Backpacking

A couple with a strong American accent enters the room:
She - wow, there is no lock to this room.
He - oh well, I guess we know where to go if we need some cash or clothes.
She - ooooh, I am so cold.... hey, are we not supposed to be naked to do that?
He - well, we are not gonna get warmer if we take our clothes off.
She - so what do we do then?...... Oh shit, there is someone sleeping here!!!

A conversation in my dorm as I was having a nap. The joys of backpacking!

Oaxaca - Puerto Escondido

I am now chilling out on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Puerto Escondido is chilled, too chilled to my liking at the moment. The high season starts in 2 weeks with an international surf competition and a fishing competition. In the meantime, it is quiet, quiet, quiet...zzzzzzzzzzz. My hostel is great with swimming pool and all but totally empty, there are 6 of us today. I spend my days on the beach, watching crappy surfers trying to stay on the board. I am too lazy to have a go, it is too hot.... Anyway, I am leaving tomorrow for San Cristobal De Las Casas where there should be a bit more action.

I have included below 2 pix from the beautiful town of Oaxaca, my previous stop.

Chapolines - Oaxaca

Returning from Mt Alban - another stunning set of ruins of a disappeared civilisation - we all felt hungry. Before lunch, we decided that we had to try the local delicacy, chapulines. That is, friend grasshoppers with salt and lemon. Hummm, they look horrible and the trick is to close your eyes. I had 3. What a treat!!!

How to celebrate life

We arrived at 10pm. Outside the gates a multitude of stalls were selling tacos, tortillas, enchilladas, mescal, tequila, beers... the place was buzzing with life. What was going on on the other side of the wall? A concert? A political rally? Some sort of show?

We went in.

The place was buzzing even more. Hundreds of people of all ages, thousands of candles, flowers of all colours, musicians, kids playing... and tumbs. Tumbs covered with candles, flowers, food, drinks, skulls made out of sugar...


We were in the San Felipe cemetery, north of the city of Oaxaca. It was the second day of the ´day of the dead´celebrations. Families were following this old tradition dating back from pre-columbian times, where death was celebrated, not feared. On Nov. 1st Mexicans celebrate ´los niños muertos´ (the dead children), on Nov. 2nd they celebrate ´los adultos muertos´ (dead adults). To celebrate their lost ones families gather around the tumbs, cover them with flowers, candles and the food and drinks the dead person used to like (eating and drinking what has been left on the tumbs is know to have no taste as the souls come round at night and eat and drink what has been left for them). On the cemeteries people speak, meet, laugh, eat, drink and play music.


It is a happy celebration, not spooky or sad at all. In South Mexico and the Yucatan cemeteries come alive on Nov. 1st and 2nd (in the cemeteries near Cancun people get the bodies out of the graves to clean the bones, so that the souls see the clean body when they return). Villages (as we saw the previous day) celebrate with comparsas - brass bands and inhabitants dressed as dead people - dancing in the street and visiting one house after another. The whole village follows as well as the occasional tourist like me.


I changed my original route in order to attend these happy celebrations. It was great.

Teotihuacan

For my last day in the capital before starting traveling I went to Teotihuacan today.... and wow, that was impressive - although not as much as the Cairo pyramids. For all the culture and history stuff I leave you to surf the web and find out more. Spent the day with my new-found cool hippy dread-locked friends, and hangged out around plaza del sol, which sounded very familiar. Also saw some weirdos singing and celebrating the sun or something, and it all finished with big hugs and kisses. We waited for them to get all naked and dance but it did not happen. Maybe they were calling for the rain and it did not come.

A few pix below which don´t fully represent the beauty and splendour of the site. I am off to Oaxaca tomorrow, the day of the dead celebrations should be full on.

Moving around Mexico city

If you want to travel around town you have a few options: you can take a taxi - the green beetles or the white and red cabs - but you should be careful with these: I have heard that these taxis nicely take you to where you wanna go but might make an unwanted stop: a few mates of the driver would rob you of all your posessions and you might end up naked.


You could get your own car but in a city with 20m people traffic is terrible. And if your car is old there will be a day in the week when you will not be able to use it as legislation now restricts circulation based on license plates.

You could take one of the many buses driving around but you will equally be stuck in traffic and squeezed hard against some un-known smelly armpit.

You could use your legs and walk but as I discovered on the 1st day distances are much much largest than they appear on your map.

The last and best solution is the tube. It is the cheapest in the world (so I have read somewhere): 2 pesos, that is 0.13 euros, that is 50 times cheaper than London. But it might sometimes get difficult: I could not get on my tube this morning at rush hours, it was literally impossible. I watched 5 trains go by and there was no way I could get on. I gave up and went out. This has never happened to me, even in London or Tokyo. In response to the over-crowdness some carriages are reserved to women: this prevents men from touching women curves apparently.

When not packed the tube is fun and full of colourful people. Every minute on Line 2 someone walks past you selling biscuits, sweets, chewing gums, pens, kids books, CDs, tissues... you name it. Most of them carry a bag-pack with a built-in stereo system blowing very loud cheesy latino music - music which makes Julio Iglesias songs sound cool and funky. The benches where you sit are also slippery: when the driver breaks hard (which happens a lot) you slide down the bench (if nobody sits next to you) and you end-up bumping against the next person down. Weird at the beggining, especially when you end-up against a grunting old man.

Anyway, tomorrow a bit of culture as I am heading to the pyramids of Teotihuacan.

D.F. (Mexico city)

Bong, bong, bong... the sound of the Catedral Metropolitana echoes around the Zocalo, Mexico city main square. I have just changed hostel as the previous one did not have water, no heating (and it is 6 degres today) and was extremely noisy... just what you need when you are jetlagged and at the altitude of 2000m.


Anyway, my new hostel has a roof terrasse above the Zocalo - the 3rd largest square in the world after Tienanmen sq. in Beijing and the Red sq. in Moscou. From the rooftop I can see the cathedral, the palacio national hosting some huge murals by Diego Rivera and some other government buildings.

The striking thing to note is that most of the heavy buildings around here are not straight. 500 years ago the land where Mexoico city now stands was a huge lake which was dried by the conquistadores. The ground below is therefore soft and heavy buildings are kind of sinking. This is a huge problem for the city apparently.

I haven't seen much of D.F. yet apart from the Zocalo, a bit of Coyoacan (a great little chilled out part of town) and Paseo de la Reforma, the largest avenue in town.

Oh, I have also seen a huge group of people demonstrating totally naked against the privatisation of their company (I think that was the reason). How divertido!! If people on strike in France where demonstrating naked, it would be the hippiest country ever...