NATDyZRrN2sUbQD5PxtvUh8CQ5B3BsiIO77L4nps9MtHsf5MruJOuCdBJasDzu9FpwttF7XBghawbQXj0V2969YXPxbxFSAvT6GG-1vRlBGYB07h32-Ha95sqX7SLvRAnMKx/s400/DSCF2452circled.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544669652770149570" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px; " /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div>In my Children's Handbook of Astrology, I read that stars in the sky can appear either blue or red depending on the speed or distance or something of their travel in space (sorry that's a bit vague, it was a long time ago). If you click on the image, you might be able to see that the object on the left is slightly red and the one on the right slightly blue. I zoomed in on the object on the right (to about 600%), but it didn't look like a star. Is it a marble? Is it a bouncy ball? Or could it be Venus?:</div></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3CjUoGTVEMqsXTUZPrUN1UnkcWv5dukYfXguY4p_NBNtBjH_qMmEw6ztpJD_VfTCzb9fBHCOLYjuEA36JL6CM4YYc7_xPtJo6EKVKFvHtcVcR4XJikkKM87sk462Kv8Gde3WBpxjYSoEi/s1600/DSCF2452planetcrop.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3CjUoGTVEMqsXTUZPrUN1UnkcWv5dukYfXguY4p_NBNtBjH_qMmEw6ztpJD_VfTCzb9fBHCOLYjuEA36JL6CM4YYc7_xPtJo6EKVKFvHtcVcR4XJikkKM87sk462Kv8Gde3WBpxjYSoEi/s320/DSCF2452planetcrop.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544758087209785106" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>In which case, could the reddish object on the left be an overexposed image of Mars?</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrZHaRS4M6DC_7KP4btl0qPGSXlz0zJVdN9ExN0CU-nC_zivS5UpeXLOgVBvkHrPyOA4K6epnpIK1xd4R8btBqejZ98muI62uRxinnfOYCHS2LPMI49hp7F8st38IlK20s4kUbXxXDYY8/s1600/DSCF2452mars%253Fcrop.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrZHaRS4M6DC_7KP4btl0qPGSXlz0zJVdN9ExN0CU-nC_zivS5UpeXLOgVBvkHrPyOA4K6epnpIK1xd4R8btBqejZ98muI62uRxinnfOYCHS2LPMI49hp7F8st38IlK20s4kUbXxXDYY8/s320/DSCF2452mars%253Fcrop.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544761968791042482" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Next week: Is that Uranus?</div>Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-83134843473207689212010-11-10T18:16:00.105+00:002010-11-11T23:02:31.104+00:00California to Guatemala - with photos<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">It is almost exactly a year since </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Dnndcg34YgwexaMeS-7Du6lSZmsxPFVI5FazuY8WojkJ5qtoDcSeZkpwJ_phFs_qagoWMbzrwNue3updPurlpwDV7TAskg7D2f9W6NEv9mInSlF-xZPiNhaOSwZ45_h7sS-aUuYOw72y/s1600/DSCF0763.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Dnndcg34YgwexaMeS-7Du6lSZmsxPFVI5FazuY8WojkJ5qtoDcSeZkpwJ_phFs_qagoWMbzrwNue3updPurlpwDV7TAskg7D2f9W6NEv9mInSlF-xZPiNhaOSwZ45_h7sS-aUuYOw72y/s200/DSCF0763.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538413797975114898" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> came out to </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgow4eMP1ZEWbn1rKkC7fUJ_D3LudpaFMtT9Jxz44VN1IHq9ANkYhoH3XlThOxBfQNMLNoAEBQ4miNpnf59lgbR9KbQWDAgW8vZfwy8juVdYtTovqrhzEpacTkb0qq9Zgcxsaq4rA79P_Ko/s1600/DSCF0669.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgow4eMP1ZEWbn1rKkC7fUJ_D3LudpaFMtT9Jxz44VN1IHq9ANkYhoH3XlThOxBfQNMLNoAEBQ4miNpnf59lgbR9KbQWDAgW8vZfwy8juVdYtTovqrhzEpacTkb0qq9Zgcxsaq4rA79P_Ko/s200/DSCF0669.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538416860028865778" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">with us</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> in Thailand, one of the big highlights of the trip. It has also been a year since my last birthday-on-the-road. We have missed two Big Chills, two skiing holidays and the birth of several babies. </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG_0gprXwxDWgk85bEkyPNTqHAfiqpnUuogE_0bW94Ca585mzTBla_Y-Mpvbd8v6fVzdIFxlOMIBiqSEyV0GDklSYJWm0YdE6OcpJ7ceHsc6DQwjo-phPwjNPPYhq5MZdz3rUAiqqNk-2J/s1600/DSCF0476.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG_0gprXwxDWgk85bEkyPNTqHAfiqpnUuogE_0bW94Ca585mzTBla_Y-Mpvbd8v6fVzdIFxlOMIBiqSEyV0GDklSYJWm0YdE6OcpJ7ceHsc6DQwjo-phPwjNPPYhq5MZdz3rUAiqqNk-2J/s200/DSCF0476.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538414883666661746" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> says she’s forgotten what I look like (!). It has also been nearly a year since my last post. My apologies. Normal service has been resumed as soon as possible. These are some of the photos along the journey as detailed in </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXGw_LwHFqwksQO9EJs6gCLMAsI7s5nKKrqdopU5QhEnOEU_1EGMVYLeYFVvNr-Z-chXTe93DAQl_7uuqQtr-TKH18yXgbIdv2LeRRmPJRDaCZzXayxT-FVjlzLGbqXC90ZxxRvX_j0cwv/s1600/DSCF3785.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXGw_LwHFqwksQO9EJs6gCLMAsI7s5nKKrqdopU5QhEnOEU_1EGMVYLeYFVvNr-Z-chXTe93DAQl_7uuqQtr-TKH18yXgbIdv2LeRRmPJRDaCZzXayxT-FVjlzLGbqXC90ZxxRvX_j0cwv/s200/DSCF3785.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538417154811376018" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">'s lovely map.<br /></span><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> For travellers, we haven’t actually done much travelling. Ever since the home leg of our round-the-world ticket expired in January, we have been peculiarly stationary travellers. When we arrived at <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBRQzh_e1d_5kuysL-dNxKw_TTdbwVTMn3E9K23t_0lLTekpmGLEwO8STKzhyuFU-MgnG291RHKk-X165A4k4NrGqEw3GVus7yvIBoIDDdyqGm5__xAyGcmaLpvZObk-5dUy8_OstZwXf/s1600/DSCF7020.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBRQzh_e1d_5kuysL-dNxKw_TTdbwVTMn3E9K23t_0lLTekpmGLEwO8STKzhyuFU-MgnG291RHKk-X165A4k4NrGqEw3GVus7yvIBoIDDdyqGm5__xAyGcmaLpvZObk-5dUy8_OstZwXf/s200/DSCF7020.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538417659600442146" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></a></span>’s in California on January 31st this year, they told us we could stay until March 18th. Perhaps they didn't expect us to take them up on it. We spent 6 weeks </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgei8ZJRvSyWw9yxSHCbnnhGkZrpgV5yVD7q4_52qrc8yAfrZkJnNpZcNX2LsvHzUxZ4gvZ7aX_9Ndul-EE95FYb-mVrn7NU8CiHeoKaH68wSU9VAuVF-BZ1t9jd5GxQo5NXaIYFJkA1m/s1600/DSCF7255.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgei8ZJRvSyWw9yxSHCbnnhGkZrpgV5yVD7q4_52qrc8yAfrZkJnNpZcNX2LsvHzUxZ4gvZ7aX_9Ndul-EE95FYb-mVrn7NU8CiHeoKaH68wSU9VAuVF-BZ1t9jd5GxQo5NXaIYFJkA1m/s200/DSCF7255.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537989588627974866" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGimZ8bHa_Mncf9TyyBe2OIjj8ijD5xLqssmFYKjtUXwXelkhJxzb92EEHL513TFS-aGDBXbjFaHFl7-wH48_WhmTH_boV7z8D5G1yV6-HTsWPXr99GdfGyTxXyaMbK82cBzzvAgBlo71/s1600/DSCF7318.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGimZ8bHa_Mncf9TyyBe2OIjj8ijD5xLqssmFYKjtUXwXelkhJxzb92EEHL513TFS-aGDBXbjFaHFl7-wH48_WhmTH_boV7z8D5G1yV6-HTsWPXr99GdfGyTxXyaMbK82cBzzvAgBlo71/s200/DSCF7318.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537990949195924194" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAE-c_26d7CIymM0vEyrpIcUR8vMh4lENrrCTE9h0U8LWV9bA2wVIbt8-55bSVLYfBlAKVNyjSuQexwJenEVLEKpRsIU3QLV86Q0287zr_WJQ5nVHP7q9g3Yv7HyL28LKWjOqM1dJLN7Hm/s1600/DSCF7323.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAE-c_26d7CIymM0vEyrpIcUR8vMh4lENrrCTE9h0U8LWV9bA2wVIbt8-55bSVLYfBlAKVNyjSuQexwJenEVLEKpRsIU3QLV86Q0287zr_WJQ5nVHP7q9g3Yv7HyL28LKWjOqM1dJLN7Hm/s200/DSCF7323.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537991373370457090" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> in utter luxury. Thanks, Jan & Ania, you guys are the best!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">We then turned up at <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxs5e7QM9pFmn04UvQLFoetbnKqwlIFTBcuOKJc7USc4cYO9hmS2ki5JbL0uJHl-_75d74vXW-vmHLAMHr5S5zZumyWKHEZYGShcvjwO3lIEZ6fLeG-KftgznTkohSPcPyE1O2oQUfC-_C/s1600/DSCF8961.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxs5e7QM9pFmn04UvQLFoetbnKqwlIFTBcuOKJc7USc4cYO9hmS2ki5JbL0uJHl-_75d74vXW-vmHLAMHr5S5zZumyWKHEZYGShcvjwO3lIEZ6fLeG-KftgznTkohSPcPyE1O2oQUfC-_C/s200/DSCF8961.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537994011099985458" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></a>'s, friends of my Dad, a little bit further down the West </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLaHLSljAr6bTdIFzbrF5iLFeGJ0j8IJGCuXTKo6cv4YQTmlFn7_QPy7m1xMgIxT9Dh6A-GCN_3YJDBLU9pLDvdJ6O6ruFzT79HhH4RDsCwI755V0myrxBx2Cm1WtsZXBR4PZ_JpbCa2P/s1600/DSCF7000.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLaHLSljAr6bTdIFzbrF5iLFeGJ0j8IJGCuXTKo6cv4YQTmlFn7_QPy7m1xMgIxT9Dh6A-GCN_3YJDBLU9pLDvdJ6O6ruFzT79HhH4RDsCwI755V0myrxBx2Cm1WtsZXBR4PZ_JpbCa2P/s200/DSCF7000.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538388666720520530" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> in San Luis Obispo, with whom we didn't even mention how long we'd be staying until our fifth day there. We had a brilliant week </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5F6QfTHWGWKQjAAMBFlgNOSdY_KfQFhf0ak45FJbV8fCxMX6_SamRD52-WJ3oneSyVGapJSxC2GRnE2vYEvyGxZTDJHbsp4XHniwJRxaR4gFHj9GPtCJzaflgHAuC1j01F08vnOQoN2SQ/s1600/DSCF8886.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5F6QfTHWGWKQjAAMBFlgNOSdY_KfQFhf0ak45FJbV8fCxMX6_SamRD52-WJ3oneSyVGapJSxC2GRnE2vYEvyGxZTDJHbsp4XHniwJRxaR4gFHj9GPtCJzaflgHAuC1j01F08vnOQoN2SQ/s200/DSCF8886.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538419017737951026" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6JzleooHocHahsY04dkjsB0nb7StFMypxGLYjR5goqGOG_H3ttPVzOAZksHIVvaZvabV84NgsBK9OpY8JgW2xgHDBrPqbIXRP6wF2Rq-F11TRgSTV_8zTJ1MEYpG_WEF3FUEeHVwCLMM9/s1600/DSCF8215.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6JzleooHocHahsY04dkjsB0nb7StFMypxGLYjR5goqGOG_H3ttPVzOAZksHIVvaZvabV84NgsBK9OpY8JgW2xgHDBrPqbIXRP6wF2Rq-F11TRgSTV_8zTJ1MEYpG_WEF3FUEeHVwCLMM9/s200/DSCF8215.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537995126171357586" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAVpXNlDARx6wdIOK9memMDGRRhQnCqhU0vOwykgr0m8Kn1U7EXEPJFzrbv3BYV3oJ0BQCyDs04abccIa8NRABhcWwRuQXSp6z4KskGqZjUdPkjCajpiwKyh5VYJfQnypC4kPIbRe1uZR/s1600/DSCF8641.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAVpXNlDARx6wdIOK9memMDGRRhQnCqhU0vOwykgr0m8Kn1U7EXEPJFzrbv3BYV3oJ0BQCyDs04abccIa8NRABhcWwRuQXSp6z4KskGqZjUdPkjCajpiwKyh5VYJfQnypC4kPIbRe1uZR/s200/DSCF8641.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537995483493949218" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> as well as having an intense crash course from Vicente in Latin American music, specialising in Brazilian. Thanks so much to Vicente, Miriam, Debbie and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfzRK03HAoJW8Uztfqb94fye4Cbj4C0KCUk6af6i-iydgpBfKVGP7-Sdmi_YOmlRJ7bV0w6xWuF6TUqEWd7GVCKxd5Ivx8-89PGuth3m8cpim0MpGyuFJCNHmue2p03aJ2hKIXG5-H23vr/s1600/DSCF8314.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfzRK03HAoJW8Uztfqb94fye4Cbj4C0KCUk6af6i-iydgpBfKVGP7-Sdmi_YOmlRJ7bV0w6xWuF6TUqEWd7GVCKxd5Ivx8-89PGuth3m8cpim0MpGyuFJCNHmue2p03aJ2hKIXG5-H23vr/s200/DSCF8314.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537996575119518162" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">for welcoming and looking after us so well.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Weeks, if not months, later than we originally expected, we eventually ended up in Mexico City on 25th March. Standing at the immigration desk filling in the form, we considered how long we'd be in Mexico. "What do you think, a week?" asked Alex. We decided to put down two weeks, just in case. But after seeing</span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV0E6RLxHxpEZUYBl6ue8l9fUqB4xGN0i_Hi3VRNkKm6Ce6rRxh8U2Hu4QLIgSQO9q4t7vagFqZvyrnzRtlbSgiGJzsMI0gJ9MTz2n4DP3eSSAFbT1gozBfT1dwvkwsOjnAoV2YQTqrPhi/s1600/DSCF0539.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV0E6RLxHxpEZUYBl6ue8l9fUqB4xGN0i_Hi3VRNkKm6Ce6rRxh8U2Hu4QLIgSQO9q4t7vagFqZvyrnzRtlbSgiGJzsMI0gJ9MTz2n4DP3eSSAFbT1gozBfT1dwvkwsOjnAoV2YQTqrPhi/s200/DSCF0539.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537998096920511058" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0RX3fnST0UHOI5K2_FyHqHuts-mlFhNUZClUDkpJ_5QMKwnkL_M50tKGQiHINnUTlfwo6Hhki6Tp-48wMa21wckXUUmgUfBa_BYPYFZH7zxMnEEF67QD1jCEdVu1r6WjfAZ4orYMkK0XT/s1600/DSCF9366.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0RX3fnST0UHOI5K2_FyHqHuts-mlFhNUZClUDkpJ_5QMKwnkL_M50tKGQiHINnUTlfwo6Hhki6Tp-48wMa21wckXUUmgUfBa_BYPYFZH7zxMnEEF67QD1jCEdVu1r6WjfAZ4orYMkK0XT/s200/DSCF9366.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537999761232979554" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz-8BKlqGB9D1z6V7YM1VEn7JqbyXBP1EULXxGcpS4E9ebw3w-n78UoUbYVmBlbuOl-2xxbW7XM2C6AaoLgNHYcb55zehMLsUtmwA7yh6Ckvutg9QoOPFlQmX1ag3zExTymXsvBEfutERI/s1600/DSCF1194.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz-8BKlqGB9D1z6V7YM1VEn7JqbyXBP1EULXxGcpS4E9ebw3w-n78UoUbYVmBlbuOl-2xxbW7XM2C6AaoLgNHYcb55zehMLsUtmwA7yh6Ckvutg9QoOPFlQmX1ag3zExTymXsvBEfutERI/s200/DSCF1194.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538000449850525154" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">it seemed churlish not to stay a while.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Five months later and we had full time </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj60cKGEHo25azHu1y9pK47E_jTY4wpjLCY2pRbK7u4qc4Em1zKXoGSj8lEHiJH1n4Z1bkPuYxBmdAoLuYUF3WqNOdSG1ngjvFe02S5awXPPfnlrQsKBYdxbtGMFhrx8k07Ukz-ulZkdbYR/s1600/DSCF1052.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj60cKGEHo25azHu1y9pK47E_jTY4wpjLCY2pRbK7u4qc4Em1zKXoGSj8lEHiJH1n4Z1bkPuYxBmdAoLuYUF3WqNOdSG1ngjvFe02S5awXPPfnlrQsKBYdxbtGMFhrx8k07Ukz-ulZkdbYR/s200/DSCF1052.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538001491792620450" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, a cheap and welcoming place to </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDB3aUkyE_8-AUDRAWw9rPAeFkrp8S_B0wFFJu4L6HLHGuGenDsJzrLnfcCznH5hzjWmHvKP5g1BQVvMx0i9u1eQ-tIQAI2BJQ8MPGBwuF5Blg-2xAd2fg4ViJlESgIUkQSOfisyF55rsd/s1600/DSCF0864.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDB3aUkyE_8-AUDRAWw9rPAeFkrp8S_B0wFFJu4L6HLHGuGenDsJzrLnfcCznH5hzjWmHvKP5g1BQVvMx0i9u1eQ-tIQAI2BJQ8MPGBwuF5Blg-2xAd2fg4ViJlESgIUkQSOfisyF55rsd/s200/DSCF0864.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538002402819557266" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and lots of really good </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm_lHjPrFTt9jtcEMq_IwFAA0BXSLZyC_d6lmlxAnPub0TCnX3CyftcAAD8ze0tbUsXVdIldv2B0nxDJ6QMxmEhR_oyOAsicJUMMqydQCIyDyDjKKjoLQvpVTCLasr5eBc4TtN8-lNmkM/s1600/DSCF0795.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm_lHjPrFTt9jtcEMq_IwFAA0BXSLZyC_d6lmlxAnPub0TCnX3CyftcAAD8ze0tbUsXVdIldv2B0nxDJ6QMxmEhR_oyOAsicJUMMqydQCIyDyDjKKjoLQvpVTCLasr5eBc4TtN8-lNmkM/s200/DSCF0795.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538002977972926802" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. We love Mexico City and everyone we met there for letting us just rock up, make it up as we went along and establish a very happy life. It was, quite simply, the very best part of the trip. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">And then, on 18th August, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskMrb760DqT4fX-ZGM4Ymlnj280ODrSh4ABAgD0c-EDLSZd61suzzWOzEKWRJ1JoMmOTEZEw7vY02HWmdEFRdQXhb2RmAtYBiRHIVWfJN5M3phKKhJaLvaC7i3CEfuTOnmr-qsTyS95Gc/s1600/DSCF1117.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskMrb760DqT4fX-ZGM4Ymlnj280ODrSh4ABAgD0c-EDLSZd61suzzWOzEKWRJ1JoMmOTEZEw7vY02HWmdEFRdQXhb2RmAtYBiRHIVWfJN5M3phKKhJaLvaC7i3CEfuTOnmr-qsTyS95Gc/s200/DSCF1117.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538005187548426770" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">came to visit bearing a bottle of champagne, whisky, gin and Bailey's, suntan lotion, five books, mosquito repellent, an external hard drive, flash drive, lots of jewellery, a bottle of Issey Mayake (which has replaced deodorant excellently), lots of copies of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">The Independent </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">and one of</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> Private Eye</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, chocolates, bombay mix, multipacks of Crunchie bars and Kit Kats and a packet of macadamia nuts and cranberries. They spoiled us rotten for 12 days, heading out with us, for the first time into Mexico beyond the city limits. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">We soaked up the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6n5oNkZFfOvZPksejelh50vzVVe3fgRIH5Ochw_it8Romii9kF4xxuS6t_iOuoHxA12bSulztRpGt13KeHcdjkNN-kyhfFYrKpUkJHIC2d0Zv6wmbOkE4Zbq-taV8PZ-5GeRy0Xbzufq/s1600/DSCF1334.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6n5oNkZFfOvZPksejelh50vzVVe3fgRIH5Ochw_it8Romii9kF4xxuS6t_iOuoHxA12bSulztRpGt13KeHcdjkNN-kyhfFYrKpUkJHIC2d0Zv6wmbOkE4Zbq-taV8PZ-5GeRy0Xbzufq/s200/DSCF1334.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538009269410533106" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">in Puebla, checked out some of the 365 </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbLKvMweGV0IkjZDo_sppmUCKosMxAuSdPT05PLcfXQOjZdF7Ag6qLnLZxhn8-L8J771NWuRBqDXPW-JWlPtAqPi1NR2cFj11JNNL48tVljZcM8kQRQzq_9bNKZi8n0671bAlqBCKK1OT/s1600/DSCF1462.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbLKvMweGV0IkjZDo_sppmUCKosMxAuSdPT05PLcfXQOjZdF7Ag6qLnLZxhn8-L8J771NWuRBqDXPW-JWlPtAqPi1NR2cFj11JNNL48tVljZcM8kQRQzq_9bNKZi8n0671bAlqBCKK1OT/s200/DSCF1462.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538011544013132626" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> in Cholula and learnt about the ancient </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbjK_0GOuXvITjWmDBzg9OIosAdjGGvMrKuVVdLLD0vILvjsogSgTRydYYNNTHTil3nZj9__aOQm4aK896kqI6KkUvAvKAyRsFoIB0uRrZWy7HDc9SAdfEComNBDTNJexGqPemWMn79twY/s1600/DSCF1643.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbjK_0GOuXvITjWmDBzg9OIosAdjGGvMrKuVVdLLD0vILvjsogSgTRydYYNNTHTil3nZj9__aOQm4aK896kqI6KkUvAvKAyRsFoIB0uRrZWy7HDc9SAdfEComNBDTNJexGqPemWMn79twY/s200/DSCF1643.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538009839942651682" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> at Yagul, Monte Alban and Mitla in Oaxaca. After what seemed like 5 minutes, my parents had to leave. We were really, really sorry to see them go. All alone again. Time to hit the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7mSr7UMdd7lpO_J_tCNjpfcpwpustb6JQ6uHkkLYd-JTqGkLz0zB6NrIZxelrv7VEBbTRgDdf1SYajPFg0bD3sxYMp2ykH7OWJmwvDEtM73DDYp-B6P5iAC1K_0unwRrNYf_yb5HB0yEg/s1600/DSCF1537.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7mSr7UMdd7lpO_J_tCNjpfcpwpustb6JQ6uHkkLYd-JTqGkLz0zB6NrIZxelrv7VEBbTRgDdf1SYajPFg0bD3sxYMp2ykH7OWJmwvDEtM73DDYp-B6P5iAC1K_0unwRrNYf_yb5HB0yEg/s200/DSCF1537.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538014938287510946" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">.</span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">We managed to keep up the pace for a while; a rare one night in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'trebuchet ms';">San Jose in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">a wooden cabin with a fireplace overlooking the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIihVp6W7xDcmjMpQmtRhwEbMvwRBPtZXiTOtZZ9IMTmU29OxB2faq_1wZ4HSHx8Su7iRQZSR3AzP3Ld8OOd26dR1wBto4rsHxiwf3OR09URvfJnO4BPP0TAIbd9GQK2jk2X1PQMw2YpTa/s1600/DSCF1726.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIihVp6W7xDcmjMpQmtRhwEbMvwRBPtZXiTOtZZ9IMTmU29OxB2faq_1wZ4HSHx8Su7iRQZSR3AzP3Ld8OOd26dR1wBto4rsHxiwf3OR09URvfJnO4BPP0TAIbd9GQK2jk2X1PQMw2YpTa/s200/DSCF1726.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538015797013365826" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. We'd have had another night if it hadn't been so shockingly cold and wet. Then just two nights watching the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8xnHI_FjybaYTqGEUlT9NCgfWWn7kfq-IQyk8BlnIP021ncd4tJvKXZGUumjbeR9Tz0J0BSn3ZM4aY5VFea_4bslu8Wo23Zdm5_0E7dXAsVUSCiMP9c95T403yiiDNG3eTmNxrC17Lzga/s1600/DSCF1751.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8xnHI_FjybaYTqGEUlT9NCgfWWn7kfq-IQyk8BlnIP021ncd4tJvKXZGUumjbeR9Tz0J0BSn3ZM4aY5VFea_4bslu8Wo23Zdm5_0E7dXAsVUSCiMP9c95T403yiiDNG3eTmNxrC17Lzga/s200/DSCF1751.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538016251638442130" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> in Zipolite. But when we saw the more inviting and less murderous </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjScKBmjNeUCb5pVnkghePJLlvN0fFC1ArPif6S9t7kBUsPDv5okZpPxaxfDWkas5-jtw_ZyxHTvPGY3ooUAE0mFDev2mfix-brfDD5A01yIO1fc_mEIJYGOeH1kifwLOnUWFgMD6yChfTh/s1600/DSCF1806.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjScKBmjNeUCb5pVnkghePJLlvN0fFC1ArPif6S9t7kBUsPDv5okZpPxaxfDWkas5-jtw_ZyxHTvPGY3ooUAE0mFDev2mfix-brfDD5A01yIO1fc_mEIJYGOeH1kifwLOnUWFgMD6yChfTh/s200/DSCF1806.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538017055281469826" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> at Mazunte, our flying pace ground to a standstill. We spent 10 days </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ_lnI0iAf5nTkl_dICqNUJ5VKIaBhLU96oCE84eK7Xbc4hlDLQB8kV4piSONhcZxXtT1uQtqNHg6mDmzTizjBLqYJCsYvUK3ElalRR9jUDscHBx7kzGU-l_PNmfVFlHDrAOXa0oNXXTAw/s1600/DSCF1791.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ_lnI0iAf5nTkl_dICqNUJ5VKIaBhLU96oCE84eK7Xbc4hlDLQB8kV4piSONhcZxXtT1uQtqNHg6mDmzTizjBLqYJCsYvUK3ElalRR9jUDscHBx7kzGU-l_PNmfVFlHDrAOXa0oNXXTAw/s200/DSCF1791.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538018832348604450" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-IShp0i9Be3ME_FAmcumAQnOdGKV9yl8YhoM60X7VP5HLysZfS49Bj-utijvSIg9e9kPrDHSrraarg_u1joKWZdwhEM5g71iIkWFKaXGvIb_cV1KgePmA4FdCSyfRQyTDsjXfsGDofHFk/s1600/DSCF2047.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-IShp0i9Be3ME_FAmcumAQnOdGKV9yl8YhoM60X7VP5HLysZfS49Bj-utijvSIg9e9kPrDHSrraarg_u1joKWZdwhEM5g71iIkWFKaXGvIb_cV1KgePmA4FdCSyfRQyTDsjXfsGDofHFk/s200/DSCF2047.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538019061193361106" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7CgZXfRnQfmunlO7F7Ws_imQn4Ae5tnppBlqt8CuwERprvM03h3kDCmQ4ScbPzEamQ2DgWwKWp7ufmZZeb_kymJ73GXnFximaFIXqeG3ZNl5TErwm_J9QqVSnjjraRH0-lbggpQvJT4aZ/s1600/DSCF1789.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7CgZXfRnQfmunlO7F7Ws_imQn4Ae5tnppBlqt8CuwERprvM03h3kDCmQ4ScbPzEamQ2DgWwKWp7ufmZZeb_kymJ73GXnFximaFIXqeG3ZNl5TErwm_J9QqVSnjjraRH0-lbggpQvJT4aZ/s200/DSCF1789.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538019423065476626" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, at which point our visa suddenly expired. 6 months in </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipoqITkvakUKntPBdQ8JZT73XhLbl34afNUlXezQEgC4Cq4Ow6Nxz_3ZVt0utaL64Zay6NS2T-izlFYc77LOopRxwS59b_SJEgOcDNzj11szMNvHvvrD7SqIdqs9ZKbz8xbdoqF_j4PUy5/s1600/DSCF2598.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipoqITkvakUKntPBdQ8JZT73XhLbl34afNUlXezQEgC4Cq4Ow6Nxz_3ZVt0utaL64Zay6NS2T-izlFYc77LOopRxwS59b_SJEgOcDNzj11szMNvHvvrD7SqIdqs9ZKbz8xbdoqF_j4PUy5/s200/DSCF2598.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538390030354915762" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> had just gone by. A long two weeks.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> The expiry date was the day before Mexico's celebration of 100 years since the revolution and 200 years since Mexican Independence. We couldn't stay in the country for five and a half months longer than expected only to leave the day before their biggest national celebration in modern history, which cost us a rather expensive trip over the border to </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6GmGXAnxC_ecPrROY4PFCdrZBdOGxlQbQWbSwye6isgxOLkVEtx3Zbb7NT7O0eMGIgh31hjqbVuTMEQi1MVmMuA2XWUhQgLG1PM_o-PE6a3LZzAOLOhpZeAta6e8fMMKqwarqHCQRQlI/s1600/DSCF4152.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6GmGXAnxC_ecPrROY4PFCdrZBdOGxlQbQWbSwye6isgxOLkVEtx3Zbb7NT7O0eMGIgh31hjqbVuTMEQi1MVmMuA2XWUhQgLG1PM_o-PE6a3LZzAOLOhpZeAta6e8fMMKqwarqHCQRQlI/s200/DSCF4152.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538400409928005442" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> to extend our stay.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Actually, I'd rather have been in my new home city for the event, but Mexico is unfeasibly large, and if you ask any Mexican where their favourite part of the country is, you'll hear either Oaxaca or Chiapas first. We were right next to Chiapas and made it to San Cristobal de las Casas for the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTkB7w2WbJQk6570B7eVHvt6_rbYHnosYCsbWs8swvfbzSGSl7vmgMUWOgUsdfww8ULNPboLmhLxS-S83CfYCm3Ru5eu3q2YUB3E3Gj1G6bjLxbB80OyCM2-gUTf5FukwYMZX4-tdgLp8N/s1600/DSCF2273.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTkB7w2WbJQk6570B7eVHvt6_rbYHnosYCsbWs8swvfbzSGSl7vmgMUWOgUsdfww8ULNPboLmhLxS-S83CfYCm3Ru5eu3q2YUB3E3Gj1G6bjLxbB80OyCM2-gUTf5FukwYMZX4-tdgLp8N/s200/DSCF2273.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538341004705999378" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and all the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXHiJYk49Ralvi7yM3M7upBcvOTPfT0okHLYolewgm4pEIQ89Cviw5i3fYlNT20QfrTGHQM-dod2AOPJlkiUyP0nTqhMX6UisY8SIhUsTHoJ9rHO8_DYboeZMsqvhNjdfB8bxsBWWzQvPf/s1600/DSCF2377.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXHiJYk49Ralvi7yM3M7upBcvOTPfT0okHLYolewgm4pEIQ89Cviw5i3fYlNT20QfrTGHQM-dod2AOPJlkiUyP0nTqhMX6UisY8SIhUsTHoJ9rHO8_DYboeZMsqvhNjdfB8bxsBWWzQvPf/s200/DSCF2377.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538340999039462562" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">I could have wandered the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWCS4yATQtmbWLrC5n-c0re0OZV1lX0Pu2ADBUBIBwdjyylEZHCVYNBn9XDAvXMTAh9xhDoxCsff6irmfsQJIyfP6UVESODrshH55c939naB8lY_KTxoHpBpSjwPSjDgJCzfwmyfC-HEa6/s1600/DSCF2160.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWCS4yATQtmbWLrC5n-c0re0OZV1lX0Pu2ADBUBIBwdjyylEZHCVYNBn9XDAvXMTAh9xhDoxCsff6irmfsQJIyfP6UVESODrshH55c939naB8lY_KTxoHpBpSjwPSjDgJCzfwmyfC-HEa6/s200/DSCF2160.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538024819935514898" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxT3DA9O49ivP0-gAvPx5CsE5UERP7mPOZpLQUDKRVdbc15RjieXwG6sBENSwIYWUmchlCpG0ybyhlJjAX5vKaEXAcY19zdwZZyd6t5jal2JPWPGhm918EJo5cl3aXdIXThby0fiZDgXwd/s1600/DSCF2564.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxT3DA9O49ivP0-gAvPx5CsE5UERP7mPOZpLQUDKRVdbc15RjieXwG6sBENSwIYWUmchlCpG0ybyhlJjAX5vKaEXAcY19zdwZZyd6t5jal2JPWPGhm918EJo5cl3aXdIXThby0fiZDgXwd/s200/DSCF2564.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538025295477661490" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyUqSlKeZkoNW4Y18m5Zlo5NB7B8UKTujfoS_Nz2SEtYBIoV_ZEP-VjjQV2C9hTt28xI0ojQnDPi4zB9oubR60SSGAytuvlGZ9-XqM5D-ysngl_Y22fPLVjLBVsKEWdFlnsxs_minQvtGR/s1600/DSCF2552.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyUqSlKeZkoNW4Y18m5Zlo5NB7B8UKTujfoS_Nz2SEtYBIoV_ZEP-VjjQV2C9hTt28xI0ojQnDPi4zB9oubR60SSGAytuvlGZ9-XqM5D-ysngl_Y22fPLVjLBVsKEWdFlnsxs_minQvtGR/s200/DSCF2552.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538025659846189122" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> for weeks, but 15 minutes after we had arrived at our new hotel, friends we'd met in Zipolite, who were traveling Latin America in an enormous house-sized truck, walked past our door and after a few moments of blank expressions and wondering how they knew us, we all laughed and by the end of the night we had become hitchhikers. (By the next morning, we had been evicted by the landlady for making too much noise.)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">They whisked us off in their big, white tank, a new way to travel for us. The freedom of a big, white tank. We could stop for lunch whenever we wanted and suddenly decide to check out the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDiWDO2D57d2q-jEijZpbwEmJqgCBpembcR0ij-cTKOu2N6NCwzFFoQ6TxMRx1RTZ8-YtOb-DgV2MRuh8DrXd15rBbuksLfIUVwlP33YeFlVObhkWzq5H8Vsc8l_LQ6lZQKZ_KyIqtHXiL/s1600/DSCF2730.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDiWDO2D57d2q-jEijZpbwEmJqgCBpembcR0ij-cTKOu2N6NCwzFFoQ6TxMRx1RTZ8-YtOb-DgV2MRuh8DrXd15rBbuksLfIUVwlP33YeFlVObhkWzq5H8Vsc8l_LQ6lZQKZ_KyIqtHXiL/s200/DSCF2730.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538033812928764242" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and incredible </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghx6XVKQ_QPvwPQ5py2wy9oclD6-M-osN74f9CEGPWO9IKV92mykvpCBZKnDND8JYHWWlN5VeBz-r_3zxTDzU1JQ2Sk8MXAq06-sl3AAiTzycblyJpSZ-YX_1ISRSqloWu2pSGgRM0fhzT/s1600/DSCF2699.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghx6XVKQ_QPvwPQ5py2wy9oclD6-M-osN74f9CEGPWO9IKV92mykvpCBZKnDND8JYHWWlN5VeBz-r_3zxTDzU1JQ2Sk8MXAq06-sl3AAiTzycblyJpSZ-YX_1ISRSqloWu2pSGgRM0fhzT/s200/DSCF2699.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538034173322980738" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> at Tonina. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">The other thing a big, white tank can do is </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYp7jn3aJuEqdMs17LMwSmEKTbf2ehAPfuXIdGRBCp5bJuB_l0hA8apXjihdSga3Oe_ijMV4ygDDShSefurNGFPR4zOyI5k7vdgAYTpjLreK6qouAqj9R0CgfX0Szdf0lKeCDJxWBnQpQ6/s1600/DSCF2746.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYp7jn3aJuEqdMs17LMwSmEKTbf2ehAPfuXIdGRBCp5bJuB_l0hA8apXjihdSga3Oe_ijMV4ygDDShSefurNGFPR4zOyI5k7vdgAYTpjLreK6qouAqj9R0CgfX0Szdf0lKeCDJxWBnQpQ6/s200/DSCF2746.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538035376239455458" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2jy0M2_QzzzEPVAh-Wk7YmOamwVRf3Ok_gdprZ3E27Aox3u5mBT_IZvANzKlY0JpYLiR2g73bXlYrLPsYbTwKKL7QZppqdlHJatIwuxlcQ_gcwVD8hngVzjL_HhPO0pvpR8If1n5Sjqfd/s1600/DSCF2774.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2jy0M2_QzzzEPVAh-Wk7YmOamwVRf3Ok_gdprZ3E27Aox3u5mBT_IZvANzKlY0JpYLiR2g73bXlYrLPsYbTwKKL7QZppqdlHJatIwuxlcQ_gcwVD8hngVzjL_HhPO0pvpR8If1n5Sjqfd/s200/DSCF2774.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538035638880941090" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht_f6QyT4285Eijk7DZp-rD_eKzBp_hFTN0tyt4vc9EFfja58WtDE8TeKebS5IED7UoZ03mnbdbD5t2c6oSfPDazOV50BXuTKzKaYCLVoknCHuf9qWDVH0kqOZ4-ThjhGmiyKqPQOBJNVh/s1600/DSCF2792.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht_f6QyT4285Eijk7DZp-rD_eKzBp_hFTN0tyt4vc9EFfja58WtDE8TeKebS5IED7UoZ03mnbdbD5t2c6oSfPDazOV50BXuTKzKaYCLVoknCHuf9qWDVH0kqOZ4-ThjhGmiyKqPQOBJNVh/s200/DSCF2792.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538035966153313842" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSjggNKpJytzoBNx5YpiJZI2Nq7h1Pqd46mdP-SD1-NSjsau-xIZtHLZg0ff1k71-ywQ28vBj3ns_SlusTVE3CjYPVrEESyQPdNKQyx-Bd2Ccr0IN7VAI7xMusNpVOJ2HVPiYUZQrtsXUX/s1600/DSCF2799.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSjggNKpJytzoBNx5YpiJZI2Nq7h1Pqd46mdP-SD1-NSjsau-xIZtHLZg0ff1k71-ywQ28vBj3ns_SlusTVE3CjYPVrEESyQPdNKQyx-Bd2Ccr0IN7VAI7xMusNpVOJ2HVPiYUZQrtsXUX/s200/DSCF2799.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538036178980627074" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></a></span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY2uoqaa2X8zEaiAJkTQEvjmGODxysITxmQDgMnvlqx0lotYWhqxB3exiYnNVEgYPNu7dJNEZjVhL8Zm6hcylq9UeLGa7AeoKmFHRZ7SwBlAK_VQ7teUcro7U_898G61YK7b40qhfag4xb/s1600/DSCF2833.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY2uoqaa2X8zEaiAJkTQEvjmGODxysITxmQDgMnvlqx0lotYWhqxB3exiYnNVEgYPNu7dJNEZjVhL8Zm6hcylq9UeLGa7AeoKmFHRZ7SwBlAK_VQ7teUcro7U_898G61YK7b40qhfag4xb/s200/DSCF2833.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538036473636449474" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFYdepuqI0H1eo1cUforxYL-YG83_93MJUD35kF6ujZwkoxRBFyWoDcZM28kBdolh3xwiMzppey3ED7BRQpzIVorZbWzumXCsVsvqianHXBSJy7_6Eo4_UoKUB6V7uGY6XBQy9LWS5dFWo/s1600/DSCF2894.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFYdepuqI0H1eo1cUforxYL-YG83_93MJUD35kF6ujZwkoxRBFyWoDcZM28kBdolh3xwiMzppey3ED7BRQpzIVorZbWzumXCsVsvqianHXBSJy7_6Eo4_UoKUB6V7uGY6XBQy9LWS5dFWo/s200/DSCF2894.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538037043308772626" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> while looking for things in Tumbala. I can't even remember what we were looking for, all I remember is the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotfpvDG8V7h_VgYEc21zTEKA9MndIIirt4tS7gBFpAT_TojnCBnFFk7mojsXAk-24j7XlFRriKzvDSHjowh45AMn0GeLY15HolFRGk0-_9AldXpFapEQdiGR2PDtkVGJLuwXxLsF-yIyF/s1600/DSCF2835.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotfpvDG8V7h_VgYEc21zTEKA9MndIIirt4tS7gBFpAT_TojnCBnFFk7mojsXAk-24j7XlFRriKzvDSHjowh45AMn0GeLY15HolFRGk0-_9AldXpFapEQdiGR2PDtkVGJLuwXxLsF-yIyF/s200/DSCF2835.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538036745365468946" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">! You can't do that in a bus.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">So far, we'd seen </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4NV_soU2gRrnpONULDz9OYJFSvBs-qOhAbz5EnI7YsS5ex1KoRnsgyTexlzs0CblpzbXlhCj1ibUZSeq0TiXE3TtIVCaNOXG7rI-LeazrbHPdlRgvWE7sXmH9EMwLhpuAPdoi5-z1F8WE/s1600/DSCF0532.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4NV_soU2gRrnpONULDz9OYJFSvBs-qOhAbz5EnI7YsS5ex1KoRnsgyTexlzs0CblpzbXlhCj1ibUZSeq0TiXE3TtIVCaNOXG7rI-LeazrbHPdlRgvWE7sXmH9EMwLhpuAPdoi5-z1F8WE/s200/DSCF0532.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538038687684660610" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> in the desert, </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOuUYKg4tSxqhjP4CaCY_9a_1VmgZ7jrFivYAQPx-hRbkC9z4iN5OdCx6pfNMcwf9qB22VLhSxXOir4RtbmayLMVlt0li8yoY3N6efCMxxzh3jbxn5wgsZJx6E3Orh47lhz4aRsIR1eDEV/s1600/DSCF1647.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOuUYKg4tSxqhjP4CaCY_9a_1VmgZ7jrFivYAQPx-hRbkC9z4iN5OdCx6pfNMcwf9qB22VLhSxXOir4RtbmayLMVlt0li8yoY3N6efCMxxzh3jbxn5wgsZJx6E3Orh47lhz4aRsIR1eDEV/s200/DSCF1647.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538039227091991746" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> on top of hills, and now we were going to see the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRfmIh8SRuUPnyIBzFQOfc4h9cllitqpFY6E6KWXcXmEKIIWxgWUUqKBkH2C1BIE3Yjo09Gkm5Kqc-z35SYxZlS1xzrpHDLRQ5Q2m9Hth3RgQ4srQrPTRDBoOdPXOhfvq2Wgq_DdCqDR3z/s1600/DSCF2966.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRfmIh8SRuUPnyIBzFQOfc4h9cllitqpFY6E6KWXcXmEKIIWxgWUUqKBkH2C1BIE3Yjo09Gkm5Kqc-z35SYxZlS1xzrpHDLRQ5Q2m9Hth3RgQ4srQrPTRDBoOdPXOhfvq2Wgq_DdCqDR3z/s200/DSCF2966.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538040010438969394" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8p0b2rgCx6jjOj0aDt1mGtZr9oImSTMMFwoZotEyC2Cq1enAaUcWff1En9l__B7BI0mgbP3nAfhMk1und9MmjXKMVeBlFjZsns7gdeYDXZdlCLpLlyOyq5ZlDJ6O_OYRl3UR7vTHTRnN/s1600/DSCF3003.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8p0b2rgCx6jjOj0aDt1mGtZr9oImSTMMFwoZotEyC2Cq1enAaUcWff1En9l__B7BI0mgbP3nAfhMk1und9MmjXKMVeBlFjZsns7gdeYDXZdlCLpLlyOyq5ZlDJ6O_OYRl3UR7vTHTRnN/s200/DSCF3003.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538042624202086498" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgADW8GzjkOsrDtUVwSdC3ldwgXJJo4SeUIsayTk5rzBGySwtPGxvY1rYwgr_3IvlBeZdkRjyPWG_1T9xbk68AEWvJg8EZZ-OsX09SLBBgZegxqIqnqu66zjsKJM3Nz2UEcXdO2rLYeL9HI/s1600/DSCF2971.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgADW8GzjkOsrDtUVwSdC3ldwgXJJo4SeUIsayTk5rzBGySwtPGxvY1rYwgr_3IvlBeZdkRjyPWG_1T9xbk68AEWvJg8EZZ-OsX09SLBBgZegxqIqnqu66zjsKJM3Nz2UEcXdO2rLYeL9HI/s200/DSCF2971.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538043190522068066" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">in the </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNqodSBR7QM7e2G_RWMVhWPl1T00UcLG4LSHnl9-gbnasJvM5V04pNjlSXKNcwu0P-O-gWTfx3H_RHzAoKkk81DRTa5SrQKanUJyeEl81HSVoEktoxj5-m3R7uV1U_mLdDRAF2zB720tO5/s1600/DSCF2974.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNqodSBR7QM7e2G_RWMVhWPl1T00UcLG4LSHnl9-gbnasJvM5V04pNjlSXKNcwu0P-O-gWTfx3H_RHzAoKkk81DRTa5SrQKanUJyeEl81HSVoEktoxj5-m3R7uV1U_mLdDRAF2zB720tO5/s200/DSCF2974.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538043560819199650" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> at Palenque. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">And howler monkeys. You don't seem them, but you hear them. They sound as big as an </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY4PnFKnBkt3Q6W_FteTGABGUalXNbe-9fXRJtnPjJlNBgPmh1N3Hs61-a9VjXqBC5kmtIFP90gO5h8nlANRFo7RoWFXKCZETjkep-GROn4HdHzsChWsFz8JD9PcxnDle_Gvltg3YmWwyP/s1600/DSCF2730.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY4PnFKnBkt3Q6W_FteTGABGUalXNbe-9fXRJtnPjJlNBgPmh1N3Hs61-a9VjXqBC5kmtIFP90gO5h8nlANRFo7RoWFXKCZETjkep-GROn4HdHzsChWsFz8JD9PcxnDle_Gvltg3YmWwyP/s200/DSCF2730.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538357761428464306" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> but they're only the size of a </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NouKdt98Aor1WGERNZoiO8Wy4xRM_CvW5SNo5pJBV5PuZXv0cOagfE0ZLyWAvdLYZhx44y1Hu-DFwLi0gzJZ1CZGMwLJBNFSGSOVZi08qTfzotxU9folIqe5_6eLSgbsifQw3VBgTGFG/s1600/DSCF0054.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NouKdt98Aor1WGERNZoiO8Wy4xRM_CvW5SNo5pJBV5PuZXv0cOagfE0ZLyWAvdLYZhx44y1Hu-DFwLi0gzJZ1CZGMwLJBNFSGSOVZi08qTfzotxU9folIqe5_6eLSgbsifQw3VBgTGFG/s200/DSCF0054.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538358169999009538" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, apparently.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">We left the hills behind us and drove flat and straight with the same view of bush on either side of the road in the baking heat </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'trebuchet ms';">for about four hours </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">until we reached Campeche. Campeche has prettily coloured </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5cHCXpCLQZCcZgiDDPAwxsWRUKHF9NH0kYuRlkFz4Wz1HT7k-nfSMfCS95B0ec5-XjUnBgEQ5qpT4ak36Z6qbLBfbLZ48OOZtFypmHbjjrqwlasphyphenhyphenGUVbsT2YMuKKRPdyFg0jfc1ftP1/s1600/DSCF3316.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5cHCXpCLQZCcZgiDDPAwxsWRUKHF9NH0kYuRlkFz4Wz1HT7k-nfSMfCS95B0ec5-XjUnBgEQ5qpT4ak36Z6qbLBfbLZ48OOZtFypmHbjjrqwlasphyphenhyphenGUVbsT2YMuKKRPdyFg0jfc1ftP1/s200/DSCF3316.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538046774647880498" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and a </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hhLWDlC281SFimjd0liY4IuMI6MaqI100hMHgU91GrbknUJBjb0WovFS1s3IhO31A9QRnmZu7N20HDL0Yf6zeogcLR4Kx-fT4RnAh_4SJz_4O99XdCatVKjwLkwr39_LnMludWxDo_tB/s1600/DSCF3187.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hhLWDlC281SFimjd0liY4IuMI6MaqI100hMHgU91GrbknUJBjb0WovFS1s3IhO31A9QRnmZu7N20HDL0Yf6zeogcLR4Kx-fT4RnAh_4SJz_4O99XdCatVKjwLkwr39_LnMludWxDo_tB/s200/DSCF3187.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538047201656493298" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> on top of a hill, but despite being right on the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5NRH4saoGjynDezih6nm4gA5q5cEff9FDNAA0ZuIZXdwK4eDiC0RS67Ye3XHuGUF0nZj2P42_7j876Y5D6RKq6C3TGjhwFzMn2EZNSQnKi4w57rFMfqGex0C3LGNzW-rANIJEM0XzWPh_/s1600/DSCF3180.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5NRH4saoGjynDezih6nm4gA5q5cEff9FDNAA0ZuIZXdwK4eDiC0RS67Ye3XHuGUF0nZj2P42_7j876Y5D6RKq6C3TGjhwFzMn2EZNSQnKi4w57rFMfqGex0C3LGNzW-rANIJEM0XzWPh_/s200/DSCF3180.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538046168144000274" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, there isn't much actual </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVN8_OyO8TcmaGWsxxT3jnACgZ0P-ixowhbheKzoP6cszx8uzJIFBN9TOSh8pvcNZfr0tsQaGo7pXMgrxHXyGbRt13TMJcFuKLGzznrZDn0YipJcohL2lsOuLltQPcGWbfmWIDHkVPwoP/s1600/DSCF3481.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVN8_OyO8TcmaGWsxxT3jnACgZ0P-ixowhbheKzoP6cszx8uzJIFBN9TOSh8pvcNZfr0tsQaGo7pXMgrxHXyGbRt13TMJcFuKLGzznrZDn0YipJcohL2lsOuLltQPcGWbfmWIDHkVPwoP/s200/DSCF3481.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538359065474709538" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. So, feeling the irresistable pull of a proper </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyzu15BD03cfh0pdU71nWU1UdVHjfJHJVN_jp5nVJfrb8RqwjcFtw6wQruZMWr-lTvd8tPs1ZrBBS4Pmv9VIK9P8JDo2BAjUpK9FuQz23-dsIYWfvWybSAl4a3kKUiApy2e1p5WorIaQnb/s1600/DSCF3431.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyzu15BD03cfh0pdU71nWU1UdVHjfJHJVN_jp5nVJfrb8RqwjcFtw6wQruZMWr-lTvd8tPs1ZrBBS4Pmv9VIK9P8JDo2BAjUpK9FuQz23-dsIYWfvWybSAl4a3kKUiApy2e1p5WorIaQnb/s200/DSCF3431.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538048320830368178" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, we parted ways with our traveling buddies Jack and Millie (thank you, guys!) and made for Tulum which has </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMk4YgOQunjQ-0zxiTHHtpHq0staCpyyn2LXpYoWZBnygTY4eR0wckTT7iqTUMhjEQIuTYoYoKKJyHoxgimNY1N1wLDZAz3qqk1tOTuYF-R4kI8V2Kt03JO9vjl3q47LiUJvwahnW99hyphenhyphenm/s1600/DSCF3380.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMk4YgOQunjQ-0zxiTHHtpHq0staCpyyn2LXpYoWZBnygTY4eR0wckTT7iqTUMhjEQIuTYoYoKKJyHoxgimNY1N1wLDZAz3qqk1tOTuYF-R4kI8V2Kt03JO9vjl3q47LiUJvwahnW99hyphenhyphenm/s200/DSCF3380.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538049526309734034" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> with a </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT8t-42CHvRmtN1zvV3UzC3xCaC4eLXPrHZ8ip6UYak-TJEUGTMlK7mHNi4cFwJwUpi0c_ssoLDizyjas7Ewny8YaAG_yLfKS-cG_OGsWw483myg-ujEq2nmZ8_dxCg2_NPHRggix4S3cQ/s1600/DSCF3398.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT8t-42CHvRmtN1zvV3UzC3xCaC4eLXPrHZ8ip6UYak-TJEUGTMlK7mHNi4cFwJwUpi0c_ssoLDizyjas7Ewny8YaAG_yLfKS-cG_OGsWw483myg-ujEq2nmZ8_dxCg2_NPHRggix4S3cQ/s200/DSCF3398.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538049730832829522" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> included in the ticket! To stay by the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyzu15BD03cfh0pdU71nWU1UdVHjfJHJVN_jp5nVJfrb8RqwjcFtw6wQruZMWr-lTvd8tPs1ZrBBS4Pmv9VIK9P8JDo2BAjUpK9FuQz23-dsIYWfvWybSAl4a3kKUiApy2e1p5WorIaQnb/s1600/DSCF3431.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyzu15BD03cfh0pdU71nWU1UdVHjfJHJVN_jp5nVJfrb8RqwjcFtw6wQruZMWr-lTvd8tPs1ZrBBS4Pmv9VIK9P8JDo2BAjUpK9FuQz23-dsIYWfvWybSAl4a3kKUiApy2e1p5WorIaQnb/s200/DSCF3431.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538048320830368178" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> is horrifyingly expensive so we stayed in town, which was fine, except that the pharmacy opposite was competing with the bar next door to play the loudest music, the orange streetlight lit up our net curtain like a projection screen every night and we were absolutely miles from the frigging beach.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">So, we tried again at Mahahual. At last. A whole week of nothing but </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgixvkcV0pSUN-RXaP7sqU8Lv6l6t7_9VI8kF8X6e4rinF16oonb589I4BdwFBB1aYv57ElXBo4nzVevHi5clBAF3UwRDHZEPJu6r_cSdrnNmQxt1wL01GsvVJmH5mN_wa9HYHveVjPy_ch/s1600/DSCF3544.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgixvkcV0pSUN-RXaP7sqU8Lv6l6t7_9VI8kF8X6e4rinF16oonb589I4BdwFBB1aYv57ElXBo4nzVevHi5clBAF3UwRDHZEPJu6r_cSdrnNmQxt1wL01GsvVJmH5mN_wa9HYHveVjPy_ch/s200/DSCF3544.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538052829180615810" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZidXGNPmYkIEGP82CvavHmTL33ZspaBw-1mi1iAaVs9KQHGx9KLCJNmOrMq4gCi_DOdQ15Uh5SD-qztG6Ap0bdjjadeUsOZcCpM84i8TA5tywAETS0AOyCK-T9gILDs-sB05qogLRFhy/s1600/DSCF3475.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZidXGNPmYkIEGP82CvavHmTL33ZspaBw-1mi1iAaVs9KQHGx9KLCJNmOrMq4gCi_DOdQ15Uh5SD-qztG6Ap0bdjjadeUsOZcCpM84i8TA5tywAETS0AOyCK-T9gILDs-sB05qogLRFhy/s200/DSCF3475.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538052824690978034" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW1X-2CKavS-ZtirjxJeyB8DtRuvrkrXYbMQtbKMRBnTfAlJortRVwCwX9ZdejWt5hoBNPHDp2oUpVXYNRZRdBR9VZ6tVVwXEl7KQpQ1d3XQcZHBZrUl4gfJ-sppBeW4j7zO_t2X-f4MHV/s1600/DSCF3590.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW1X-2CKavS-ZtirjxJeyB8DtRuvrkrXYbMQtbKMRBnTfAlJortRVwCwX9ZdejWt5hoBNPHDp2oUpVXYNRZRdBR9VZ6tVVwXEl7KQpQ1d3XQcZHBZrUl4gfJ-sppBeW4j7zO_t2X-f4MHV/s200/DSCF3590.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538052838431266178" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvemNS9Vvf2XhAt5cHcBIquHuiBaqZyPSlTxvZIPvNJ-MBIjQz8-OOxsYyOFKbR6vE5ZK2Uxyhwwsxb_09o_ZM18Q26o8R4rnKXOQRQSDMC4Of8LECLE2zsWQ9oxq8p9kiJEc903zuWJo/s1600/DSCF3576.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvemNS9Vvf2XhAt5cHcBIquHuiBaqZyPSlTxvZIPvNJ-MBIjQz8-OOxsYyOFKbR6vE5ZK2Uxyhwwsxb_09o_ZM18Q26o8R4rnKXOQRQSDMC4Of8LECLE2zsWQ9oxq8p9kiJEc903zuWJo/s200/DSCF3576.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538052832607075010" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. We became keyholders at Otto's internet place (for half an hour), got offered a job at Jaime's Nohoch Kay restaurant (and several discounts on his unbelievable shrimp and octopus in garlic and white wine tacos - OMG) and fell asleep in Fernando's bar hammock (a bar hammock!) at his delicious 100% Agave restaurant. Needless to say, we were stuck. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">One morning, when we headed for breakfast, Alex looked out at sea and said, "Is that a cloud?" It wasn't. It was a massive great </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2PNiyuusq0sOacSzjTfc-agBj8CPBkcCBqW1lwM4j7D2FuaEB4PJr_-XM0jecFJUDQipzAzNDwc2W5GFmgzmvGncJgeum4uxvjG2VmvH2_rfOy9KJreaM7_b5MXpxg8cWFunqft2JPLTU/s1600/DSCF3434.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2PNiyuusq0sOacSzjTfc-agBj8CPBkcCBqW1lwM4j7D2FuaEB4PJr_-XM0jecFJUDQipzAzNDwc2W5GFmgzmvGncJgeum4uxvjG2VmvH2_rfOy9KJreaM7_b5MXpxg8cWFunqft2JPLTU/s200/DSCF3434.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538056276112672306" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. Overnight, our sleepy, private little hangout had transformed into a host to cruise ships, including the biggest passenger ship in the world. Even construction sites had tables out selling <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAoZM3taKYxnm5RVDXuEYW2x4cG4nUJeVwwUH8ovkEbN-ugTu8QviDdZuG11fHCwC4Ki3iQDMEkRRGPYDFxm0BmwOi1TX07c9qoBdWxjcn_vwuqAhzD4y3MgpzON3iXui1Z_SwmDIWmRFg/s1600/DSCF3652.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAoZM3taKYxnm5RVDXuEYW2x4cG4nUJeVwwUH8ovkEbN-ugTu8QviDdZuG11fHCwC4Ki3iQDMEkRRGPYDFxm0BmwOi1TX07c9qoBdWxjcn_vwuqAhzD4y3MgpzON3iXui1Z_SwmDIWmRFg/s200/DSCF3652.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538422247768057106" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></a></span>. The other notable thing about Mahahual is that the sun rises over the sea (not that I ever saw that) and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyA1vTLNXnNWdqgka_la7NBnYUCTgPEQtTyW16VCGZy008qGjlhIlmT2ieu3MVGI29BQ_hqvNJr5UFI89hiHN77pjHtTGxnUxTBldA7tr2sv_HnvELXkmO7uNq1VuWyThrhQ31Creu6zXf/s1600/DSCF3673.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyA1vTLNXnNWdqgka_la7NBnYUCTgPEQtTyW16VCGZy008qGjlhIlmT2ieu3MVGI29BQ_hqvNJr5UFI89hiHN77pjHtTGxnUxTBldA7tr2sv_HnvELXkmO7uNq1VuWyThrhQ31Creu6zXf/s200/DSCF3673.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538361022741548114" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> over the mangroves (wiped out by Hurrican Dean). That's a full 180 degree coverage!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">We made up for drifted time by leaving Mexico, whizzing through Belize and arriving in Guatemala in the same day. The most obvious thing to do in Guatemala must be to see the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Jtq9Z1EMPfsC8kwRyg_JK5RiPA2qHqmtpUrLCVJRNgrEtzZHsiH7pC8CYN1jG5UsI2F-HUyzzOU12BSoEdTW_UbWMiKbrNMyT7o-0vGnRkkgGee0PiLqhQMwYprYI8tYDjA74EGYIz4f/s1600/DSCF3774.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Jtq9Z1EMPfsC8kwRyg_JK5RiPA2qHqmtpUrLCVJRNgrEtzZHsiH7pC8CYN1jG5UsI2F-HUyzzOU12BSoEdTW_UbWMiKbrNMyT7o-0vGnRkkgGee0PiLqhQMwYprYI8tYDjA74EGYIz4f/s200/DSCF3774.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538057276458689026" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> at Tikal where you can walk through </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5C0VbIIEzVLVsxgQIvFCFFeilKa5PeT2NyQhJkxic5LrPMBec4gwF3Wd19418xW1Nc6ogkGcRxAHxJTKzAI2n1eluKmdEWlYphHYyawtLyk8V6kHYI2-1qR_TYGiVAM86i0iZL1-OXRB/s1600/DSCF3830.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5C0VbIIEzVLVsxgQIvFCFFeilKa5PeT2NyQhJkxic5LrPMBec4gwF3Wd19418xW1Nc6ogkGcRxAHxJTKzAI2n1eluKmdEWlYphHYyawtLyk8V6kHYI2-1qR_TYGiVAM86i0iZL1-OXRB/s200/DSCF3830.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538057766097204706" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> to see </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHBsEN03FbEOAMyjCvKaPjfjkqpTa7q3V2pI8NZhLmujv634wc1fALfQ-dygJhfI5H1rLfOxl8rvZbEWiXgKyDW-M8lWOLR5EHrrNagNw0R5x0cG0K5yNYA5sszdbD5TgZJDkagMde1Jb/s1600/DSCF3816.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHBsEN03FbEOAMyjCvKaPjfjkqpTa7q3V2pI8NZhLmujv634wc1fALfQ-dygJhfI5H1rLfOxl8rvZbEWiXgKyDW-M8lWOLR5EHrrNagNw0R5x0cG0K5yNYA5sszdbD5TgZJDkagMde1Jb/s200/DSCF3816.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538058389072479346" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9oNvTfiCv-9Auab3xSxDAwCsyH66T0M5LPFJQ9hWmQ78AZfDv_uUpyXgNfs-DgWoIEiZrldCC65BCvCN3Sq3rlNnMlaVl1LCwq9S4f3tbkz24tciUScKgnRbFKawuPvv8RAgd7wIaeBN/s1600/DSCF3823.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9oNvTfiCv-9Auab3xSxDAwCsyH66T0M5LPFJQ9hWmQ78AZfDv_uUpyXgNfs-DgWoIEiZrldCC65BCvCN3Sq3rlNnMlaVl1LCwq9S4f3tbkz24tciUScKgnRbFKawuPvv8RAgd7wIaeBN/s200/DSCF3823.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538058400365680562" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and even </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0QEJzZ7jA68rIFo8tJkUFgy77ysUxQzVYCCmosG8br9DF3w0lE4VpiscSIPVyFDHM9GIsEnPmp9TjG683RZ6nglSRvX1LPfWykJli5cQ3uAAA74kbyNFXNZSd1BSMf6FEw0qfl8seMT2M/s1600/DSCF3738.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0QEJzZ7jA68rIFo8tJkUFgy77ysUxQzVYCCmosG8br9DF3w0lE4VpiscSIPVyFDHM9GIsEnPmp9TjG683RZ6nglSRvX1LPfWykJli5cQ3uAAA74kbyNFXNZSd1BSMf6FEw0qfl8seMT2M/s200/DSCF3738.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538058418744616418" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">! The obvious place to stay when visiting Tikal is Flores, magically located in a </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheD3-y9v8kNUtid2u72kr74YPtGnuPx4nM1KZaeSJS-F7895OoKqldZdyr-V6H_SIkIlWxTnMgApDMzveqYhFh12CNQNmERgVklHK9nvJ9TNkGgDOWhdEUmkUIEWfQllBatFRljhwvW9Z5/s1600/DSCF3951.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheD3-y9v8kNUtid2u72kr74YPtGnuPx4nM1KZaeSJS-F7895OoKqldZdyr-V6H_SIkIlWxTnMgApDMzveqYhFh12CNQNmERgVklHK9nvJ9TNkGgDOWhdEUmkUIEWfQllBatFRljhwvW9Z5/s200/DSCF3951.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538059421266131330" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. After a fews days enjoying </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD4ZFqINLtx_V79B180vxuZhYLVYOZSHp7LrTXRxZFhBSfnEe1c5KNyffMlCr6ZSpuuL-_MC_kDg2j6MFJSL__bFsZ8ZrpVeCxQRgneJ3IVmKa9uGF6-cHOsrFcfwIOxmDuE0rYw8rcUz0/s1600/DSCF4057.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD4ZFqINLtx_V79B180vxuZhYLVYOZSHp7LrTXRxZFhBSfnEe1c5KNyffMlCr6ZSpuuL-_MC_kDg2j6MFJSL__bFsZ8ZrpVeCxQRgneJ3IVmKa9uGF6-cHOsrFcfwIOxmDuE0rYw8rcUz0/s200/DSCF4057.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538060710917536050" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg63k8hVFoxOv7DmzBNkGYeyQu8qloBgBPmd469YGa-_PX_w4kTOcXMENF7827Qz9yMS0PrJIusCbcyOE6P3oi0yUp0UaDaUxXmp6C3eLTBRFdAoMdlSYouRWaiLi6xjv4cbHFd9ADWHAhs/s1600/DSCF3992.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg63k8hVFoxOv7DmzBNkGYeyQu8qloBgBPmd469YGa-_PX_w4kTOcXMENF7827Qz9yMS0PrJIusCbcyOE6P3oi0yUp0UaDaUxXmp6C3eLTBRFdAoMdlSYouRWaiLi6xjv4cbHFd9ADWHAhs/s200/DSCF3992.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538060700549069010" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEFTFRVwUCN79AU5LK4gu1dkzLnVpqpcQOQFAKyEZBrlm36Tx3prQiq8IJ8QNQsw60_C2P7mpiTspkzOMVy7kpvU_xZ6HCWl5LEatiXg-6tsUwBSaWkzgokzv5f-4gYyaG_BbBL1Ym4T1w/s1600/DSCF3918.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEFTFRVwUCN79AU5LK4gu1dkzLnVpqpcQOQFAKyEZBrlm36Tx3prQiq8IJ8QNQsw60_C2P7mpiTspkzOMVy7kpvU_xZ6HCWl5LEatiXg-6tsUwBSaWkzgokzv5f-4gYyaG_BbBL1Ym4T1w/s200/DSCF3918.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538060696462566786" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG4EaLHgHRI27JD49ButuQeF6ZHINlwkd9d9lnQFDQksmewY2SNqxJGPp4a-ntvr4nPatNDxFBheMkr0cRelCaM5sSEwWZAPQlh9ZEkFLXMLn_nIF5QyLdIcpvwHKq16ulMTxe6Wk7WqJy/s1600/DSCF3850.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG4EaLHgHRI27JD49ButuQeF6ZHINlwkd9d9lnQFDQksmewY2SNqxJGPp4a-ntvr4nPatNDxFBheMkr0cRelCaM5sSEwWZAPQlh9ZEkFLXMLn_nIF5QyLdIcpvwHKq16ulMTxe6Wk7WqJy/s200/DSCF3850.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538060686705385346" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, we headed to Lake Atitlan, via Antigua, beautiful in a San Cristobal kind of way with it's </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTcnoa7prbDX135vR97X9RqD8LIHCdY6irhg_0O0kEiekCo_IfGXiMrQCpj4zSokIU3rsDbPXVJLDRGMVQ97FKFQlVCwvJSJmrFADjHffEtZQYNQHpNz6EKUgXGnJr18yhMZz-_4uwVxkI/s1600/DSCF4290.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTcnoa7prbDX135vR97X9RqD8LIHCdY6irhg_0O0kEiekCo_IfGXiMrQCpj4zSokIU3rsDbPXVJLDRGMVQ97FKFQlVCwvJSJmrFADjHffEtZQYNQHpNz6EKUgXGnJr18yhMZz-_4uwVxkI/s200/DSCF4290.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538061379526201314" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI5GZej4vKnL9UThTHzDjD8qaq9YMYaCMUq944UnK4VfTNJm-xux4UhPLzG0EK1ZmEp8EhwuRGfjRgImk4sai6gAQDhJSae2fMPrLyEp1kbM77X3jmCJN0f2feUXtofvGAMXDeg_uEzB0o/s1600/DSCF4283.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI5GZej4vKnL9UThTHzDjD8qaq9YMYaCMUq944UnK4VfTNJm-xux4UhPLzG0EK1ZmEp8EhwuRGfjRgImk4sai6gAQDhJSae2fMPrLyEp1kbM77X3jmCJN0f2feUXtofvGAMXDeg_uEzB0o/s200/DSCF4283.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538062130794490722" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">(although San Cristobal didn't have any </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEtlNZK0OwHG0ZzrG1RycOQWqXDQ7HSXsfdtv9UAWXrzXgWG_CKbxnrUm-kD3OnT0UYHOLaOWu5hgC5oshFZNOUCSCDFQau1eDTEb1Sdu-YCdV0oT_hU4NshegNHbK7qZeJo4Obs87qvMV/s1600/DSCF4287.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEtlNZK0OwHG0ZzrG1RycOQWqXDQ7HSXsfdtv9UAWXrzXgWG_CKbxnrUm-kD3OnT0UYHOLaOWu5hgC5oshFZNOUCSCDFQau1eDTEb1Sdu-YCdV0oT_hU4NshegNHbK7qZeJo4Obs87qvMV/s200/DSCF4287.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538062457495730962" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">). We stayed long enough to </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNrrpvpDz0o-OzJcgHzibUJRu6Z_TmyHPoKJ6tLtjpcHL8hJ0hL_lPTXLEo9weZ-e1NcOObHhvCb1vsFKFqvGlhkIiGlOODAus72gA1twSGiIyT45CGcjtSJJXwebmDRFPceRpum506VVm/s1600/DSCF4192.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNrrpvpDz0o-OzJcgHzibUJRu6Z_TmyHPoKJ6tLtjpcHL8hJ0hL_lPTXLEo9weZ-e1NcOObHhvCb1vsFKFqvGlhkIiGlOODAus72gA1twSGiIyT45CGcjtSJJXwebmDRFPceRpum506VVm/s200/DSCF4192.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538063450063229330" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> the volcano Pacaya, where you can</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhom6TMUir9xffDuS8_KdjApFnlZh2h4B-AGEhnoL1qs8usQReTd7OhVkRUZhZrYDhMHXgWWw_7ytZEGXSZqkOpBXyIlw2YjoS6TfGCE9aFnbhW4IGKVUt2PgIQxa4dxGMJP8Ei3PogoiHw/s1600/DSCF4220.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhom6TMUir9xffDuS8_KdjApFnlZh2h4B-AGEhnoL1qs8usQReTd7OhVkRUZhZrYDhMHXgWWw_7ytZEGXSZqkOpBXyIlw2YjoS6TfGCE9aFnbhW4IGKVUt2PgIQxa4dxGMJP8Ei3PogoiHw/s200/DSCF4220.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538063454185221746" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">! While Alex was </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfhhIiTpEUz_A1krVpRXl6JTy29UkbQW4ThHQHB3aambYVMlp2L9MkNFSCD3CuUZCf2QXGZ5B5FUB2WAHtkt-XH3rmfTSIF-T5lqu-letxI9YsZCswpWKA5b-04VV3ZL8MJ1vgWO7kg4Hq/s1600/DSCF4236.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfhhIiTpEUz_A1krVpRXl6JTy29UkbQW4ThHQHB3aambYVMlp2L9MkNFSCD3CuUZCf2QXGZ5B5FUB2WAHtkt-XH3rmfTSIF-T5lqu-letxI9YsZCswpWKA5b-04VV3ZL8MJ1vgWO7kg4Hq/s200/DSCF4236.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538063464318995826" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, there was a disconcerting boom in the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaW9bpbJmZf34jRyjNXVt-ZgvX_D79t60T95WwTfzOBZfCCt80u5K7AgQ7TESccV6Ec215XiacMD_zmPP0UOUHYZQ9byMj4NSfiyIu4eRJtwdTN1_DidXLffJzNk8Yu1o53YCl1gCgM86C/s1600/DSCF4244.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaW9bpbJmZf34jRyjNXVt-ZgvX_D79t60T95WwTfzOBZfCCt80u5K7AgQ7TESccV6Ec215XiacMD_zmPP0UOUHYZQ9byMj4NSfiyIu4eRJtwdTN1_DidXLffJzNk8Yu1o53YCl1gCgM86C/s200/DSCF4244.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538063466290323218" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">! Yes, an </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1UVBzVVariYNkPBJmfzpO-gnnrar9xxk2IxaNO1Aosk-BiKp6iTyWboer-J6YeqFXc7chf9MG_V4mB4bGPo3pDFwoloc9bWNE-DYN3_sE-X7oLWmPWAaZ9wO4RvEVeoskIef8cqP5Gawr/s1600/DSCF4250.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1UVBzVVariYNkPBJmfzpO-gnnrar9xxk2IxaNO1Aosk-BiKp6iTyWboer-J6YeqFXc7chf9MG_V4mB4bGPo3pDFwoloc9bWNE-DYN3_sE-X7oLWmPWAaZ9wO4RvEVeoskIef8cqP5Gawr/s200/DSCF4250.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538064203399783010" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">! Alex missed it completely. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">We sped on like a slow moving hurricane to San Pedro, Lake Atitlan. W</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'trebuchet ms';">e have now been recuperating</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> from our punishing schedule </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'trebuchet ms';">here </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'trebuchet ms';">for </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">three weeks. We have attended three pub quizes and three of Smokin Joe's Sunday barbecues. We have also </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuZ7vWbYok9b6RyvSQRgFvVqX9-ELfmA5D6NpY10WLaxDTXAZoHyS1vPmOBdnbpJUFhPPGpSYUk7KSygd2qyHQFRK4h3A-76eGiX-4bYS_NrbsRAYQCJvBA3Si7pyilNGkDrtRzNUFnjl/s1600/DSCF4313.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuZ7vWbYok9b6RyvSQRgFvVqX9-ELfmA5D6NpY10WLaxDTXAZoHyS1vPmOBdnbpJUFhPPGpSYUk7KSygd2qyHQFRK4h3A-76eGiX-4bYS_NrbsRAYQCJvBA3Si7pyilNGkDrtRzNUFnjl/s200/DSCF4313.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538065784625050930" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJZEH-6XgvSSAxIlUZqxCByGl7DmMMSxDkv7Kd9CDBCnaBbBY5f0_677SzCmbkEx_lBWELUOYTxWKUTxd_bo41wZiWiBMdw4WRmrj9R6zJ3UX5qSo1PA5dgnfOi8-lMoqYmE8r-rbs5wAN/s1600/DSCF4337.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJZEH-6XgvSSAxIlUZqxCByGl7DmMMSxDkv7Kd9CDBCnaBbBY5f0_677SzCmbkEx_lBWELUOYTxWKUTxd_bo41wZiWiBMdw4WRmrj9R6zJ3UX5qSo1PA5dgnfOi8-lMoqYmE8r-rbs5wAN/s200/DSCF4337.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538065794100979026" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUPMmkIjMZ_dMygXnUK_FZxaiKTWkZ2bJuKFh5S9DaG9_FIsmIJ_5sL7rmV9uEaGPlNQrLQUTpQ1LjRCNX0So_KAURdxtsjBfHGz9_Bt-uFYZuf4ueQI3fOqd1RWcV5Y7OAsN7VT5rU1qX/s1600/DSCF4368.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUPMmkIjMZ_dMygXnUK_FZxaiKTWkZ2bJuKFh5S9DaG9_FIsmIJ_5sL7rmV9uEaGPlNQrLQUTpQ1LjRCNX0So_KAURdxtsjBfHGz9_Bt-uFYZuf4ueQI3fOqd1RWcV5Y7OAsN7VT5rU1qX/s200/DSCF4368.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538065805885259458" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWHYIpLERZJ-z0Nod-09PBZIMK0-QWTPSCdTp7l-Ory4k4kcfFuAxPQKgpJbByF6vH7CG_qXpuEiahGO_moj1TyayxFuAG9sHlY59ddygB69E80xCVntHg_wTf_gg6Q6DgfPQK1U96zyCB/s1600/DSCF4617.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWHYIpLERZJ-z0Nod-09PBZIMK0-QWTPSCdTp7l-Ory4k4kcfFuAxPQKgpJbByF6vH7CG_qXpuEiahGO_moj1TyayxFuAG9sHlY59ddygB69E80xCVntHg_wTf_gg6Q6DgfPQK1U96zyCB/s200/DSCF4617.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538066696279267666" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, which was absolutely exhausting. But, most importantly, I have spent days on end back in the </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoV2iFHUvkyMlz0g6Ti0AMSabB9MrAZLF2EC4-q4T9WVc16b6cWSk0Q6bkIgJYWekIS6v74QzAvtHoaTC_FYX9OJk1yZrscAX4W4-iG8znvhdNVa1gGoWInExrD62yJdv9LBemRQn1gYY0/s1600/DSCF4715.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoV2iFHUvkyMlz0g6Ti0AMSabB9MrAZLF2EC4-q4T9WVc16b6cWSk0Q6bkIgJYWekIS6v74QzAvtHoaTC_FYX9OJk1yZrscAX4W4-iG8znvhdNVa1gGoWInExrD62yJdv9LBemRQn1gYY0/s200/DSCF4715.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538065816838978802" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> with satellite TV on, editing more than 5,000 </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZpjZ7A8JwSaVWurt_XlllmDVhvJaFlbTADA93HK-NaxHT29ZHKPBeNnFIYNf5VM_Odw5CBQtHok0nR_UoTiYVb-N_ldigR1cPnlWShoUcL-nTdDk-9lvu3PECWJrmREUKBlGOYydFvT_2/s1600/Picture+22.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZpjZ7A8JwSaVWurt_XlllmDVhvJaFlbTADA93HK-NaxHT29ZHKPBeNnFIYNf5VM_Odw5CBQtHok0nR_UoTiYVb-N_ldigR1cPnlWShoUcL-nTdDk-9lvu3PECWJrmREUKBlGOYydFvT_2/s200/Picture+22.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538406892781241282" style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 125px; " /></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Frankly, I'm exhausted. You know what I could do with?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfSJ594AVz4Mw8ZxwA7hTUypNnb-ZhyphenhyphentI_JYgSsOrp3_M_eYESVR2nNThOkzdg44LGK-vMmcgU0b0IJx_xoI6mm24cyj5qvWZuvm4_9WfMv2xCGwqk8OdUGgBOylJDC0qSgHoto_qEp9du/s1600/DSCF3579.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfSJ594AVz4Mw8ZxwA7hTUypNnb-ZhyphenhyphentI_JYgSsOrp3_M_eYESVR2nNThOkzdg44LGK-vMmcgU0b0IJx_xoI6mm24cyj5qvWZuvm4_9WfMv2xCGwqk8OdUGgBOylJDC0qSgHoto_qEp9du/s200/DSCF3579.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538426507784152066" style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px; " /></a></div>Taniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13330771386690006795noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-14086550435773866492010-11-08T18:44:00.002+00:002010-11-08T18:45:55.158+00:00A Map! Mexico City to Lake Atitlan, GuatemalaHere's where we have been wandering the last 2 and a half months or so.<br /><br /><iframe width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107509020576981985730.00049477f4de143c8f502&ll=17.644022,-92.768555&spn=10.039163,14.0625&z=6&output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107509020576981985730.00049477f4de143c8f502&ll=17.644022,-92.768555&spn=10.039163,14.0625&z=6&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Mexico City to Lake Atitlan</a> in a larger map</small>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-87245212790177634572010-11-03T02:46:00.006+00:002010-11-03T03:48:35.810+00:00The ChangelingI would like to make the point that I don't consider myself obsessively vain! But also this gives me a chance to show off some of the lovely places we have been where I have been able to take my top off. And there's even a pic of the usually camera-shy Tania (that side of the lens anyway).<br /><br />I don't like shaving. If I am diving I need to shave moustache off - thus the Amish terarist look. I definitely wanted to shave my head at least once in my life - so that explains that phase. These pics show a number of "looks" since last September or so...<br /><br />Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwNg3TCJtlf1J44m3_hLtgwSOf-LikVltJQERNqnEAVNtMdXfUL9EMC5PI_5_6uNETsXf8Qqr3xP40db7gzDxtFxOigL7GLaTWCpl6k4zOX2xafNt08o-n6N34RiSqAUjYnIWUXUo2If2/s1600/DSCF6764.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwNg3TCJtlf1J44m3_hLtgwSOf-LikVltJQERNqnEAVNtMdXfUL9EMC5PI_5_6uNETsXf8Qqr3xP40db7gzDxtFxOigL7GLaTWCpl6k4zOX2xafNt08o-n6N34RiSqAUjYnIWUXUo2If2/s400/DSCF6764.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535152242296989266" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Trat, Thailand<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBY_KzQ-_rTDA8bit_o9UtsuDLPaUdwgYBVCki_cgjg-QL2vKvxfGmO-hApx2lPHrflfxFH1AtFmUewh0kTkBoNZugPQFyqGHCmZ5jt_Zwu6o041y1BcRkbHFvpnrZ9PHVtle0iJm9Wohr/s1600/DSCF0465.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBY_KzQ-_rTDA8bit_o9UtsuDLPaUdwgYBVCki_cgjg-QL2vKvxfGmO-hApx2lPHrflfxFH1AtFmUewh0kTkBoNZugPQFyqGHCmZ5jt_Zwu6o041y1BcRkbHFvpnrZ9PHVtle0iJm9Wohr/s400/DSCF0465.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535152236654673778" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Punakaiki, South Island, New Zealand<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaOzBPnz1IIRjkLeyUcbVA0xh-VzWQJkmSLKUJeis_unKS6nLsK93UneszK89vyeARmnT3l7W7Goq4bWRKSTKH2isOYc5594JV4b8I-vz994bAbT9TQOfoYZqc86rC6oBDiTB6I7xx53E7/s1600/DSCF3676.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaOzBPnz1IIRjkLeyUcbVA0xh-VzWQJkmSLKUJeis_unKS6nLsK93UneszK89vyeARmnT3l7W7Goq4bWRKSTKH2isOYc5594JV4b8I-vz994bAbT9TQOfoYZqc86rC6oBDiTB6I7xx53E7/s400/DSCF3676.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535152238742799490" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Yagul, Oaxaca, Mexico<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8XZ0-xxFKGzX0H5ou-BGDZhvqZ-8LG4tXOSnQCe0zGFld765xrIcYfw21cYn37RtSe7qWT0E-JoO5wml6orWPxaCq8YDzeSP_tgUTXilyTDXiQ2sYfRddSl77gKVjpbOuqxjGGYuEyk_W/s1600/DSCF1665.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8XZ0-xxFKGzX0H5ou-BGDZhvqZ-8LG4tXOSnQCe0zGFld765xrIcYfw21cYn37RtSe7qWT0E-JoO5wml6orWPxaCq8YDzeSP_tgUTXilyTDXiQ2sYfRddSl77gKVjpbOuqxjGGYuEyk_W/s400/DSCF1665.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535162501523915874" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Mahahual, Quintana Roo, Mexico<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKCO1HrYowfZusACtlXC-cxGh_JQmR0egT2hLI9kHu-C6AvuINeDzVJHfDHEGIYrJZ1G0A90k1S4za5vV7CR8DgVk-AZtA45RWWzE0tRepRjSPiPv02paBss2PuOIkYmxbEfzf3740SWzb/s1600/DSCF3591.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKCO1HrYowfZusACtlXC-cxGh_JQmR0egT2hLI9kHu-C6AvuINeDzVJHfDHEGIYrJZ1G0A90k1S4za5vV7CR8DgVk-AZtA45RWWzE0tRepRjSPiPv02paBss2PuOIkYmxbEfzf3740SWzb/s400/DSCF3591.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535152248797582258" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Mahahual, Quintana Roo, Mexico<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSoKhKozsOqbMybLKjvtCrGjiF7oa3rbXV2Y1PF-Y0OyFNbGIstWnAIphL8XWbTznCJNSgZGcU80-_8i0N-xB1vJnLMa4ROaiBhXcYqmz0UWzQHxubZH8SaLBZQIQMzDyoUMUyuVPQsHV/s1600/DSCF3631.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSoKhKozsOqbMybLKjvtCrGjiF7oa3rbXV2Y1PF-Y0OyFNbGIstWnAIphL8XWbTznCJNSgZGcU80-_8i0N-xB1vJnLMa4ROaiBhXcYqmz0UWzQHxubZH8SaLBZQIQMzDyoUMUyuVPQsHV/s400/DSCF3631.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535162509681104130" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Mahahual, Quintana Roo, Mexico<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgxiV26L8zT8eh7l-_KB8dY_0bE5IQYFfGIKVMv6McxivDvYZYHcKR5YHubCIFDCbvUKMFD3Nhg4peS5OZ1lUompGRD3zOfL2xURthjRx-wVcvb80RcSl36_8GwK0KZ_V6OY-WUZwlxLY/s1600/DSCF3533.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgxiV26L8zT8eh7l-_KB8dY_0bE5IQYFfGIKVMv6McxivDvYZYHcKR5YHubCIFDCbvUKMFD3Nhg4peS5OZ1lUompGRD3zOfL2xURthjRx-wVcvb80RcSl36_8GwK0KZ_V6OY-WUZwlxLY/s400/DSCF3533.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535157741948419026" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpzidcBl2phEHqqP6oNhoy_mIgwOaRV5By9LGqa2r-fLLI_U4nnCFqETISL6N4ZwleljeoAywi9B6zP7ItV73sX0eN2GTYRZAzxiVmTkGUbYuDI2Y336_Qq1_-qsn2SME5xLSiLxIJgyBm/s1600/DSCF3570.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpzidcBl2phEHqqP6oNhoy_mIgwOaRV5By9LGqa2r-fLLI_U4nnCFqETISL6N4ZwleljeoAywi9B6zP7ItV73sX0eN2GTYRZAzxiVmTkGUbYuDI2Y336_Qq1_-qsn2SME5xLSiLxIJgyBm/s400/DSCF3570.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535157735418711266" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Tikal, Guatemala<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrxzBi7fuc3IoUfX3W9w5HxV5rKR1w0pIkZbLi75chdmSHxe9H2DR2F5Zn7nGKOa6ljzodKePJp8qhpMlsbUlk2joRGq1K6INygF8azJX9YyewPUghrm2xWi1zy3TNXjZEebBH60J7_D5/s1600/DSCF3785.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrxzBi7fuc3IoUfX3W9w5HxV5rKR1w0pIkZbLi75chdmSHxe9H2DR2F5Zn7nGKOa6ljzodKePJp8qhpMlsbUlk2joRGq1K6INygF8azJX9YyewPUghrm2xWi1zy3TNXjZEebBH60J7_D5/s400/DSCF3785.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535157745149710930" border="0" /></a><br /><br />San Pedro la Laguna, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifXQLFQcDt2Or6E6as_PZUw5Bw_oHtxyw9KyLE1FtI5LRmljrqOb-qmYXesbpy2IaPcqgxnRzAzmEYa0DpN1ZgGM23Wx01PQz0q-5iCcm40xFXi5rqIkwVk8rzBckCY6P0ab1v-bXJWs1B/s1600/DSCF4301.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifXQLFQcDt2Or6E6as_PZUw5Bw_oHtxyw9KyLE1FtI5LRmljrqOb-qmYXesbpy2IaPcqgxnRzAzmEYa0DpN1ZgGM23Wx01PQz0q-5iCcm40xFXi5rqIkwVk8rzBckCY6P0ab1v-bXJWs1B/s400/DSCF4301.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535157747490695298" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Mayan's Face/Indian's Nose, San Juan la Laguna, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI4coEJbYVjd3p6Qz_Q18AEgGl8mmiN4r8M4_rR2rDH1w2p38GlE1mRRL6FcaVY30jtCfPrpps8QyZjtH57PjADMrPnf_50qdbCXeOZJ-XZF4yKiZoAijRDALZBDR7c3FJapP74-pDC9tp/s1600/DSCF4433.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI4coEJbYVjd3p6Qz_Q18AEgGl8mmiN4r8M4_rR2rDH1w2p38GlE1mRRL6FcaVY30jtCfPrpps8QyZjtH57PjADMrPnf_50qdbCXeOZJ-XZF4yKiZoAijRDALZBDR7c3FJapP74-pDC9tp/s400/DSCF4433.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535157752957422018" border="0" /></a>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-4454556180036812622010-08-18T18:30:00.003+01:002010-08-18T18:42:08.161+01:00Bye bye DF ... for nowSo, we´re coming towards an end in Distrito Federal and looking forward to heading down south. T´s parents, Geoff and Rita, are winging their way towards us now and we are jolly excited. On Friday we´ll say goodbye to our friends and students who have really helped us get along here. The month´s free accomodation in Escandon was a particular touch, many thanks to Greg and Jen (and Andy Streetdog of course), and to Gavin and Sandra - we were in one lovely flat for a couple of weeks and then simply moved directly upstairs to look after another lovely flat. You couldn´t plan this kind of stuff. How lucky we are.<br /><br />I was going to write a joke about <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22185138@N00/1189274996/" target=¨_blank¨>God´s Pharmacy</a>, but someone beat me to it, unsurprisingly.<br /><br />So, what´s left to tell you. The chicken mescal is allegedly not flavoured with chicken, but so named (´Pechuga´) because it uses the 'breast' of the agave leaf. I've seen the nutters body slamming broken glass on the metro, for money (I didn´t give) - one looked severely undernourished and had the pallor of a character from 'Twilight'. Greg and Jen did a piece on this church in the rough part of town where 60,000 young glue sniffers make a pilgrimage on 28th of each month to pray to st Jude, the patron of lost causes. The priest tells parables using slang and swear words and burns an offering of glue at the end.<br /><br />One of my classes took me quite far out and up onto a big hill so I got to see the whole of the valley in which Mexico City sits, from above - something you don´t often see, because of the smog. Damn it´s big. The shape is JUST like the Santa Clara Valley, where we stayed with Jan and Ania back in January - just bigger and more developed. Could almost imagine the start of the San Francisco Bay out of the corner of my eye. Seriously - go up beyond Satelite and look back, looks just like the view from that hill top above Saratoga. Should have taken pics really...<br /><br />We had some pre-hispanic food, ants eggs and the like, quite pleasant. And we went up to the Desert of the Lions, the 'double lie' (no desert, no lions), a beautiful forest conservation area just 15 minutes from Santa Fe, the rich concrete jungle where T and I both teach. Andydog had a whale of a time, as did we enjoy the fresh air and nature.<br /><br />I´ve often noticed similarities between Mexico City and Pnhom Penh in Cambodia. The slight unhingedness of it all, crazy traffic, alleged dangers round every corner and late night food sellers using odd instruments to attract attention, like a Jurassic Park 'raptor' skull whistle. So it was great to hear from Lari & Simo, a couple of young Finnish film makers we met in PP while they were making a documentary about a volleyball team, most of the players having lost limbs through landmines. They sent us this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhNARzoB0xk" target=¨_blank¨>trailer</a> for their film 'Scorpions' - can´t wait to see the full version, this really brought back some amazing memories.<br /><br />Oh and must shout out to my music partner, Aletz Martinez. We´ve been jamming and recording for about 3 months and have done some gigs at the Hostel. It´s been SO MUCH FUN - thanks to Alma and Aletz for letting me help imbue their flat with much sound. Versions of tracks we´ve done are at <a href="http://www.drcolonic.com/" target=¨_blank¨>www.drcolonic.com</a> - and also a cheeky vocal by Greg Brosnan over a house track I did on his equipment (thanks for that, too!). And well ... that´s it.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-1034095305863799682010-08-06T18:30:00.002+01:002010-08-06T18:37:41.429+01:00More (very) random cultural observationsHere's a great one we learnt in Kenya - I'm not sure if Tania already spoke about it. When we were present at community meetings organised by Pamoja Trust, the NGO we helped out in Nairobi, we noticed that instead of clapping, everyone would gesticulate, making what we can only describe as 'jazz hands', whilst murmuring ¨umeme¨. This is because originally such meetings had to be held in clandestine fashion and loud noises avoided. What's interesting is that umeme means both electricity and lightning.<br /><br />If you see a crowd of men running after one man in Africa (or at least the Eastern parts we visited), it´s likely that the people are self-policing against a thief.<br /><br />Something that must be seen to be believed - a group of giggling Mexican men pushing onto an empty metro train, desparate to get the free seats. Normally fairly civilised, offering seats to women and the elderly, something clearly (almost literally) goes out the window when a threshold of numbers on the platform is reached and there are empty seats available. Mind you, India takes the cake when it comes to trying to get on and off public transport. Instead of waiting to let people off (something which we just about - grudgingly - manage in Mexico City), everyone goes hell for leather at the same time, making the whole process longer and fairly exhausting. My humble theory is that these are examples of people (ok, men) just wanting to get a little boyish frolicking into their lives.<br /><br />In the Mexican Metro, they have big fans, through which at certain times of the day, some kind of spray is pumped out, presumably to kill some kind of harmful little bugger. Folks seem quite unfazed by this, often reaching up to get in a free hand clean. I wonder how that would go down in Waterloo Station, with no explanation. Mind you, swine flu did basically shut down this city for a few weeks, only a year ago.<br /><br />Here in Mexico, you hear a lot about Quetzalcoatl, an ancient god who had the form of a feathered snake. You see the image all over the place - at archaeological sites, in murals;<br />in fact one of our ex-flatmates is going to get a tattoo of Quetzalcoatl, amongst other national symbols. Quetzalcoatl has been worshipped all over Mesoamerica, since well before the time of Christ. There was a period where he was supposed to have lived as a man, although Monica told us that, paradoxically, by this time he was already being worshipped as a god in other areas. He was said to have a very white face and therefore looked different to the rest of his people. Which is why, when Hernán Cortés led the Spanish invasion in the 16th century, the indigenous people thought that Quetzalcoatl had returned in the form of Cortés.<br /><br />Monica told us about connections between Mexico and Asia, particularly interesting being sort of reflections in iconography. Firstly, let me say that sometimes Mexicans do look remarkably similar to Asians - both racial groups share Mongolic genetics. In the Anthropology Museum we saw statues in Buddha-like poses, yet dating from BEFORE the birth of Buddha. And this is great - the Ancient Sun Stones (e.g. <a href="http://snipurl.com/10auu0" target="¨_blank¨">this one, covered by Wired</a>), of which you see many reproductions in tourist hotspots, were bounded by a two-headed snake. Turn the whole thing upside down and you quite clearly see a Chinese dragon. Freaky, eh?<br /><br />For ancient Mesoamerican cultures such as the Maya and the Aztecs, 20 was a very important figure. Their calendars divided periods into 20 and their abacus was base 20. The supposed reason for this is because, with their open toed sandals (huaraches), they could easily count to twenty using all the digits of their hands and feet.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-25523923600929267482010-07-20T03:16:00.004+01:002010-07-25T21:18:57.357+01:00Random cultural observationsSo, where does the word 'gringo' come from? Originally meant to define US Americans, but sometimes expanded to include all Caucasians, more than a few folks find it a bit offensive. I have to confess to clarifying (quite strenuously) that I am not a gringo, on occasion.<br /><br />The origin is a subject of some debate, many people believing it derives from the Spanish 'griego' (meaning Greek), which even pre-Mexican conquest was used to denote any foreigner. However our good friend Monica, anthropologist and tour guide extraordinaire, assures us it comes from the misinterpretation of US soldiers singing 'Green grows the grass....' during some important war or something.<br /><br />Africa, South East Asia and Latin America all have their words for the white man. In Africa, from Kenya through to Mozambique, we heard 'mzungu' a lot, although not exactly to our faces. In South Africa, the word becomes 'mlungu'. In Thailand, it's 'farang', although you generally hear it is as 'falang'. Some people think this derives from the Arabic 'faranji', others from the Thai word for a Frenchman - 'farangset'. Farang is also the word for guava fruit in Thai. Tania reckons she heard a similar word used in Vietnam on her first trip years ago, and was told it means 'big nose', but they might have been talking about Star Trek.<br /><br />Here in Mexico, we hear 'guero' (or 'guera' for a female) a lot, but it is said to your face and seems to be very well intentioned. It actually means 'blond'. Our jovial morning juice seller uses it with gay abandon, even though we have told him our names. Several times.<br /><br />At this point, I feel compelled to make some comparisons between the continents we have visited. Cultural differences often form the subject matter of my English classes, for lack of more adventurous material (or preparation - unlike Tania). One observation I have made here is that Mexicans will tend to do anything to avoid sitting next to a potential 'gringo' on a bus. Or is that just me? It is possible (nay likely?) that I smell a bit - and after all, to Oriental Asians for example, we are supposed to smell quite rancid, as our diet includes milk which theirs doesn't - but I think rather than being outright xenophobia, it is more a fear of the unknown and, similarly to the Asians, a desire to 'save face', to not make a mistake. The saving face thing is not so unusual when you think about it, I mean no one exactly enjoys making a fool of themselves do they?<br /><br />One thing I loved about travelling in Africa is that on the smaller buses, it is most common for money to be handed to the driver via the hands of the other passengers. Even if a fair bit of change is coming your way, it always gets back to you - there is never any question of there being a risk. What I love about Mexico is that everyone always says 'provecho', or more fully 'buen provecho' to anyone who is eating in the vicinity. Essentially 'bon appetit', but literally meaning 'good profit', I understand that it is said pretty much without fail, regardless of locale, or the nationality or class of the beneficiary.<br /><br />The ubiquitous (in Thailand at least) Thai 'wai' greeting (hands together in prayer at the chest, the higher the fingers reach the more respect you are showing) is used more reservedly in Laos. Called the 'nop', here it retains the more original significance of respectful greeting between <strong>unequals</strong>. Generally initiated by the lower status, the respondent would normally offer a lower one in return. A book I read on Lao culture suggested that you should always offer a high one to a monk, and keep the rest for courteous responses. The same book told about a fascinating spontaneous occurrence among groups of Lao, what the author termed the 'whoop'. At an unspecified point during group conversations, everyone will simultaneously ejaculate a sound like a whoop, I guess. Even if you have been a part of the culture for a very long time, it is apparently nigh on impossible to predict when it will occur. The intention, if I remember correctly, is to express togetherness.<br /><br />to be continued......Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-56813807267922933562010-05-27T19:45:00.005+01:002010-05-27T21:00:29.577+01:00Still in Mexico City<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuVMfF632ws7eMb0NwFXnPwhToyXT2GRBTgRu6834UhovZPGZHilfRIy9aZDOCz4YxQHDoGW3UEjhtzMzOUc3OMfi-6XH_QJ5q0tfJi9kvrBbaEvhB_lOqIMU_fhXl29VZ0LjdnpBVfai2/s1600/castle1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 317px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuVMfF632ws7eMb0NwFXnPwhToyXT2GRBTgRu6834UhovZPGZHilfRIy9aZDOCz4YxQHDoGW3UEjhtzMzOUc3OMfi-6XH_QJ5q0tfJi9kvrBbaEvhB_lOqIMU_fhXl29VZ0LjdnpBVfai2/s400/castle1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476038336513771042" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCNVit-9-ZzCXnOccUY6qcgxPe7r-1yhnDQTflclrHFKOQsPvdMDa17w2x9lsipRMFfY7u1k1VoykZoVyJzsEoqthSN9K8eaJV3EZpobT8Yf3SAT_1lWAgc18TLJMj9gvVJR1UFqVlYj9J/s1600/Photo+173.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCNVit-9-ZzCXnOccUY6qcgxPe7r-1yhnDQTflclrHFKOQsPvdMDa17w2x9lsipRMFfY7u1k1VoykZoVyJzsEoqthSN9K8eaJV3EZpobT8Yf3SAT_1lWAgc18TLJMj9gvVJR1UFqVlYj9J/s400/Photo+173.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476037778054167202" /></a><br /><br /><div>... or DF (Distrito Federal), as they call it here.</div><div><br />Still teaching, going well, enjoyable as long as people don't call me at 5.45am to cancel their class. We've moved into an apartment with Juan Diego and Rosalba, a really nice couple of young Mexicans. It's a bit like like being students again, although we honestly are out at work most of the time.<br /><br />I'm doing some music with my Mexican friend Alejandro and we seem to be complementing each other's style quite successfully. Hoping to do some live sets, maybe in the <a href="http://www.hostelamigo.com/" target="_blank">Hostel Amigo</a>, where we first stayed when we got here. Also I caught up with a guy who used to be in the year above at St Benedict's - Greg Brosnan - who is working as a freelance journalist out here and has completed a short film with his girlfriend Jennifer about Guatemalans being restricted from working in Postville, Iowa and the severe implications this had on both their village in Guatemala and Postville itself. "In the Shadow of the Raid" is a great piece of work - you can see trailers and learn more <a href="http://streetdogmedia.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br />We had a couple of mad nights with Alex Forde, a very nice mentalist I met on my friend Neil's stag a few years ago. Alex lives in the nice part of town, which has been a very pleasant culture shock. We've been to a few parties, we've seen how Mexicans move, we desperately need to learn how to dance so that we can effectively function in this society.<br /><br />Above is what I look like at the moment, the beard is back again - although a trim is imminent, particularly if I want to find regular work in a school. The other pic is the beautiful Castillo de Chapultepec, where several Mexican presidents lived, now a museum. Chapultepec is from a Náhuatl word meaning "at the grasshopper's hill".<br /><br />We're living on about 12 US dollars a day each here. Here are some more INTERESTING facts about Mexico City:<br /><br />1. The metro costs 3 pesos per journey. That's like 25 cents.<br />2. The blind people who pass through the trains, singing and begging aren't really blind (allegedly).<br />3. Some of the most desperately poor throw broken glass on the floor of the train and jump and roll around on it b4 asking for money. We haven't seen this yet, but Juan Diego tells us it's true.<br />4. Pulque, an alcoholic drink which comes from the same type of plant as mescal and tequila (agave), has the exact colour and consistency of semen.<br />5. The correct Aztec way pf pronouncing Coyoacan is Coyo-A-can with the accent on the cap A.<br /><br />Food update - here are some of the things we eat regularly:<br /><br />Quesadillas, sopes, gorditas, huaraches - these are corn tortillas of varying size and consistency with various toppings of your choice. Refried beans, onions and cream are often involved - other toppings include longaniza (chorizo), quesillo (wicked stringy cheese from Oaxaca), mushrooms, aubergine flowers, chicharron (softened pork crackling), potatoes, sesos (calve's brains) etc etc. Pig's brains are also popular.<br /><br />You can have literally every cut of beef imaginable with your tacos - they love offal here. They also have big pork kebabs on rotating sticks, looking much like the turkish and leb stuff we have back home - but you have them with small tortillas (i.e. as tacos) and pineapple and the meat is called <a href="http://www.city-data.com/forum/mexico/709045-tacos-al-pastor-vs-doner-kebab.html" target="_blank">pastor</a>.<br /><br />Potzole is a meaty soup with bits of corn, served with tostadas (hardened tortillas) and cream, onions, lettuce and chilli. Caldo de gallina is a similar soup but made with chicken and with rice and chickpeas in. Tamales are meaty pasties served in plantain leaves. Some places do very nice camaron (prawn) tostadas and amazing fish soup.<br /><br />They also really unhealthy but delicious tortas (fried sandwiches) and hamburguesas - Tania reckons they are the best in the world. Fortunately, there are also lots of fruit/juice stalls all over the place - my favourite is alfalfa leaves blended with lemon, pineapple and guava. And everything is really good value, you can totally pig out for 3 dollars and a single quesadilla can be found for 40 cents.</div>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8804024145400648183.post-62010893427337509842010-04-28T16:50:00.005+01:002010-04-29T16:48:56.603+01:00Mexico CityI wasn't planning to come here and I certainly didn't do any research. Doh! California must have had a soporific effect on me, all that food and comfort - luxury, in fact. It was T's idea to travel overland from Mexico City to Guatemala. And 6 weeks later, we are still here, in Mexico City. Loving it. It's certainly big. And the culture is very interesting. People are into black magic here and their biggest festival is the Day of the Dead in November, where they celebrate lost ones.<br /><br />The weather is good, pretty much always sunny enough to burn. Showers don't last long and don't appear to be common right now, it must be a week since we saw any rain.<br /><br />We've met many nice people. Mexicans in general appear to be very gregarious and generous. And many are ambitious, certainly in the city where there is a lot of big business - the number of people keen to learn English is testament to this. There's a lot of tangible poverty ... and also enterprise. One example, which brightened up tube journeys for the first few times - and now is just annoying because I have settled back into walkman "shut-off" mode - is to go from carriage to carriage with a loudspeaker on your back, playing the hookey cds you are selling. All sorts of things are sold on the tube - books, learning dvds, sweets, pens. Sellers get on and loudly announce their wares, while most look on slightly bemused.<br /><br />There's a fair amount of wealth too. Centro Historico is (completely) owned by Carlos Slim Helú, 3rd richest person in the world, whose fortune is around $50 billion. You hear quite a lot about him here - many people don't want to give him any more money, which is difficult because he owns pretty much all the telecoms, facilities, banks and major stores in Mexico.<br /><br />Mexico has a tube system, pretty like our own. Using it every day, I am just starting to feel some of the same, familiar ... let's say "negative" .. feelings when it is very hot and packed. They don't mess about here, proper steam into the carriages. The tube was built in the 60s and won an award because it uses icons to distinguish each station, very important in a country where illiteracy is high. The system is good, but unfortunately not ideal for me, with my height - I have to stoop quite low in order to get the required angle to make out the station through the carriage window.<br /><br />Mexico City is at 2,200m, so climbing stairs is a surprising effort when you first get here. People from Mexico City have big rib cages, due to the aforementioned altitude. There's so much to see - many good museums, historical sites, markets, attractive areas. My current favourite is Coyoacan where I am right now. Too many tourists, but a really pretty church and square arrangement, little boutique stores, restaurants, cafes and bars and the residential areas are very European - wide streets, nice brickwork, trees. This is where I take most of my English lessons. Tania and I are both helping Mexicans to practise their conversational English, and - poco a poco - learning Spanish on the way.<br /><br />It's reasonably cheap to stay in Mexico City. We are still in a hotel room, because it is convenient and cheap ($10 a night for 2) but we are looking for an apartment, which will work out about the same price, but will involve some kind of kitchen space and living area, which will be nice. Food is plentiful, varied, not so healthy (on the whole), and cheap. Too much meat and cheese! (Good though). Tacos are around 50 cents each and many small local restaurants do 3 course meals for $3.<br /><br />Here are a few of the things we have seen whilst in Mexico City:<br /><br />1. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan" target="_blank">Teotihuacan Pyramids!</a><br />2. <a href="http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0604/floating_gardens_in_mexico_city.html" target="_blank">Floating gardens</a><br />3. City centre - particularly the <a href="http://www.mexicocity-guide.com/images/zones/centro/catedral_mexico.JPG" target="_blank">Cathedral</a> in the main square and <a href="http://destinosinolvidables.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/templo-mayor1.jpg" target="_blank">Templo Mayor</a> - the remnants of the Aztec Temple that the colonialists simply built over when they arrived, idiots. There's a big and growing archeological site in the middle of the city, there must be so much more under there. The ancient city was built on islands in the middle of 3 massive lakes surrounded by mountains. The earth is therefore very moist, leading to the interesting fact that Mexico City is sinking something like 4cm per year. The architecture in Centro Historico is both stunning and slightly "on the piss", as we say, due to the sinking.<br />4. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapultepec_Zoo" target="_blank">Chapultepec Zoo</a>. It's free!<br />5. The amazing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Antropolog%C3%ADa" target="_blank">Museum of Anthropology</a>, again in big and beautiful Chapultepec Park.<br />6. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyoac%C3%A1n" target="_blank">Coyoacan</a><br />7. Beautiful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tepoztl%C3%A1n" target="_blank">Tepoztlan</a><br /><br />And tons more - both seen and to see.<br /><br />That's it for now xAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12877258156973942008noreply@blogger.com3