Year Abroad Diaries

2007-11-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

ok... so no blogging in over a month *slap wrists*

Some things that have happened in the last month:

We had a party at the school, I went with a friend to the supermarket (1.5 blocks down the road) and some guy grabbed my bag, along with my wallet, phone and camera, pulled me over and ran off.

The police are on strike (yep, the POLICE) so I can't report the theft and get my insurance.

Zara, Laura and me took a weekend away to Penedo, Foz de São Francisco and Pontal de Coruripe. Penedo is old and colonial but really really run down. Foz de São Francisco are these beautiful dunes where Rio São Francisco meets the sea, so we went and ran up and down the dunes and swam and sunbathed and ate some little coconut cakes. Pontal de Coruripe we stayed at a really nice hostel with cats and the most amazing breakfast, for 25 reais (abour 7 pounds). On the beach the next day some people came up to us and asked us if we were tourists... errm yes... "can we have outr picture taken with you?"

It's strange - the coast is beautiful and there are hotels, restaurants, tourists everywhere, but they're almost all Brazilian.

Another good weekend trip, this time with the school, was to Porto de Galinhas - another really beautiful beach town, and the kids there make these amazing things out of leaves like really intricate fishes and roses. We also went for a crêpe in the evening at this little stand, which had a CD player, and the woman selling grabbed all of the men she knew (aged about 15-70) and got them to dance with us to forró.

I have also started getting forró lessons, which is hilarious cos its all middle aged brazilian women, really really camp dance teachers, and me (before there were a few other students that went too but they have all now leaft!)

This month I've started doing volunteer work. Four days a week I go to an adoption home in the afternoon, and 2 mornings I go to a girls project - basically where girls from really poor families that have to work long hours can go during the day, be taken to school, fed, and then go home to their families at night.

But the adoption home is so upsetting - the kids are there from 0-7, apart from a few older ones with serious disabilities. The toddlers have nothing to do really apart from a few trikes scattered about for them to share. There are plug sockets on the walls at ground levels, and a few holes that used to be plug sockets and are now just wires. There is also a high set of metal shelves that they like to climb unsupervised. I'm probably gonna fall for one of them and come back with a lil Brazilian child.

So if anyone can think of cool cheep things to enterntain small children then let me know! I was teaching the girls from the girls project today to make friendship bracelets which was cool, and I have a few ideas... but any others craft ideas, or fun ways to teach a bit of english are welcome!!

Anyway, I have to get back home for my dinner of caldinho de feijão!
x x x

2007-10-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

Ahh, so much has happened!

Had a slight difference in opinions with my host dad, (i.e. he thought that while his wife was in hospital alone in another city it was OK for him to take me out to dinner, tell me i was beautiful and he loves me etc. and i didn't) so i'm now living in a new home with a host mum, her lodger, and another student from the school which is great. And I get a double bed.

Last weekend we went to the Dunas de Marapé which was really beautiful. Amazing white sand beaches, with a river going down to the sea and little grey monkeys in the trees arund. We'd been out for a few drinks the night before to see off Karen and Peter so we ended up sleeping on the beach for most of the afternoon (amazingly i didnt get too burnt!)

One of the teachers at the school, Pedro, is also an artist and one of his designs was in an interior design show that opened thursday and he invited us all along. So we arrived in flipflops and normal clothes, to find that it was reallly posh, all of the women in heels and dresses, all of the men in suits, free champagne all night, free canopés circling all night. It was like the cast from a telenovela. It was interesting to see the other side of life in Maceió, especially after going to the favelas a couple of times. The contrast within one small city is unbelievable.

Friday was sad because a lot of the students who had been here since i arrived left. In the evening a few of us went to the beach to eat Tapioca, a local food which is a little bit like tortillas, where you can get lots of fillings but the classic is cheese and coconut. After that we went to a party in one of the host houses though for a farewell which was really fun. There were a lot of home made coctails and attempts to dance forro.

Saturday early morning we set off on a trip to Maragogi, a town in norhtern Alagoas near the border with Pernambuco. On the way we stopped at yet another beautiful beach. It was bizarre because the sea was shallow until really far from the shore. We swam for a while and had a doze on the beach then had an amazing lunch and went on to Maragogi. When we arrived we watched some amazing Brazilian TV in the bedroom, including a highly intellectual show in which a woman was confronted with 3 men and she had to guess which was married, which was gay and which was single. In the evening we went out for pizza and then a few of us went back to the hotel and played silly drinking games and other went to a bar. The plan was to meet up later to go on to a club, but when we got to the bar at about 10.30 all of the others had gone to bed, and in the end only 4 of us went to the club. Which was strange and noone would dance, so we went home early.

Sunday we went on a boat out to some amazing natural swimming pools, areas where the water is very shallow and there are lots of coral reefs and beautiful fishes swimming around everywhere. We got some awful pictures taken there too, some of which i may put up later.

2007-09-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say that i've moved to a different house so on the off chance that anyone was gonna send anything to the address that was posted on here.... don't!

I'm OLD (er)

2007-09-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

I am now 22.

Yep.

Nothing to look forward to til I hit 50 and I cheap car insurance and saga holidays

Thusday i had a capoeira lesson in the afternoon (if anyone doesnt know what it is then go to youtube and take a look). It was really fun but reallly embarassing and i'm reallllly bad at it.

Saturday we went on a school outing to Praia do Francês which was beautiful, white sand beach with rock pools and palm trees. It also has a natural wall of rock a little way out separating the beach from the ocean which means that the water was really calm. We went to a cafe on the beach too which had great seafood... but it took about 2 hours to be served. In the evening we met up with the capoeira teacher, some people from the school and some if his friends and played silly games on the beach, drank some beers and one of his friends tried (and failed) to teach me to dance forro (think thats what its called... its a local music style the lyrics to which are apparently all very dirty)

Sunday a few of us went out with the capoeira teacher in the afternoon to the favelas (slums) to see the project that he does out there. He doesn't charge for the capoeira lessons but takes donations to work with the kids in the favela teaching them capoeira, giving them some food and clean t-shirts, generally giving them something constructive and fun to do. It was pretty upsetting to see how they live. It's right next to the rubbish dump (where most of the people there work, including the children), all of the houses have makeshift roofs and open sewers and stray dogs. The lesson was in the building used by alcoholics anonymous and was about the only building that hasd glass in the windows.

Also on sunday my host mum left for Recife as she has to have an operation, so this week i'm living only with host dad, and mostly cooking my own meals.

Monday was my birthday, Stefani the host dad completely forgot, but at the school they gave me a massive chocolate cake and sang happy birthday to me in portuguese. In the afternoon we stayed at the beach and drank out of coconuts and then went for crepes at a cafe on the seafront. In the evening i spoke to mum and dad for the first time in about a month and then went out for a really nice meal of more amazing seafood and then on to a beachfront bar for some caiparinhas.

Yesterday i took it easy in the afternoon, did my homework and went for icecream, then went to watch what was supposed to be a teachers vs students football match. Unfortunately only one teacher appeared, and almost no students, and there was an odd number. So despite turning up in a skirt and flipflops i was made to be in goal. I was not good. After the game the token teacher spoke to the guy who ran the sports centre who offered us a free dance lesson next week which sounds fun.

Today was Laura's birthday and we went out in a jangada (traditional brazilian sailboat) to the natural pools created by the reef. The place is really beautiful and they caught and cooked us an octopus. Unfortunately it was disgusting.... but the thought was there.

Which about brings me up to date!
more soon x x

Maceió so far

2007-09-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

ahhh

seems like so long since i actually said what i´ve been doing!
My family are all lovely, including my surrogate little brother. They were not told, however, that i was veggie so the first meal they cooked was beef. I told them i didnt eat meat, and the response was 'ok, tomorrow i'll cook something you eat.... like chicken'. Hmmmm. They seems to understand now though :)

The school is lovely and has about 15 students at the mo which is nice as everyone knows eachother and there are lots of sociable things to do. Monday we went out for a coctail, tuesday there was a free capoiera class... which i missed... but i might go tomorrow. Tonight we're going for a drink, tomorrow is pizza night, saturday there's a trip to a beach outside maceio.... I think I'll manage to keep myself busy!!

The lessons are relatively easy, it's mostly going over things that i should already know, but i still seem to struggle enough to keep it interesting.

I am having issues with buses and paperwork though... I open a bank account i have to get a card of some sort. I was told to go to the receita federal (i don't know what this is). So i went there, and they told me to go to the bank. So i went there and they told me to go to the post office. So i went there and they gave me a number and told me to go back to the receita federal in 2 days. Sigh.

Also highly confusing are the buses... Today as it was cloudy i decided to go to the shopping center. We got on a bus to the shopping center, but it didnt stop there. So we got off, got on a bus in the other direction, got to the shopping centre, had a look around at the amazingly garish brazilian fashion then decided to go back. Got on a bus that said via ponta verde and after a while saw the place MILES from ponta verde that we´d had to get off first time. so we asked the driver, and the bus had already gone via ponta verde and was now going somewhere else. so yet again we had to get off, cross the road, go back miles the way we'd come.

I have been being introduced to lots of random brazilian food like a pudding with pumpkin and coconut, and acai which is some kinda fruit, and a root the name of which i've forgotten which tastes like potatoe... but more dry and not as nice, and cachaço a lethal spirit, and feijão which is a kinda bean stew type stuff, and these little mussles in coconut sauce. All very exciting.

anyhoo i'm gonna go home to my brazilian mummy and little brother before going out tonight :)

photos of mexico

2007-09-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

geco!
rowan looking pretty with the palm tree reflected in her sunnies.
Palenque in the forest... so so pretty!
a croc at the cañon del sumidero
piñatas!
cañon del sumidero again.... chronology went a bit wrong there!
the indigenous church (and market) at san juan chamula
amazing poster in a barbers shop... anyone fancy one of these beautiful hairstyles??lagos de montebello... in the rain...
the camp on the first night of the tour
our accommodation for night one of the tour.
night 3 of the tour we found this monster in our bed (i was to much of a wuss to put my hand there for scale.... but it was big. Honest). I scared him out with the stench of my shoe :)
amazing murals in bonampak.... this is one of the less gory ones
chichen itza in all its glory
super flattering picture of me from below at chichen itza

Brazil

2007-09-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

So after a tearful farewell at 4am in Cancun on tuesday morning with Ro, I got my flights as far as São Paulo without many problems or delays. On arriving i realised that the hostel i´d booked was the other end of the city, so i could in fact probably have stayed in a nice hotel near the airport for the price of the taxi alone that took me down to my HI hostel. But i decided to go where i knew i had a bed rather than turn up somewhere closer and hope for the best. Speaking to the taxi driver, i realised that i was totally lost with brazilian accents! But i could at least make myself inderstood which i guess is better than nothing...

When I arrived it was really nice, the people were really friendly and spoke english. Most of the people at the hostel were Brazilian but i met one american guy and chatted to him for a bit then headed to bed.

Next morning met the girl in my dorm who´s brazilian but spoke really good english and a few of her friends over breakfast... where they all spoke really fast in portuguese... but they were sweet and made an effort to translate for me (even though most of their stories seemed to be about misinforming foreigners about what various things meant to hilarious consequences... eep)

Later as i had a whole day there (my flight was supposed to be meeting all the rest of the flights from Cancun, so it didnt leave until 22.40) I went with a few people from the hostel to a park in the city where there were various different things like a planetarium, museum and modern art gallery. We just went to the art gallery which was great and had a couple of photography exhibitions and then headed on to get lunch. After lunch we went back to the hostel and chilled out there for a bit then i headed off to the metro... then the other metro... then the bus to get to the airport with my monster bag. Something i´m relieved that i don´t have to do again for a while!!

Had a while to wait at the airport so i got some food, called ben, then checked in. Then waited and waited and waited.... finally an hour after we were supposed to leave we were called to our gate, then we got on the plane and waited another half an hour. We finally got to maceio at about 3am. When i arrived at the hostel although i'd booked tey didn't seem to be expecting me and drudgingly put me into a room that had a like of massive ants crossing the floor and smelled like pee. I was too tired to care and slept until my alarm went off in time for breakfast.

At breakfast it was clear that there was almost noone at the hostel, just me and a Brazilian family. I went to change travellers cheques, had a nap, went for a wonder about town and found a nice cafe on the seafront. The city is pretty big and full of tower blocks and there are no tourists! But Brazilians are much more of a racial mix than Mexicans so i don't feel like i stand out as a tourist quite so much as i did there. The beach is fun for people watching but i haven't ventured to swim yet...

In the evening i made dinner for myself at the hostel and tried to call the family i'd be staying with but had no joy. Next morning i called again but again there was no answer. I went to the language school to ask there but it was a public holiday so it was closed. Eventually i got through on the mobile number and was told (after a few attempts at me understanding her) that her sister would be there in an hour. On my way there i was greated by her nephew who seems nice. Edelina, the one i should be staying with, is away until sunday, but her sister would get me breakfast until then. Didnt do much else yesterday apart from another little wander along the beach and went to the supermarket.

Today the nephew, wilson, came to make me breakfast then i went down to an artesania market which is a bit of a trek down to beach towards town. Unfortunately it wasn't very exciting... mostly they sold carving of large breasted brazilian women, mugs with breasts that said Maceió on the side and jewellary made from coconut. Ah well.

Anyway that about brings me up to date, Tomorrow i meet my new family (oh, and the son who it says is a student on the info i got about the family looks to be about 10 by the family pictures in the flat!). Monday i start at the language school. Hopefully there will be someone else who i can talk to there!! I miss other tourists... or just other humans that i'm capable of communicating with...

x x x x x x

I´m in Brazil!

2007-09-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

Don´t have time to write much, but for those of you who asked for my address and want to sent me birthday cards, cadburys chocolate, books in english, an overnight solution to understanding brazilian portuguese, here it is:

Rua Dep. Jose Lages 613
Apartamento 303,
Edificio Toulouse,
Ponta Verde,
Maceió
57035 330

more soon xxx

i leave tomorrow!!!

2007-09-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

so yes.... valladolid...

we went to the cenote which was amazing, it was all underground in a cave with cool clear water and bats flying above and one hole in the roof that went through to the outside world. We met some random Mexicans, one of whom insisted that we come visit him and stay with his family in Merida (we smiled politely, took his number and didn't call.... does that make us bad people??)

The next day we got up early and got a colectivo out to Chichen Itza which was pretty amazing. There's a huge temple which represents the mayan calender, with all the different walls and steps (of which there are exactly 365) representing different cycles of years and months etc. There are also lots of amazing carvings, including jaguars, eagles, snakes and several walls with nothing but carvings of human sculls. There was also the largest of the Mayan ball courts, along with more carvings along the sides of ball games and som rather gruesome decapitations.

The hostel in Valladolid was really nice, clean, well organised, with kitchen facilities, hammocks, a TV room and some incredibly cute kittens that lived in the garden. The next day we were going to go to Isla Holbox, but we realised that it was hard to get to and with the little time we had left we wanted to go somewhere a little more chilled out. So we went to Isla Mujeres, an island just off the coast from Cancun.

The hostel was nice, but a little crazy, and full of english people which we hadn't had for a while! The dorms were priced in terms of the width of the matress, so we decided to go for the smallest one thinking that it would make no difference.... but the combination of that and no aircon didnt make for good nights sleep! However we did go out the first night to the beach bar that was part of the hostel with 4 english girls we met which was fun. The next day (yesterday) we went to a turtle farm which was great. They had tanks with turtles of alll sizes from little tiny baby ones inside to big ones in enclosures in the actual sea outside. There wasn't really that much to see but we spent ages just watching them.

When we got back to our hostel i read my emails only to find out that one of my flights (they didnt say which one) on the 5th was cancelled. They also gave me a number which could have been mexican, english, brazilian or panamanian as they didn't give me a country code. It turned out to be mexican, but it didn't work anyway. So i finally found a number that did work for the airline and after lots of pressing buttons to get through to an actual person, they told me that there was no problem.

Thismorning i call trailfinders and they say that it is cancelled, they don't know which of the 2 flights it is, the only number they had was the one that i already knew didnt work, they couldnt tell me what to do about the other (internal) flight in brazil which is with a different airline and which i would miss if i went a day later. They just told me to call the airline who had already told me that everything was fine.

Useful.

But i call the airline again anyway, and they now at least acnowledge that the flight is cancelled, and give me the option of flying a day earlier or a day later. So to avoid missing my Brazil flight i go for a day earlier, which meant running back to the hostel to check out, getting a boat back to Cancun, booking into a hostel here, booking a taxi for 5am tomorrow, putting all the holiday pics onto disk so Ro could have a copy of them, booking a hotel in Sao Paulo as i'm now stuck there tomorrow night. And on top of all that, in the middle of running between payphones and call centres and internet cafes i managed to lost my wallet. So i had to cancel my card too and i cant get moneys out of ATMs any more!!

So yes... today has been most stressful. As will the next few days be. So much for having today to relax on the beach and tomorrow to do last minute things like photos and souvenirs!

Next time i write i shall be in Brazil!!! ARGH!!! I don't think i remember a single word of Portuguese.

...continued

2007-08-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

so yeh, one of the interesting things about going on the tour with 3 people who actually live in Mexico was hearing more about quite how amazingly corrupt the government here is. There's strong military presence everywhere, especially in Chiapas where the zapatistas are strongest, and police check points all over the place. The zapatista rebellion grew out of a change in the constitution which denied indigenous people rights to their land, and instead of the protests leading to more indigenous rights it lead to a massacre of the zapatistas and portrayal of them as terrorists and drug dealers (although in fact the military have come under much scrutiny about its drug dealing... but of course noone ever gets prosicuted).

The german couple who live in Mexico live in Oaxaca. I'd read around San Cristobal grafiti supporting the people of oaxaca but didn't know what it was referring to. But apparently last year there were peaceful demonstrations in Oaxaca by teachers about their wages, and instead of raising wages which was what usually happened, they responded with violence and tear gas. This escalated into bigger protests, with people being disappeared and barricades set up by the people to protect the people from the police. Many protesters were put into prison. None of this made it into national or international news until an american journalist was killed. There was a film of him being shot and still noone was prosicuted. Within a few weeks all demolished building were rebuilt, the city was tidied up, graffiti painted over and the government pretended that nothing had happened.

Other little things such as the fact that opposite the Ciapas office for animal protection there is a house, in the garden of the house there is a wild macaw with its wings clipped being kept as a pet give you less and less faith in Mexican beurocracy.

Anyhoo, back to the trip! Day three we went to some more ruins right on the guatemalan border which we went to by boat. Amazing carvings showing self sacrifice to the gods (women pierced their tongues and men their penis, thankfully the carvings are more symbolic than graphic representations). In the afternoon we went to the lastplace that we'd sleep. The cabins were much more basic but right on the river with little porch and hammocs. From there we went for a walk to a little pool of cool clear water where we swam and dived for shells.

Last day of the tour we went to Bonampak, some more ruins, which have the most incredible preserved painted murals. Two are celebrating the birth of the new emporer, with more images of self sacrifice, dancers, musicians, actors. Another is celebrating a battle with various gruesome pictures of beheaded slaves etc.

From there we went on the Palenque, the tour included a guide of the ruins there but as 4 of us had already been we had a refund instead of the tour and left the rest of them to head back to San Cristobal. We stayed one night in Palenque and then went to Campeche, a town known for its history of being invaded by pirates who raped and pillaged. Our hostel was El Pirata and in the doorway there was a life size plastic pirate sceleton whose eyes lit up red and who shouted whenever you walked through the door. There was not too much to do in Campeche, but having slept in a different bed the last 6 nights we were quite content to do nothing for a couple of days so we wandered about the town, did a little shopping and caught up on sleep.

After 2 days there we came here to Valladolid last night. There are Cenotes here (natural pools) and it's near to Chichen Itza so I think we'll go for a swim thisafternoon and then head to Chichen Itza, one of the seven wonders of the world,tomorrow.

x x x

Woo done so much in the last week!

2007-08-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

sooooooo last monday seems like years ago!!! We went on a boat tour to the cañon del sumidero which is this amazing canyon near San Cristobal with steep rock sides that are 1000m tall at their highest. There are also caves at some points and just forest at others. We saw some awesome crocodiles and even some monkeys in the places where there was forest and not just rock! Unfortunately as it´s the rainy season and as so many rivers feed into it there was so so mujch rubbish floating in the water, even though volunteers remove tons of it every day. At the end of the canyon there´s an electricity plant. Chiapas provides more than half of mexico´s electrical power and yet it´s still the poorest state, where electricity is very expensive, and many communities live without any electricity at all.

Monday afternoon we went into town and booked onto a tour on kayaks through the jungle to start thursday.

Tuesday we got a colectivo (local transport which consists of cramming as many people (and their children and their boxes of vegetables etc) as possible into a little van which is usually falling to pieces) out to a little vilage called San Juan Chamula. There are lots of craft markets around the center, and an extraordinary church. The church has no seats, but there is an alter at the front and cases with statues of saints along the walls. In front of each saint is a table where people can light candles for the saints, and each saint carries a mirror over its heart to reflect away bad spirits. The floor is covered with pine needles so the whole building smells amazing, and all over the floor people make little clearings in the pine needles to light candles on the floor and pray. Different colours of candle mean different things, and some people bring cans of fizzy drink like coke in as they believe that burping expels bad spirits. Others bring in chickens and kill them as a sacrifice.

wednesday we went shopping for things that we might need for the kayaking, nothing much else!

Thurs we set off at 7am from the hostel. Turns out we were with 2 middle aged german couples - not ideal as we don´t speak a word of german! But 3 out of the 4 spoke english and 2 of them had lived in mexico 10 years and owned their own ecotourism business so it turned out to be like having 2 extra guides. Our official guide was a guy called Elias who was good fun, knew lots about all the indigenous groups in chiapas and the forest and the archaeological sites, but was a little... over flirty with me and ro at times! (hola bueritas tan liiindas donde esta la fiesta?). We went to some ruins in the morning which was great, not because they were the most amazing that we´d seen but because there were no tourists and there was someone to tell us what it all meant! There was a ball park at the ruins. Archaeologists still don´t know whether the losers were beheaded (because they lost) or the winners (because only the blood of the winners was good enough to be sacrificed to the gods) but either way it´s all nice and gruesome! From there we went to some beautiful lakes, but then it started to rain so we missed the rest and had lunch! After lunch we got into our kayaks, met our other guide Asias (probably not right spelling) and headed down stream towards where we would camp on the first night. On the way we saw some little spider monkeys which was cool. The camp site was relatively civilised - the camping area was covered so the stom that followed wasn´t too disasterous! The toilet left a lot to be desired though and there was no shower (apart from the tropical rain).

The next morning after a breakfast of fresh fruit and yoghurt we set off again down the river. The beach where we had left the kayaks was completely underwater because of the rain over night and the river was noticable faster. We had quite a lot of far too close encounters with the branches at the edge of the river and one of the german couples tipped their boat and they both lost their glasses! But we managed to make it to a place where we would walk in the jungle to some other ruins. We donated rather more blood than we would have liked to the mosquitos of the Lacandón rain forest, but it's a really beautiful place. The ruins haven't been restaured at all so it's all totally overgrown, and slowly being destroyed by the vegitation because the government won't put any money into saving it.

After we head back to shore in the kayaks we go to the next stop which is much better than our previous camping spot, and there are howler monkeys playing in the trees over the cabins!! We have a much needed shower and an early night

Too lazy to contintue just now, will finish off whenever i'm next online!

liam - can't believe you're the other side of the world!!!!!!!!!!!!! hope you're having fun. Wish I could have brought a hogwarts size case :( :(

Pictures!

2007-08-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

Cancun beach, complete with perfect white sand, terquoise ocean, and miles and miles of monsterous hotels.

Pelicans in Cancun

Bimbo bread products!! I'm still working on the ultimate picture of a big mexican in a bimbo football shirt.

Rowan looking terrified with some random mariachis we met in Tulum

Me looking marginally less terrified but marginally more felt up by said mariachis.... not entirely sure how that worked out.

Beast of an iguana. There are lots of those :)

Ruins on the coast at Tulum.... and a palm tree!

Ruins on the coast at Tulum.... and a palm tree... and a tourist!

Another amazing iguana at the Tulum ruins!

The beach at Tulum... so pretty :)

Right that's it for now with pics. Took me hours and hours to get these up!!

but yeh, since i last wrote we went snorkelling in Tulum. It was cloudy and wavey and we were convinced that we wouldn´t see anything, but went along anyway as we´d already paid the deposit. But in the end it was beautiful, with hundreds of different kinds of fish and coral. Beautiful that is until i was sick over the side of the boat on the way back to shore because of the rocky sea!

That night we went on to Palenque which is in the jungle. The bus was over night and we were dreading the pending night of unconfortable rough bus ride... but in fact the bus was so so comfortable! we had massive seats that went back to almost horizontal, and films with little headphones.

However the cabins that we´d booked into had quadrupled their prices since appearing in the lonely planet so we ended up trekking down the road to find somewhere else. The place we found was 'elementos naturales' which was completely bizarre. It was run by an old guy called Soloman. We still can't decide if he´s an alcoholic or just completely mad. The cabin was basic... thatched roof, no lock from the inside, no door between the beds and bathroom and an impressive zoo of bugs, ants and gecos inside and out. Which for 15 pounds for the two of us breakfast included isn´t too bad really. But then we got to breakfast not expecting much and we got toast, marmalade and coffee. Then a bowl of fresh fruit with yoghurt and granola. Then eggs, more toast, and fresh fruit juice!

On our first night we went down the road to a bar which had great live music and some impressive salsa dancing. But then there was a huge thunder storm that lasted about 7 hours (i.e. for the rest of the night) somewhat terrifying when in a little straw hut!

The next morning we went to the ruins that Palenque is famous for and they were absolutely stunning. The area that the ruins are in is massive and there are still carvings surviving on the site. We spent a happy couple of hours wandering and climbing up temples and following jungle paths to find more ruins.

The next morning we came here to San Cristobal and arrived after about 6 hours of hairpin bends about 2000m higher. It´s a very pretty colonial town, where we have managed to do very little! Yesterday we went into town to an amazing saturday market with endless mounds of random fruit and vegetables (and anything else you could possibly want). In the evening we went out to a bar with some people from the hostel with more live music and impressive local salsa dancers.

I have to say that although it´s sometimes a bit cold, it´s quite a relief to be away from the relentless heat and humidity of the beaches and jungle! So i think we´re going to stick around for a bit and do some tours from here. It´s also interesting as it´s much more indigenous, lots of people in traditional dress and speaking indigeous languages. We also went to the mayan medicine museum and therefore know the medical benefits of skunk urine and hummingbird flesh.... enlightening....

anyway more pics and news soon!

lots of love x x x

In Tulum

2007-08-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

ahhh haven't written for ages!

Went to the beach in Cancun which was so so so touristy... the whole stretch of coast was lined with hotels (we actually couldn´t find a public way through to the beach when we got off the bus so we ended up sneaking through a hotel lobby) but once we were on the beach it was all white sand and turquoise sea, with pelicans fishing and little fishes in the shallows

After cancun we headed down to Tulum where we are now, which is a bit less touristy! We´re staying in a crazy hostel called weary traveller, which is a bit more basic than that last one, but much more sociable. This is a mixed blessing however because in dorms there´s not much sleep to be had when some people get up at 8am and others stay up talking and drinking until 4am. There are people who have been thre for weeks! The hostel runs a free bus service to the sea, give free DIY breakfast, have hammocks in shady courtyard.... and everything (including food, beer, juice, coffee) is put on a tab so we´re not looking forward to seeing what our debt is on leaving.

It´s been swealteringly hot here the past few days, it´s impossible to do anything at all in the heat of the day. The first day here in the morning we went to the ruins, which are beautiful and right by the sea and inhabited by some massive iguanas! We then went to the beach which is stunning, none of the monster hotels of Cancun, just a few little cabins. But its very very hot, and has almost no shade, so we headed back to chill out in the hostel in the afternoon. That night there was a massive thunder storm that went on for hours with turrential rain, thunder, lightining.

Yesterday we slept in which was really nice and much needed after having too much sun the day before. In the afternoon we went out to the beach and booked a snorkelling trip out to the reef for tomorrow.

Today we went on an all day tour out to the Biosfera, a kind of national park dedicated to low impact tourism, where there are huge areas of mangroves. We first went to a Cenote, which from what i can gather is where underwater rivers meet the surface, which means it was an incredibly deep fresh water lake with lots of little black fish. We did some snorkelling then went onwards. Most of the day was spent on boats among the mangroves and at the end we all lay on life jackets and floated down the river for about half an hour. All this was lovely apart from restrictions on sun cream and mosquito repellant when we went into the water so we´re all a bit pink and bitten!

I think that tomorrow evening we´re going to get an overnight 12 hour bus to Palenque, another ruin but in the middle of the jungle, which sounds amazing.

Not much else to report really! We met some mariachis in the street and befriended them and had our photos taken with them, but we have still yet to actually hear any of them singing. I have officially run out of clean clothes so we went to the lavanderia today. There are loads of little gecos at the hostel we´re staying which are awesome. There are also loads of massive flying grasshoppers about that have bright red wings. When we first saw them we were convinced they were little birds! Lots of pretty butterflys about, lots of less pretty vultures constantly circling overhead, lots of backpackers who´ve been here longer mocking my amazing whiteness.

Miss you all! x x x

we arrived!!

2007-08-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

but the keyboard is sticky and all the punctiation is confusing so those of yu who are fussy about such things (Liam) will have to just bear with me!

had a bit of a nightmare last night as Rowan and I arrived in Cancun but our bags did not. The people were completely unapologetic despite about 15 people from the flight missing bags!! in the end the guy grudgingly gave us a form to fill in, asked what kind of bags they were and told us to call the next day.

on top of that when we finally got into a taxi (about 24 hours after we'd left Rowan{s flat in brighton that morning) our taxi got stopped by the police, the driver disussed various bits of paper for about 20 minutes, then called us another taxi!

But we met another english girl on the flight who wanted to come to the same hostel so we shared a taxi with her, and sat in the bar at the hostel sipping our well deserved complimentary beers on arrival!

the hostel is nice, with internet, nice bar, laundrette, free breakfast and aircon (essential since it's so so hot!!). Also the lady in charge called the airport today and got us our bags back which was a great relief as after 36 hours with no spare clothes and no soap we were not smelling to pretty.

we haven't explored much yet but went out for tacos earlier which was nice. It's incredibly touristy, every other shop is a restaurant/tourist office/souvenir shop touting for business, so not somewhere we really want to stay long! But I think a day at the beach tomorrow is in order, perhaps going down to a maya ruin on the coast which the guidebook says has friendly iguanas that will eat out of your hand :)

random other stuff.... we stood behind a mariachi in the q at the tills in a shop we went in! The hostel's on a plaza which is a bit of a construction site, but had beautiful huge trees covered in bright orange flowers. The local football strip says bimbo accross the front in big letters.

more soon! xx

2007-08-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

5 days to go!

I have travellers' cheques, local currency, the language school is booked, my medical kit is updated, maleria pills purchased, had hundreds of injections so feeling almost close to prepared.

However.

I still have nowhere to stay when I arrive in either country (all hostels are rubbish at responding to emails and answering their phones apparently) and I haven't started packing.

D'oh!

I'm gonna go bury my head in the sand now... woo! hollyoaks!

x x x x x x x

I have the fear!!

2007-07-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ok.... it's 2 weeks today that i leave.

TWO WEEKS

and it doesn't help the fear factor that i'm flying into Sao Paulo with TAM airlines:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6903837.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6907053.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6907704.stm

But i've been looking at hostels in Mexico for when me and Rowan arrive, which all look amazing and have got me all excited.
www.chacmool.com.mx

Looking at the comparative weather reports here and there have cheered me up too!

Anyway, don't really have news other than general panic/excitement so more later!

2007-06-30T05:17:00.000-07:00

just to see if i could work out how to post pictures really.... but isn't it pretty!

2007-06-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hey Hey!

Before long I shall be miles away where summers are actually hot and I don't understand people for reasons other than that they are too geordie/norfolk.

So to save long tedious emails clogging up your inbox/junk mail, I decided to join the scary and geeky world of blogging.

As most of you know, the plan is Mexico on 7th August with Rowan, and then on to Brazil (Maceio) all alone on the 5th September.

I shall update when I'm doing more interesting things than packing and dusting in the hopes of actually getting my deposit back on the Newcastle flat...

x x x