Mexico - Chichen Itza

After a rather nice relax at the sleepy little airport in Flores - I almost felt sorry for waking up the customs and immigration people to allow the six (including us) to get on the plane and leave sunny Guatemala - we had a bumpy ride through the tropical clouds to Cancun. It reminded me a little too much of flying through the wet season in Africa - everyone was praying as we landed...

Anyway, we picked up a car and hit the road to chichen itza to start our whirl wind road trip around the Yucatan peninsula to check out mayan ruins and eat Tacos!! It was good to get on the toll road as there were absolutely no cars a we knocked the drive down in no time... The only hitch was that the local farmers had taken to clearing the adjacent jungle by fire, which seemed to be everywhere without any visible regulation - driving whilst finger-crossing and praying - not so much fun

Enough of all that, we were on a mission to check out some Mayan stuff on the advice of my sister, George and I had no idea about any of it before we went, so here's an explanation for those who care. This nation geographic article is also really good. -full of great pics and maps etc

Anyway, without going into all the detail - the town was great fun and the ruins absolutely awesome - we had to get there first thing in the morning to avoid getting sun stroke / dehydration again as it was freekin hot, but also empty (tourists seem to be lazy and only get there at lunchtime...) So of all the 400 billion photos we took (seriously..) here's a few snaps

CHICHEN ITZA (27 photos)

The ceynote at Chichen Itza... (where they used to both get their drinking water and sacrifice people - maybe that's why they died out...)

[click on image to enlarge]

Mexico - Uxmal & Kabah

After Chichen Itza, we headed on down the road to the bustling provincial capital of Merida. Luckily all the streets are one way in the middle of town as there's a LOT of cars, buses and other miscellaneous things on the road here - at least everything was (generally) heading in the same direction. I think our time in Nigeria helped as it allowed fitting the car into impossibly small spaces feel more normal...

Again, we had a great time and were still suffering the effects of way too much time outside sweating and baking under the Mexican sun, but still managed to take a bunch of photos as we continued through the countryside down to the Mayan sites at Uxmal and Kabah.

Here's a few...

UXMAL (20 photos)



As these places are so bloody big, we took a few panoramas as well. Enjoy...

[click on image to enlarge]

[click on image to enlarge]

[click on image to enlarge]

[click on image to enlarge]

A few more miles down the road, the site of Kabah is less visited but also less re-built by archaeologists so it was more of trek through old school ruins - great fun.

KABAH (16 photos)

Mexico - Tulum

After sucessfully avoiding the great herds of tourists that sweep across these parts of Mexico, we had to finally bite the bullet as we hit the so called "mayan riviera" - the carribean coast of Quintaroo famous for the likes of Cancun and Playa Del Carmen...

Back on the road again, we spent the best part of a day driving from Merida back towards the coast and to Tulum. Had a great lunch in a small place we stumbled in to in Valladolid - almost died from eating the wrong chilli... long story


TULUM (11 photos)



Here's a few pics at the hotel - Om Tulum - by the beach...
if you want a place to take a spa, be seen and be supposedly eco-touritsy on an overdeveloped beach, then I recommend Tulum. If, however, you actually want to relax and not see another tourist for days - then you're in the wrong place...





One of the most fun things we did was hire a couple of snorkels and a beach bum and drive around the area doing some cave diving at dos ojos, sea-turtle diving at Akumal and then some reef work later. Very cruisy day - I think at the end, we left our guy at a bar somewhere with the gear and headed back into town for some awesome fish tacos...oooh yeahh

Unfortunately, we didn't have cameras whilst doing all this underwater work, but it was so cool the guy who was showing us around emailed me a few he had...




(you're not allowed to kill the mozzies, coz that's what the bats that live in the caves eat)

We didn't know it at the time, but apparently the hundreds of ceynotes (all linked by miles of under ground rivers and caverns) are the result of a massive meteor impact - the one that killed all the dinosaurs (or so they say) - quite cool. Check it out here.

Antigua Guatemala

I know that this blog thingy puts all this stuff up in reverse date order or whatever, so I've put these up backwards so you can scroll down and it looks kinda right...(maybe)

Anyway while we were back in Oz earlier in the year for my dad's funeral, we created a cunning plan with my sister Sarah to explore Guatemala and Mexico looking for Mayan ruins and whathaveyou... George and I had no idea about any of it and had never been so organised for a trip ever (thank you Sarah...)

Sarah had a few weeks off so she flew over to Houston, then we all went down to Guatemala for Easter, then up to Mexico for a week, before chillin in H-town for further week...

As holy week (semana santa) seems to be the busiest time of the year, we used the old colonial capital of Antigua Guatemala as a base and took a bunch of trips around the place...

Antigua Town (21 photos)

Pacaya Volcano

Before the festivities of Holy Week kicked off in earnest, we decided to take the hour bus ride over to Pacaya volcano - one of the apparently many live volcanoes in central america...

It all seemed like a good idea at the time - "let's climb a volcano" - it was only after half an hour of trudging up the side of this thing in the afternoon heat (Sarah was smart enough to hire a horse...) that I was rethinking the whole thing. Whilst the hike almost killed us - it was heaps of fun (though the freshly set lava was actually almost glass-like and really sharp so you couldn't lean on it without cutting yourself, and our shoes melted a bit from standing too long near the hot stuff). It was also a great chance to use the word "magma" a lot

Sitting on the lava field at sunset - absolutely beautiful[click to enlarge]

PACAYA VOLCANO (29 photos)

Here's a bunch of photos (too many to choose from) - you'll see at the end, that as we were about to start to climb back down, a nearby volcano - the aptly named "fuego" - erupted!! I shit you not, a huge plume of smoke shot miles into the air - it looked pretty cool (glad we were miles away from it though...)

Holy Week - Antigua Guatemala

So this was the reason that we were in this part of the world - Semana Santa!! In fact that's why every hotel in town was bursting to the seams with both foreign tourists and locals...

One of the legacies the Spanish conquistadors left (apart from small pox, coffee and rum) was Catholicism - and not just the go to mass once a week Catholicism, this stuff's old school with the whole hellfire and damnation and "let's re-enact the Crucifixion"...

Each church in the district has it's own set of "floats" which set off around town at all hours, filling the town with huge processions. The celebration begins on Ash Wednesday and reaches its climax on Good Friday. The processions consist of big floats, or 'andas', bearing statues of Christ with a cross, that are carried by hundreds of purple-robed men. A float with the Virgin Mary Follows by women dressed in black clothing. The processions move slowly through. Antigua cobblestone streets, the feet of the bearers cushioned in the sawdust carpets, which are destroyed as the procession passes over.

As a show of devotion, wealth and just good community spirit, families and groups of people slave throughout the night to make Alfombras or "carpets" out of flowers or fruits or intricate coloured saw-dust designs. These were absolutely AMAZING and it was such a pity that they were destroyed. But no sooner had the procession passed and the cleanup crew scoped them up with a back-hoe, the families were out again re-building another one for the next procession...


ALFOMBRAS (67 photos)



The Holy Week parades are definitely something to behold. These floats must weigh tonnes - yet they are carried around town for up to 14hrs per parade (with as many as four parades a day - some starting at 4:00am)

The full "stations of the cross" are demonstrated for all to see, as the\y start with Romans coming out (some on horses) then Jesus carrying the cross, then after his "death" Jesus appears in a plastic coffin, then finally he's resurrected... all backed by dirge-like brass band music (and men carrying generators for the night parades...)

It's impossible to describe and we took hundreds of photos, so here's a few

PARADES (97 photos)




STREET HAWKERS (25 photos)



We also managed a few videos, yo can here the heavy brass band music and the chocking clouds of incense as well as the slow sway of the heavy floats...

Chichicastenango Markets

Every week up in the mountains around Guatemala, provincial centres host market days where traders, farmers and artisans from the surrounding villages come to sell their produce and resupply for their families.

We took a bus up to probably the most famous of the lot - Chichicastenango. Whilst some dispute that it has become too touristy here, with Holy Week in full swing and plenty of amazing textiles on display it was hard to agree...

Granted, the prices quoted were absolutely ludicrous (though plenty of people were paying them) But a bit of old school Nigerian haggling would wear any one down after ten minutes so we walked away with some amazing hand woven rugs for $25 a piece. We actually ended up having to pop down to the markets in Antigua a buy two extra suitcases so we could get all this stuff home!! Props to George and Sarah for propping up the Guatemalan economy...

CHICHI MARKETS (19 photos)

Antigua - Women's weaving co-op

Gail, the kiwi expat that owned the hotel where we were staying had been helping a women's weaving co-operative in a nearby village and had organised a couple of utes to take us out to have a look and learn about the local Mayan culture and see the weavers in action.

It was really quite amazing that this group of women had got their act together and were making real money selling their crafts and textiles in town and by allowing groups to come and visit. The were terribly cute, as everyone in Guatemala is about 4ft tall (seriously ALL midgets) and they showed us how to weave, make baskets and grind maize etc.

Interestingly they were also interested in how we do things (in particular how to get into the US) - but I couldn't help thinking about all the illegals around Texas where we live and how many of them are exploited and that whilst poor, their life in rural Guatemala may be a better choice..

WEAVING CO-OP (23 Photos)

Tikal

After a hectic few days of what seemed like no stop parade viewing, we got up way too early to catch a little plane up into the jungle at Tikal - one of the largest Mayan sites discovered.
National Geographic have a cool website about the Mayans here, and there's info about Tikal here.

It's really hard to describe places like this, you literally walk for miles thought the jungle and there's these MASSIVE structures appearing from nowhere - it's like you're in an Indiana Jones movie - absolutely amazing.

Unfortunately it was so hot I got a little sun stroky and had to collapse in the shower, but this place was definitely worth it - you could spend days here exploring all the nooks a crannies. Though tonnes of people visit, it's so bloody big you barely even notice.

For those of you who are super keen-eyed little nerdy werdys you may recognise this place as the location of the rebel base in star wars (minus the space ships etc) - and no I didn't know that until our guide Carlos told me (he and George Lucas go waaay back apparently)

TIKAL (24 photos)

The main plaza at Tikal (Temples 1 and 2)
[click on image to enlarge]

The folk at CyArk have awesome 360 panoramas here definitely worth a look

Viva La Revolucion... (pt 1 of 3)

H a v a n a

We'd both longed to get to Cuba, and after moving to the US it was always going to be our first port of call - before Fidel kicks the bucket and Raoul starts changing everything. It just so happened that 2009 is the 50th anniversary of the Revolution, so we figured we should be there over Christmas and new years to witness it...

Havana is a one of those cities that's more legend than fact. Since the revolution and the subsequent embargo by the US, the city has unfortunately in decline. It's probably one of the few places on the planet where you find vintage American cars running off Russian Lada engines, ration shops juxtaposed against once gleaming colonial palaces all dowsed in a liberal coating of revolutionary sloganeering and graffiti


Once the stomping ground for pirates, a heavily fortified slave port for the Spanish and even a lucrative gambling capital for the North American Mafia during prohibition, Havana seems to have survived everything that has been thrown at it...

Habaneros (inhabitants of Havana) love their city - though they live crammed into dilapidated old apartment buildings, everyone maintains their own gardens and chicken on their balconies...

This is a massive marble statue of Jesus that over looks the city from Casablanca
The fort at La Cabaña has overlooked and protected the city for over 100yrs - so much so, that Fidel and Che set up shop here immediately after the revolution. There's an awesome display of che's old office and a whole bunch of his stuff from the early days running the new country

Despite it's relatively high population, there's still not a huge amount of traffic in the old city as cars are too expensive - also you don't park on the street as you'll find your car stripped of everything that is and isn't bolted on, so abandoned lots have become parking garages where someone'll watch your sled for a few pesos...
The balcony really seems to be the centre of a havanan home, as it's from here that you do your shopping by dropping down baskets (with money tied on); it's where you swap things with you neighbours, grow your food , keep your pets, and most importantly talk to your friends... There's a great hum in the evenings as everyone is having loud conversations from the street up to their friends on the third floor!!

Whilst many of the 50's US cars that everyone thinks of when they hear the word Cuba are in pretty good nick, most are barely holding on, often held together with Russian or even improvised parts...
... thus the easiest way to get around is by bike taxi (or in Havana - a coco taxi which is a little round yellow fibreglass blob attached to a motor bike which looks like it's been stolen from a Disney ride....)

Further out , where there's less cars, horse or mule drawn wagon are the transportation of choice

... or you can just build your own, however you want....

One thing that strikes most people about Cuba is that it's still a government run Communist state, and as such doesn't have any advertising or commercial branding anywhere (even on the limited number of shops...) So, while there's no Coke or Pepsi billboards staring down at you wherever you go like the rest of the planet, there are plenty of political slogans and patriotic images all about the place to remind cubanos about their responsibilities as a cuban...

"Fatherland or Death - We will win" has been a slogan since before the revolution when an "oath" was pledged to rid the country of the spanish (at the time). Since then it has evolved to mean more - that every cuban is required to fight for the greater good and the freedom on the country... Here Fidel (in his younger days) is rousing his people...

No one man conveys that spirit of vigilance is fighting against oppression than "El Che" who is coveted almost like a god in these parts. His image (and sometimes a simple "viva el che!" or "viva la revolucion!") can be seen in houses, on billboards, and the side of buildings, in every corner of cuba...




Another group that cubanos are constantly reminded of via billboard is the Miami 5 - five men who were sentenced in 2001 to prison terms of between 15 and 25 years for allegedly acting as Cuban agents within the exile community in Miami. The men and their supporters have consistently protested that they had come to the US to infiltrate and disrupt right-wing exile groups perpetrating acts of terrorism within Cuba and have therefore been jailed unjustly. As for the local propaganda, it's used to help bolster anti-American sentiment (such as the common phrase "Yankee imperialist..."

"The victory was, is and always will be ours! "

Viva La Revolucion... (pt 2 of 3)

T r i n i d a d

After enjoying the hustle and bustle of Havana, it was time to get into the cuban country-side. So we headed down to the historic old town of Trinidad via the city of Cienfuegos (just past the bay of pigs...)

Apart form old cars, Cuba is famous for two things: Cigars and Rum.
... and this is rum country. Well, more specifically, this is sugar country - from which the rum is made...and they don't let you forget it either. Where ever you go, rum's $2 a bottle and you're more likely to be able to get a mojito than a coke. It catches up to you after a while...

Guide books tell you that Trinidad is a museum in itself - and they're kinda right the hundreds of tourists visiting the 500-year-old city find Spanish colonial architecture and cobbled stone streets that mark the tiny city as one of the country’s greatest attractions. Only a few square blocks in size, historic Trinidad is famous for its lovely, cobblestone streets, pastel coloured houses with elaborate wrought-iron grills, as well as majestic palaces and plazas. This area is a world heritage site and cars are banned, so it's nice to be able to just walk around.

A church at the Plaza Mayor
There's no shortage of locals enjoying cigars...
no cars means a nice quite ride through town

Apart from the big resort areas (which we didn't go to) Cuba doesn't actually have that many "hotels" - There's a few government run places and a few big chains are moving in (especially in Havana), but the main place to stay are the hundreds of casa particulars (private houses) in towns all over the country.

It's exactly as it sounds - you stay at someone's house! Ever since the special period in the '90's when the economy fell into a massive hole after the split of the USSR, cubans have been looking for ways to earn additional income by playing to their strengths. If you're a good cook - your house is a restaurant, if you make coffee - sell it out the front window, if you have a spare room - you're house is a hotel... Now it's fully legalised and houses actually do extensions to create more room for their "casa" to generate business. We stayed at a place where we had a room on the top floor and an outdoor spot for meals - it was awesome!! all for $20-25 a night.

We'd originally only planned to stay in Trinidad for a few days, but there was so much stuff to do just outside town we ended up staying longer. The Topes de Collantes is a national park in the mountains behind the town where the only way to get in is on the back of an old russian military transport. We took a ride with a cool bunch of italian, brittish, dutch and french folk and went for a hike to one of the waterfalls...

swimming pool

being on the coast, there were plenty of beaches to lie on and a few reefs to dive. Unfortunately many of the reefs got trashes by hurricane Gustav last season, but we still had fun. We took a catamaran out to this tiny little atoll to do some snorkelling - awesome.


We'd planned to do something for Christmas, however we hadn't realised that it doesn't really exist here...

Appartenly, following the declaration of Cuba as an atheist nation, Christmas was removed from list of holidays of Cuban calendar in 1969 when Fidel Castro decided it was interfering with the sugar harvest festival. Cuban authorities banned the public display of Christmas trees and nativity scenes, other than in places frequented by tourists, such as hotels. But in 1997, President Castro restored the holiday to honor, in the honor of the visit of Pope John Paul II in the island. So while the island is quite catholic - there ain't no Santa here, baby...

Despite all that we had a great time drinking Crystal (beer) by the sea