Zipolite and Oaxaca for Christmas 7-27 December

After 24 hours of pain (12 hours Antigua-San Cristobal; 12-hour night bus on tortuous roads to Pochutla), I knew I'd made the right decision. I met a guy called Christoph off the bus in the early morning and he'd lived in Zipolite 3 years earlier and knew exactly where to go. Great! No need to think and another really nice person to chat to. Got some great mandarins for breakfast, arrived in Zipolite, loved it immediately. Went up the beach to find my two friends Luke and Drew sunning themselves as God intended. Hadn't realised it was a nude beach! After a brief chat with them, I decided to take the price offered at the first location with a second floor view of the beach with hammock. Lovely jubbly.

Many days of real, proper relaxation followed. It's a south-facing beach so the sun rises on the left and sets on the right and is there all day. The surf was actually a bit dangerous, hence its local name, 'playa de los muertos' but it was extremely exhilarating. For those who enjoy wearing your birthday suit as I do, it was a sublime pleasure. Sunbathe, swim, sunbathe, swim. Read, listen to music, ... just what the doctor ordered. And the company of lovely people. Wonderful. Went for a walk with Ruth and Christoph and a random guy we met at breakfast. Up to Mazunte via San Augustinillo.

After a lovely 'torta' (=bun/sandwhich) which was my culinary discovery of the week, we carried on to a  lookout point just past Mazunte. I'd also been to a really excellent open mic music night on the Thursday and done the only poetry slot. Went really well and felt good to be back on stage.

After this lovely day out, it was goodbye to Christoph and a final few days relaxation before the week had turned round to the next of the weekly open mic nights. My last night in Zipolite and unbelievably, it rained. It wasn't as rocking a night as the first one, but the bar, 'El chocolate invincible' and its ownwers, Crazy Horse (from Redcar) and Kevin (USA) plus charming Mexican girlfriend, Hilda, had hosted us for several enjoyable nights out.

What a beautiful place this was! Perfect preparation for 10 days with my parents in Oaxaca. Yes I missed out Tikal and Semuc Champey in Guatemala, but the minimal 6-hour bus ride to Oaxaca seemed worth it. In fact, I got dumped out of the executive minibus I had been very comfortable in, as the other two companies were blockading the third one, ours. In the middle of nowhere the driver seemed to be being chased as he went round dirt roads to avoid the road block, dropping us off in Ejutla, from whence I took a rammed 2nd class bus for two hours of jolting discomfort, standing most of the way. I was most dischuffed.

However, the luxurious lifestyle of Oaxaca soon soothed my briefly ruffled feathers. With a zero-stress approach, we limited ourselves to some frank, healthy and very productive family discussions, walks, meals out and in of a very high standard like this one at La Biznaga (above). A return visit after being there in October. Lovely food, and a lovely ambiance with the semi-covered roof and pleasant jazz music.

Oaxaca's clear blue skies and beautiful streets are a lovely backdrop for Christmas. Also nice for a few runs, as both Oaxaca's swimming pools are out of action, and running is the only available source of exercise.

I just love the colours and the light. Walked around some of the other streets I hadn't seen. Lots of yoga and meditation in the mornings and no booze. All of which started to pay off as the yoga feels better and better and general mood improved, as always.

Nice bit of random art work on the wall just up the way from the previous photo. Also went to a poetry night at La nueva Babel, a very bohemian bar. Other than the arts, political tension is very significant in Oaxaca. Lots of tags like 'gobierno asesino' referring to extra-judicial executions by the state's top brass. No one has been brought to justice. Only two years ago, political protests involved deaths and there is a lot of tension here. I didn't mention it before but our trip to 'Hierve el agua' a month or two back was held up by a road blockade expressing a political protest. The town centre is consistently heavily policed by federal cops.

Benito Juarez (statue above) and his life have been a real revelation. Having heard lots about Emiliano Zapata, here was another figure for Mexico to be very proud of. Not only one of the country's great presidents, but also a full-blooded indigenous Zapotec. The culture that produced some of the finest art work I have seen in Mexico and which occupied the superb site of Monte Alban for hundreds of years, found a representative whose legal training, courage and leadership gave Mexico the strength to survive serious challenges to its new independence and 10 years of war, 3 against the conservatives, rejecting reform and 7 against the French army. A true hero, and a man who fought to make Mexico better for all Mexicans. Which when you look at the history, is truly the best (political) humanity has to offer.

Here is the apartment complex we are staying in. A nice little two-bedroom flat with a beautiful little sun trap in the courtyard. Chilly enough to see my breath doing yoga at 7.30am but by the time the sun came round for breakfast, it was beautifully warm.

Christmas Day and a meal at los Danzantes. Very nice indeed. Good quality food, good service, a very nice day out. And then the superb pleasure of Australia being dismissed for under a 100 at the MCG in front of 90,000 Aussies, their lowest total in Melbourne since the first ever test in 1877. Joy of joys. Leaving for the capital on Monday, then Bogotá, Colombia on Tuesday. So the next time I speak to you, I´ll be in South America!!!

Lots of love,
Steve

Guatemala Saturday 20th November - Tuesday 7th December

So, having woken up feeling fairly hungover, I set off for the bus station in San Cristobal, confident that I would be able to make it to Lake Atitlan that day. Wrong! The tour buses leave with sober people at 6-7 in the morning, not hungover morons at 9.30. So I decided that I'd chance my arm anyway, as with the best will in the world, I'd had enough of San Cris. Got the 11.30 bus to Ciudad Cuahtehmoc and checked out of Mexico, paid 50p for a short taxi ride across the border, checked in to Guatemala and found myself in La Mesilla. 

A blog I'd read before leaving had made it sound like dirt squalor hell, but actually it was fine and I was able to get money out the cash machine. It was getting dark though and I didn't really know how to get to Panajachel, the place where all the tour buses arrive for Atitlan. A barechested ogre (above 5.8 = ogre in this part of the world) gave me incomprehensible travel info and after checking it at a nearby shop, I jumped on his bus to Huehuetenango. Which I'd never heard of, but sounded like a good way along to Panajachel. As it was getting dark, I was a little unnerved, but it all went fine and I had a really nice chat to a guy on the bus who was local yokel (=campesino) but who'd worked in Cancun and was very interested in the world and history. Not what I'd expected and really, really life-affirming/heart-warming. 

I decided to break the journey to Panajachel by staying a day rather than leaving the next morning and the town repaid my faith by providing a Sunday carnival, an internet place to do some blogging but sadly no laundry. So I bought some surprisingly expensive Guatemalan underwear :))) Oh, and for someone who has heard the song about a billion times in Russia, I was quite amused to be staying in, you guessed it, the Hotel California!!

After the dirty hole in the ground that was La Mesilla bus station, Huehue's was positively 1st world. Lovely and colourful though, the chicken buses! I didn't actually see any chickens, but I was the only foreigner on my bus and I only saw one other in all my time there. Another Huehue highlight was having egg and chips when I first arrived to settle my travel-and-Chiapas-ravaged digestive system.

The journey to Panajachel involved three changes (Los encuentros, Solalá, San Jorge) so I really got a slice of local travel - more chicken buses, pickups and a boat, from which I took this photo of the lake. I took a walk round Panajachel, hated it and decided to move on but, instead of following the recommendation I'd had, a boat tout collared me and suggested Santa Catarina as the smallest, least touristy place on offer. Obviously he forgot to mention that I could have got there for 4 Quetzal, instead of the 25 I paid him, but never mind :)))

Santa Catarina provided some of the worst accommodation I've had so far but it did have the annual 4-day fiesta too. Which meant lots of colour and decoration and incredibly loud music of, how shall we say, ... very variable quality. I hung out with a couple of locals whose mobile-phone reggae had caught my ear whilst watching a local footie match. Two nice guys who showed me around with varying degrees of disorganisation and ineptitude and we put the world to rights in Spanish which was great for me to follow up on mornings studying in cafés.

The guidebooks (which I don't have) said it was dangerous to walk in certain areas as tourists had been mugged etc of which I was oblivious, and this photo was the reward for my lack of caution. The rest of the time I was with Pedro and Rambo (nickname) anyway so it didn't matter. They both spoke Kachikel, a local Mayan language, and you could definitely see large similarities between the local indigenous folks and those in Chiapas. Sadly my stay in Santa Catarina was fun but also collapsed my immune system, so after being woken up at 5am by my landlord asking for beer money, I packed and hurriedly set off for the relative Western comfort of Antigua. And, after dosing myself up with loperamide following some extremely dodgy street chips, went up the volcano Pacaya a day or two later...

As I chose the evening slot, it was pretty chilly as we went up, and there was no lava as such but the landscapes were brilliant. It was also nice to chat in English with a couple of really nice Italian-descended guys from Milton Keynes.

This was as fiery as it got, which was good for roasting marshmallows and phenomenally hot if you stood close, but no rivers of fire...

I pointed the camera up into the darkness of the next feature, called the 'sauna' which was a cave-type thing which was pretty damn hot and deliciously scary.

This is me, James Hetfield, inside a volcano.... rock 'n roll....

After a week of studying Spanish one-to-one with a pretty robust teacher, I felt I needed to treat myself and do something exciting as my guts were just starting to be a bit more normal and energy levels resuming after lots of morning yoga and meditation in the various hostels of Antigua I stayed at. So I looked on the internet and found the prospect of churches and ruins which I'd already seen from the outside, to be rather unappealing. So I decided to spend my birthday money from Mum, Dad and Pete on this...

A 2-stroke, 175cc boy's own weekend. Actually I spent 4 hours on Saturday riding in ever-decreasing u-turns, doing emergency stops and more advanced cone-obstacle courses, another hour of the same on Sunday, then we set off into the hills of Antigua. Was bloody good fun, and boy, a 2-stroke engine sounds like a nest of hardcore hornets that have just been challenged to a fight by the local competition. I didn't realise it was possible to accelerate up through the gears when going up a 50% gradient, but with this rocket-powered device, you can. Doing 60 miles an hour down the free way put my underwear to the limits of its capacities, but it was all fine in the end... Mine is the Yamaha on theft...

Myself, Dave, the very large, unflappable teacher from Portsmouth and a pleasant Yank called Mark visited various lookout points and a local village taking in some dirt track stuff as well. Awesome...thankfully, no emergency stops required

And this is why most people go to Antigua, for the pretty buildings and such like. As I realised I was still pretty knackered and feeling like things just hadn't been as good in the people department since Mexico, I sacked off two world-class tourist destinations (natural splendours of Semuc Champey and the amazing Mayan ruins at Tikal) and headed back to Mexico to see people who I had met in DF (Luke & Drew) who were at a beach which would be just striking distance from Oaxaca where I had agreed to meet my parents for Christmas from the 17th...

More about Zipolite, nude beaches and poetry nights next in Steve's Latin American Adventure :))))
Tara,
luv
s
xx

San Cris to Volunteer construction programme in Chiapas 8th-20th Nov

When I got off the bus in San Cristobal, it was so cold I seriously considered just getting on the bus to Oaxaca to hook up with Drew and have some sunny times but a quick call put that idea out of my head as he said the weather had gone off there too. I also had a recommendation to go down to Mazunte from Viviana's friend. Both trips would have involved 2 night buses in three days. Nap. So I had to trot to the same hostel as before. There were more lovely people to sit round the fire with tho, so felt better after that.

Next day, got the work gloves I was looking for and hung out with a stupidly attractive Dutch girl and a fellow Bristolian. Went to Pura Vida in its new location with a really great guy called Sven. He turned out to be an ecological urban planning dude doing stuff for the upcoming climate conference in Mexico. He could also hold his ale ;) The next night was more of the same and on the Sunday, I thought I was late for the start of the work programme and that I might have missed a bus or something. Far from it, there was a note saying we would be leaving on Monday, due as it turned out later, to there not being enough transport available for all of us. A nice afternoon with two Belgians ensued, Aymarie and Thomas. Tunes and chill. Very nice.

The next day we finally got going around 11.30. Chatted with Sebastien, the local organiser for Habitat, which is the organisation which had the local contacts in the indigenous community. Also in the truck was Romaric, who'd just arrived from Tuxtla, up the road.

The house was fairly spacious by local standards, and pretty solidly built. Also it was up away from the road, unlike most of the other houses. We were the focus of a few looks all week.

This was our walk down into the village from the house. Picks and shovels in hand we set off each day...

We had fold-down beds with four in one room, two in the room to the left and me and the group leader Xuan (pronounced Shun in Tseltal). So it was basic but reasonably comfortable. Oh, I forgot to say. The previous inhabitants had left the twin-vault, urine-separating toilet with two full vaults and a blogged urine pipe. Cheers then. So the first job, which myself, Theresa, Clémence and Juan dutifully volunteered for. Shovelling caca.

The worst bit was digging out the fresh stuff by mistake, but Clémence got the short straw there before we got to the properly dried and limed stuff you can see above.

And here's the crew. Romaric, Clémence  (both French), Theresa (Ger), Demmy (US/Mex), Daniela (Mex) and moi. So I was speaking more French than I'd ever imagined again as I was paired with Romaric for the first three days.

Oh, and this was an uninvited guest - a 6-legged spider.

So this was what it was all about. Digging holes, carrying breeze blocks. Filtering sand. Shovelling gravel. Carrying very heavy buckets of gravel. Levelling holes down to the right depth and smoothing off the sides of trenches. Didn't actually pour any cement or mix any, but could have done if my arms had been strong enough and I'd had wellies to stand in the cement. They didn't have cement mixers so they did it by hand.
 

With a little help from these two :) Thus ensued 5 days work during which we all worked out that it wasn't a Zapatista community at all, that the builders didn't really want us there, were bemused by the fact that we were working for nothing, but were still happy to invite us to their houses and be friendly. So at the weekend we decided to visit a Zapatista Caracol, an administrative support centre for the different municipalities. There was a municipality just up the road from where we were working, but we weren't allowed in. Demmy (guy below) did manage to work out that the engineer on the project I started on and the one he went to second, was indeed a Zapatista and they had a very interesting political discussion for about 15 mins.

 Here's me below in front of Emiliano Zapata. As I said last time, his movement was in Morelos around 1910 and its ideals were adopted by the indigenous movement in Chiapas. Just as before, land rights were key and this time, NAFTA was the spur. It opened the door to another round of undermining of indigenous rights. They were also protesting the lack of investment in basic infrastructure - schools, roads, medical facilities. I learned a lot of this from a film called Zapatistas: Cronica de un rebelion (see a bit on Youtube). In 1994 several towns were occupied and later these Caracols were set up in 2003 and the Zapatista army (EZLN) withdrew from the day-to-day governing of the movement. Didn''t stop the government forces from harrassing people, funding paramilitary groups which were given carte blanche to rob and kill (with Mexican soldiers either helping or standing by). Forty four people were killed in Acteal.

The James Hetfield I'm currently sporting for Movember leaves Emiliano for dust. Sadly, the movement, which is trying to avoid the mistakes of Soviet or Chinese communism by remaining democratic, is losing members to the bribery of the government. Part of the reason why we were not allowed into the municipality because Habitat and Natate are NGOs but have government grants. Therefore, for the locals, they are the government. At least that's what I understood. With the amount of smoke and mirrors going on, I may have misunderstood.What the film and the misrust I saw in people's eyes left in no doubt, is that these people, the poorest in the country, were brutally mistreated, harrassed and politically ignored by the army and the government.If only Zapata could reappear on a flaming steed as below... he'd probably ended up murdered again. A bit depressing.

So the next day we set out along more windy roads (they all are) in the Chiapas highlands where some of the communities were dispaced by the war into roadside shacks and others already existed in established communities. This next place was decidedly more westernised and Mestizo (mixed race) than the solidly indigenous community we were in.

We arrived to the disappointing news that the first event of the day wouldn't be till 6 so we were well early. Being an intrepid group, we didn't give up and walked around until we bumped into one of the owners of the 3 properties we were working on.

So we washed a few of the tables you can see after they'd bought us a beer for free. Then we were offered some Pox (pronounced Posh). In fact tradition is that you have to down it in one. And then the band arrived and started playing, and then, it all went weeeeird.

The dance floor filled with a variety of monster-costume wearing folks and we were literally plied with booze every other minute. Pox, beer, pox, beer. It was incessant. Then we got a free meal, had a slight panic when Theresa went to lie down near/in the loo for a bit and was there for a good half an hour, and finally left throroughly the worst for wear.

The following week it was back to socialising. But ater having realised that they had invited us for dinner 2 times each at the houses we were working for and then proceded to look stunned when we turned up. Much more so when we said we wanted to eat. So, we figured out that polite refusal must be a big part of how they do things, so politely we refused and even brought lots of crêpes with apple and caramel sauce etc provided by the Frenchies (although I did pitch in as well).

This night above was probably one of the highlight for me. There was a real feeling of opening up and asking the questions they were really keen on knowing the answers to. The presentation I hurriedly cobbled together in an internet caf in Moscow before heading to summer camp was very useful as it has pictures of Langham, Oxford, Bristol and Manchester. There was a real feeling that these folks had been cheated out of an education as their knowledge of geography was sketchy to say the least. Then, they know how to survive civil war, ... not sure whether knowing the capital cities and location of countries is quite as impressive really.

So after a debrief and a nice few sherberts to celebrate, it was time to head for Guatemala, late and a bit hungover, again. But off the back of a week of doing a bit of yoga and meditating every day on the roof of our house in San Pedro. And one night of drinking per week - broken the back of the cycle of inebriation.... well temporarily at least, and off to Guatemala.

Ta ta,
love s
xx

San Cristobal 23rd October - Palenque - 4th November

So, I arrived in San Cris after an amusing bus ride where I was still giggly after the day on the roof. Nigel and the girls chose a hostel called Backpackers hostel (Rossco) which turned out to be really nice, although it was a bit chilly. They gave us a free breakfast which was kind. We then set off into town after a little lie-down and went through the souvenir market. I was determined to find a swimming pool, but failed. Ended the night with a great guitar sit-in round the fire with one excellent musician called Sam who kept us entertained. I contributed a little but felt very rusty. Set off around town again the next day, the view below being from the end of our road down the main tourist drag into town.

Found a pool in a hotel but it was too small. Bimbled about town, including lying on the floor looking up at one of the biggest flags I've ever seen. For those who saw my facebook update you'll recognise the end to the evening which was dancing up the street with some rather cliquey but fun musiciany, dready types. All without drinking!! Continuing in the healthy theme the next day, I went for a  run as the proper swimming pool, which we finally found, was closed.

Also saw a film about the original Zapatista movement in Morelos, which was part of the 'to-ings and frowings' of the 1910 revolution. Amazing as the 90-100-year-old chuffers they interviewed were the real heroes of the revolution but were mouldering away in poverty and neglect, despite the fact they might have felt entitled to a handsome pension or something. But no. Just as Zapata himself was betrayed and murdered by the government, although some vets thought he had only recently died in Saudi Arabia of all places, so were they let down. It seems as though Zapata might have actually sacrificed himself, hoping his death would allow the peasants to achieve their goals anyway. But it didn't. NAFTA is utterly rejected by those support Zapata's policies of giving the land to those who work it, as it allows land to be bought, often by illegitemate means such as burning people's houses down if they refuse to sell.

The next morning at the museum of Maya Medicine was very interesting and underlined again that there is so much more to Mexican indigenous cultures than is generally known about. I also braved my first Latin American haircut. Next, the swimming pool saga came to a bitter end as I found out that it was for members only. Incredibly annoying.

I also managed to withdraw money twice without getting any money from HSBC. Had intended to pay for the work programme in the Chiapas hills doing construction in a Zapatista community. The organisation, recommended by my friend Sasha who runs the Russian summer camps in Cheboxary, is called Natate. Had to wait until the next day. And also sweat on working out if I'd been done over. Which I had. A bit frustrating but hopefully the bank will give me the money back.

So I went for a run again. Danced till v late at Pura Vida, a great nightclub which had a cracking drum & bass night on. I was one of the few going nuts, but didn't let it bother me. The incredibly windy road to Palenque the next day was not the ideal time to have a hangover, and nor was it perfect to arrive late, with no hostel booked. Walked around for a bit, which isn't too bad as my stuff went into hand luggage on the plane but still wasn't too easy in the decidedly hotter, sticky climes of Palenque. The town was pretty dud so after a quick squiz on the internet I took a chance and got a taxi to a place which seemed to be good. Turned out to be brilliant. The restaurant was really cool with a great relaxed jungle vibe.

Pan chan was not open but a guy at the restaurant, Don Pedro's, took pity and gave me a cabin at the Jaguar (pron Hag - WAR :). Headed off to the ruins the next day. Amazing. Started off with smaller stuff that was still covered in jungle.

Then worked through the site to the bigger ones. Some of which have been heavily restored.

And had a walk inside the main palace, which really reminded me of being at Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

The main temple is amazing but everyone always uses it for pics so I've put in a pic of a smaller temple taken from one of the highest points in the ruins.

There are also various waterfalls which are pretty, but when I did the jungle tour of the ruins not open to the public, I saw some which were so beautiful I could hardly believe it. Didn't take my camera for the unofficial tour though.

The main thing about the unoffical tour is that you are in the proper jungle with no paths. Utterly incredible. And after wowing about the waterfalls and the nature so much, I'd forgotten there would be temples too, until my guide said, 'oh, you're standing on a 1500-year-old temple by the way!!'

But that was a day or two later. In between times, it was my birthday so I went on a tour to Agua Azul, taking in another waterfall on the way.

That's me doing the rope swing! For the Spanish speakers who were wondering why it wasn't called agua marron, the colour of the water is affected by rain and it had thrashed it down the day before, washing away my brilliant jungle fridge (a plastic bag in the river). I also meditated in front this and the other waterfall, one of my favourite type of places to meditate. I had also managed a sit on the roof in San Cristobal after 2 clean days, my first sit since Lo de Marcos. back in mid September. Felt good to be back.

After seven wonderfully relaxing days in the jungle, waking up to howler monkeys and having lush green vegetation all around, fire jugglers performing at San Pancho´s and hanging out with them and the Mexican tour guides, it was time to go back to San Cris for the work programme.

On which note, I will leave you begging for more :)

Lots of love,
Steve