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.