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After our night in the colourful Motel Plaza we headed to Veracruz to arrange for Juanita to be sea freighted to Colombia.

We had dinner and a good chat with Alex and Simon who are on a 12 month RTW and travelling at a fairly speedy pace,  certainly by our standards anyway.  South America was their first continent and they had arrived in Patagonia in the middle of winter.  Hats of to them for enduring the hard riding and camping conditions that time of year brings.  They were up and off the next day to continue their journey.  Quite a different story was about to unfold for us.

Before our chosen freight agent could start the process of shipping Juanita they had advised that we had to cancel our temporary importation.  As we had come in over a land border from the US this type of importation is issued by and cancelled on exit from Mexico by an authority called Banjercito, as opposed to Customs (called Aduanas here) as would be the case in most countries.  After an hour waiting at their office we were advised that we couldn’t cancel the importation without a document called an Article 23 from Customs which is basically the document they produce when they inspect the van and approve it for export.  At this point we continued to try to be proactive which may have been our downfall?.

We went to the Aduanas (Customs) office and met with an official who told us we would have to provide a detailed list of all the items in our van, no problem, we already knew this from other overlanders who had recently gone through this process.  We felt quietly confident that we knew what had to be done as we headed off to meet the freight agent.

John has been in e-mail correspondence with the agent we chose for several months, from the blogs of other travellers we had read Victor the contact wasn’t great at responding but once in Veracruz his staff took over and it all worked ok.  Based on this we were expecting to ship on 20/11.  We had a meeting at their offices which didn’t change our expectations, we could keep Juanita until Tuesday 15/11 and they would work with a Customs broker (so many people involved!) on our list of van contents to make sure there wasn’t anything that could cause any delays.

We started to relax a bit and have a look around Veracruz and most importantly celebrate John’s birthday (while keeping an eye on the US presidential election).  Not surprisingly we haven’t met a Mexican who believed Mr Trump’s election was a good thing and we would have to agree with them!

Creme caramel, one of my favourites, luckily John was happy to share.

While we still had Juanita we took a day trip to Xalapa to the 2nd largest indoor collection of Mayan artefacts in Mexico, there is more in the Mexico City museum. The Xalapa Museo de Anthropologia has won international architecture awards.  Is was built in the 1980’s but has that Royal Festival Hall kind of mucho concrete look about it from the exterior.  Inside it is a wonderful sandstone covered space perfect to display these artefacts.  Built in tiers down a hill with lush gardens around.  We spent a lovely afternoon there.

 

 

 

 

These huge Olmec heads date from 900 BC.  Would quite like one as a very impressive garden ornament!

We had asked the shipping agent to call us daily to give us an update.  This never seemed to happen without John chasing them.  We tried to stay optimistic and hoped this wasn’t a bad sign and carried on sightseeing to keep occupied.

Veracruz city, not the prettiest city we have visited, like most ports it has it’s charming bits and the bits that the locals said we should avoid after dark.  It did play a big part in the Spanish conquest and was the first city named by the Spanish in what became Mexico.  It was the biggest trading port and arrival point for Spanish settlers and the military.

Shoeshines available everywhere including coffee houses.

The gardens of the Naval museum, some similarities to Greenwich we thought, but with the addition of palm trees.

Let’s hope this isn’t the closest John gets to Ushuaia!  Still no news from the shippers.

In preparation for delivery to the freight agent’s yard Juanita gets a spruce up.  Equivalent of £2.50 for a clean that took 50 mins!  To be honest it could have been done in 20 mins but it was a bit too warm to rush.  This señor kept hydrated with regular swigs of Cerveza, obviously helped him balance on the bucket on top of the chair!

So, Tuesday 15th November we left Juanita at the shippers yard in anticipation of her leaving on the 20th.

Getting around the city was to become more difficult that week as 30,000 public workers took to the streets and blockaded key routes which basically brought the city to a standstill.  It was all very peaceful and completely understandable.  The current (although no where to be found) City Governer has been embezzling large amounts from public funds and now any overtime or bonus due to the workers is not guaranteed to be paid.  It seems hard to understand how 1 person can have unchecked access to manage this so maybe there were others involved as well but the Governer certainly appears to be getting the blame.

It was hard to get a feel from the press as to why the Governer hasn’t just been arrested and brought to justice but then the state of Veracruz is a tough place for journalists to freely investigate and report in anyway that could be deemed as critical of the authorities. 17 journalists have been murdered since 2010 and more have disappeared.

As we no longer had Juanita and there was no through routes for buses or taxis we did manage to walk 48 miles over a 7 day period so that was a positive!

This made us chuckle,  Mexican cities are pretty noisy,  it is a cacophony of car horns, virtually every shop having massive speakers outside playing either dance or traditional music plus the street musicians.  This is the first region where the xylophone appears to be a popular portable instrument!  We stopped at this coffee house in what appeared to be a quieter part of town to escape the noise, firstly we sat outside but within minutes the waiter had turned up the music played through the massive speaker next to our table, possibly at the request of another customer (it certainly wasn’t us!), there were no other free tables outside so we moved inside.  Part of the cafe was screened off but it was a busy Saturday so surely no serious building work would be taking place?  Within minutes there was the sound of a hammer drill so loud we couldn’t think let alone talk!   Luckily a couple of tables outside had been vacated so we grabbed one quick and began to enjoy our coffee.  A few minutes later the guys pictured above moved in, we were sat at the table on the right by the drummer.  When they started to play John got up to move and the drummer gratefully thought we were just moving to the other side of the table to give him more room!  Such nice friendly people but John and I are deaf enough anyway, we had to move a bit further away!

 

Veracruz streets.

We passed a car on the street that quite obviously hadn’t moved for a bit.  It is a windy port town and you can taste the salt in the air.  Definitely not good for car bodywork.

So, back to the shipping.  2 days after we left Juanita at the yard we were back there.  Our agent had advised that even though we had provided a list of all the van contents the Customs office had advised the Customs Agent that they had to compile their own list in Spanish, including export categories and provide photographs of all the contents.  To try to hurry it along we got involved, it was taking this one guy so long to catalogue and photograph everything.   We did have a few things on board that strangely we could not ship including washing up liquid, bug spray, ant traps and really weirdly John’s spare watch strap!  Anyway with John behind him and able to identify items the pace quickened.  At this point the whole process was starting to get really frustrating, this one guy had been working by himself on the previous day and if we had been told we would have been there then to help.  We now only had 2 days for the list and photos to be put in the correct format and presented to Customs if we had any chance of getting shipped on 20/11.

This street artist created pictures by setting fire to car paint.  It’s all perfectly safe!

Yes Christmas starts too early in Mexico as well!

So, by the end of Friday 19/11 it had become clear the Customs Broker had not finished the detailed list and there was no way our shipment would clear for the weekend sailing.  Basically Customs appeared to be making an example of us.  There is a process for travellers shipping their own used possessions through Mexico that does not require such detailed paperwork but for whatever reason our Broker has not questioned Custom’s decision.  Over the weekend we mulled over the options.  Give them another week?  Get the van back and ship from Belize, Gautemala or the US?

On Monday a call by John to the shipping agent revealed that our first contact Victor was “no longer with the company” to be honest he hadn’t been involved much since we had arrived anyway but it did make us doubt that he had done anything at all to help our cause.  At this point the girl now handling our shipment was assured that the list would be compiled and ready for us to sign off (another new bit of information we had just heard about) in plenty of time to make the 27/11 shipment.  We made the decision to go with it and leave the shipment with them.

We needed a break from Veracruz but couldn’t risk being away from the city for more than a day in case we needed to get back quick to sign papers.  We hired a car and escaped to the lovely and quiet Tlacotalpan.

 

 

 

 

“Come on lady, you must have some food in that big handbag?”  Unfortunately for them I didn’t.

The shipping saga continues………………………..

Perhaps a morbid title for this post but I will explain more in a while (now you have to keep reading!)

We were now driving west across the Yucatan and had a couple of days to kill before heading to Merida.  We settled on the small seaside town of Celestun.  Maybe we were both really relaxed or maybe we had taken so many photos of the ruins recently that we managed to not take a single pic of the beach or coastline!

However we did go on a boat trip so a few birdy photos

We had shared the boat with Peter, Sabina and Nicholas who had escaped the European Autumn for a few weeks to explore the Yucatan.   We enjoyed several meals with them in Celestun and in Merida but yet again I failed to take a proper pic.  This is Peter and John trying to order breakfast at a place that only seemed to have one choice with Sabina and Nicholas waiting patiently.

We moved on to a different breakfast venue that had more choice and the added bonus of Christmas decs already in place (possibly been up the last few years?)

We arrived in Merida the capital city of Yucatan on 31/10.  I am probably repeating myself when I say John would be happy if we avoided towns and cities for all of our travels.  Still, I had twisted his arm with the promise of all the fun, colour and good photo opportunities to be had during the annual Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival.

I had checked out the best cities in the region to experience the festival and Merida was the one, I had read reviews of previous years and we were there for the traditional festival dates of 31/10 to 2/11.  Note the word traditional, there’s the flaw in my plan.  What I didn’t think to check was the actual timetable of events for this year (doh!).  I won’t go into what the whole festival includes but there are parades with the dressing up/skeletons etc. which are more of a public event and then there are the more personal traditions that take place for the families at the cemeteries.  This year the public parades where held a couple of days earlier at the weekend for the first time ever!  No excuse, bad planning I should have checked.

Anyhow, we knew of my mistake before arriving in Merida but I convinced John we should still go.  There were no campsites near the town so we were booked into a guesthouse that had parking.  Now it’s a nice old city, but is pretty congested and the centre gets rather gridlocked.  By the time we arrived it was very hot, the traffic was heavy and it turned out our parking was a block away, shared by several businesses and being used by some builders working on an adjoining building.  It didn’t look very secure and John’s mood had gone from the wrong side of good to “what the bloody hell are we doing here”.  We had a period of “storming” before we settled down to “norming” and after the builders left the car park didn’t look so bad.

We made the most of activities that were still happening.

A rather eclectic Halloween display.

Luckily there was still this couple to pose with, much in demand by us and others who had arrived late!

And I got the T shirt!

We had gone to the tourist information office to check out what there was to do and were advised there was a guided tour of the cemetery the next night.  We turned up early to find the gates locked and no one around (well no one alive anyway!).  We did bump into a couple of Brits who were staying at our B & B and also turned up for the tour on the advice of the Tourist office.  Oh well it wasn’t to be so we went for a couple of beers with Phil and Dee instead.  Another couple I failed to take a pic of who have been touring South and Central America on an Africa Twin.

Before we left we did get to look around the cemetery, colourful and beautifully decorated, some graves were modelled on the deceased’s homes and some had their own Mayan pyramids!

The food here is good and lots of fresh veg are easy to come by but green leafy veg has been somewhat lacking in our diet recently.  Luckily the Yucatan has an abundance of Chaya sometimes called Tree Spinach, full of vitamins, iron and calcium,we have been drinking and eating as much of it as we can.

Heading over to Veracruz the port from which Juanita will sail to Cartegena we did a long day and arrived after dark in the town of Villerhamosa (or villersamosa as we had been calling it!).  IOverland  had some decent reviews for a highway motel rather grandly called the Plaza.  A bit like a drive in burger joint we paid our 350 pesos (a reasonable £14) at a window and were directed to the entrance below.

Very nice we thought, our own garage (or as we like to call it the kitchen) with electric door and integral door into the very spacious bedroom.

First impressions, tacky 80’s disco decor but it will do.  Then we noticed the strategically placed mirrors, enormous bed, kind of dumb waiter thing in the wall to allow you to order room service without opening the door and complimentary condom (we would rather have had chocolates).

Now we’ve been to one we spot these establishments often!  They allow you to drive in, hide your car and be anonymous!  In Latin America where households are often big and multigenerational these motels provide some privacy for young couples as well as the more traditional liaisons of a financial nature!

8 hours in the Jacuzzi, how wrinkled would you be?!

Buanas Noches xxxx Continue reading “Dead and gone – Day 144 (11608 miles)”

Although our last post was heavily Mayan ruin based we hadn’t even reached the big ones.  Should we or shouldn’t we?  Go to Chichen Itza that is.  Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor say it’s a must, but the price you pay are the big crowds.  Also we know there are smaller quieter sites that could be just as interesting.

Anyhow we were staying close by so we went for it.   As long as you’re there by 9ish there are a couple of hours before the big tour buses arrive so it’s really not that crowded.  They do let vendors set up their stalls inside so there is the constant badgering to buy when walking past but the scale of the ruins is impressive and we’re glad we went.

 

 

We had based ourselves at a pretty town called Izamal, it was easy to get out and visit stuff plus Harold the owner of the hotel/campsite was an overlander himself many years ago.   This was handy as John wanted to give the van a service.  It was while doing the oil change that John spotted a small leak from the water pump and that one of the bolts fitted was too short and not tightened properly.  A new water pump was one of the jobs that was done by the guy we bought the van from, John had wanted to do it himself but that would have invalidated our warranty.  So after much deliberation he had agreed to let them do this and a few other jobs but has never been happy with the standard of what they did.  Luckily he had a slightly longer bolt that fitted so we have a temporary fix.

All of you who know John will realise that a temporary fix (albeit one that may last the whole trip) is not really good enough?.  There has been much deliberation about getting a new water pump now and fitting it, which is a big job on a Delica.  Or, getting a spare to carry with us but we really don’t have room.  We did go to a Mitsubishi dealer in Merida and sadly the Parts Manager definitely won the prize as the most unhelpful person we have encountered in Mexico, in fact he is the only unhelpful person we’ve encountered!  He was adamant that the part numbers we had could not possibly be accessed on his system and Japan would not ship them to Mexico anyway. Maybe what he was saying was true but from the moment he saw us the manner and body language said he didn’t want to help, much to the embarrassment of the very helpful receptionist who was translating for us.  Anyhow the temporary fix is fine at the moment and our good friend Chris who was our back home parts and shipping co-ordinator on our last trip has stepped up the mark and will get us what we need if and when we do.  Thanks Chris.

Part of each day a small herd of sheep were let into the campground to graze.  John caught one trying to get in the side of the van, so now every speck of dirt I see I think is a tick!

This lad is called Lucky as he is the only male among 9 dogs on the site!

Oh I love the internet!  We kept seeing this pretty bird so  I Googled “Bird native to Mexico with a funny shaped blue tail” and there it was the Turquoise Browed Motmot!

Izamal was spruced up with a job lot of yellow paint for a visit by the Pope in 1993, it made for some colourful photos.

This is Luis who took me on a tour of the town’s famous convent.  A small man with a big personality!

Plastic recycling by foot.

Our last Mayan ruin was Uxmal (pronounced Ushmal).  Apart from the Magicians Temple in the 1st 2 pics below all the other ruins can be climbed so a few more calories burnt.

 

 

We went to the sound and light show, didn’t understand much of the Spanish commentary but we got the gist of it and enjoyed watching.

Bye for now.xx

Does the title refer to us?  Well I haven’t had a haircut for 5 months and given up on makeup so perhaps it is me at least!

We are firmly entering Mayan territory and the many ruined cities there are to see.  We started with a little one called Yaxchilan, it is on the Usumacinta river and the opposite river bank is the border with  Guatemala. It is only accessible by boat and when our skipper suggested we set off at 7am the next day we thought it might be to beat the hoards of other tourists arriving by coach.

Luckily we were wrong, perhaps he is just a morning person?  This place is pretty off the beaten track and we were the only ones staying at our campground. We had the ruins to ourselves apart from 2 others, and there were no sellers of stuff we do not want!  We have no illusions that will be the case at the larger, more accessible sites but it was a great morning.

 

A slightly weird camping spot, the car park of a museum.

John on the edge of a rather tall pyramid, in flagrant breach of safety guidelines yet again!  This was at a place called Calakmul again pretty quiet as there is 60km of a mainly paved but very potholed small lane to get there.

We puffed our way up 148ft of pyramid for this view.  To be honest going up was fine but coming down not so comfortable, those Mayans had tiny feet, barely enough room to stand sideways on some of the steps.

We had chatted to a couple of guys we assumed to be French (although they turned out to be Belgium) at the top of the pyramid.  As we were leaving the site they approached us in need of a lift.  They had hitchhiked the 60km in but missed their lift out.  This was a first for us, hadn’t given anyone a lift in Juanita before.  Obviously she is not designed to carry more than 2 but we rolled back the mattress and made it work.  It was nice to have the company of Matthias and Matthew for a while.

We headed to the Caribbean coast, another first for us both as beaches are not our usual priority.  Well, not sunny ones anyway, we’re too pasty for sunbathing!

Below is the Mayan seaport of Tulum, a real tourist draw quite understandably considering the location.  For us it was rather an anti-climax after the 2 previous sites.  All the ruins were roped off so no climbing around, landscaped grounds and thousands of people!  I said to John it felt rather manufactured.  We could have avoided the crowds by getting there earlier as we were camped very close by.  Instead we had a leisurely breakfast and chatted to a nice Kiwi lady travelling with her 12 year old daughter (who was still in bed!).  Sophie runs an underwear company back home called Thunderpants (great name).  Often these people encounters are the rewarding bits of our days.

Throughout the Yucatan there are sink holes known as Cenotes, they are fed from underground water sources (not sure if that is always the case).  Some are open to the elements and some within caves.  We found a less popular underground one that we had to ourselves.

A selection of recent wildlife encounters.

We have camped in some great spots.

John on the naughty step!

Ek Balam

The nosey parker who loves to see inside other people’s houses in me wanted to visit Casa De Los Venados in Valladolid, it is a private house stuffed full of 3,ooo bits of Mexican folk art, or toot as John called it.  Lots of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Day of the Dead themed stuff.  Basically some well off Americans bought a wreck of a building, renovated it, filled it full of stuff and are now No 1 thing to do in Valladolid on Trip Advisor!  It’s a small town, not that much happening.

 

A real old fashioned shoemaker, not hard to make your choice, there is only one style!

Bye for nowxx

Well, all is good in our little travel bubble.  Sometimes I feel like Judith Chalmers (under forties or those who don’t live in the Uk will have no idea who that is!) telling you about one travel destination after another.  No dramatic near death experiences or mechanical disasters to make for exciting reading I’m afraid.

But we did need, to find another route!

You know sometimes, something in the Lonely Planet sparks your interest and you really can’t explain what draws you to it especially when it’s a bit of a trek out of your way to get there.  Sima de las Cotorras is a 140m deep by 160m wide sink hole, we’ve been to the Grand and Copper Canyons do we really want to see this little hole?  It is home to a flock of small green parrots that have been forced out of other habitats due to deforestation and their numbers depleted due to hunting.  A group of around 30 local people now manage the area as a conservation project and there is a small restaurant and washrooms so we were able to arrive late and camp there.  As the sunrises which is a about 7am here the parrots get pretty vocal and start to fly up out of the hole.  It was one of those things that you have to hear as much as see and pics don’t do it justice.  We were pleased we stopped by as much as anything to meet a few of the people involved and make a donation.  It really is a bit out of the way and was deserted apart from us and 2 others who arrived in the morning.

John invalidating the travel insurance having climbed over the DANGER STOP HERE sign!

Continue reading “Chugging through Chiapas – Day 116 (9660miles)”

After giving this post it’s title I realised that the first stop detailed isn’t in Oaxaca!  Would you have known? Would you have cared?  Possibly not, but I own up to it more so that when we are older and greyer and the detail of where we’ve been is blurring we can look back on the blog for some clarification.  Anyhow……

We loved spending a night in the cactus forest in Puebla state.  One of those places were the nights are so quiet it’s a bit spooky.  The night sky was fantastic.

The next day we set off into the neighbouring state of Oaxaca with a nice easy 4 hour journey to do.  Earlier this year there had been violent clashes between the police and teachers with the teachers blockading roads and protesting about changes to the education system.  It had appeared from the lack of anything new in the press that it was over, but not so.  We joined a very long queue of stationary traffic and were advised it was a blockade and to take a different route.  On the alternative route we came across the aftermath of previous protests still in place.  We couldn’t find out why the streets have not been cleared of the wreckage.  We got through OK but but there was a lot of debris to negotiate.

After a journey that took a few hours longer than planned we arrived in Santa Maria Del Tule a lovely little town to the east of Oaxaca city.  It is famous for a 2,000 year old Montezuma Cypress tree.

It’s claimed to have the widest trunk of any tree in existence.

The tree although interesting wasn’t why we chose to stay there!  From the reviews on I-Overlander the best place by far to stay was a campsite called Overlander Oasis.  When travelling like this there are places you sometimes come across that are quite special and this is one of them.  Calvin and Leanne who’s garden has basically been turned into a camping area for motorcyclists and campervans have travelled Mexico extensively in a converted Greyhound bus and they really understand what you need when you’re on the road for a while.   We enjoyed their company and the company of those we met there enormously.

Home made pizza night with Maria and Nachi who was Head Chef that night(Argentians travelling by campervan with 2 young kids), Felix (German motorcyclist) and Leanne and Calvin our hosts.

The use of Calvin’s workshop and input allowed John to extend our kitchen prep area extensively ?and carry out other mods and maintenance.  I think John would have been happy to spend all our time there tinkering and tweaking but I did manage to get him out and about a bit.

Monte Alban was founded around 500BC and it a very impressive site.  It was inhabited by the Zapotecs who are still the largest group of indigenous people in the state.

Where’s Johnny?

This stone was the first Zapotec calendar.  So dates back to approximately 500BC, I may be wrong but I think this would even pre-date the first Cliff Richard calendar and those have been around forever!

A week hasn’t gone by since we’ve been in Mexico without some kind of festival or celebration and this week was a Mariachi festival in Del Tule.  These kids were brilliant, they couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old but they marched, played the drums, took part in the flag folding ceremony and one of them gave quite a long, solemn speech.

One of many Mariachi bands, we stayed for a couple of hours but we could hear the festivities from our campsite and they Mariachi’d way into the night.

There was no point taking Juanita into the city as the area has Collectivos which are normal looking saloon cars that act more like minibuses.  For 11 pesos (around 40p) per person you can take the 20 minute journey into the city.  Now these are definitely designed as driver plus 3 passenger vehicles but the driver will continuing picking up until he has 5 plus himself on board so 3 bodies in both the front and back.  I was “lucky” enough to be the one squeezed in the middle of the front seat on our way home.  So no seat belt, fast driving, on 3 lane roads in the dark!  Made a ride in an Asian tuktuk feel pretty tame.

We visited the Botanical gardens and cultural museum and enjoyed the people watching and wandering around the city.

We visited more Zapotec ruins at Mitla.

These were built of individual pieces of stone fitted together without mortar.  Still look pretty good 20+ centuries on!  I think John mentioned they were designed and built to withstand seismic activity.

There are so many Beetles here they seem to be chopping them up to make moto taxi’s (or tuktuks).

Our planned 1 week stay at Overland Oasis turned into 9 nights!  I think there is a good chance we’ll be back to this region of Mexico sometime in the future.  There is a lot more to explore.  We were waved off by Moreena a very lucky street dog adopted by Calvin and Leanne.  She has a great temperament and enjoys visiting all the campers.

Our last stop in Oaxaca was Huerve el Agua, beautiful mineral springs in a stunning location and you can camp overnight for the equivalent of £6.

 

 

No one but us and a few stray dogs.

Adios for now.xx

After telling you in the last post that we had to get a move on we are trying to keep focussed and head east.  Oh but it’s hard, we’ve heard a few tales of those who come to Mexico for a month and end up staying a year and it’s quite understandable.

Indeed.

Flora and ……

Fauna at our Patzcuaro campsite.  It’s a nice little town and our campsite is in a quiet spot a few Km’s out of the centre.  Little Combo buses (just like Juanita) whiz around all the time so easy to cover ground quickly for a few pesos.

The town has a great market and we got carried away with fruit and veg purchases before realising we would be carrying them around for several hours.  Oh well we’re not getting much in the way of exercise!

It also has a huge square one of the largest in the country and as it was a Sunday the area was buzzing with artists selling their work and lively entertainment to enjoy.  John and I both fell in love with some paintings by one of the artists.  But a purchase would  have meant expensive shipping home and doesn’t fit with a more minimalist lifestyle ethos we are trying to cultivate, eh Will?  Very pleased to say we resisted.

Within minutes of the above photo the rain was pouring down and the square cleared as everyone dived for cover under the sheltered walkways around the edge of the square.

I thought this scene was reminiscent of a Saturday night TV talent show with the panel of judges deliberating on the talents of a hopeful performer.  I think the outcome may have been “No the Gringo’s clothes are boring, he’s too tall and his dancing’s not up to much.”

The rain kept coming, when we eventually braved it and crossed the road we were ankle deep in dirty water.

The next day we boarded a boat for the small island of Janitzio.  First ones on but….

Soon there was standing room only and the obligatory sellers of various confectionery plus live music complete with amplifier!

Glad we weren’t on this one.

Excellent repurposing, plastic bottles joined together to make a down pipe.  If we need new guttering when we get home this may be an option.

 

This it’s the inside of a 40m statue of Jose Marie Morelos y Pavon one of the rebel leaders in the Mexican war of Independence.  The murals all the way around the spiral staircase depict the gore and drama of the war.  The climb took us up to a viewing window just below his raised fist in the pic below.

Great views from the top of the statue.

We been in Mexico weeks, there had to be a Chihuahua pic!  This little fella lived above the terrace of a hotel we stayed at in the town of Taxco.  A very pretty place,  which was established as a silver mining town in the 16th century.

The view from our hotel terrace.  You may just be able to make out an illuminated statue at the top right side of the hill.

The next day we thought we’d go up to the statue and check out the view.  Taxco is a town of narrow hilly streets and hundreds of Beetle taxis that chug slowly up the hills and seem to be able to turn the most amazingly tight corners and perform death defying hill starts!  All the Beetles are two door so the front passenger seats have been removed to allow access to launch yourself into the back seat.  The pic above is our view on our taxi ride up to the statue.

 

Pretty amazing views.

We also stopped at cascada, just to get our feet wet!

 

The view up the hill.

 

 

Above pics are of the Temple de Santa Prisca built and donated to the town by a bloke who made a fortune from silver mining in the 18th century.  Apparently it nearly bankrupted him, shouldn’t of been such a show off then, should he.

Beetles everywhere.

We had fun in a hairdressers with our poor Spanish and their non-existent English.  Lovely ladies and John came away with the cut he wanted, not a perm or hi lights luckily.

Bye bye xx

This post’s title is two-fold.  1) We have about another 8 weeks in Mexico which sounds like ages but we have already been here 5 weeks and haven’t covered as much of the country as we thought we would by now.  2) I need to get a move on with the blog, I am always behind so this is my big push to get up to date.  It does cover a lot, hopefully no one will nod off before getting to the end.  Especially if you’re reading this at work, that could be awkward!  Anyway here we go…

Another day another campsite, this time in the small town of Ezetlan in the region of Jalisco, probably most famous for the neighbouring town of Tequila and it’s alcoholic export.  This town may be small but the trees are big and it is still rainy season, oh well we’re not superstitious so fingers crossed (!!!) we’ll be safe enough.

This site is part of a ranch run by Bonnie and her daughter Samantha.  They were our tourist information, providers of tequila and just picked limes to sample and we got  to see Samantha’s horse being trained in traditional Mexican dressage.  Yet again we have met great people.  They were also providers of refuge for several local dogs that needed a good home.

This one does have a proper name but we knew him as  Stumpy, he didn’t seem to mind!  Samantha found him injured on the road, after his leg was amputated he joined their other 4 dogs and runs around as quick as the others.

Although not as well known as the archeological sites further east there is some really interesting stuff in this part of Mexico.  These are the round pyramids at Los Guachimontones which were temples that formed part of a settlement of around 40,000 people from 300BC to around 900AD.  It is now a UNESCO WH site but still pretty low key and not at all busy.  There was a really good visitor’s centre and even an info film in English which was brilliant.  Sometimes our guessed translations are way off!

 

 

Obligatory church photo.

Not sure what the drinking and riding law is here, can your horse walk in a straight line perhaps?

4 Amigos

16th September is Independence Day in Mexico and the festivities involving parades, dancing and fireworks seemed to start early and carry on for a few days.  This was an event we passed while on the road.

Tequila in it’s raw state, fields of blue agave for many miles around.

As we prefer it!

Guadalajara is the 2nd biggest city in Mexico.  There was no way we wanted to stay in the city but  thought we’d have a couple of nights camping at Lake Chapala (the largest lake in Mexico) and nip in to Guadalajara to sightsee.  The journey took us closer to the city centre than we really wanted but it looked like we could get onto the Periphico and head south to the lake quite easily.  However, the junction we needed was closed……

3 hours later we were still stuck in city traffic.  In total the journey we thought would be 1.5 hours took 4 and the thought of coming back into the city the next day did not seem so appealing so we can’t say we’ve seen Guadalajara!

However, we did loads of laundry, there was good internet, clean hot showers and

John learnt to do this, he hasn’t perfected the Taj Majal yet Lisa!

We headed south from Lake Chapala to Tapalpa a really pretty mountain village at about 6700 feet.   It was cooler here than we’d been used to which was a bit of a shock in the evenings, we even had to get our padded jackets out.   As there wasn’t a campsite we found a hotel in a good spot with parking within the hotel courtyard so we could still save some cash and cook our meals, much to the amusement of the staff.  At £29 per night it was our most expensive accommodation in Mexico so we needed to economise.

This was a great fishmongers but we thought cooking fish in the hotel courtyard was a bit too cheeky!

A canine only congregation.

Continue reading “Need to get a move on -Day 96 (8603 miles)”

 

We are ready to head inland, the coast has been lovely but now for something different.  We spent a couple of nights in San Blas, only just off the coast and a good spot to visit an island called Mexcaltitan. Do you know, it took me days to be able to remember the name of that place, as if it’s not long enough I would add an extra syllable or get the correct ones in the wrong order.  I have come to the conclusion there are too many syllables in many Spanish words, it would be so much easier to learn if they were shorter!

Anyway, back to San Blas, it is surrounded by mangrove swamps, which is interesting but to us just shouted EVEN MORE INSECTS!  We stayed in a small hotel as we’d been advised that the sand flies in the one campsite were vicious.

We did risk a picnic lunch by the water one day, watching the Pelicans hanging around hoping for left overs from the fishing boats.

There was torrential rain at night which left the cobbled streets a muddy mess each morning.  As always the locals just dealt with it and weaved in and out of the mess the best they could.

 

Just some colourful street art.

Had to cheat here and use a downloaded image to show you the classic shot of Mexcaltitan.  It is a man made island and legend says it is the birthplace of the Aztecs and from here they set out on a pilgrimage in  1091 which led them to the founding of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan.  It’s all there on Wikipedia.

We braved the insects for a nice ride through the mangroves.

 

It wasn’t too bad when we were there but at the height of the rainy season many of the streets do flood and the locals get about by boat.  The soil on the island is so high in salt that they cannot grow any edible crops but obviously they have access to a lot of freshwater fish!

 

John took the above photo in the museum and asked me to include it in the blog.  I couldn’t really understand why? However always the engineer he explained the significance was that one of the roof beams was being held up, although not very well by the ladder!

Waiting to sample the local fish.

This is the Laguna del Santa Maria del Oro a lake within an extinct volcano.  We took a steep wiggley road that dropped 1300 ft to a campsite on the shoreline.

It was a lovely spot, and we spent the afternoon relaxing by the lake.

But the power of nature and all that.  It was about 4 hours later that we found ourselves dripping wet in a thunder storm and Juanita under a pile of branches!

I caught this flamboyant caterpillar reading our Lonely Planet, must be planning a trip.

After fixing up Juanita we set off to visit the active Volcan Ceboruco although it hasn’t erupted since 1871!  Well we couldn’t stand too much excitement after the other night.

We were visiting as a quick stop off on the way to another area so had a fairly long journey to do.  I had told John there was no hiking involved and it was up a 15km cobbled track.  All true but I suppose I had underestimated how long it would take to travel 30km on what was at times very bumpy terrain.  So there and back added 2 hours to our journey time that day,  oh well, it was interesting to see.

Nothing too serious, sometimes when we are going very slow, over bumpy ground, for a while and the temperature is over 35c we can smell petrol inside the van.  John was looking for signs of a petrol leak in the engine bay and could see fluid of some kind.  To take a better look the battery had to come out.  Luckily what he could see turned out to be water, the engine bay was still drying out from the storm.  Some Googling that night revealed other Delica owners finding the same thing, something to do with the venting system.  I might have that wrong but John is asleep so I can’t check!  Maybe he’ll do a techie blog on it sometime!  Just for you Richard?

The view into the crater.

See those little white clouds in the background that’s a steam vent.  I know it’s hardly Vesuvius!

It was amazing lush in the crater considering it’s all growing on vocanic ash and lava.

Bye for nowx