Hurricane Dodging in Central America
Hopefully that got your attention.
I'm sure you'll all be terribly pleased to hear that we are both fine and dandy, mostly due to the fact that the only storm damage we have actually seen has been on CNN. We have, as is proper for grumbling gringos, still been moaning about how we`ve been inconvenienced by it. Buses have been full or missing (depending on their direction of travel) as hoards of tourists slosh backwards and forwards across the country, simultaneously fleeing Dean on the East coast and Felix on the West, and then being pincered by Henrietta sneaking up from the South. The worst we fared directly though was being trapped for a week in Creel, Mexico, (pretty much equidistant between the three) because of a landslide on the railway ( a.k.a the only transport out of there that took less than 20 hours and cost less than 7000 pesos).
But lets rewind a bit to Antigua Guatemala - our port of entry to this impoverished sub-continent.
Yeah, impoverished my aunt, they're supping 5 dollar coffees all day long on delightful pavement terraces (let them eat cake, eh? they already are..). Of course this is rudely unfair to the vast majority of the indigenous population living in boxes outside of Antigua, but it sure blew away our preconceptions about the area.
Antigua town is beautiful. Colonial architecture, cobbled streets and cathedral ruins abound, and all set against the backdrop of a cloud tipped volcano. This one's inactive, but we did climb it's lava dribbling brother (to the despair of any European health and safety officers that may have been vacationing in the vicinity) to poke sticks into it.
Anyway, we spent a week here enrolled in a Spanish school, as we rightly figured that, unlike Spain itself, communication in English (but louder) probably wouldn't suffice for 5 weeks. I think we'd both forgotten what a brain melting experience school is. Respec' to the kids. 7 hours a day of verbos irregulares, verbos passado and memorizing colours, opposites, vegetables, parts of the body and vocations (clearly the most important to two unemployed dossers) was enough to make us want to speak English. Loudly.
Our only respite from the lessons was 30 minutes in the morning at the local cafe for teeth-chatteringly strong coffee and the time spent with our live-in family being served frijoles (mushed up beans) for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every day. Come the end of the course the first thing we did was to head for the best recommended restaurant in town and splashed the cash. Only to be served frijoles. Spiced up in Jim's case with some well stewed, but happily unnamed, animal body parts (still smelling more of animal than food, too).
All in all, the food in Guatemala was rather poo(r), which was really the minimum of excuses we needed in order to head off pretty sharpish towards Mexico.
By taking a circuitous (in the extreme) route via Flores in North Guatemala we managed to drop in on Tikal, one of the pre-Hispanic Mayan capitals, which certainly lived up to the mystique we'd expected from watching Cities of Gold as kids (plenty of theme tune singing as we clambered around the mighty temples in search of treasure). And we also got to do our first river border crossing which also perfectly matched our imagined impressions of pan American drug running - rickety long-boats and corrupt officials in out-of-the-way border posts (the unpublicised 'fee' to leave Guatemala is 10 dollars per person, even without a haul of narcotics).
So Mexico - and another similar surprise. It may not be wealthy as such, but it´s certainly cultivated an air of prosperity that we would never have expected - whilst the poor are still poor, the rich are apparently, even richer. The food however, and regardless of class, was just as bad (ok, it's got a bit better as we've headed north, but at the time we were way disappointed). On the plus side (as far as living up to the stereotype goes) every man has a moustache and wears a big hat. Classic.
We started in Palenque with more ruins, and another indication of Mexicos financial superiority over its neighbours. Where Tikal was very much jungle covered and ruinous, Palenque is very tidy and papmered with Anthonio Robinsonis`s "Equipo del Tiempo" very much in evidence...
The next stop was an overnight bus ride to San Cristobal. The Mexican bus system is magnificent, nay world class although, as we found out too late, it`s also (unbelievably) more expensive than flying. Gone are all the old fume belching US school buses (sold to Guatemala third-hand along with a few past-their-best Greyhounds, we'd guess) to be replaced by LED-lit, flat screen-TV-wielding, horizontally-reclining-seated super buses - complimentary drinks and headphones inclusive. Never has overnight road transport been so desirable. I'll inject a quick shot of realism to say this does really just cover intercity travel - there are still 7 peso local buses chugging around the suburbs - but even so they`re mostly new and clean so Mexico still scores top marks for public transport.
San Cristobal is another beautiful Spanish colonial town and the surrounds offered us the chance to do ourselves plenty of skeleto-muscular damage with a 3 hour horse ride to the outlying villages. It`s also the home of the innovative two-for-one drinks offer, which you are only invited to indulge in by paying twice the menu price for the first drink. Dishonest but clever.
Next up Oaxaca (pronounced wahhaker; an undoubted attempt by the indigenous tribes to upset the Spanish invaders by refusing to adopt phonetic spelling). I think, of all the towns we visited, Oaxaca best embodies Mexico. More colonial architecture for sure, but also mariachi bands and couples samba-ing in the street to dueling marimbas as the sun sets over the Zocalo. The little village of El Tule down the road also provided us with our first real Fiesta - it`s only purpose that we could identify being for the kids to let off a bit of steam by playing trumpets, while their dads dressed up as papier mache giants and went to watch the bull fighting. Or cow rodeo as it turned out. The first guy got duly catapulted from the back of his mount, but the next poor animal was a bit more cunning (or more likely knackered from a day stood in the sun) and refused to play 'bad cow', promptly sitting down and thereby foiling the whole man-clings-desperately-to-bucking-bronco competition. The third cow cottoned on and played dead (although the cow may rightly argue with me over the use of the word `play`). Being from England, with our sense of fair play and national love for all the beasts, we took this as our cue to leave.
Mexico City, described even by the mollycoddling Lonely Planet as filthy, is very clean with no evidence of it`s infamous lung busting atmospheric pollution (sorry Los Angeles, that`s still your crown) anywhere. Mexicans are thinking very green these days. The metro is fast, quite, well run and massively cheap. The parks are safe, clean and green. The museums are world class; interesting and informative. And the markets go on for ever. Nice place really.
The most memorable bit, as is usually the case with these things, is not instantly the most obvious. It`s the Taxis. The LP says they're all murderous robbers, but this might just be the ones (oddly the majority) insisting on using two door Beetles. Clearly the profitable cabbies (and therefore the safest, with least need to supplement their income) are the 4 door drivers. They know no theoretical maximum number of passengers - We had five in the back and two in the front, and I reckon they would have taken more at the drop of shock absorber. The other anecdotal aspect is that the time taken to cover 4 miles can range between an amusing 45 minutes and a PlayStation-esque 1 minute 45 seconds. The latter accompanied by pounding tecno, and clearly life threatening.
Further north along the spine of the country lies San Luis Potosi. Yet more (but genuinely no less attractive) colonial architecture - this town though harbours a more sinister secret. They`ve built their own NEC on the outskirts. Yup, I`m not sure how or why we found it, but 30 minutes on the wrong bus brings you to the most obscure of show grounds. In one day we went to a tat market, saw local crafts (it gets odder here) went to the worst zoo-thing we`ve ever seen, saw goat shearing championships (now it gets weirder), watched a crooner giving it his all to a crowd of hundreds accompanied solely by his Casio keyboard, went to see Mexican Wrestling (recommended; think WWF but a lot funnier), went to the fair, saw `Broadway on Ice' (make it up, you`ll be close), heard Mexico's top rock-reggae act play live`, and (as advertised) much, much more. All for 10 pesos (50p) too. Best value day out yet.
We also stayed in the grubbiest hotel since India, but we`ll let that slide.
Further north than that is Saltillo and Chihuahua - both pretty dull tho. The first has a museum about deserts, and the second doesn`t have any small dogs.
So then we thought we`d have ago at a long train ride (it had been a while). The Copper Canyon has got to be Mexico's best kept secret. Firstly it`s at altitude, so its cool and covered in pine forest. Secondly it offers an ever changing panorama of rock faces, mountains and (or course) canyons. Creel (the afore mentioned town in which we got stranded) splits the journey neatly in two and also offers some good opportunity to walk, bike, and scooter around the countryside.
Meanwhile back in Chihuahua, and despite what we (and most likely they) knew about the storm damaged line, the Mexican railway officials kept piling unsuspecting travellers aboard the train to join us, trapped, in Creel. Even with the fortunate and continual influx of new card-playing friends, a week is enough in a one street town (especially with a broken, or maybe plain exhausted, cash machine), so we were pretty happy to be moving on when word finally came through that the land slip was cleared and we could continue our journey to the West Coast.
So the last part of our trip, partly by accident (because of the unintended time lost in Creel) and partly by design (cos we like doing nothing on beaches) has been spent in La Paz, Baja California (that's the sticky down peninsula bit). It`s basically extremely hot, and humid and covered in cacti (pretty much how we`d expected Mexico to look 4 weeks ago, when it didn`t) . But we`ve found a nice beach with dolphins and not too many US tourists (sorry Emily :) ) so we`re just gonna hang out here for a couple more days and then fly up to Tijuana for a quick drink before walking into the States for our flight home.
And that`ll be it. Back to the UK - we`ve already started griping about the weather forecasts - but definitely up for some tea, beer and a Sunday lunch.
I'm sure you'll all be terribly pleased to hear that we are both fine and dandy, mostly due to the fact that the only storm damage we have actually seen has been on CNN. We have, as is proper for grumbling gringos, still been moaning about how we`ve been inconvenienced by it. Buses have been full or missing (depending on their direction of travel) as hoards of tourists slosh backwards and forwards across the country, simultaneously fleeing Dean on the East coast and Felix on the West, and then being pincered by Henrietta sneaking up from the South. The worst we fared directly though was being trapped for a week in Creel, Mexico, (pretty much equidistant between the three) because of a landslide on the railway ( a.k.a the only transport out of there that took less than 20 hours and cost less than 7000 pesos).
But lets rewind a bit to Antigua Guatemala - our port of entry to this impoverished sub-continent.
Yeah, impoverished my aunt, they're supping 5 dollar coffees all day long on delightful pavement terraces (let them eat cake, eh? they already are..). Of course this is rudely unfair to the vast majority of the indigenous population living in boxes outside of Antigua, but it sure blew away our preconceptions about the area.
Antigua town is beautiful. Colonial architecture, cobbled streets and cathedral ruins abound, and all set against the backdrop of a cloud tipped volcano. This one's inactive, but we did climb it's lava dribbling brother (to the despair of any European health and safety officers that may have been vacationing in the vicinity) to poke sticks into it.
Anyway, we spent a week here enrolled in a Spanish school, as we rightly figured that, unlike Spain itself, communication in English (but louder) probably wouldn't suffice for 5 weeks. I think we'd both forgotten what a brain melting experience school is. Respec' to the kids. 7 hours a day of verbos irregulares, verbos passado and memorizing colours, opposites, vegetables, parts of the body and vocations (clearly the most important to two unemployed dossers) was enough to make us want to speak English. Loudly.
Our only respite from the lessons was 30 minutes in the morning at the local cafe for teeth-chatteringly strong coffee and the time spent with our live-in family being served frijoles (mushed up beans) for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every day. Come the end of the course the first thing we did was to head for the best recommended restaurant in town and splashed the cash. Only to be served frijoles. Spiced up in Jim's case with some well stewed, but happily unnamed, animal body parts (still smelling more of animal than food, too).
All in all, the food in Guatemala was rather poo(r), which was really the minimum of excuses we needed in order to head off pretty sharpish towards Mexico.
By taking a circuitous (in the extreme) route via Flores in North Guatemala we managed to drop in on Tikal, one of the pre-Hispanic Mayan capitals, which certainly lived up to the mystique we'd expected from watching Cities of Gold as kids (plenty of theme tune singing as we clambered around the mighty temples in search of treasure). And we also got to do our first river border crossing which also perfectly matched our imagined impressions of pan American drug running - rickety long-boats and corrupt officials in out-of-the-way border posts (the unpublicised 'fee' to leave Guatemala is 10 dollars per person, even without a haul of narcotics).
So Mexico - and another similar surprise. It may not be wealthy as such, but it´s certainly cultivated an air of prosperity that we would never have expected - whilst the poor are still poor, the rich are apparently, even richer. The food however, and regardless of class, was just as bad (ok, it's got a bit better as we've headed north, but at the time we were way disappointed). On the plus side (as far as living up to the stereotype goes) every man has a moustache and wears a big hat. Classic.
We started in Palenque with more ruins, and another indication of Mexicos financial superiority over its neighbours. Where Tikal was very much jungle covered and ruinous, Palenque is very tidy and papmered with Anthonio Robinsonis`s "Equipo del Tiempo" very much in evidence...
The next stop was an overnight bus ride to San Cristobal. The Mexican bus system is magnificent, nay world class although, as we found out too late, it`s also (unbelievably) more expensive than flying. Gone are all the old fume belching US school buses (sold to Guatemala third-hand along with a few past-their-best Greyhounds, we'd guess) to be replaced by LED-lit, flat screen-TV-wielding, horizontally-reclining-seated super buses - complimentary drinks and headphones inclusive. Never has overnight road transport been so desirable. I'll inject a quick shot of realism to say this does really just cover intercity travel - there are still 7 peso local buses chugging around the suburbs - but even so they`re mostly new and clean so Mexico still scores top marks for public transport.
San Cristobal is another beautiful Spanish colonial town and the surrounds offered us the chance to do ourselves plenty of skeleto-muscular damage with a 3 hour horse ride to the outlying villages. It`s also the home of the innovative two-for-one drinks offer, which you are only invited to indulge in by paying twice the menu price for the first drink. Dishonest but clever.
Next up Oaxaca (pronounced wahhaker; an undoubted attempt by the indigenous tribes to upset the Spanish invaders by refusing to adopt phonetic spelling). I think, of all the towns we visited, Oaxaca best embodies Mexico. More colonial architecture for sure, but also mariachi bands and couples samba-ing in the street to dueling marimbas as the sun sets over the Zocalo. The little village of El Tule down the road also provided us with our first real Fiesta - it`s only purpose that we could identify being for the kids to let off a bit of steam by playing trumpets, while their dads dressed up as papier mache giants and went to watch the bull fighting. Or cow rodeo as it turned out. The first guy got duly catapulted from the back of his mount, but the next poor animal was a bit more cunning (or more likely knackered from a day stood in the sun) and refused to play 'bad cow', promptly sitting down and thereby foiling the whole man-clings-desperately-to-bucking-bronco competition. The third cow cottoned on and played dead (although the cow may rightly argue with me over the use of the word `play`). Being from England, with our sense of fair play and national love for all the beasts, we took this as our cue to leave.
Mexico City, described even by the mollycoddling Lonely Planet as filthy, is very clean with no evidence of it`s infamous lung busting atmospheric pollution (sorry Los Angeles, that`s still your crown) anywhere. Mexicans are thinking very green these days. The metro is fast, quite, well run and massively cheap. The parks are safe, clean and green. The museums are world class; interesting and informative. And the markets go on for ever. Nice place really.
The most memorable bit, as is usually the case with these things, is not instantly the most obvious. It`s the Taxis. The LP says they're all murderous robbers, but this might just be the ones (oddly the majority) insisting on using two door Beetles. Clearly the profitable cabbies (and therefore the safest, with least need to supplement their income) are the 4 door drivers. They know no theoretical maximum number of passengers - We had five in the back and two in the front, and I reckon they would have taken more at the drop of shock absorber. The other anecdotal aspect is that the time taken to cover 4 miles can range between an amusing 45 minutes and a PlayStation-esque 1 minute 45 seconds. The latter accompanied by pounding tecno, and clearly life threatening.
Further north along the spine of the country lies San Luis Potosi. Yet more (but genuinely no less attractive) colonial architecture - this town though harbours a more sinister secret. They`ve built their own NEC on the outskirts. Yup, I`m not sure how or why we found it, but 30 minutes on the wrong bus brings you to the most obscure of show grounds. In one day we went to a tat market, saw local crafts (it gets odder here) went to the worst zoo-thing we`ve ever seen, saw goat shearing championships (now it gets weirder), watched a crooner giving it his all to a crowd of hundreds accompanied solely by his Casio keyboard, went to see Mexican Wrestling (recommended; think WWF but a lot funnier), went to the fair, saw `Broadway on Ice' (make it up, you`ll be close), heard Mexico's top rock-reggae act play live`, and (as advertised) much, much more. All for 10 pesos (50p) too. Best value day out yet.
We also stayed in the grubbiest hotel since India, but we`ll let that slide.
Further north than that is Saltillo and Chihuahua - both pretty dull tho. The first has a museum about deserts, and the second doesn`t have any small dogs.
So then we thought we`d have ago at a long train ride (it had been a while). The Copper Canyon has got to be Mexico's best kept secret. Firstly it`s at altitude, so its cool and covered in pine forest. Secondly it offers an ever changing panorama of rock faces, mountains and (or course) canyons. Creel (the afore mentioned town in which we got stranded) splits the journey neatly in two and also offers some good opportunity to walk, bike, and scooter around the countryside.
Meanwhile back in Chihuahua, and despite what we (and most likely they) knew about the storm damaged line, the Mexican railway officials kept piling unsuspecting travellers aboard the train to join us, trapped, in Creel. Even with the fortunate and continual influx of new card-playing friends, a week is enough in a one street town (especially with a broken, or maybe plain exhausted, cash machine), so we were pretty happy to be moving on when word finally came through that the land slip was cleared and we could continue our journey to the West Coast.
So the last part of our trip, partly by accident (because of the unintended time lost in Creel) and partly by design (cos we like doing nothing on beaches) has been spent in La Paz, Baja California (that's the sticky down peninsula bit). It`s basically extremely hot, and humid and covered in cacti (pretty much how we`d expected Mexico to look 4 weeks ago, when it didn`t) . But we`ve found a nice beach with dolphins and not too many US tourists (sorry Emily :) ) so we`re just gonna hang out here for a couple more days and then fly up to Tijuana for a quick drink before walking into the States for our flight home.
And that`ll be it. Back to the UK - we`ve already started griping about the weather forecasts - but definitely up for some tea, beer and a Sunday lunch.
posted by fuzzweed at 9:15 AM
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