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

Mexico city Wed 13th Oct - Oaxaca Friday 22nd

For what started out as a trip that might have involved no alcohol and lots of meditation, rather a large amount of my diary entries start with a short sentence - 'Hungover.' Ooops. But then again, it's hard to resist when you're constantly around new people, in new places. So thinking I needed to get south to fit my overall journey plan of getting to Argentina in 6 months, I took the bus from Guanajuato to Mexico City. ooked for a connection straight through to Oaxaca but wasn't one. So, decided to do the things I'd been recommended to do and checked into a hostel right in the centre.

A bit different from my first visit in a hotel. That's the difference with being in the travel routine. Hostels are just great for meeting people etc whereas my hotel last month had NOBODY in it to share travel plans etc, and what with the whole capital being roadblocked for independence, it was a very different atmosphere. Feeling hungry after my bus I set off to get veggie food and was getting rapidly depressed when I bumped into Mick, an Irish guy travelling on his motorbike who I'd met in Guanajuato. Which cheered me up. Food was indifferent but then breakfast on the roof of the hostel the next morning was great.

I also met a guy called Luke, a very pleasant Kiwi guy, and a French guy, called Jérôme. Confusing at first as they were speaking French, but I could just about pick Luke wasn't French, but didn't sound Quebecois. Got more confusing later as Luke and I were alternating Spanish, French and English. But I like that kind of confusing....

Any road, we duly agreed to go off to Teotihuacan together as we were all heading there. An adventure in itself as we went through a fairly rough part of town near to where I'd been before. The ruins were amazing. An hour and a half bus ride as the city really is HUGE, but then, there we were. And if my camera battery was flatter than a pancake, fortunately Jérôme's wasn't (see pic of him below). The pics of my first Mexican ruins are not mine, but oh well...

This is on the pyramid of the moon and to the left in the background is the pyramid of the sun. Interestingly, the Aztecs (or Mexicas as they were know, hence the name of the country) actually took over the site, but didn't build it. Which made it more pleasing for me personally as the rate of human sacrifice at Aztec temples reached something like 25,000 in one year not long before the Spanish arrived. All a  bit bloodthirsty for my liking. However, the builders of this amazing place were probably more into the earlier Olmec and later Mayan way of doing things with much less sacrifice. The Aztec sacrifices were designed to placate the Gods and ensure the continued existence of the world. So judging by the huge numbers, they were really worried their world was about to end. And they were right.

The pyramid of the sun would look better with a bit more sun on it, but you get the idea. :) The next snap is a good hour from the centre of the city and you can see how tightly packed it is. The city is basically in a bowl, surrounded by mountains which you could see from the top of the hostel. The disturbing thing is that there was a greater or lesser haze of pollution every day and at some point I started to feel like I was sitting in a bowl of smog soup. Not too nice.

That evening I was feeling hungry again and Luke decided to be kind and show me a restaurant he'd thought looked pretty good. The food was goooorgeous. So nice to have a vegetarian pasta. Which I duly went into the kitchen and thanked them for later. As Luke wasn't eating, he was freer to talk to the girl sitting next to us who turned out to be an extremely engaging Chilean conceptual artist called Viviana. Here I noted the importance of going out either alone or with other Spanish speakers. Makes meeting locals much easier, especially as Viviana didn't speak Engish. The three of us went onto another very cool bar (I was competely sober, believe it or not, as I was resting after Guanajuato and had only had a little first taste of Mezcal). On the way home from there the chef from the first restaurant-bar and a friend of his invited us to a party. At this point my resistance crumbled and I did have a few beers. Finished at six am. All in Spanish, Mexicans, a Chilean, me and a Kiwi. Just perfect. And the music at the party was rocking.

The next day the three of us went to the market as Viviana needed to buy something for her next piece - some transparent plastic suitcases. An absolutely stunningly colourful market where I bought a load of salad stuff, seeds, nuts etc. Yay! We bought sweetcorn at this stall which was THE best I've ever tasted. Amazing. We then worked our way to a pulquería, where they sell only pulque. A sort of aniseedy, brewed, creamy beverage with flavourings like vanilla etc. Met a load of young Mexicans knocking off from work and got chatting. Ended up at a student bar which was rammed. Chatted loads to Victor who is to Luke's right in the pic. Really nice bunch.

Having failed to make it to the Templo Mayor the previous day, went to it with Luke and a lovely Brit called Drew. Luke scooted off half way through so only Drew benefited from the truly amazing salad I put together for lunch back at the hostel. The site is amazing. It was the main temple in the Aztec capital called Tenochtitlan so the Spanish just built their cathedral right on top of the site as you can see in the background of this pic.

At some point before I left, we also went to see the National palace which was packed as it was the weekend and it's free. Started with a 4-minute, slightly optimistic, but visually impressive surround-sound, multiple-screens-covering-every-wall projection of the history of Mexico's history. The main reason we went there though was to see Diego Rivera's murals.

The biggest one in the main stairwell took 6 years to complete and also covers all of Mexico's history. Utterly amazing. This was followed by meeting up with one of the guys from the previous day to go to a party which ended up being too complicated so we went to a club and within a minute of arrival was dragged off to the dance floor by a Mexican girl for my first dance to Reggaeton. Cool. And if you tried to dance like Mexicans do with complete strangers in England, you'd either end up wearing a pint or very embarrassed as they looked at you like some kind of weirdo. Here though, perfectly normal to mix, salsa, lots of hip grinding, preferably getting as low to the floor as possible. They'll even drag you into a circle to watch you do the same while cheering you on. Great. Loved it.

Stole this photo of Coyocan off another blog, as again failed to take my camera. Beautiful place near Frida Kahlo's family house, which more than made up for the swimming pool being closed after my 25 minute walk to get there. All the partying was making me feel like I needed a rest again so set off for Oaxaca with Jean-Charles and Drew. The first time I'd set off with anyone else when moving on. Nice change. And easy as JC was very organised and found a hostel on his computer, whereas I had neither guidebook nor made the effort to look online.

The Casa Angel was great. First food round the corner at caf was great too - Tlayudas (type of tortilla) with veggie filling and garnished with a local herb which was beautiful. Yum. A welcome break from the already somewhat boring routine of quesadillas etc. The owner, Octavio, was a star. Went to the shop to get us beer and then when I saw another client with a Mezcal and asked for one too, he initially said no then got me one - his Dad's mezcal. Not on the menu at all. Nyce. An easy morning and day followed walking around with JC and respectively talking for England and France - in French, and very stimulating it was too. Gave me a few ideas :) And his photos too as you'll see from the better quality - lens envy...Beautiful cathedral - Oaxaca.

Another idea came from talking to Mum and Dad on skype who highly recommended the restaurant below, La Biznaga.

Which we duly went to and found it to be every bit as good as we'd hoped. Me, Drew, JC on right, a British couple on left. The next day we went off on a very long and arduous journey on a local pickup/taxi to a place called Hierve el agua. Or the boiling water. Which turned out to be beautiful, but not boiling.

The inevitable 'walking in air/flying' pic. The tall guy on left was a lovely Scot named Mark.

We failed to see the ruins or the enormous tree at Mitla on the way back because it was too late. What we did find however, was this:

By the time the two bottles had almost bitten the dust on the roof terrace, all was going extremely well. Went dancing and hooked up with two rather lovely Brit-based ladies (one Cech with a dash of Polish, the other actually born and bred in London - not sure which is more unusual) and an Aussie guy. Great fun. And the next morning, Mick, who had duly arrived (2nd random meeting) laughed at my whole-body-shake hangover. Ah well. At least I didn't get robbed by the cops which Drew did.

Mick very kindly offered to take me up to Monte Alban on his bike which was quite an experience. The museum was pretty amazing and the ruins even more so. The pics don't do them justice.

Mick ran into some friends and so we all took a guide while I tried not to die on the way round. According to the Zapotec guide, the pictures below and others like them show Zapotec medicine 101 - they didn't leave any texts so this is all we have. He was also convinced there were Chinese faces, African faces etc. One thing's for sure - the Zapotecs were a powerful civilisation who predated the Aztecs and the Maya, if I'm not much mistaken. The site also included  pelota court. The game sounds like a cross between real tennis (the court), handball, rugby etc and the winner got to be sacrificed to the gods. Bonus! More a Mixtec/Maya thing though, not Zapotec.

So fairly well baked in the sun, we went off for a visit to the Oaxaca cultural museum which had beautiful Zapotec (older, maybe builders of the site) and Mixtec (more recent, local rivals of Zapotec). The guy who drove us to Hierve el agua spoke Zapotec as his first language. Chichebiste is 'cheers.

Back at the ranch it was a Belgian guy, Sam's birthday, so we went out again. Barracuda bar - much silliness ensued. Oddly enough this painting reminds me of the Lascaux/peche merle stuff with the hand outline.

and then the Casa de Mezcal. Where I was invited to eat a worm from the bottle. Which I did wrong apparently. So I did it again. Fortunately, I was able to dance off the hangover in about two hours of dancing on the roof, where I had my ipod plugged in and my Mexico mix on. As Amy, Barbara and Nigel were leaving for San Cristobal and were inviting me along, I packed my stuff and tucked into some afternoon chelas (mex slang for beers) and we caught the night bus.

Which arrived on 23rd Oct.... about which, more later :)

Love you all and miss you lots.
Steve
x