Travel E-mails

Greetings all!

I write you now from an internet cafe in Veracruz, Mexico. I am in the midsts of a massive layover that runs from 8:00 AM today to 5:00 PM, after which I take another overnight bus (as last night was spent) to Matamoros - a border town. One night there... then IT happens.... I...."Cross Over". Break on through to the other side... Return to the "First World".

My last message was from Tulum... Much has happened since then to get me here -- waiting for a bus that takes me that much closer to "home" and expecting somehow to do the next 3 days of bussing plus 1 day rest with the $540 (That's Pesos, or about $52 USD) that is tucked in my wallet -- That's pretty much what we're down to. No bottles of Tequila coming home mates, sorry.

So, In Tulum I checked out the Ruins, not particularly impressive structures but DAMN was this ever the mayan vacation spot -- overlooking the aqua-marine (well... I am guessing aqua-marine because BOTH of those imply water and if that's not the right color then DAMN the man who decided to make color names to damned abstract!) Carribean sea... The Atlantic Ocean. BRILLIANT white sand beaches like I have never seen before - with sand that's cool and powdery, soft and smooth... Sand that almost seems to melt it's so smooth, but also sand that likes to blow around a lot from ocean breezes and get in your eyes, as well as make "Sand Drifts" that form walls around Cabinas etc. Needless to say I spent more time on the beaches than I did in the ruins, wearing my newly cut-off cords because I left my shorts which I had bought in El Salvador in Guatemala... I even spent a night on the beach in Tulum, sleeping in a hammock and chilling with some Quebecois and an american and drinking DIRT CHEAP "Caña" alcohol -- too cheap to be called rum.

After Tulum was Valladolid - a comfy colonial town outside of Chitchen Itza -- a big ruin site for tourists from Cancun.... Valladolid was cool, I headed there with the American and we met some people, and relaxed for the most part, then headed to the Ruins... Chitchen Itza -- we got there at about 2:30 PM due to extreme lazyness, and started our exploring... a cool site with SOME neat things, but not all it's cracked up to be... and the light show at night... well... it sucks. I mean, REALLY sucks.

(Detour) -- While in Tulum I hitch-hiked for pretty much the first time. I had done chicken busses and pickup-trucks, but never accually thumbed it in all this time... figured it wasn't the safest way to travel. I got picked up by some italians and then a bunch of locals packed into a Garbage truck headed to the beach to do a garbage run... Mmmm fun, nothing like riding the back of a garbage truck to the beach. Since then I hitched another time leaving Chitchen Itza -- where we almost got stranded due to a lack of Taxis after that damned light show.... which sucked in case you'd forgotten. (end detour)

So, After Chitchen Itza, Palenque was next on the list -- a 2 part bus ride -- part 1 to Merida, then a layover, then part 2 to Palenque. We set off in the afternoon from Valladolid to Merida, and upon arriving poped by "The Nest" -- a cool hostel in a grubby and uninteresting city. The Manager - JT from New York - entranced us with words like "Wail Woad" and "Wowwy" and "Wite!", and phrases like "I wike to wide the weading wailwoad" (okay, that was made up, but R's and L's often found themselves as W's if you hadn't figured it out.. so go back on those phrases with your newfound Secred Decoder password!) We decided to put off Palenque for another day and chill at this hostel, which was VERY cool, and was offering a tour to the Cenotes the next day -- Cenotes being underground freshwater pockets and streams... we did this tour for $10 US, which included transportation (about 1.5 hrs there and back) and a ride on the Wailwoad Twack that passed these three Cenotes. DAMN was that fun -- there were 5 of us there in total, and later on it was the same 5 who found themselves on a bus to Palenque, and then in Pan Chan chilling out togeather, but we´ll get to that later. SO, the Cenotes ROCKED... we had them to ourselves!!! One was a 40 ft drop from the entrance to the water, which we jumped into.... that's a long fall and a sore ass once you hit water. We swam around in the Cenotes -- Crystal Clear and full of Stalagmites and Stalagmites, bats and beams of sunlight in the roof... These were really damned cool underground caverns, HUGE and rooved (roofed?)... Nothing like hearing your splash echo for a few seconds... Well, enough on Cenotes, we had best be moving on, we have much to cover.

So, After the Cenotes we parted ways with our newfound Fwiend and headed to Palenque on the overnight bus. We arrived in Palenque and immediatley piled into a cab to Pan Chan -- a little jungle-village type place outside of the town Palenque, and closer to the ruins. The ruins rocked... Very different than any other ruins I have seen so far -- Crazy designs on roofes (Didn't we already run into the plural roof question?), wider than normal corridors underground, cool new inscriptions... Palenque reminded me of an Incan town later colonized by the Spanish more than a Mayan town abandonned 1200 years ago... It was incredibly ornate and a pleasure to explore -- in my opinion, much cooler than Chitchen Itza (let the tourists keep it)! After exploring the ruins, the 5 of us (David, Davin, Amber, Nellie, and Myself) ran into another guy who some people knew from Tulum, Jon. And the 5 were 6. Jon showed us a cave under a waterfall halfway back to Pan Chan, and we chilled out, cooling off in the waterfall (as palenque is FREAKING HOT) and explored the cave, which turned to be really wet (about knee deep with water constantly dripping on you from above) Full of Stalagmites and tites, as well as bats, and a few horse shoe crabs that were at first mistaken for stingray's seeing as we had only a small light in a big dark wet cave.

So, we chilled out in Pan Chan for awhile -- which is also well known for growing exotic jungle fungi which we were offered by random people hopping out of bushes or biking by (including 10 year old kids) and took it easy. Pan Chan is basically a few buisnesses operating in a small village like envirnonment -- 3 different sets of Camping and Cabanas, a restraunt, 2 bars, an internet cafe, swimming pool etc... All out in the middle of the jungle and really spread out so that you had a good few minute walk to get anywhere from your cabana. In the night there was drumming and firespinning at the restraunt and DAMN was it cool. The Fire spinners were mostly travelers who had been wandering through, seen the show, and joined in for free food and accomidations. Some nights there were as many as 6 people, others sported 2... One guy and one girl were UNBELIEVEABLE -- spinning Poi (ball and chain kind of thing). Their skill was incredible - spinning with such east and doing some incredible things that brought them lots of applause. The Staff spinners were good, with a few new moves to me, but I have seen better (heya Kalor).

So, after a few days, the group split up and we left. Our next place was San Cristobol -- about 5 hours east from Palenque. Amber and I hopped a bus after a day at the ruins and got there at night, checked into a hostel that we had heard of, the Mayambe, and began what turned into a week of doing little to nothing. We chilled in town for that week, I got a sinus infection for about 2 days, then Amber got pretty damned sick for 3 days (luckily I have a stomache of IRON). Aside from that we chilled out, cruised town a little, but spent 90% of our time at the hostel -- chilling out with a crowd of travelers who has also been entrapped by the ultra-chill enbvironment.. Rentimg movies, eating in, chatting for hours and hours and hours about all sorts of things, meting people from all over (as usual), and just taking it east in general. Unfortunatley, there's not much to SAY about what happened, as not much did, though that week was one of the better weeks in my travels, which makes a good end to things. One note is that the hostel has a capacity of about 18 people, and it was always full, and rarely of an even number of men to women, women usually dominating, which was fine by me.

So, last night we went out to a nice restraunt, about 7 of us. We chilled, ate, chatted etc... Then I said my goodbyes and left on the 10:00 PM bus. I awoke this morning to Vera Cruz (DAMN am I ever getting good at sleeping on busses).

So, that seems to just about sum up the time since the last e-mail.

And here I am, the end of my journey. Another detour to visit my brother in the states, then home... No more hostels, no more backpackers, no more rivers tours, jungle or exotic plants and animals... No more passport stamps (Oh how I´ll miss the passport stamps!). Back home. Back to Work. Back to "life" as they call it.

One hell of an adventure is coming to an end here. But who knows what is to come? Where to next? What will unfold in the next chapter of Zac? Well, that is an answer that only Dog knows.

Zac