mexico: el final

i lazily left you all in GREAT suspense in the tiny ciudad of puebla.

here, i wandered round and found a really beautiful church of strange and unique architectural combinations (like ceramic murals with mustard yellow and rust-coloured concrete and crazy sculptures in marble), which then led me to the mercado gastronomico, a market of local food. i tried pozole soup and it proved to be extraordinarily bland without its meaty innards. the chef told me the price, i asked "even without meat?" and he immediately reduced it by thirty percent. need to try that more often.
at one store i was ignoring a staring mexican man when the shopkeeper gave him a funny look, so i looked at him. it was the strawberry juice man!! his eyes lit up when i looked at and recognized him, and we shook hands and bonded over old music and juice. i told him i would return that day for fresh-squeezed jugo de naranja, but when i tried to find his shop i could not!! i hope he knows that i tried... i really liked him and that moment had me smiling everytime i thought of it.
at the ex-convento de santa rosa i was forced to take a tour which i could not understand, but there was amazing artwork by locals and there was this strange outdoor and out-of-place hallway that was white but soiled and stood out in bright contrast from the stormy sky. from the top hung styrofoam heads and balls and at the bottom, styrofoam mannequins- it was all very strange... eerie... and interesting. beside this hallway was the nuns kitchen, at which, it is rumoured, mexican mole was born.
at another shop i asked the price of a shirt and the elderly lady told me ¨nono, that´s for fat people!¨ i have found that mexicans are very open about speaking bluntly of others´ size!
puebla was pleasant but i felt little connection other than with the sweet, elderly strawberry juice man.

oaxaca, the next stop, was quite nice. it is known for being particularly indigenous, but i did not find it more indigenous than the rest of mexico. i felt like the architecture was still very spanish. the hostel was packed with people, half of which i had met previously in mexico city! i went to the largest market in oaxaca, which i actually wasn`t impressed with. i had a fun time trying to find the cheapest running shoes. the boys that helped me led me to search for the drink "tejate". i was wondering through other markets and i kept seeing this big vat of disgusting looking light brown liquid with chunky dry power on top of it. finally i asked what it was and the girl started saying "milk, chocolate, almond..." and i blurted "tejate?!" and she said yes and so i tried it and it was absolutely delicious! so it shows how helpful it is to ask about things, because this junk looked like trash water as opposed to a deliciously sweet drink. at the markets and shops i also watched chocolate being made (walking by those shops is dangerous and heavenly- it smells AMAZING), and bought some chocolate with cinnamon from a really nice marketman who gave me almost as much chocolate in samples alone as i bought!!
after one too many mezcal samples, i wandered into the cathedral. it is strange because, for one, i was half-tipsy so it felt kindof sacreligious for me to be in there, and two, i never walk inside cathedrals because i feel out of place, but something told me to enter this one. i got maybe two feet in when a man eating said something to me and raised his eyebrows. i couldn`t understand him but, embarrassing to admit now, i just assumed he was hitting on me, so i gave a lame smile and walked past without responding. i got maybe fifty more feet inside when a mexican man named israel, with a baby on his back, asked me where i was from. we started talking and i learned that he had travelled to many different countries and he told me that out of all the countries he has visited he has rarely seen the main sights of the city because he prefers to people-watch, and through that- meet the people. i told him that i think that is the best way to travel and the best way to learn more about the culture. so we planned to go for coffee after i toured the cathedral. i met him at the entrance to the cathedral to find the eating man was israel`s friend! i was embarrassed for not responding to him, and i later found out that he had only said "oh that`s hot!" regarding his food, and the raised eyebrows were only for punctuation, and he said he only said it to me because i looked more open than other tourists! it`s all just... very embarrassing to admit. but i told him is because so many mexican men are constantly interested in foreign girls for no other reason than because they are foreign and then he understood where i was coming from. anyway, through a series of discussions we decided that coffee was all wrong, and that drinking my small bottle of mezcal (that i eventually felt forced to purchase after all the free shots) on the mirador (lookout) was key. so we took the long climb and atop the oaxaca mirador, next to the giant mexican flag, alberto and i discussed whether the tinman needed a brain or a heart, among other amazing conversation. he has had a vveerryy interesting life. he was among oaxacan tourist information personnel, so he spoke four languages, he was a french teacher, a drug dealer, and now a mechanic. very... colourful! after the talks we walked to another church, and more interesting than the church was the music going on around it! alberto left and i was wandering back to the hostel when i stumbled upon the contemporary art museum. the museum was not really interesting to me, but it started raining so i talked to the three guardspeople of the museum. we had HILARIOUS conversations about markets and my spanish and the meet ended in me getting my photo taken about four times with my overpriced scarf- on all their cell phones and on my camera. and then i bid them farewell. all in all, really awesome day. it felt really good to connect with so many people.
monte alban is an archaelogical site that was supposed to be really great and, since i still have faith that one day i might magically be interested in this stuff, i visited with a british girl named helena. as always, it was expensive and boring, but also as always it had some pretty great views and climbing the ruins in disgusting heat was a wicked workout. we went to a market that morning searching for my beloved embroidered bag and we went to about 7 wrong streets before i found it again because all the streets look EXACTLY the same.
that eve i wandered to the zocalo for fun and it was filled with people of all ages projecting plastic, air-filled missiles all over the place and listening to bolivian music and mariachis and it was peaceful and pleasant and lively. i randomly saw alberto again and he ended uop buying me a GIANT styrofoam cup of beer. he says the cops won`t arrest you for public intoxication if it`s in styrofoam heh. he also bought me four bunches of wildflowers (we felt sorry for the lady selling them), and then i rejected a trip to the bar and returned home. i gave one of the bunches to a canadian named nick. nick and kyle are from dundas- the town next to hamilton, and kyle goes to mcmaster. small world, eh?
the next day, helena and i went to hierve de agua- a petrified rock "sculpture" that was made by dripping water over centuries so it looks like a waterfall. the tops of the cliffs still have gorgeous, light teal, active natural springs bubbling up from the earth and you`re allowed to swim in a few of them. they look like the inspiration for those pools that are flat and fall right off the side... i don`t know how to describe them, but hopefully you know what i mean. they looked unreal. i was also super happy to be able to take a little trek- from the top of the cliffs to the bottom, along the bottom of all three, then back to the beginning. helena was hatin me for that trek, but i think she enjoyed it in the end (right, helena?). the trip was finished off with a delicious tlayuda- crisp tortilla topped with refried beans, avocado, tomato and cheese... mmm. hierve de agua was a refreshing change from the ruins and colonial towns, but it was a nine hour day- seven of which was travelling and waiting, and two of which were spent at the place of interest. oh well... one hour of the driving was extremely beautiful and it was one hundred percent worth it.
went to the bus station to get a ticket to san cristobal de las casas (s.c.) and not only were the tickets sold out for there, but for the ENTIRE state! sooo with the help of a man who saw me frantically and helplessly looking up all available buses in my guidebook, i got on a delayed 3:30 a.m. bus to puerto escondido (p.e.), which i had no interest in going to, but it was better than staying in oaxaca. i took that statement back when i arrived in p.e. and experienced the ridiculous humidity. okay, it wasn`t so bad that i regretted coming, but like... i don`t think i have ever sweat so much as i have in puerto escondido. it`s hard to keep track now, with all the really hot and disgustingly humid places i have been, but i don`t know.. it felt really fuckin hot.
met a german named sebastian who was my roommate and we hit the beach and discussed vegetarian food in mexico (he was a veg too). the waves were crazy high with a mean undertow and it was awesome to watch surfing. on my way back, without sebastian, i met a shop owner named julio. for some reason we immediately felt like friends i guess because after knowing him for two minutes i helped him set up shop and then chilled in his sitting hammock and tried to get him customers. he has been to whitby and has a kid in ontario!!! craaaazy canadian coincidences. that eve sebastian and i hit the rooftop with some beers and met a british-irish couple with whom we hung out for the eve. there were free drinks for ladies from 11-12 so myself and the brit took advantage of free, delicious mojitos and gin-n-limes. after that warm-up the couple left us for some reason and we ran in the rain across the beach. there were fireflies in my footsteps!! it was magical! i was mesmerized. i still don`t understand it. ended up at a beachside bar and we discussed the spanish terminology for "cute" and "sexy" with the bar owners`s son. then we ran to the next bar- full of foreigners. i met an israeli guy who looked spanish, so i started speaking to him in spanish and he said he couldn`t understand me so we could speak in english, and i insisted that nono, we keep speaking in spanish, disregarding the fact that he couldn`t speak spanish. he reminded me of this the next morning because i completely forgot that it had happened. then we went to barfly and for the first time in my life i tried a cigarette, and i was so intoxicated that for some reason i actually ENJOYED it. very strange. i made him stop offering it to me because i didn`t WANT to like it!! i woke up the next morning very naked, missing one earring, in a bed FULL of sand. good night.
although i went to bed at around 6am, i still woke at 9 and searched for my ticket to s.c. it was STILL sold out for that night!! i hate having to plan all my travels in advance- even a day in advance! it takes the fun and spontaneity out of travel. it`s like against the whole nature of adventure. it leaves no room for flexibility and random changes. anyway, i bought one for the following evening. when i ate breakfast a man and his family started talking to me, and when i left he ran to his car and gave me a handful of hard candies! i asked him why and he gleefully shrugged and walked away (?!). midday i went to a beachfront restaurant and was finally joined by a boatsman named carlos who was fabulous to practice spanish on because he spoke very slowly and made sure he was understood. at the beach that day i lost my bottoms a few times due to the wave power, but it was fun. that eve it rained like MAD, so the hostel enjoyed some beers and i met a frenchman named romain who, in his thick hilarious french accent, told me his name and then yelled ¨IT IS UNPRONOUNCEABLE [to english people]¨ when the rain calmed down, about four of us went to a bar down the street for one dollar beers. eventually we were joined by some mexicans who taught us about machismo in mexico and spanish slang and we watched old music videos.
the next day was very hung over and uneventful, but when i ran with my pack in the disgusting p.e. humidity to my bus at 6 the next eve i was drenched in sweat like never before. so i was soaking wet and minimally dressed, and about to board the coldest bus i have experienced yet. this made for an EXTREMELY uncomfortable night of bussing.

san cristobal is set in in a beautiful spot in the mountains, but because of its location it is cold and rainy at this time. in s.c. i was walking to my hostel of choice when some guy stopped his car and handed me a flyer for another hostel. it offered temascal baths (pre-hispanic steam baths), a forest environment, great views of the city, hammocks, and my own room and kitchen access for $5. sounded perfect. i took his car to the VERY edge of town (like he was so far up the mountain that he was the absolute EDGE of town) and he was such a nice guy that, although it was so far from the center and i never used the hammocks or kitchen or temascal bath and it didn`t matter if i had my own room because there was no one else at the hostel... i still took it. martin, the owner, was also perfect spanish practice because he spoke a lot and very slow and clear and i could ask questions after every sentence and he was very patient. it was perfect. martin took me on a free hike through the "archaelogical site" (it was just a bunch of stones in a pit now because everything had been stolen) and to a cave. i was just happy to hike, though my cheap shoes had no grip and were too large for me. (that just means i learned the words for to slip and to fall!) i also climbed up a million stairs to the church of san cristobal- lovely view. there was a festival going on when i was there so there were constant fireworks and those multicoloured banners EVERYWHERE! it made for lovely photos and always made me happy. i then ventured to the mayan medicine museum which was REALLY great!! i had a long talk with the guy at the entrance and it was so cool to draw the parallels between other medicine systems and the mayan system. i had so many questions. the man was actually from a mayan village and he told me that english was much easier for him to learn than spanish! apparently mayan is similar in structure to english! kindof random.
day two i went and saw a CRAZY cool grotto- you could walk 350m on its lit path. i had to follow a super cute kissy couple and their stupidly sweet romance out of the grotto, with her atop his back. lil jealous. i tried walking the trails around the conservation area but they were all covered in horse crap so i gave up. then went to the village of zinacantan. more festivals with awesome music and costumes. for dinner i splurged hugetime and spent as much as i usually do in a day for food! which is still only $9... but anyway, i had a beautiful vietnamese cashew and tofu stirfry with breads with amazing indian chutneys and a chai tea. it was delicious.. but still overpriced. booked a TOUR (it was cheaper than doing it myself, okay?!) for the next day and got my ticket for the bus (and four hours later decided to change it... gotta love my predictability and commital level to plans of any sort) and then hit the sack.
because of the decision to modify the bus and the fact that i was half an hour from the center of town i had to wake up at 5am and walk for a good hour in the rain with my pack. awesome start! (heh it wasn`t that bad). tour started late but the bus ride all day was STUNNING. myself and this danish girl were going crazy with our cameras- the mist was still sitting midway on all the mountains, and we were above it.. at some spots it looked like little mounds of mountains peaking out of icing and at others it was like all-over mist that made visible every layer of mountain... and still others looked like there were waves of mist cascading over the mountaintops... it was absolutely gorgeous and worth the money in itself! some of the mountains looked like mounds of play-do, poked by a fat-fingered child. that´s the best way i can think to explain it- they looked so cushy!! when i wasn´t taking pictures like mad i could likely be found falling asleep against my will.. and hitting my head HARD off the window. over. and over.
we went to agua azul (blue water), a waterfall. when it`s not raining like mad the colour of the water is bright blue, but our driver opened the door and exclaimed en español "ladies and gentleman, welcome.. but it is not blue water, it is water cha-co-latte!" you kindof had to be there but it was really cute and funny. anyway the falls were unswimmable and a huge tourist trap (the entire 1 hour walk up to the top was lined with vendors) and, as mentioned, not even blue... but they were still very beautiful. next was misol-ha, another set of waterfalls, this time much smaller, but the main attraction was the grotto BEHIND the waterfall. you run behind it, getting absolutely SOAKED and it is so strong that you can barely even look at the waterfall from behind.. but it was unbelievably cool. i couldn´t take pictures because it would have water-logged my camera, but like the power of the falls was unbelievable and the falling water would bounce off the bottom water and the rocks at you and i was just like ear-to-ear smiles as i watched it.. getting absolutely drenched... i cannot explain it but it was really super neat. unfortunately i was wearing my new bag, which had very impermanent dye involved, so i was now covered in yellow dye... but i got that taken care of after a few days.
the last leg of the "tour" (it was just that we had a driver.. he never toured us, thank goodness) was palenque- the ruins in the jungle. they were slightly cooler than other ruins, i guess, but my favourite part was still the waterfalls. there were a million little levels to them and they were quite small and very smooth with the "dripping rock" look. i zipped through the ruins, using them solely for their exercise purposes. i liked that you could escape the heat by running off into jungle trails to explore hidden ruins, all alone.. as if you were the one finding them for the first time. neato. i`m very glad that i do not see ruins with other people because i go extremely fast and the breeze i make with my own body is the only that exists! i cannot believe how incredibly disgusting i was by the end of that day.
while waiting for my night bus to merida i got an enchilada mole and had this HUGE spanish showdown in which i argued with the ladies at a restaurant about my order for wayyyy too long. apparently chicken isn`t meat in mexico, and when you screw up an order you tell them you`ll do it for half price and then when they finish you charge them full price. it ended with them confiscating my bag and me bitching and telling them calmy that their service was horrendous and i left feeling rather empowered that i could finally express myself enough in spanish to yell at them, when deserved. i´m not going to lie though... the mole was the best i`ve had in mexico.

in merida i walked to the hostel and at 6am was greeted by an extremely polite and helpful and charming young man. he allowed me to shower and sleep in the lovely hammocks while i awaited a room. i fell asleep for a couple hours.. it was all very peaceful. i went on a boring city walking tour because it was free and i was hoping for the quality of the free mexico city walking tour. i ended up leaving halfway through to go to the art museum. the MACAY art museum was free and one of the best i have seen in mexico. one artist hid crazy explicit sexual scenes amidst streaming colours and fish and beetles... very strange, but extremely provocative and interesting. i looked at five painting before even realizing there was sex in it, and there was a mother taking her young daughter through it without recognizing the same. i liked that. there was another artist who painted things from her dreams mostly and her work was AMAZING, and considering it was from her dreams it was still quite coherent. mostly involving beautiful faces and bodies and organic chapes... i loved looking at it.. it had amazing flow.
i tried to do the history thing with the city museum, but it was closed... so i went to the center for visual arts and i was really lame, with an exhibition by a canadian actually, but i had a really nice conversation with some guy that worked there. i wandered to the town square and sat down, awaiting random mexican verbal intercourse. i found this in octavio, who sat beside me on the bench and we discussed the bird crap upoin which we were sitting. he said it was dry so i need not worry, and i told him i was sweating so much that i´m making it real again, and thus reason to worry. i found out at the end of the conversation that he spoke english but he felt like i should be speaking spanish. i agreed and i was glad that he didn´t speak english with me. we decided to meet at 9 in front of the cultural center for a dance festival. i went and sat in the hammocks again for 2 more hours and met some hilarious female bat scientists. these girls made me laugh so hard at the intensity of their interest in bats. like they bonded (i brought them together, they didn´t even know each other before that night) over echolocation and bird identification. it took everything in me not to burst out laughing, but at the same time i loved listening to them so much. they were sooo excited about biology and i think that´s great. we moved to a restaurant and i left them soon thereafter to try to see a dance festival.
the ENTIRE reason i came to merida was to see the dancing. there was supposed to be a dance show put on by the university every friday and i felt so lucky that my merida date just happened to fall on a friday. i arrive in merida to find that the dance troupe is on vacation. so then i find out about this other festival and i´m all excited... but 2 hours before the show they blow a fuse and it is impossible to put on a show. so merida, the city of arts and culture, provided me with neither. at least in terms of dance. but at least i got to see the dancing ladies as they returned to their homes. i suggested to octavio that maybe they could put on a show just for me as i longingly stared at their brightly embroidered dresses and flowered hair. octavio, as most mexican men i meet, ended up creeping me out a little so i managed to escape back to the batgirls before they finished dinner and we finished the eve with good conversation. i had another conversation with a german woman about cancun. it was hilarious because i told her i didn´t want to go because it was too american, commercialized, touristic, and she said she noticed that when she flew into the airport. she said ït reminded me of...¨and she paused. simultaoneously we both said ¨las vegas.¨
in the bus windows in merida it says where th bus is headed to. one of them said siglo XXI. so i´ve concluded that merida must be awesome if for no other reason than because its buses double as time machines.
another reason is because random men on the street comment on how your haircut is ¨sweet... but not naive¨ as they pass by you. random and i love it.

next morn was off to chichen itza- one of the wonders of the world, which, as gareth noted, is kindof depressing (as you think to yourself "so this is as good as it gets?"). it IS the most ornate of all the ruins i have seen, and i really enjoyed the thousand pillars, plus the huge bright cenote, but other than that they were not particularly special. and were extremely expensive.

off to tulum, a beach spot. the hostel guy asked me whether my first language was english or spanish after talking to me for a few minutes. i was honoured.... but there´s no way i sound spanish. maybe he had a hearing problem. anyway, by this time i´m being warned of hurricane dean, but i decide to stay at least til the next day because it was expected in two days. i had a nice walk through the tourist strip that night, a jeweler told me that i should help him make jewelery when he saw my lame necklaces, and then i returned to the hostel to talk to my roommates. they consisted of a brit and two americans by the names of gareth, james, and ofer, respectively. they were hilarious and strange and interesting. we spent the night analyzing each other's social level, trying to swing 360s on the hammock, and calling the ritz in cancun to try to book a room for the hurricane (they were ACTUALLY going to do it- they're crazy). by the end of the night i had been laughing so hard for so long that i felt drunk. the boys were the ones who had actually consumed alcohol and they ended the night biting chunks out of palm trees and making me really mad by breaking branches. but i forgive them.
next morn i hit the beach with a chatty spaniard. we went to the tulum ruins, which i thought couldn't be much better than any other ruins, but i was entirely wrong. they were the most stunning i have seen thus far due to their immaculately manicured trails, beautiful flowers and bright oceanfront setting against a half-stormy sky. i couldn't help but continuously remark on how gorgeous it was there! i then had one hour at the gorgeous clear turquoise beach and i spent it standing stationary in the water, looking out at the ocean and reflecting on how all this could be destroyed by the hurricane the next day. then it went REALLY far and i started thinking if the destruction was necessary.. a cleansing? a renewal? a giant mother nature "fuck you" display of power? i felt very nervous about the whole thing because no one knew what to expect or where to go.
the bus station didn't help. it was PACKED with people trying to escape, since the hurricane was supposedly headed straight for us. buses weren't arriving and were arriving full, they would give tickets to some and tell others there was no space- it was crazy, hectic, confusing, and rather fucked up. i went into a strange leader mode and attempted to organize a private bus to chetumal but no one knew if they could actually get on a bus so they all fence-sat. i ended up getting a free ticket and the bus came soon after the guy left. i sat at the very front of the bus on the floor because the bus was absolutely packed. i looked out at the open road and did some more of the nervous, aforementioned reflecting in the high-tension, crying-baby atmosphere.

i was supposed to get off at laguna bacalar, but it was so small that it didn't have a bus terminal and everyone else i knew was going to chetumal and i didn't want to be alone for this, so i continued on to chetumal without the bus driver noticing. when there, we got a ticket to the small hamlet of xpujil (shpoo-heel). everytime we asked someone about it they started giggling. this really bothered james and he wondered if it was a jungle village full of homosexuals. we ended up switching this ticket for a ticket to villahermosa, and in the end not taking ANY of these buses.
we went to a hostel in chetumal that was very solid and safe and decided that was the best place to be for a class 5 hurricane.. even if chetumal eventually ended up in the eye of the hurricane.. which it did. luckily it changed courses a little right before it hit land so we just had a really heavy storm. i was in such suspense that i felt a little sick to my stomach, but the beers and wine (that were actually banned during the hurricane but we brought it over from belize illegally) eased my worries and made me pass RIGHT out. i think gareth described it perfectly by saying this was the most anti-climactic experience ever. we were expecting class 5 hurricane and we got a leak in the roof and all our winks of sleep (well, i did anyway). since i passed out so early i awoke at 6 and went downstairs to check out dean. the sounds of 6 inches of sloshing water, heavy winds and slamming doors outside reminded me of a gurgly belly of a beast. i kinda liked it. so ironically, in the end we caused more damage to the hostel than good- but just missing pieces of wall, damaged panels and sticky residue from taped windows. but we had a good night. we bonded.. people played cards... we were locked inside for like 24 hours or something (i didn´t keep track, i have no idea). i really liked everyone there.
the morning of the hurricane day we went to the beach to watch the sun come up, since we had stayed up the whole night before. there was a giant spiral in the sky. was crazy.
the danish girl at the hostel kept telling people i ate sand. i don´t know why people like making fun of me so much heh.
so in the end that was rather uneventful. for awhile i felt like i was CHASING hurricanes because it seemed to follow us, but all was well, for our area anyway. the last night in chetumal i had a nice dinner with one of the hostel folk and her friends from chetumal and the hostel owner. it was really nice, and much more intimate than it was with allll the members of the hostel.

and that concludes mexico! wasn´t that wonderful? i had a lovely time.
i would like to add that some mexican cheese does not melt, just incase you´re ever in mexico, trying to melt some cheese, and it is simply burning. then you´ll know. you´ll be ahead of the game.
i´d also like to add how much i love the sight of a young daughter (like maybe 7 years old) with her sibling lovingly draped in a cloth on her back. it´s a beautiful sight.
i´d also like to add that there is indeed somewhat of a mexico ¨circuit¨, as there was in southeast asia. not as strong as asia, but it´s still there. circuits are good, i guess, because you see people more than once, and very bad because you feel like we´re all being led- we´re straight tourists, not adventurers. dammit.
and that´s the end of my additions! tah-dahhhh.

so now i´m in guatemala, but that shall be saved for later! for now i need to get off this computer monitor before i lose my mind.. it is soooo blurry.
muucchh love!
shay
p.s. looootttts of new photos on the site: themillman.com/shayla-g
may take even longer to look through than to read the blog, though :)