Puerto Escondido and onto San Cristobal de las Casas

After a flight and a 2 hour bus we arrived in Puerto Escondido. This is Isabel´s favourite place in mexico (specifically the beach beside Puerto called Zicatela). We had intended on spending 4 days here but checked our calendar and decided on a fifth night.

After being in cool climates around Mexico city the temperatures were soaring here again, in and around 35 deg C at its hottest. The five days were nice and relaxing and neither of us got up to a whole lot. The town was nice and laid back and hasn´t turned into a real resort beach yet so still attracts the backpackers and surfers. It had recently been battered by a hurricane and by recently I mean 4 weeks ago. The government acted quickly and cleaned up the area. When we arrived there was only evidence of the damage if you were looking out for it.

The day after we arrived we took a surfing lesson. Isabel was pretty proud of herself as it was her first time out so far in the ocean making good use of her swimming. The lessons weren´t great but it was good fun to be out trying to catch the infamous waves on the Oaxaca coast. Back further up the beach the real surfers hung out catching much more massive waves. One of the days we just lay on the Zicatela beach watching with awe the power of these waves. Whatever the shape of the shelf the waves that form are extremely large. We also took it handy that same afternoon and lay about in hammocks which is a new found hobby of mine.

The only other activity we took part in was a day trip to Masunte... it was another beach. Unsurprisinly we lay around reading and... laying around. Hanging out on the beaches of Mexico is really tough work.Although it was very very hot so by that token it was sometimes difficult.

Puerto Escondido has a market every night on it´s main street. Most of the items being sold are more or less the same as we have seen everywhere else in Mexico at this stage. It added a nice atmosphere to the main street and it was also nice not to have every vendor trying to shove something in your face.

The area is nice and chilled out and obviously I thoroughly enjoyed the chilling out. I can imagine that Puerto wouldn´t be everybody´s cup of tea. It´s slightly off the beaten track, even though there are regular buses there all the time. Now after saying that I´m thinking that it is also an extremely popular place for those on the backpack trail. It´s well known for people to stay for up to months here but unless sand and surf are your things a shorter trip might be more recommended. We both liked it so maybe deciding for yourself would be best.

From Puerto Escondido we did what many many backpackers have done before us, we took an overnight bus to San Cristobal de las Casas (where I´m currently typing from). I´d like to clarify I wouldn´t completely classify ourselves as backpackers. Overall we are taking this trip a little more cushier than the average backpacking trip in my opinion. I guess some days we are some days we aren´t.

The town of San Cristobal is yet another picturesque place we have been too in mexico city. The hostel is as hostel as you can get. Really nice people (some that we met in Puerto) good staff and a great atmosphere to boot. We spent the day yesterday wandering around the town being led by the lonely planet and the map we took from the hostel. After all the sites which we weren´t honestly too bothered about we stopped for some lunch and stayed there the afternoon watching the opening ceremony of the olympics, which we could have done at home I guess. (Oh and it´s quite cool temperature wise here as we are up the mountains.) And then the heavens opened and said "Ronan, you´re Irish, you missed the rain while you were in Puerto, have some to make up for that". We got soaked and plodded back, dried ourselves and ordered some food to be delivered to the hostel (see not backpacky at all).

The day dried up today and we begun anew. Now I feel bad because without checking I have no idea where  we went today. We took a tour with 10 or so others from the hostel to a nearby river and canyon and took a boat trip around it for about 2 hours or so. The views were splendid and I took lots and lots of pictures. Probably won´t get a chance to upload them now... just checked and the name of the canyon was Sumidero Canyon. There´s a nice link for those of you who wish to expand your knowledge of Canyons in Mexico.

Tomorrow we take a bus early to Palenque to see some ruins and then overnight from there towards Cancun and Playa del Carmen. That sentence has put an abrupt ending to this installment, but I will write more next week.

Guanajuato

Isabel and I got out of D.F. after about ten days or so and took a trip to Guanajuato. Guanajuato is a small colonial town about 5 hours north of Mexico city. It's built in the shadow of some mountains (which ones I'm not sure) and developed around a huge silver and gold mine that they still mine out of today. I believe at one time it produced 20% of the world's silver. Many of the town's buildings are painted vibrant colours which led to wonderful views across the valley we were starting.

I was like a bear with a sore paw after 5 hours on a bus and when we arrived we found our hostel was 167 steps up the side of the hill. Thankfully the taxi dropped us at the top and we only had to walk down with our bags.

The hostel we stayed was called La Casa de Dante. It was a lovely place.The owner lets local art students decorate it and keeping in theme with the town it was very colorful. The hostel did an authentic breakfast and the owner was really kind and motherly to everyone there. Her and Isabel had a great chat about how the politics on Mexico were a little dodgy.

The first evening we had a wander down into the historic center. This area is one way because the streets are so narrow. And through all the hills run a series of tunnels for traffic going in other directions.

The squares and plazas were full of music and noise. Plenty of bars cafes and restaurants and hundreds selling all the normal bits and pieces. Unlike places we had already visited Guanajuato was more arts orientated and the merchants were a lot less tacky.

The following day we led ourselves around and visited some of the museums. I really enjoyed the Diego Rivera muesum. He was an artist who was quite outspoken against the government of his time. The museum was actually the house he lived in in Guanajuato.

We also took a trip to the historical museum for the entire area. Guanajuato played a large part in Mexican history but I will do it a terrible injustice by trying to repeat my half cocked knowledge.

The low-light of my day was a trip to see the mummies of Guanajuato. These are mummies from relatively recent times. However the display of them is a huge money spinner. To me it appeared disrespectful to the bodies so we left quite quickly. I also gave them a bad review on google.

There was this fantastic handcraft market back closer to where we were staying. So far this trip they were certainly the best we had seen. Of course we had to by a few bits. (Nothing like the last purchase thankfully).

During term the population swells with 20000 students. The affect of this could be seen in the youth around the historic center. I believe there is also a town nearby (in Mexican terms) that attracts the older generations. I highly recommend everyone that has the chance to come here though.

That evening we sat on the balcony of the hostel with some of the other residents and the owner and had a beer before venturing back into the town. Isabel got something stuck in her eye. She wasn't happy. I got her a chocolate and banana crepe to cheer her up. It did.

After seeing how beautiful Guanajuato is/was I think we both would have like to have spent more time in it. Unfortunately we could only spend two nights as we had to come back to Mexico city on Friday for out flight to Huatulco on Saturday.

We are currently in Puerto Escondido a small beach town on the Pacific coast in Oaxaca. I'll write more of it next time round. I think we will be home in two weeks today. I better check that before then though.

Mexico City

In my last installment I gave a brief insight into how I felt about Mexico city and the general vibe of the place. since we were there for over a week I'm going to only write a paragraph on each activity or outing and if anyone would like to know more it get some extra info on anything on particular just drop a comment below. Edit: I've nearly split it up per day.

As I covered previously we arrived in on Tuesday 10th (July) and stayed with Isabel's friends. We met up with Karina at around 15:30. Karina brought us out locally for some pulque. It's a native Mexican drink from the south of the country. It has become a quite popular drink in this part of Mexico over the last while. Later on that evening I got an assortment of pulque with a delicious steak burrito when Nicia met us.

As the girls were working we made our way around the following day to catch some sites. We rode the subway to the bus station and got a bus about an hour outside the city to Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan isn't the Mexican (new) wonder of the world; that is a temple in Yutacan which we are panning to visit in as few weeks. We climbed one of the pyramids which offered wonderful views of the surrounding countryside as well as the other temple/pyramid and entire heritage site. There was also an excellent museum that displays artifacts from the ancient city. One thing that really got under my skin was the swarms of merchants selling absolute crap all over the ruins. It really took from the magnificence of the 2000 or so year old city.

I'm struggling to remember which order we did things in. I think it was Wednesday that we took the subway to the middle of the city and hung out around Centro Histórico (no prizes for guessing what that is). This part of the city is built directly over the original Aztec city. They are still excavating parts but have uncovered a substantial temple just off the main square. It was found by some workers laying cables... even though the ruins had a huge modern age sewer running directly through them. We mooched around a bit, bought a Spanish grammar book (still to be used) and headed towards one of the main or rather iconic streets in the city, Paseo de la Reforma. It was around rush hour when we started making our way back so we decided to walk the whole length of the street to Condesa where we were staying. The walk took about an hour but we got to see a huge portion of the business/skyscraper end of the city. We also saw some people protesting against the dodgy guy who is cheating his way into the presidency here too, but it was only a small protest.

That night we met up with the girls and took a free salsa lesson in one of the bars around the corner from their apartment. I can't say I'm an expert yet, but I definitely know more than when I started (which I guess wouldn't be hard). Needless to say my legs were quite tired after the day walking and night dancing.

We waited in the apartment the next day for Mayela and Gizeh to arrive. We went out for some afternoon pulque and then a few drinks back in the apartment. In relation to "seeing" Mexico city we only got to see how busy a bar can get after work time on a Friday.

The above left some of the ladies a little worse for wear so not a whole lot happened Saturday morning. We all got some tasty tostadas in a market Nicia brought us to later that day. Mexico city also has it's own little series of canals in one part of the city so we took a boat out and around it for a few hours. It's an extremely popular thing to do and seemed to be enjoyed by all ages. I think I put some pictures up, and if I didn't I have some to add.

On Sunday we all went to a tiny little market selling absolutely amazing handcrafts. Spent a fortune. Gizeh was departing and after leaving her at a metro the remainers caught a Luche Libre event. I think we were there for 2 or 3 hours in total. It was a little slow to start but when it got going it entertained immensely. Unfortunately I've no pictures because we had to check our cameras in before entering.

We saw Mayela off on Monday and spent a good portion of the day between the craft market (see above) and dhl, trying to post something home. For you the reader that's not important or interesting. Moving onto Tuesday we watched Spiderman in the cinema. It was our lazy day so I shan't bore you with that either.

After over a week in Mexico city I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Currently we have taken a few days out to visit Guanajuato which is a colonial town 4 hours north of Mexico city. I'm going to hit the hay now so I can fill you in on it next. If I think of anything else I'll add it to this post because I know there it's plenty I haven't mentioned.

Creel to Mazatlan to Mexico city

The last two posts weren't real posts, just adding a few pictures. Since I wrote last (properly) we were still up the mountains in Chihuahua. So I guess I'll begin leaving Creel on La Chepe.

To begin with our train was about 45 minutes late arriving at/leaving creel. We made ourselves comfortable and away we went. Unfortunately the bad weather persisted throughout the train journey. We set off around midday and didn't arrive to Los Mochis until 23:00. The views were fantastic but the duration of the journey took from it over all I think. If you were to start in Los Mochis and do the trip in the other direction it would be more enjoyable. I don't think the photos I took did the views justice either but it was definitely worth seeing. By the time the train stopped we were tired and cranky and had to make or way to the bus station (which we thought we were to late for because of the train delays). We got this taxi with the craziest driver I've every had the luxury if meeting. He nearly cashed twice in the 10 minute drive from the train to the bus. Luckily we caught the last bus of the day.

Alas this bus didn't do anything for my faith in Mexican transport. The seats were ok but the air conditioning nearly cut me in half it was so cold. Isabel wrapped her head in my Irish flag to keep warm. This journey lasted a mere 7 hours and my throat was raw when we made it to Mazatlan.

Mazatlan is a nice town on the Pacific coast. It's not quite a beach resort town but it's not that far from being one either. We stayed in the old town which was a little more cultured than the high rise hotels at the other end of the town (it might be a city, I'll have to check). I added a few nice pics of the sunset from our balcony. Other than some gorgeous food and sitting around on the beach for two days we didn't get up to a whole lot more that I can report about. One thing of note was the taxis. They are small cars, open sided and are known as pulmonias because with the air blowing against you with the open sides you get pulmonia a sickness of the lungs. (I think I could have described that better but I'm tired).

Mazatlan paved the way for Mexico City or D.F. (pronounced de effay). D.F. stands for district federal. AeroMexico gave us premier class seats because Isabel signed up for the frequent flyer program. We think this is the reason we were upgraded but neither of us were complaining.

An excellent taxi service took us all the way to the girl's apartment. We got there at 15:30 approx and the traffic was pretty hectic. Note this wasn't rush hour.

I think I'll use this entry to tell you of Mexico city in general rather than everything we've done already, and use the following entry to cover what we've gotten up to.

We are staying with Isabel's friends Karina and Nicia (Niz-y-a) from back home in Juarez who now work in Mexico city. Today is Saturday and we got here on Tuesday after two days in Mazatlan just to bring you up to date.

Mexico City has a population of 21 million people or so. I was expecting mobs of people everywhere on the streets, constant traffic, packed subways etc. I was also expecting to be overwhelmed with the hustle and bustle as well. So far after five days I haven't. We have been based for the most part in the city center and central districts. I imagine the millions that make up the 21 million reside outside these areas. I think I found London to be busier when I was there. Here has massive wide streets through the middle of the city which alleviates the claustrophobic feeling large cities can give.

The area we are currently staying is the "trendy" area. There are countless numbers of bars, restaurants and cafés of all manners decorating every street. It also has two parks (that need a little extra grass). All in all this area seems to have a similar vibe to cities I've visited closer to home and think a lot of friends and acquaintances of mine would really like it here.

The main street runs below numerous high rise skyscrapers, all that seem relatively new, giving the city a real modern focal point. Maybe it was my ignorance but Mexico city is way nicer than I had imagined.

The people seem pretty nice. Other than the friends of friends that we've met I mean. They were also nice though. I stick out like a sore thumb being as pasty white as I am but I think people just notice me more. I have a memory of being starred at on the metro in Rome and in comparison that doesn't happen here even though I don't see a huge amount of white people per day (and that's even with us hitting all the tourist spots).

From what I've seen is that the majority of the people living here are Mexican or certainly Latin. Comparing Dublin you can see a huge mix of different races walking down O'Connell street. Mexico city is a hub city in this part of the world and I expected it to be more of a mixing pot. I don't know if it it's the district we are staying or if we just haven't happened across other communities. It's something I found surprising in a city of so many people.

There are stalls galore all over the city, selling everything and anything. In some sections you can find 20 or so street food vendors in a row along the street dealing in their famous Mexican street food. There is so much food available here it boggles the mind. Nicia bought a polystyrene cup of chicken feet with  spicy salsa from a guy on a bike yesterday, so hopefully that gives you a gauge of what is available.

Ok that's a little taste of Mexico city and brings us up to date. Mayela and Gizeh joined us here a few days back. That means I'm staying in a house full of girls... I'm being told we are going now so I'll update soon with what we've done in the city. I'll try get some more pictures up soon as well. No time to format or spell check
so please be patient until we get back later :)

Mexico City

We have moved from Mazatlan to Mexico City and we are staying in Isabel's friend's apartment. Really loving Mexico City so far. I've uploaded a good few more photos to bring the album more up to date. They should be available in the link opposite on the right hand side. Any issues with viewing them just drop a comment. I'll add a proper post tomorrow. The photos can tie you over until then. I'll also try link Isabel's album. She had 300 odd photos uploaded already.

Mazatlan

It took us 11 hours on a train and 7 hours on a bus but we got here at 06.30 this morning. Pretty good view from our window :)

Creel and the Copper Canyon

Isabel and I took the train from Chihuahua to the mountains on Wednesday morning. "The Chepe" as it's known is the Chihuahua-Pacific passenger train and the only passenger train in the country. I couldn't believe the rail system for passengers is non existent not including the aforementioned. Again there was some desert to pass through and the section through the mountains was nice. Chihuahua is a big exporter of apples and the higher altitudes hosted many many orchards. The journey took about 4 and a half hours, so I tried to sleep, read some of my book (Dracula) and took a few pictures out the window. I'm sure I spoke to Isabel at some stage too. The gas for the kitchen in the dining cart was out of service so we didn't get a proper breakfast. All in all it was a pleasant trip. The second part (from Creel to Los Mochis) is suppose to have more spectacular views and we'll spend about 8 hours on it tomorrow going through the copper canyon towards the Pacific so I'll write some more on it then.

Creel is a small town about 2230m above sea level with a population of 5300 (thank you lonely planet). My first impression wasn't too good. It seemed like a relatively derelict station we got out at and we were immediately greeted by a gang of locals asking did we want a hotel. The platform was also full of Tarahumara girls selling handcrafted trinkets. (A little more on them later).

We popped into Casa Margatita a little hotel place Isabel had stayed before and got the last double room. The room was really comfortable which re-comforted me. We dropped our bags and walked down the main street for some food. Creel is pretty small and it didn't take long to walk up and down the street. After our early morning the two of us conked out for a couple of hours post breakfast/lunch.

The afternoon was considerably more exciting than our power nap. We rented a quad bike for an hour and drove about 10km outside creel to one of the nearby lakes. The lake was extremely low and we arrived at the end of a particularly bad drought in the area. (And I literally mean we arrived the last day of the drought). We got some nice pictures though, I just have to get to a PC and upload them.

Again there were a lot of the indigenous Tarahumara around the lake area. On the way out the road we even saw plenty of houses spotted between the valleys and hills belonging to them. From what we could see they didn't have a very good quality of living and from what we could tell the children would most likely only ever know this way of life. To somebody raised in Celtic tiger Ireland it seemed quite sad. However the people themselves didn't appear sad. Over the next 2 days we saw the Tarahumara all over the canyon. Some on the edges of cliffs, some on the canyon floor, some even in caves on the canyon walls. Another very interesting thing is that the Tarahumara people's preferred transport is their own two feet. Tarahumara means light feet according to Isabel. At stages over our visit we were an hour driving from the next village and these people were out living a hard life in the canyon.

Our breakfast and dinner was included in our room fee which was awesome but as the Casa was under renovation we had to dine down the street in their sister hotel. The food was authentic and we were joined by a pleasant young American guy, Scott, from Santa Fe New Mexico. The following morning we breakfasted with Scott, a French traveler named David and Sophie who was holidaying from Switzerland. Scott (a journalist) had heard of a Tarahumara violin maker that lived deep in the canyon near a village called La Bufa. He wanted to interview him for a story so after a little to-ing and fro-ing we organized a guide to drive us there. Cesar our guide warned us that the road might be closed as there was major road works happening in that part of the canyon. The weather was nice when we set off and the trip was two hours of winding and winding roads, up and down. We stopped several times along the way for excellent photo opportunities and once for lunch in this tiny village. The views, as you can imagine were awe inspiring. The copper canyon is the second largest canyon system in the world after Peru. It use be the third but the Chinese flooded theirs when they built the three gorges dam.

We finally got to the road leading down into La Bufa, but across the valley we could see plumes of dust. The construction crew were in the middle of dynamiting as part of the road building. Cesar stopped and chatted to one of the engineers who said we couldn't go down currently and if we were let down wouldn't be able to get out until night. The engineer did allow us down one of the access roads to see a view of the valley. When I say this access road was small I mean it only just fit the truck in which we were driving. On one side was a relatively freshly excavated cliff face/wall and on the other side was (not to sound dramatic) death. Halfway down a rock about the size of a fist tumbled off and put a lovely dent in the bonnet of Cesar's truck. We had to stop shortly after because the workers started dumping a load of rock down about 25m away from us. I snapped some pictures quickly when I got out and opted to walk back up as Cesar had to reverse some of the way to get out. It was an experience but also a pity not to get down to the village as it was another two hour drive back. The heavens opened en route back to Creel and it pretty much hasn't stopped raining since.

Isabel and I took a trip to Divisadero today. The views once again were spectacular. Here one can see where 3 parts of the canyon converge (or diverge, I'm not sure). Unfortunately the pictures we got weren't as clear as the day before because of the weather. We were lucky in so far as we had intended on renting a moped to travel the hour there. The rain started coming down in sheets about ten minutes into the journey, stopped for a little while we were there and continued pretty steadily until now (~23:00). I'm afraid Creel might get washed off the top of the mountain. The thunder and lightning has been impressive as well.

We got drenched going to the shop for munchies for our train tomorrow. I even wore my flip flops to dinner due to the amount of water if the street. I probably would have worn them anyways. Once again it is late and I must retire for a journey tomorrow. Hasta luego :)