home safe

full post later

coup de soleil de nouveau

So, I'm really starting to get pretty sick of this. I'm covered head to toe in a nasty sunburn that seems like no matter how long I stay out of the sun, it gets deeper and redder. Whatever. I'm staying in today. Reading Crime and Punishment and mostly just chilling out. As much as I love the beach here, I think I'll have to go back tonight after the sun goes down. No problem for me exactly, but it is only noon - meaning I've got a lot of Crime and Punishment to occupy me. At least they have the internet here, and I can futz around.

I've got about four more days here, then I fly to St Louis for a day or so, then either take the greyhound or hitch home. All in all, it's been a wonderful trip down to god's blind spot. I haven't had even the slightest bit of trouble, no sketchy situations, no robberies, no extortion. Jadon and I got harassed by a cop and a park ranger type guy for being in the park after it closed, and I think I got shortchanged by someone in a store for about five bucks, but I'm going to have to assume that it was an honest mistake - plus I should have just counted my change more carefully. Five bucks and a wasted cab fare were certainly not the worst I had expected. That said, I haven't made it back home yet.

Valladolid

We took the bus from Mérida yesterday to this little town without much to it. I think Jadon and I are going to catch a dip in one of the cenotes here before we head out. Since we're not super far away from the coast, I think we're planning on hitching out to Tulum or perhaps another beach sometime tomorrow. We're parting ways with the german girls today ' they're heading north to some small island on the coast, then to isla mujeres before they have to leave. Potentially we'll meet up again in Tulum, but whatever, who knows.

cenotes

Jadon and I paid the 12 pesos to catch a bus to this little town called Cuzuma. Once you stop off the bus, in fact even before we stepped off the bus, a group of teenage mexican "guey's" were all clamoring for our attention, trying to get us to get in their bicycle rickshaw. This is all standard actually. They probably get this all day every day during this season. Their town has a lot of underground sinkholes that attract many tourists, locals, and foreigners alike. The sinkholes, or cenotes are plentiful here in the Yucatán. I felt silly taking a bicycle rickshaw, but aside from it being human powered, it's the same as a taxi I guess. Jadon and I paid the guy collectively about $2.40 for him to take us to the site, then, once we were there, a bunch of people with these horse drawn carriages that ran on tracks wanted to charge us about $15 (US) to take a 2 kilometer trip around to the cenotes in the area. We opted to walk, figuring it wouldn't be too long. Honestly it wasn't, but the deal isn't terrible. We only made it to the first cenote of the three because, as we found out, the trip includes the horse and buggy trip to three cenotes spread over 10k. Whatever. once we finally got there, it ruled. We ended up being the only gringos that were there the whole time. People there were quite friendly as well, most everyone wanted to talk with us about where we came from, what we thought of mexico, and to comment on Kentucky Fried Chicken. Without fail, each time I mention Kentucky, where I'm from, I get a whole ration of oooohh "el pollo loco" and people start flapping their wings. I normally just make fun of them back and start flapping my wings at them and mocking them. Mostly it just ends up being pretty silly between us. But for sure, the joke gets old.

Without a doubt, the cenotes were wonderful. It was nice to swim for one thing, but it felt like we were in a big quarry with stalactites, bats, birds, and catfish. The water was a very clear blue and quite deep, but not cold in the slightest. Another main highlight of my trip.

Next up, I'm not sure. I've seen Chichen Itza, so I have no business to go there again, so potentially we'll try and make it to an animal preserve or Tulum. We've got just over a week left, so we've got to make the best of it. Any bright ideas?

¡no mas, por favor, no mas!

So Mérida kicks ass. Two days ago, Jadon and I made our way to the beach at Porto Progreso for a whopping $1.20 (US) busfare from one street over. The beach is kind of dirty, yes, and full of frat-trash friendly beer stores, but I guess we came late enough in the day, or at least in an off-moment so that the beach was pretty clear. What's interesting about this place, and all of Mexico, is the amount of stray dogs that roam around. They're plentiful on the beach. We saw a dog that bounched up and down like he was a lowrider, hydraulic dog, hehe. Made my day. Yesterday I made my way to Chichen Itza, the biggest of the ruins i've seen here. This will perhaps be the last one that I go to down here, so at least I had a good time.

Today I'll probably hit up the cenotes (sinkholes) and go swimming. I guess it's about an hour's ride from here or so. I'd sure like a good swim that doesn't burn my eyes like the ocean.

eso mucho calor

I'm leaving Palenque today for Mérida. It sucks that the only bus that takes us there leaves at 9pm tonight, so we've got about 6 hours to kill in this miserable heat. We found a little coffeeshop with an internet cafe here in town and I think I'm stuck to my chair. it's over 100 degrees here, and it feels more humid than Louisville ever gets (quite a feat, ask anyone). I put on a fresh shirt this morning, and I immediately soaked right through it. My hair is reasonably clean but a bit clumpy since I haven't shampooed it since I left the states. We should have stayed another week in San Cristobal just because it was at least 20 degrees cooler. The original plan was to try and hitch out of here, but with the sun beating down so hard, and the main highway over 200k away, we opted to take the night bus so we didn't have to spend any money on a place to stay for the night, plus that was pretty much our only option.

My mood seems to shift quite a bit here since it's hard to come up with any sort of concrete plans. Jadon and I both said that we feel pretty much like outsiders since we don't really want to feel like typical tourists, but we don't really know anyone here, and we can't use our typical "punk roots" to get oriented in a place. The language barrier is definitely there too, even though I feel a bit more comfortable after this much time here.

Anyone have any real plans for the fall? want to go teach abroad somewhere? I'm cool after October, I'll probably work until then once I get back from Canada.

desmadre total

Today I went to check out the ruins of Palenque. Since we're staying right down the street, it was basically the first thing we did this morning. Easily one of the coolest things I've seen in my life. The Mayans were way less bloody than the Aztecs, and I think that's evident in the ornate reliefs and pleasant architecture. It's a strange phenomenon to me that neolithic peoples from across the world evolved to create pyramids totally independent from one another.

The nature around the area is also incredible - I even saw a family of wild howler monkeys up in the trees today and a bunch of lizards, including what we think was the jesus lizard, not the band, but that lizard that walks really fast on its hind legs and can kind of skip around on the surface of water. Definitely cool. I'm a little sunburned. The heat really got to Jadon and I. I made the effort to climb all the pyramids and ruins, but after awhile Jadon couldn't keep up with it, the heat really hit him hard. We crashed out for about an hour, then wanted to go to a little waterfall. We took a taxi there, then got harassed by the cops almost as soon as we got there. The same cop let us through the gate. Apparently we got there too late in the day and we could just come back tomorrow, but he obviously just wanted to shake us down and look us over. once he found that we didn't have any drugs or anything, it just became a joke almost and we were let go. bah, cops are cops whereever you are right...

off to palenque

Jadon and I said our goodbyes and now we're about to get on a bus to the ruins. From there, who knows.

I tried posting this entry three times, but for some stupid reason it doesn't upload. It's a little out of date, but I figure I should post it anyhow

We're still here, this is still the best place I've been to in Mexico, and I still keep getting lost everyday. Jadon and I had a discussion last night about how this place is perhaps the "most foreign" place we've been. Both of us have certainly been further away from home, but not exactly further away from familiar surroundings. Aside from Europe and Canada, I haven't really been anywhere internationally. The culture here in this part of Mexico isn't a polar opposite of what I'm used to, maybe rural Cambodia might be, but it has taken quite an adjustment. First off, the language is pretty tricky. Most places in Europe allow you to get by with English quite easily, even France although I tried to never use it. Nobody, including my host family, understands a word of the language. They teach it in schools here to some extent, but hardly anyone uses it except for the tourist booths and in a few restaurants. Cool enough, it's not a big deal, I'm learning pretty rapidly. Unlike French, where I hardly have the opportunity to speak it at home, I'll be able to use Spanish that I've been learning here in Kentucky with all the immigrants and refugees. Being able to stammer through conversations and understand what people are saying has been a real confidence booster.

For some reason, the water infrastructure in Mexico is atrocious. Everyone knows you can't drink the water, but what I found bizarre was that you aren't supposed to put toilet paper down the toilet. Yep, you're supposed to do your wiping and place it in a little bucket by the commode. In a café yesterday I nearly gagged at the sight and smell of a full bucket. I guess the pipes aren't designed to handle it. You don't even want to think about how bad it was on the 12 hour busride from Puebla to San Cristobal. What's even stranger is that a couple of teenagers had "a good time" in that same bathroom. ¡Muy disgusto!

Today was our third day of lessons at the language school. Jadon, who has never learned another language, is starting to sink his feet in. If you're ever down this way, even just traveling through, it's well worth the skrill for a week or so. $200 for a week of lessons and a homestay. Yesterday we went to a Mayan medicinal herb museum, and today we cooked a traditional soup after buying the ingredients at the market (lleno de bueno). Tomorrow we'll be salsa dancing. I'm not sure what we'll be doing saturday or sunday, but we'll probably leave Tuesday morning for Palenque and then head up the Yucatán to the beaches. The goal with the Spanish lessons was to become a little more comfortable with the language so we could get by with hitchhiking, something we figured we should certainly give a try.

One thing about this town, that's almost creepy are the amount of wild stray dogs that people don't seem to pay any mind. They sure are cute looking, but I wouldn't dare touch them. I guess dogs like these are all over Mexico, but they seem to be here in greater numbers than anywhere else we've been. From what I understand, few people actually keep dogs or cats as pets here. Occasionally birds or something more exotic like a monkey. Thing is, I've seen literally hundreds of these dogs in my walks across town. They're like the cats that take over Mallory square in Key West - when the sun goes down, they just take over the city. Walking to school this morning, a dog followed us nearly the entire way. We lost her at a busy street. I felt so bad for her, but I couldn't really do anything about it. She looked emaciated and dirty, I would have been tempted to take her home and take care of her if I were back home (although it probably wouldn't work out because she and Ruby would probably not get along). I guess it's just a fact of life here. My instructors said that occasionally the dogs become rabid, and are most likely disease carriers anyhow. Really sad.

Tonight, Jadon and I are probably going to study for a few hours and hit the streets again. This town comes alive a little during the evening - moreso even than Mexico City. Supposedly there are some Mariachi bands in one of the town squares that take requests for only a peso. Since a peso is roughly ten cents on the dollar, I give it about two weeks before I've heard enough.