San Cristobal de las Casas and Oaxaca City

I really liked San Cristobal. The centre is very lovely to walk because they've closed some streets to vehicular traffic, so it's easy to stroll down the Main Street (complete with buntings in Mexican flag colours overhead) and look in the little shops and cafés. At the very end of the pedestrian street is a cute yellow and white church on a hill. Another amazing church is a few blocks away, surrounded by a local craft market (which I spent a little toooo long at). There's also the main square (zócalo) with, you guessed it, another church. It makes such a difference when a city is easy to stroll around. I remember being "over" Hanoi very quickly (years ago) because the part I was staying in had very heavy scooter traffic, and the sidewalks were completely clogged with parked scooters, so you really had no where to walk without getting hit. 

I stayed in a lovely cosy little hostel with sunny courtyards (complete with hummingbirds) and fantastically hot showers. It gets really cold in San Cristobal. It's kind of like a Biloela winter in that you need to really rug up at night (I had 3 thick woollen blankets on my bed) but then when the sun is out during the day you have to peel off all the layers back down to a tshirt and shorts (unless you're in the shade - where it's a bit nipply).

I only stayed one night as time is running out but could easily have stayed for several! 

Next was Oaxaca City. It was an overnight bus from SC that began with a man in a uniform that said "privado seguridad" (private security) taking a video of the faces of everyone sitting on the departing bus. So there's a video of me scowling in confusion as to why I'm being videoed floating around Mexico somewhere. Then we were woken at around 4am and had to get off the bus for a security checkpoint, which involved them selecting a few random bags to unzip and look at. Completely pointless. Then at 5:30am a guy in a spiffy all red uniform came through the bus to look at us, check the toilets, then get off the bus. I'm not sure what this was supposed to achieve. I guess none of us looked like villains. 

Oaxaca is another cute city, I preferred San Cristobal though. More old churches, more markets, more old buildings. I found that Oaxaca was a bit bigger and had more big, expensive restaurants, shops etc and less of the small cute ones that San Cristobal had. So San Cristobal wins. I spent my last morning there looking around for 'milagro' which are little metal charms that are traditionally used for asking for blessings. Eg. If you had a sore/broken arm you would go and buy a little metal arm milagro and pray for your healing. Then, when your arm got better you would go to a cathedral and leave it there as an offering of thanks. In craft shops I've seen big crosses or hearts covered in these milagro charms and I really like them but they're super expensive, so I've bought a tonne of the charms and I'm going to make some myself when I'm home!! 

Next instalment: Mexico City. 

Merida, Tulum y Palenque

The hostel I stayed at in Merida was amazing. I walked the couple of kilometres there with my pack because I'm stubborn and knew the taxi drivers were trying to overcharge me. It meant that I got my bearings and understood the layout of the city quite quickly though. The hostel had a resort style swimming pool with hammocks, free yoga, cooking classes and traditional live guitar music at night.. And a lot of cool people! 

Met a couple of guys from San Diego traveling together and went with them to the ruins at Uxmal. I found them more exciting than Chichen Itza because you're still allowed to climb some of the pyramids. A lot of "maintenance" had been done on the site which meant a lot of very obvious concrete work which I thought was a bit of a shame/eyesore. Could have been more subtle/sensitive. One of my favourite parts of the grounds was a part they hadn't fully excavated that was left to the jungle.. Made you feel like you were discovering something. There were hundreds of iguanas living on the grounds which were both entertaining to watch and scary when you almost stepped on them. 

We had to wait on the side of the road to be picked up by the bus on the way through. Luckily there was also a Chocolate Museum right there. There were a lot of strange flavours including corn chip. I bought a brick of chocolate for the 3 of us to share (it was gone before the bus arrived).

The next day I went on a tour to Celestun to see flamingos! I had no idea that their pink feathers are caused by the shrimp they eat! We took a boat out on the river amongst the flocks. You could clearly see the different large groups, apparently these are large families that stick together. Sometimes teenage flamingos go off and start their own new group. I imagined them off sneaking alcohol and smoking. 

The day after I left for Tulum. I easily could have stayed for days more in Merida but I'm running out of time. I met the San Diego boys on the bus to Tulum, they'd spent the night in Valladolid to check out Chichen Itza. The three of us stayed in a cabaña across the road from the beach in Tulum, in a hippie sort of bamboo place. We had our own cenote in our backyard and free kayaks to use. I became the chef whilst the other two became cleaner and chauffeur. 

We spent 3 days in Tulum exploring cenotes, ruins and beaches. The taxi drivers are backed by the gangsters and charge ridiculous amounts of money to get between the town and beach (about 150 pesos/$14 AUD). The colectivos only cost 20 pesos but have been intimidated into not picking to white people so that we are forced into paying the ridiculous taxi prices. Well, we weren't having a bar of that so we rented a car. Per day it cost just over the equivalent of a trip to town and back... And then we split that between the 3 of us. And just to spite the taxi drivers we picked up as many white hitchikers as we could. 

Everything around Tulum is so beautiful. The turquoise waters of the cenotes is crystal clear. I spent a lot of time snorkelling around exploring the underwater caves and swimming with the fish. They're all so deep too, usually 5-8m and then there's the underground caves. Many people scuba dive and swim around the cave systems. I remember seeing a documentary at home about scuba divers mapping out the cenotes all connected by these underwater caves that eventually lead to the ocean. 

Eventually we had to part ways - the boys have gone road tripping small seaside towns towards Belize and I've gone to Palenque to see the ruins. I'll see them again in San Diego before I fly home though!

I stayed just outside the ruin entry at a commune of sorts called El Panchan. There's 3 or 4 hostels and a couple of restaurants set amongst jungle, walking distance to the ruins. I spent a day exploring the Palenque ruins and they're my favourite that I've seen on this trip, almost rivalling Angkor in Cambodia for all time favourite. They feel very "tomb raider" because they're so hemmed in by jungle, a lot of which you have to walk through to reach the different parts of the ruins. Like Uxmal, you can still climb through/on a lot of the site. Only about 10% of Palenque is actually restored, the rest of the enormous site is still covered by jungle. It was beautiful exploring the moss covered ruins in the dappled light that sneaks through the jungle canopy, and there's a stream with waterfalls running through the site. Really really gorgeous. 

I have to add that in El Panchan there was a restaurant called Don Muchos and they make their own pasta. I had 4 cheese tagliatelli and it was so damn delicious. Also it came with a side salad so I'm totally healthy. I really really miss fresh salad and vegies (ones that aren't fried). 

I'm in San Cristobal de la Casas now and it is also a beautiful town! I want more time! 

Cancún and Valladolid

So Cancún kinda sucks. It kinda felt like just a piece of the USA transported down South. There's not much to do other than go to the beach (most of which has been claimed by big resorts) or pay $80USD to go out to big tacky night clubs. Just wasn't feeling it to be honest. 

"Come play beer pong" 

 

That's how I was feeling. 

Buuuuuut now I'm in a town called Valladolid which is really cute with a bunch of pastel coloured colonial buildings and it actually feels like I'm in Mexico and I like it here. 

Caught my first Mexican bus here. Was pretty easy. Opted to walk to the hostel from the bus station here rather than spend money on a taxi. It was midday and I had my increasingly heavy pack on but since the streets are numbered (ie calle 37, calle 38 etc) I figured it'd be easy to find the hostel and close by. No. Not easy. I started at Calle 41.. Had to get to Calle 38. Easy, 3 blocks! No. Next block was Calle 39... Okay... Then Calle 37... Huh?? Ok.. I know it's on Calle 38 between Calle 43 and Calle 45... Maybe I'll find 43 and 45 and then Calle 38 will magically appear. No. Walked around in circles. Between 37 and 39 I stopped and asked a guy in my budding Spanish, "where is Calle 38?!?"

 "Calle 38??" he says, "I don't know... Calle 38.. *confused face*... Hey dude.. Where's Calle 38??"

"Ummm. Just keep going that way"

"That way? straight?"

"yep. That way" ***

***loose translation 

Well no, it was not that way. I didn't believe that Calle 38 came after Calle 37 and 39 so I just jumped in a taxi (more than half an hour after I first started walking). Turns out that all the odd streets run one way, and all the even streets run the other way. But could I figure that out? No sir. 

My hostel here is rather cute. I'm sitting in a rocking chair on my front porch writing this. 

Today another girl from the hostel (Megan) and I went to Chichen Itza. Except instead of having to catch a bus, we caught a lift with two Mexican guys staying at our hostel that had rented a car. Winner. They didn't give off any rapey vibes so I figured it'd be fine. We got there just as it opened and before the hoards of tour buses arrived. Walked around all the ruins. Was pretty cool. Then we drove to another cenote for a swim and then drove home. This is sounding really brief but I'm not sure what else to write other than it was a fun day!

Off to Merida tomorrow, the biggest city in the Yucatan. 

Panama City

I spent I think 6 nights in Panama City doing a whole lot of not much and it was lovely. 

A lot of us from the boat trip were all staying at the same hostel so I had a pretty big posse for a few days. 

Did the mandatory trip to the Panama Canal and stood and watched for an eternity as a freight ship and a cruise liner both slooooowly made their way down the miraflores locks. It costs like 150-300k for a boat to pass through the Panama Canal! Because the canal was built all the way across Panama through mountains etc... Boats need to be raised and then lowered back down to sea level and the series of locks is where this occurs. Took me a while (and watching it) to get my head around it. 

Also discovered the amazing existence of ceviche which is raw seafood cured in like juice with onion. I went to the fish market 3 times to eat it. It only costs $2.25 and comes in a styrofoam cup with crackers on the side. I'm craving some now. So fresh and delicious. 

I also spent an afternoon walking around the old town. Interesting the old town is always the nicest part of the city to stroll around - because they were built for pedestrians rather than cars. Something I think we need to consider.

The rest of the time I relaxed, napped and watched movies! Was a really good break! Cancun now. X

San Blas Islands

We left early in the morning from Cartagena on the organised transport to our departure point in Sapzurro. First step was a long ass van ride to Turbo, split into 2 stages. Luckily the vans weren't crowded and it was actually quite a pleasant drive through rural areas of Colombia. 

We stayed the night in Turbo, which is basically a hole. Grabbed some supplies for the trip, stayed in a shifty hostel. Woke up and found the room had flooded somehow and my only pair of shorts were dripping wet and the rest of my luggage partially wet. So this is how I ended up wearing a ridiculous maxi dress tied up around my knees on the long boat ride to Capurgana. 

We waited at the dock and wrapped out belongings in garbage bags before finally getting to board our fast boat. The boat ride was insanely rough like a roller coaster as we jumped and smacked down over 8ft swells. I enjoyed probably 80% of the trip, yelling and laughing. Others didn't enjoy it so much. 

Almost 4h later we got off the boat at Capurgana where we were to meet the rest of our group for the next 4 days. We also met our group leader Tess and helpers Chantal and Bas. Lunch, chatting, etc. Had to stamp out of Colombia at the immigration office there so was technically nowhere overnight. 

THEN we caught another boat 10min to Sapzurro where we were to stay the night. As we were getting all the luggage out of the boat, an Aussie guy in the group hopped back in to pass the luggage out. He had just climbed in and had his hand resting on the side of the boat when it bumped back into the dock, completely squishing and pulverising his pinky finger. I saw bone. And blood. Lots of blood. They quickly evacuated him back to Capurgana, as there's slightly more chance of medical help there then in Sapzurro. Luckily and coincidentally there was a Western doctor couple staying there and they were able to give him some good drugs and put the finger back onto the (broken) bone and wrap it up... But he then had to take the 3-4h boat back to Turbo that night for surgery. Booooo. 

Meanwhile a few of us took a stroll over to Panama. I amused myself by jumping between the two countries and then sitting on the statue that demarcates the borderline, therefore technically sitting betweeeeeen the two countries. I felt invincible but realistically I'm sure the dudes with big guns there could still shoot my ass. 

Dinner was a whole baked fish. Yum. I somehow managed to score a double bed and slept spread eagle. 

The next morning was the official start to the trip through the Islands. Half the day was spent going through Panama immigration (had to pull all out bags out of their waterproof wrappings so they could get the sniffer dog to go through them all... Ironically the sniffer dogs never went near us, nor were we even patted down) and then boating to our first island for lunch. On the way we passed the area where Scotland attempted and failed to colonise part of the Darien in the late 17th century which lead to Scotland almost bankrupting itself. I'd never heard of this before and have done a bit of residing on it since - very interesting. The area is still uninhabited except for probably a bunch of druglords and you can apparently still find a bunch of ruins from the first attempts at Scottish settlement. If I were rich, I'd hire a bunch of body guards and go find them all. 

We stayed in a Kuna village on one of the Islands that night and learnt a lot about Kuna culture. Here's some kuna facts for you. The Kuna people originated in what is now Colombia but were pushed up into the Darien by the conquistadors. Then they moved out to the Islands. They removed most of the mangroves and planted palm trees. This is where they earn most their income. Every coconut in the San Blas belongs to someone. There's even a system in place where they can get monetary loans from Colombia and pay them back in coconuts. There are 362 Islands and I think 42 Kuna village. They are completely self governed after they fought for their independence in 1925. Panama started imposing taxes and laws and restrictions on them so they waited until the night of Panama's Independence Day when everyone was drunk and ran in and massacred a bunch of people. And no one has messed with the Kuna since. Each island has their own chief called a 'silas', elected democratically, and then a 'congresso' of advisors. The chief is responsible for learning all the history I the kuna and transmitting this information to the people via song. The marriage ritual is particularly interesting, part of which involves the husband and wife being swung around naked in a hammock. Girls are also very much revered as bearers of life, and there are big celebrations when a girl turns 5 and when a girl starts menstruating, which involve the whole island getting drunk on a liquor they make themselves. Final fun fact, they consider albinos "children of the moon" and when there's a lunar eclipse all the albinos go outdoors and shoot arrows at the dragon covering the moon, while everyone else must stay indoors. Because of this special position they have in Kuna society, vs being shunned like a lot of the rest of the world, the San Blas actually has the third highest albino population in the world, supposedly. 

On the second day we went and played on "No Name Jungle Island" which is it's legitimate name. Lots of snorkelling and frolicking. Then we stayed in another Kuna village that night. Went for a walk from one side of the island to the other. There was a family with a weird sort of mini zoo set up on their patio with some love birds, and iguana, a turtle, a mini monkey and a HONEY BADGER. I don't know for sure that it was a honey badger but I think it was and so I'm going to say it was. Saw some traditional dancing, an albino, had kids jump all over me, found a church some missionaries built a long time ago, and watched a pack of young guys jog around the island doing military chants. A very interesting stroll. I was also carrying around a tiny 5 week old orphan kitten named Jessica who I decided to make my baby for the night. Saaaa cute. 

The next day we boated to an island that we would stay on for the whole day and night. Quite a bit smaller, only one kuna family living on it, and surrounding by reef and turquoise water. On the way though we did get into a boat crash. How does this happen when you have an entire ocean around you? Beats me. We saw another fast boat on a direct collision course with us for about half a minute, and we were all sitting there thinking it must have been a joke because no one was doing anything about it. Until the lat few seconds when it became clear yet were about to T-bone us. They turned their boat at the last second and we clashed side on, luckily no one had their fingers outside the boat this time. It was funny seeing everyone's reactions, diving for the water, crouching down and covering themselves etc. I just remember watching the boat coming, thinking "yep this boat is a wreck and we'll be in the water shortly" and watching the terrified faces of the kuna women on the other boat as they clutched their children close. Luckily there was miraculously no damage in the end but we were all pretty shaken and thinking.. wtf just happened. I think the two drivers both kept second guessing each other, thinking the other would turn. And the other driver was probably drunk. It took about 5min for my adrenaline to properly kick in but I was flying after that. WE'RE ALIVE BITCHES WOOOOOOO!!! 

But then we got to our paradise island. We all did the usual island stuff but some of the guys organised a Survivor style island Olympics as well which was very fun and got everyone involved, and slightly intoxicated. Seafood dinner, so much lobster we couldn't even eat it all. Bonfire, roasted marshmallows, ukulele singalongs, skinny dipping with PHOSPHORESCENCE in the water!! Have you ever seen phosphorescence? It's the most beautiful thing. This was the second time I've seen it and I think I stayed in the ocean about an hour just splashing around to see it light up like underwater stars. 

 

Leisurely morning, pack up, went to our smallest and last island for the trip. Was like a postcard. This little bit of land, full of palm trees, white sand and surrounded by crystal clear water. It even had palm trees leaning out over the water like you see in resort brochures. More snorkelling. Tonnes of giant starfish and I even saw two stingrays. The water is so salty that it takes zero effort to float, making snorkelling super easy. At one point I was floating in the midst of a school of thousands of tiny colourful fish. 

It really was such an amazing adventure and I will never ever forget my days in paradise. Panama post coming soon x

Colombia - the very delayed post

Colombia was amazing. And one epic party. Don't get me wrong - I still got stuff done. But wow. 

Medellín was a really interesting city. The taxi drive from the airport is pretty epic. I arrived at night and it's an hour long trip, at about 15-20min in you go over a ridge and all of a sudden you can see all the lights of the city below. My taxi guy thought he was a rally car driver and was doing triple the speed limit weaving and winding down the mountain range. 

I stayed in the beautiful leafy backpacker area of Poblado in a great hostel called Happy Buddha. Despite its reputation as being a party hostel, the facilities were pretty schmick. My dorm had its own bathroom attached with 2 showers, toilet and double basin. Considering there was only 8 of us at full capacity, that's a pretty good person to shower ratio. 

Met a bunch of really cool people, lots of Aussies too. At one stage there were 5 of us there who realised we all lived within a 3km radius of each other back home. Needless to say there will be a reunion. 

Met up with Jen from work back home and her fiancé (who's from Medellín but lives in Melbourne and his also an architect) for lunch and Eduardo took me to meet his previous coworkers at his old firm, Opus. A few days later I went back and met with them again and spent time there having the history and development of the city and the slums explained to me and asking questions. Was very worthwhile. 

Medellín has built a number of projects to try and improve life in the slums. One of those projects is a series of "parque bibliotecas" (park libraries) in the slums or low income areas. They provide a place to access computers, books and free learning workshops, but are also located on large sites with gardens, playgrounds, basketball courts etc. I visited 3 of these parque bibliotecas over a couple days, each designed by a different architect.

Medellín has also built 2 "metro cables" which are cable cars up to the top of the steep slums that are linked in with the metro train infrastructure. One of them is a very popular tourist activity because you get to fly over the slum but can also pay to get to a park right up the top of the mountain. One of the parque bibliotecas is mid way up so I got off and strolled around and over to the library. The Main Street was so busy and noisy, very full of life. The library itself was closed for repairs (it was sponsored by the Spanish royal family who had a set date to come and "open" the library so the end of the initial construction was very rushed and therefore shoddy) but was a good experience just seeing where it's located. It has quite a presence up on the mountain, and a very grand scale compared to the surrounding self built houses. 

The other metrocable and library were located in Communa 13 which is apparently somewhere you just can't go as a tourist. Well I wasn't so convinced so I went anyway. A very tall american friend I met at the hostel decided to come with me to take a look, not really knowing where I was taking him. I think the look on his face when he realised where we were ("hang on... Are we in Communa 13?!? Everyone has told me I can't go here!) was the funniest part of the day. We rode the metro cable up to the top and back, at the top they're building big "social housing" apartment blocks where they've rehoused some of the city's slum residents. Esteban at OPUS was explaining the various problems this creates. Considering Medellín's very violent history, a lot of people from different areas in the city don't trust each other and are afraid of getting attacked still, even though this is mostly just imagined and no longer the reality. 

Next I flew to Cartagena where I met with a couple of the guys I'd met in Medellín, and also Amanda who I met in Rio. I stayed in the old city which is full of brightly coloured Spanish colonial houses. More partying ensued. 

The rest of Rio + a bit of Bogota

Rio. Wow. I love it so much.

Let's see... what did I do my last week...

Well I went hangliding! Turns out it was exactly a year from when I went paragliding in Nepal. I had a driver, Miguel, pick me up at 7:30am and drive me to the beach landing site. There I met the instructor/guy responsible for my life, Renato. He was really lovely and professional and spoke great English. We did the paperwork and then drove up the mountain to the launch site. Seeing the ramp we had to run off was a little daunting. It doesn't feel like just attaching yourself to a 40kg kite would allow you to fly. We practised the 'running together off the ramp' part a few times and then waited for the wind to be at optimal take-off conditions. I have to say that after failing the first attempt at take-off when I went paragliding a year ago, I was a bit nervous that the same would happen this time. "Don't worry," says Renalto, "That doesn't happen with hangliding, you have to take off the first time or crash." I think this was supposed to reassure me. 

Well, we didn't crash and it was a lot of fun. I prefer it to paragliding because you lie down and feel like a bird.

For NYE in Rio everyone wears all white outfits and coloured underwear depending on what you wish for in the new year (pink for love, yellow for money etc), so I had some shopping to do. It wasn't hard since every store was purposefully displaying all their white clothing together. 

On New Years Eve Eve (the 30th) I went out for "one beer", a quiet night with a few friends. Ended up seeing the sunrise (most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen). Have you been skinny dipping in Ipanema? I have. 

On actual New Years Eve I (understandably) woke up late, got ready, and went out again. A few friends I´d met at a hostel had a friend living in a block from the beach in Copacabana who had booked the rooftop area (with BBQ and pool) for a NYE party complete with DJ and great view of the fireworks. Needless to say I tagged along. It was good to have a place to base ourselves for the night, considering that more than 2 million people flock to Copacabana beach to party. It gets very very crowded, especially near the main stage. We saw in the New Year with champagne and then went down to the beach to samba samba. 

The next night was my last night in Rio :( I went back to the Vidigal favela for a BBQ and some drinks and said goodbye to some friends. Didn´t want to leave :(

The next day I flew to Bogota. Business class. Because I can. And because it was on my bucket list. I checked in and the airport nice and early and went and sat in the VIP lounge. It´s a shame that at 10am after 3 consecutive nights of partying I didn´t feel like drinking because man they had a lot of free booze. I ate my fill of free food and then went to the gate. I liked being one of those business class people that skip the inevitable massive line up to get on the plane a little too much I think. Hehe. I really could get used to business class service. Our dedicated flight attendant came and introduced himself, asked what I would like to drink and at which point during the flight (champagne, please) and gave me my menu options. They even laid out a table cloth on the tray table. Three course meal plus snacks. The entree was salmon, main was chicken and potatoes and dessert was a big delicious scoop of icecream with my choice of toppings (caramel and almonds, thankyou). It was super awesome.

I´m in Bogota now. I was understandably exhausted when I got here and have spent a lot of time catching up on sleep. Have done some walking around and sight seeing. I went to the Botero gallery yesterday, where they even have works by Picasso, Miro etc. I really love Botero´s work. Had some beers at a very bohemian bar owned by an old crazy, drunk poet. Loved it there. Going back on Monday when they host local poets reading their work (not that I´ll understand it but I´m sure it´ll be beautiful all the same). Off to explore a market now.