What started as a trip to a resteraunt to get breakfast ended up with me in hospital.

 

Intrigued? Then I should probably continue, but from the start.

 

I popped out to get a bite for breakfast, then decided to go on a little journey first (about 30 minutes I think). I was a nice little walk through the back alleys of San Pedro, down to the waterfront and into a little resteraunt. The resteraunt didn´t have exactly what I wanted, so after eating my fruit and yogurt, I set out to find another resteraunt. I ended up walking all the way out of town, but by that stage I wasn´t hungy so I didn´t mind. The road ended up turning into a track, which made for a really pleasant walk around the lake - numorous photos. The track eventually deteriorated pretty badly, and then there wasn´t a track at all. I was forcing my way through the vines and jungle at about a meter per minute. Eventually I busted out of the jungle (photo) and took a swim in the lake (photo) to clean myself, though not before I had sprained a muscle in my foot.

 

After a small bath, I headed out around the vines and rocks closer to the water, eventually I made it to a path (by this time I really wished I had some water). I had decided to go to Santiago Atitlan and have some food there, before heading back to San Pedro by boat, however upon reaching this path I saw (to my great dismay) that I was walking around a huge peninsular, and probably had 20km to go before I reached the city - not possible with the time I had left in the day. So I decided to try and find a person. This is probably the most energetic trek I´ve been on since I was 10 years old - rocks, vines and trees are not as fun as they used to be. Though it was a beautiful journey.

 

Damn dirty dog! Whilst I was walking towards a fellow picking coffee, or something, a dog ran out and took a nice bite of my leg. The guy tried to clean the wound with a dirty cloth he had, gave me a couple of pills and put some ointment and bandaids over the main punctures. I wasn´t particularly convinced with the effectiveness of his treatment and perhaps niether was he, as he gave me some marajuana as well. I continued on my jouney around the bay, as the guy said there was an american somewhere which would be able to get a launch to take me across the lake. I didn´t get that far though as I found some guy who would paddle me across for $1. I actually had a go for half the lake as well - since I had planned to do some kayaking anyway - but he insisted on taking me the last 10 metres to shore. I ended up giving him $2 as I thought it was worth it, plus I took him away from whatever he was doing.

 

I went to the hospital, got the wound cleaned, had a tetnis shot plus something else and got some antibiotics. Tomorrow I have to go to some medical place to try and get them to bring in some Rabies treatments. I´ll try and start it here then continue them as I travel.

 

Anyway, it was a great day (apart from getting bitten by the dog and spraining my ankle). It is a very beautiful area, with a very tropical feeling for a place that´s up in the mountains. A good amount of sunshine and exercise. I love this place - could stay here for a long time.

I´m now at a place called San Pedro which is on lake atitlan. A beautiful volcanic crater surrounded by other volcanos (5 I think). The best thing is that I´m now back into shorts and a t-shirt.

 

Got to go. I´ll finish this off later.

As I had been told, I ended up spending far more time in San Cristobal than I planned (1 week). However, it is a great town, although it is freezing. I generally walked around with 4 layers of clothes, and at night this increased to include gloves, a beanie, and often a blanket wrapped around me.

 

The trip down the river through the canyon was great, and we had perfect weather as well.

 

Janine and I ended up going to Guatemala together. I love Guatemala. It has much more in common with South America, which in my eyes is a good thing. The border crossing was easy, and I didn´t sign out of Mexico which saved me about US$20. The buses are very cool. They deck them out with chrome finishing, decals, and paint flames and whatnot all over them. I snapped a shot of one of them, unfortunately it wasn´t as loud as some of the other designs.

 

I´ve spent a few days in Xela, which is a nice town, mostly used by foreigners for studying Spanish - something which Guatemala is becoming very famous for. At this stage I plan to leave tomorrow, but who knows - I didn´t even plan to stay here at all originally. My next stop is apparently a gorgeous lake, then off to Antigua for the volcano. Reports are coming in very positive, a couple melted their shoes whilst viewing the volcano. After Antigua, I´ll probably pop across the border to Honduras to check out the ruins at Copan, then back into Guatemala to Coban and Semuc Champey, then up to Flores and Tikal, across to Belize, then up back into Mexico. That`s the current plan, but plans change regularly.

 

I haven´t found Guatemala to be cheaper than Mexico, with the exception of transport - buses are almost free, though your life is somewhat on the line when you use them. The drivers whizz around the cliffs at speeds I wouldn´t have thought possible in those buses.

 

Guatemala has a law that noone can drink in bars after 1am. What often happens though is they pull the shutters down, and people with an invite can stay inside. However, last night a Guatemalan girl turned up on closing, and since she couldn´t get in, she took a couple of us to a local party which was fun.

 

A few more photos have been added to the Mexican gallery (with more to follow), and a Guatemalan gallery has been started.

The place I stayed at in Palenque was great. Little cabanas in the jungle a couple of km from the ruins. The ruins were definately worth the $6 getting there and admission.

 

I had a fantastic time in Palenque, both at the ruins and the traveller´s jungle hang out. I met some great people who I will likely meet again as my journey continues. I actually met a guy who lived in the same place as me in Japan. We know a lot of the same people.

 

I´m now in San Cristobal, which is actually quite cold. Nice place though.

 

The great thing I´ve discovered is I should be able to complete the final of my childhood dreams on this trip - to see lava.

Palenque is great. I´m staying in cabanas in the jungle in this little touristy area - very nice.

 

The ruins were fantastic, I can see why Esteban, Zia and Tao were so impressed by them - I couldn´t find the room with the moving columns that tried to crush them though...

 

There are heaps of photos in the gallery, here are half a dozen though. I´ll add a more details post later.

Villahermosa is actually a nice city - apart from the heat - I´d hate to be here in summer.

 

Today I went to an outdoor museum which contained most of the Olmec carvings, transferred from the area. It was set in a rainforest and also had a zoo in the complex. A nice morning.

 

I once again retired from the heat for the middle of the day, and have set about planning the next month of the travels. Tomorrow I will move to Palenque (famous ruins) and go to a few places from there, then I will head down to San Cristobal, and see a few places from there. I will then head across the border to Guatemala, then up through Belize (which apparently speaks english) up to Cancun, possibly to meet a friend there. From Cancun, I´ll head back down through the Yucatan to southern Mexico and beach hop my way back to Mexico City for christmas.

 

Sounds good? I think so too.

 

A few photos from today, more in the gallery.

Orizaba was a really nice place. Very friendly and cosy. You could see into the shops and watch the locals do their crafts such as making tortillas, woodwork or making shoes etc.

 

Unfortunately the buses didn´t run from there to the town I wanted to go to. It apparently had the largest Olmec head in existence. We all like head, so I was interested in seeing what Olmec head was like. No. It´s a large statue - think Easter Island.

 

Tasmanian. You know I love bread, but I seem to be living inbred thesedays. Generally you get free bread at resteraunts, and it also makes for a very cheap meal.

 

It´s amazing how many times when a local speaks to you and you say you can´t speak spanish, they go ¨Ahh, ok¨, and then procede to speak spanish even faster than before. Perhaps their neural pathways share common ground with the Cambodians.

 

I am working my way towards Chiapas - supposedly the nicest place in Mexico. Generally each hop I take takes me about 2.5 hours. I figure I´ll get a fairly thorough look at Mexico with stops that regularly. Of course today´s will probably be double that, and it´s to a place that is obviously so dull that they didn´t even put it int he guidebook, or perhaps it´s because the name is 15 characters long - the extra ink used may have made the book unprofitable.

 

I´ve talked about classic music in TV ads before, but there´s a Mobil Oil ad in Mexico that uses the Doom music in glorious 8-bit MIDI.

Food. What would we do without it? No, really, you don´t have to answer that.

 

Whilst I was in Mexico city I didn´t eat a huge amount of Mexican cuisine, but since leaving I have had a predominantly Mexican diet. Generally Mexican food is very good. Although it is often similar in regards to flavours, it doesn´t really share much in common with what we have in Australia. I finally do like tacos now - much better, and they also don´t use the hard shells that we often have in Australia that shatter everytime you take a bite. I have to find out a bit more about some paste/sauce they serve here. It has a very complicated flavour and I think it includes chocolate, but it is not sweet, it is actually quite spicey. Yesterday, I had a nice 3 course meal (Mexican style) for $2. Lunch today cost 40c, and it is good. Of course, at a nice resteraunt you pay a lot more than that.

 

Veracruz was ok, but again nothing great. Very humid. It apparently played a big part in history and was the main port for contact with Spain. I did meet up with the American guys (photo 2 in the Mexico gallery) one evening. They are starting a course in Veracruz and will be there for one month.

 

I am now in a town called Orizaba, and I love it here. It´s surrounded by lush green mountains, got a very relaxed atmosphere and actually contains foliage within the town itself. Apparently the 3rd tallest mountain in North American is about 25km away, however, I won´t climb it as apparently you need to be a good climber or have a guide etc. I could quite comfortably stay here, in my cute hotel, which has a nice courtyard full of plants, for a few more days, but everything I´ve been told says the best places are yet to come, so I should spend most of my time there. The cathedral, which didn´t show up well in the photo I took - perhaps I´ll take another in the sun today - looks like it should be in Aladdin, rather than central Mexico.

 

Here are a couple of photos, more in the gallery. For the captions you will have to look at the gallery though - I´m not sure why spaces doesn´t include the caption for photos in posts.

I´ve decided to start writing on paper, to be transferred her later, in the hope that it will give you a more interesting read rather than just thinking on the spot and writing a paragraph or two of garbage.

 

After a few delays, I´ve finally left Mexico City. The guys I´d been staying with moved into a new apartment a few days before I left. It is almost a hotel - 8 beds, 4 bathrooms, housekeeping twice a week etc. Very comfortable, and in a nice area - Polanco, even though it is a bit duller than the previous area - Zona Rossa. Zona Rossa means ´Pink Zone´and yeap, you guessed it, it has a large gay community. In fact, Mexico may have the most gay´s I´ve ever seen. A large number of other foreigners have almost commented on this, and quite appropriately, the 2006 Lonely Planet guidebook for Mexico´s front cover is an image of a guy bending over and painting various fruits. In addition to that, Zona Rossa is largely an area that foreigners live in Mexico City.

 

Puebla is a city about two hours east of Mexico City. It is a lovely looking city. The centeral areas with the old spanish architecture (apparently Puebla is one of the most preserved cities for this. Like many cities, it has cobblestone and paved roads, but I did like the white round stones that are used as the road lines, perhaps so the horses didn´t have headon´s when they got tired and crossed into the other lane.) and the outer areas the brightly coloured Mexican town you see on TV. It contains one of the most impressive cathedral interiors I´ve ever seen - huge and ornate.

 

I had dinner at a resteraunt overlooking the zocalo (central plaza). Obviously, there was council approved external seating as all the cafe´s and resteraunts shared the same style, including the McDonald´s next door. You could sit and have a Big Mac, with live music and the same view as all the other places. The bar I went to afterwards was cool. Although a nice looking town, Pueblo had nothing of real interest for me, as I have already seen many places like it. I only spent one night there before moving onto Veracruz.

 

I´ve touched on transport before, but it really is one of the great things to travelling in Mexico. Usually, transport is one of the largest expenses of travelling. In some places, ridiculously so - I´m looking at you Japan. The subway in Mexico City costs 2 pesos for every destination - roughly AU .3c. It costs about AU$5.00 per hour for a delix bus between cities, although on the bus they often insist in playing movies constantly, at a decibel that could knock a 747 out of the sky, but that´s the way it is here with music as well.

 

Music tends to be a mix of western and latino sounds and they often end up being quite catchy.

 

Earlier I felt sorry for a Korean guy who was mowing a huge field with a push mower (photo in the Korean gallery), but he´s been knocked from the top. The Mexicans do the side of the highways with machettes!

 

I´ve since dropped from altitude into the humidy and warmth of the more tropical Mexico. Palms a plenty and lots of coke´n´nuts. I actually noticed everybody drinks coke, and according to the book, Mexicans consume more coke per person than any other nation on Earth - or off it, I would imagine.

I wanted to stay in Mexico City for the day of the dead celebration (yesterday). Actually, I was a bit disappointed, as it is just the mexican halloween. However, it was pretty cool to see the cast of Grim Fandango running around the city.

For those of you who have been asking about the political unrest of Mexico and the dangers, I have to say it's not too bad. They do occasionally block of parts of the city for demonstrations and the like, but most of the problems are involving a town/city further south. As far as general safety goes, Mexico City is fine - I haven't had any troubles at all. In fact, I've never seen so many police around - it really is almost 1 or 2 per block, and at night time, you rarely go more than a few minutes without seeing a patrol car. I suppose its all some kind of crackdown to quell Mexico City's previous reputation of being one of the most dangerous cities.

I've added a few more photos to the Korean gallery and added some for Mexico.

Apparently Mexico has the cheapest public transport in the world, as it is heavily subsidised by the government. As a result you can catch a bus or subway to anywhere in the city for about 20-30c. Interestingly, the subway runs on rubber tires, not train tracks. Taxis are also cheap, can go most places around the city for a few dollars.

 

Mexican beer is great. Good quality and cheap. Just wanted to throw that in.

 

The weather has generally been great, though we do get thunderstorms in the late afternoon, however, its quite pleasant to spend the evening listening to some tunes, having a couple of beers and watching the lightning over Mexico City. Indeed, it's what I plan to do today, before meeting up with some friends and going to some jazz concert. What will you do?

 

For those wondering about my diabetes. It has generally been fine travelling with it. Obviously it is more complicated that not having it, and I would be very aprehensive about trying to do such a long holiday in certain parts of the world carrying my insulin. Even here, for long trips, i've been ditching it in cafeteria fridges etc. not that there has been any problem doing so. However, travelling in the Gobi desert might pose some issues if it was for an extended time.