Mexico the final frontier

Hello All,

We have arrived in Mexico,  the last country to visit  before returning home to France.  We absolutely love it here so much, and i think this may be the first time that we really love the local food.  There is such a wonderful atmosphere here, and luckily for us it’s low season and the Mexican peso is pretty weak.  So we have decided that we are going to stay that extra week, especially since we think we can afford it now, or maybe not?

Our arrival in Mexico from Guatemala was interesting, we were told that we had to pay 20$ entrance fee into the country, and then we were stopped on the road again 2 minutes later when this group of men demanded that we pay and entrance into the national park that we did not see.  So there was lots of screaming and shouting mainly  from Aurelien and I, eventually we just paid the money so we could move on away from there.  Our first town was Palenque, small and sweet.  We stopped there to see a Maya site called Palenque.  We loved it, it was much better than Tikal, which we thought was not worth the 20$ entrance.   Palenque was just beautiful and there was still some detail left on the walls to admire.

Next we took a bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, a lovely Colonial town, i think  it’s the best one we’ve seen.  It’s full of beautiful sites, churches and cute little houses.  We loved just walking around taking pictures.  From here we went horseriding to a nearby Maya Village called San Juan Chamula.  This is a very special Maya town because it has a tradition church that you are allowed to visit.  The Maya here are Tzotzil one of the many different types of Maya.   The church floor is covered with pine needles and  there are no benches to sit on.  People just sit around, pray, breast feed, play musical instruments, light candles, burn incense and drink sodas.  They believe that if you drink soda like coke for example it will help you to get rid of evil spirits by burping.  They also rub eggs over sick peoples bodies, then break the egg into a cup so that they can read the egg to see what is wrong with the person.  They apparently use chickens for something too, and then kill them.  We didn’t see any chicken killing thankfully.  We then rode the horses back to San Cristobal, on the way we decided to do a bit of a gallop.  My horse went a bit crazy and went running on the side of the path next to the trees.  It ran to fast for me to see the low hanging branches so i managed to bang my head on a branch, it bleed a little and now I have  nasty little bruise.  So we’ve decided to give up on horse riding for awhile, our bodies are still aching from it.

Next we went took a tour to see the Canon del Sumidero.  It’s was a little pricey, but very nice to see.  We went on a boat trip for about 2 hours, the whole setting was quite grand.  We also got see some birds and crocodiles sunbathing on the side of the river.  Not exceptional, but relaxing.

We then decided that some good beach and sun was needed so we took a 12 hour bus to Puerto Escondido on the Pacific side of Mexico.  It’s lovely and quite here.  The town is a famous surfing spot, but there are also some nice places to snorkle and swim.  We stayed far from the main drag, near to a good swimming beach called Playa Carrizaillo, a perfect place for some rest.  All we did for 4 days is eat, sleep and walk to the beach.  We had a wonderful hostel with our own balcony, which we sat on every night and talked until early hours of the morning.  We should have stayed longer!!!

We then took a bus to Oaxaca, where we found the worst and the most expensive hostels in Mexico.  The town is cute with lots of arts and crafts, but thats about it.  There are some things to see around the city, but we’re stressed and tired mainly because we’re trying to stop smoking, so we may just move onto Mexico city quicker than we think.

So Mexico City is fabulous!!  So much to do and see, we just had enough time to see what we wanted to see.  It’s so grand, full of Churches, Museums, plazas, monuments and markets.  It’s quite beautiful, and not as polluted as we were expecting, but heavily populated.  We found a wonderful hotel for under 20 euros in the historical center, it was nice to be comfortable for a change.

We went to see a huge site called Teotihuacan.  Teotihuacan is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Apart from the pyramidal structures, Teotihuacan is also known for its large residential complexes, the so-called “Avenue of the Dead”, and numerous colorful, well-preserved murals.  It was a long hot day for us, but worth the visit.

Next we went to visit an area called Coyoacan, just outside of the center.  Wow, what a beautiful town, i think if we ever had to live in Mexico we’d live in Coyoacan.  We went there to visit the Frida kahlo museum, also know as the blue house.  Frida is a famous mexican artist, i love her work, so we had to see the house that she grew up in, and lived in for most of her life.  It was beautifully presented.  We also went to see the Leon Trotsky museum, it is also the house he lived in and was murdered in.  We were happily surprised with it, very informative and interesting.  We also visited the area next to Coyoacan, called San Angel.  San Angel is also a cute town, but we went to see the Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo.  It’s two houses joined by a bridge.  The artists lived in their own houses, and could walk along the bridge to visit each other whenever they wanted.  I think it’s the best way to survive marriage.

The one other thing we did, which i could have missed was to go see the Lucha Libre.  It’s like the stupid american WWE wrestling, it’s all a show, we decided it was a bit gay.  I mean if you going to hit someone then do it, don’t pretend.  We were rather bored, i don’t think we’ll ever do that again.

So now, we think we’ve seen enough and would like to go home.  Our flight is in a few hours.  We can’t wait to have some homely comforts again.  13 months is a very long time to sleep in hotels and hotel rooms!!!!

Kisses and hugs

pictures are here