I got my lip pierced a few days ago. My lip got quite swollen, and while it looked really nice with lip gloss and made me feel very Victoria’s Secret-y, it was actually quite painful to eat, or kiss, or whatever. But it’s all back to normal now, so here is a piratey picture of me in our lovely guest bedroom (courtesy of the lovely brother & sister-in-law). The Jolly Roger is keeping me company in the background.
She wouldn’t get naked for me, but I think we match pretty well anyway. I am totally going to make a few of these things and take them to the park along with my jewelry and see if anyone will buy them from me.
SO. CUTE.
Naked tutu pictures! Oh, how I have missed my tripod and DSLR camerachild. For info on how you, too, can make a lovely tutu, see this tutorial!
Here are some of my Mexican jewelry purchases!
This ring was my birthday present. I bought it in the Cuernavaca artisan street market. It’s really cool because it looks like it has both Native American and Aztec influences. It’s made of silver and turquoise.
This was my 2 year wedding anniversary present! The guy that made this ring was really nice. He was a musician/street artisan that had stopped by Zipolite for a few days to sell his jewelry, which is where I bought this. He makes these rings from pure silver coins that he buys from the bank. All of his designs are very free form and organic, with lots of beautiful gemstones. My ring has a peridot in the center.
This is a pouch necklace made of tiny seed beads. I saw these for sale all across Mexico, but I bought this one in a market in Puebla. I feel very Pocahontas-y when I’m wearing it.
There are a LOT of fossils in Mexico, what with all of the volcanic action there and people looking for anything they can sell that comes from the earth! This ammonite necklace was bought from a guy that made his own jewelry in Oaxaca city, Oaxaca.
This is a little bell and turquoise anklet that I bought in San Cristobal de las Casas on our last day in Mexico. The little brass bells make a beautiful sound.
This is a necklace made from pearls and black coral, with little garnets at the clasp. I bought it in Puerto Escondido from a guy that gave me some free opals and a pice of this black coral! I’ll make something cool with it soon.
And this is what my wrist looks like right now! The leather strap bracelet has diamonds of what we think is iguana skin (those little guys are everywhere in Mexico!). The red coral beads were bought from a lady on the beach in Veracruz.
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!
We have been in Oaxaca for about 5 days now. We spent the first three sleeping. This is a small exaggeration; we seemed to consistantly make it into the (fading) sunlight around three o’clock or so. Finally, we either managed to catch up on our sleep or we just got sick of spooning, and managed to explore the markets and plazas to some extent.
For some reason - probably the amount of places to spend your money - Oaxaca is a major attraction for travelers, and so we have seen more white people in the last few days than in the entire 5 weeks we’ve been in Mexico. That part has been a little weird. But like I said, there is a LOT of shopping here, including several major art and textile markets, and an art district with shops like you would find in say, Santa Fe. Seriously good art and amazing jewelry. FYI, in Mexico, most of the jewelry is import quality; it’s not really artesian work and you quickly realize that you’ve seen the same stuff everywhere else you’ve been, So it was fun to browse the art district and see some really original stuff.
Today we went to Monte Alban, which is this flipping HUGE ruin complex, complete with temples and sacrificial alters.
I got seriously burnt, but I think I managed to escape blister level. I therefore am not too worried. Here are some pictures of me and some of my new purchases in front of ancient stone temples and a sweet vista of Oaxaca City.
Here we have:
I have been meaning to take some closeups of the jewelry, especially of these adorable wooden bracelets I got in Veracruz, but our camera has pretty much crapped out. Meaning the only button that works is the on button, and we can’t use the macro setting or even view the pictures we just took. Maybe we will get a new camera one of these days.
Hasta Luego!
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.
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.
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.
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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