Gilt Menagerie

Hello my friends. We are back in the land of white people and fast food restaurants, where Pandora works and everything is air conditioned (I have had perpetually stiff nipples since we got in that plane headed back home). Don’t get me wrong, once we reached 90 degree Texas, I started enjoying the air conditioning again. I am also enjoying my ability to be a diva again, as I found that it is very difficult to be a diva and a ‘core backpacker at the same time. I, of course, opted for the ‘core backpacker, as I am a pretty smart cookie and realized that I would be much more accepted as such. I’m pretty accommodating that way.

We received word about a week ago that our dogchild was acting out, so we peeled our tan asses from the lounge chairs under the palapa near the sea where they had been parked for the last two months. We bussed 13 hours from Puerto Escondido to San Cristobal de las Casas, where we realized that Chiapas state was the coolest state in Mexico, and we mourned the fact that we only had two days in this amazingly beautiful mountain city. We consoled ourselves by spending up the last of our pesos in some of the lovely and creative shops and artisan markets. We will be back, San Cristobal. Believe me.

We opted to fly back instead of taking buses, which would have taken something like 36 nonstop hours (while Mexico has the best bus system ever, trust me when I say that a mere 12 hours will really take it out of you). We totally got profiled on our way through Houston International Airport, and were asked to go into this “other” room where some pretty unsavory looking characters were getting the third degree with their bags in various states of disarray. Our bags were COMPLETELY UNPACKED while we speculated the purpose of the “Secondary Inspection Room” looming conspicuously to our right which had frighteningly huge stainless steel doors.

Of course, since we are reasonably intelligent people who did not try to smuggle any illegal substances, we were eventually let go. Other people were not as fortunate, as our Homeland Security interrogator’s friend mentioned in passing that he had “just found 2 K’s” and had to go file a report. File a report my ass. Enjoy your lunch break and the lines my uniformed friend. No, I kid, these guys looked remarkably bored of the entire process.

So ended our first backpacking saga. I had a total blast, and I am passionately telling everyone who will listen how easy, cheap and fulfilling it is to travel Mexico…and I suspect many more countries as well. You could easily do Mexico on 20 U.S. dollars a day. That’s only 600 dollars a month! So save a couple grand and instead of blowing it on a week long package to a fancy resort*, put a few things in a backpack and stay in some hostels**, which are way more fun anyway!

*This is not to say that fancy resort packages are to be entirely scorned. Once I am back to my maximum earnings potential, I’m sure I will be spotted at some plush spa getaway enjoying all of those overpriced perks I once did. I am a gangster after all.

**A hint to any single ladies: this is an excellent way to meet some cool ass dudes and have a few memorable romantic encounters. European backpackers are pretty darn attractive as a general rule. I would recommend the Germans, although the Norwegians and the French had some nice specimens as well. When you are tired of them, all you have to do is open your Lonely Planet and pick your next destination. Voila!

Here are a few pictures:

These are traditional leather sandals called huaraches. They were about 4 dollars, and I wore them nonstop for the entire trip. They are great.

This is what my hair looks like after the sun and salt water took its toll. I’m calling it “Tequila Sunrise”.

Dogchild reunion!

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So we are currently in Veracruz.

It isn’t my favorite city I’ve been to so far, but it’s not like I’m really complaining here. We did run into these gorgeous ladies yesterday. They were out doing impromptu photoshoots and were so cute and friendly.

I have, over the last week, fallen in love with a Canadian, a small town called Catemaco, and a lagoon front hammock.  I have also celebrated my birthday, been to a witch festival, and been deathly ill. This has all been rather time consuming.

Let’s start with the hammock thing. Although if we do, there is a really good chance we won’t get any further than that. People, I HAD NO IDEA. If I had a hammock at home, I would simply never go anywhere or do anything. Pair a hammock with the faint sound of the ocean, and you have a really effective way to limit a person’s movement. So suffice it to say, I REALLY LOVE HAMMOCKS. And when we finally get a home, we may not have any other type of furniture.

On to Catemaco. I have no words or pictures that I feel could convey the extreme awesomeness of this place, but I will refer you to my hammock partner’s photos here and hope that you can see them.  She did a much better job documenting. I’ll post some of them on Flickr if she gives me permission so I can try to show just how lush and chill this place was. I stole this hammock one for you to lust after:

The witch festival was a bit of a letdown, just because we thought we were going to see all sorts of shamans and feather headdresss and smell a lot of cedar. It was really just a big party,  with dancing and music and public drunkeness, but with only local people present. Oh, and the Mexican hippies rolled into town and competed with the local ladies in selling their wares. But we had a grand time camping with our new friends, bringing a much needed levity to the crowd of sober people (we got our drink on pretty early).

There was construction of bottle towers:

And blowing bubbles for the amusement of the niños:

And I haven’t even mentioned the monarch butterflies in Morelia or the photoshoot on the sacrificial alter in Puebla. We are now the paranoid owners of a netbook (complete with Spanish keyboard, yo), so I will yak about those things shortly.

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So my previous summary of DF as being very loud was accurate but not nearly sufficient. It is also the second largest city in the world, and has loads of cool stuff, including beautiful parks, people from all over the world, a very extensive metro, and a FREE public zoo. It also has a mind boggling market (Mercado de la Merced) which is literally acres upon acres of both indoor and outdoor commerce. We loaded up on dried fruit and nuts, and saw more fresh produce and slabs of every animal imaginable. I even got to pet some rabbits.

We met some people giving out free hugs in the Zocalo (main square). They were very sweet.

We also went to the major archaeological site known as Teotihuancan. The pyramids and ruins pre-date the Aztecs. The largest one that we climbed is called the Temple of the Sun, and it had many, many, many stairs. The view from the top was so worth it though.

The Torres Latinoamericano has a sweet view of the city. I highly recommend finding a place where you can get a good look at any city you are visiting. We went just at sunset, which was a perfect time to see both the amazing expanse of lights as well as exactly how freaking huge the city is.

The free zoo had so many animals that I have never seen in american zoos! There were Tiny Monkeys! And Tiny Monkey Babies! I nearly had an aneurysm from the cuteness. Also pandas! And lobos! There was an adorable little boy who kept howling at the wolves. The wolves themselves seemed awfully confused.

Please don´t think I´m too terribly juvenile for posting this picture, because the story is too funny not to.

I was all like, snow monkeys! Sweet! So I start to take a picture of the closest one, and I see another one running towards us. I was all like, sweet ass! Two monkeys in one picture! So I click the button and look at what I captured, and this was the result.

People, the agility and speed with which the dude took advantage of the situation was pretty admirable.

Honorable mentions include awesome street vendor food, Oaxaca cheese, learning Spanish, drinking on the window ledge at the hostel.

Well, that´s it for now. Sorry for the epic post, but internet connection is Very Slow here. For example, it took me two and a half hours to make this post. We are currently in Puebla, and we are going to see how close we can get to the volcanos tomorrow.

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So far, we have seen:

A political protest where the people were saluting a building and shouting “Heil Ebrard” while holding signs like this one. Apparantly the Mexico City Mayor Marcel Ebrard is not loved by all of his subjects.

Also an Aztec dance, complete with delicious smelling cedar smoke and tiny dancers. Isn´t he cute? I also have a sweet video of the dance, but the computers at the hostel are angry at me. I am making them work too hard and they are retaliating by giving me error messages in spanish faster than I can click “Acceptar”.

In other news, Mexico City is very loud. I haven´t been here long enough to get any other impressions. We are going to try and see some Aztec ruins tomorrow. Also possibly some art musuems. I will probably let you know how that went sometime next week, as fighting with an angry computer is not my idea of vacation.

1 Comment | In: Travel | tags: DF, mexico city, political protests, Travel. | #

Hello!

No, I have not disappeared into the wilds yet. We have been staying with our brother & sister in law, taking care of things that somehow still have not gotten done. BUT. Tomorrow we leave for Victoria, where we will depart Sunday evening for the 30 hour bus ride to DF, or as the gringos say, Mexico City!

Stay posted for updates from the Festival of Witches/Noches de Brujas, taking place the first week of March up in the ancient volcanic crater that is now Lake Catemaco. I will see if I can document some of the magical shit that will be going down.

Here is one of my outfits that I will be wearing. I have decided that I will singlehandedly make hot pink the official color of Mexico.

This bag has tiny mirrors sewn into it! So cool!

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I have been in a complete tizzy for the last couple of weeks. Packing up our apartment, finding replacement insurance, pricing backpacker tents, getting immunized (ouch!), trying to figure out how I will survive on 3 pairs of shoes (!!), where are we going for Carnival and where will we stay, all of the little things like “what about our mail?” and “where will we park our cars?”, omg where is my 1099 so I can file taxes, AND STILL WORKING AT MY JOB have me in a strange mental state.

It’s a strange mix of excitement, stress, apprehension and nervousness…not only produced by the thought of the trip itself of course, but at not having either a home, a car (with us anyway), or a job for an undefined length of time.

I am constantly fluctuating between all of these different emotions, and that is stressing me out even more! I’m on a strict prescription of at least one glass of wine a night by my acting physician husband.

I’m wigging out ya’ll!!

On another note:

I am not one to tell other people that they should do something (ignores shouting chorus saying that’s bullshit), but after reading all of the little pamphlets in the lobby depicting what meningitis and hepatitis and all of the other diseases could do to you, I’m going to encourage you (yes, you adults) to get some immunizations.  In Texas, the state offers almost any immunization you could need for only $20.00 a shot. And if you have insurance, it’s possible it may cover some of them too.

I leave you with a jolly artist’s interpretation of ye olde cow pock:

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