Going Loco Down in Acapulco...

So we got to the little coastal town of Puerto Escondido and got the wet clothes insta-washed and it worked out fine. Stayed in a nice hotel with this American geezer called Tom; who for some reason had an interesting take of traveling light. He had one small rucksack containing football boots (as in soccer) and a deflated football and I guess the odd piece of clothing, bizarre.

The town was nice and the current in the sea completely insane, like you’re going to die insane. But after a couple of days of not really doing a lot and jack finding a maggot in his spaghetti we thought we would move on and it looked like Acapulco was close enough on the map and I like the Four Tops song so went for it. Tom was claiming that it was “very dangerous” and that he would “never go there” but seeing as everyone else who had told us that anywhere in Mexico is dangerous has been as wrong as Coke Zero we chose to ignore him.

Good thing we did, Acapulco is not dangerous just like everywhere we have been. We checked into a hotel. Then we got ribs. Then we went out. Below I have included a compilation of clips to summarise our first day, from the weird singer on the bus to trying to find somewhere to drink at 4:40am after a night of all you can drink for £9.50 in the rain.

I'd like to say that Acapulco was free of street vendors but it isnt, same old mix of idiots and children who should be in school selling nothing new, although I must say that the blind chap selling chewing gum was impressive at singling us out considering he was blind!

We went out again and it rained, again but this time some nice Mexican bloke was like “use my table mang” which was pleasant. However things started getting odd.

He began to get quite friendly exclaiming that “if someone got a problem with you man, they got a problem with me man!” and he showed us his VISA credit card to prove he was something, not sure what. He also claimed to be the head of security in the bar, but no one knew he was so I’m skeptical. While all of this was going on his wife sat in silence at the side. After a few hours things got very serious; ten points to anybody who can guess the conversation taking place during this photo.

Answer: the Mexican man is telling Jack to have it away with his wife while he watches. Jack turned down the offer and Mexican man got annoyed.

We stayed in the bar for some time as the all you can drink drinks started getting extremely strong, this may have been due to the barman getting progressively more drunk as he decanted vodka directly into his gob. I’m glad that a man with no shins approached us and got us into that place.

We also got chatting to Raj from Austin, TX who was on holiday by himself which he didn’t think was a big deal but I disagreed. He had exactly the same mannerisms as Will Smith but he was Indian and for some reason he had paid for his taxi driver to enter the bar. He just kind of stood at the side, like a teacher at school disco overseeing proceedings, except there wasn’t a disco; it was just be people conversing.

The next morning we checked out the hotel to head for Mexico City, the problem was that we were super hungover so we sort of/definitely checked back in and slept it off. Then we got ribs. Then went back to sleep. Then went to Mexico City.

x

Welcome to the Jungle...

Before I talk about what we have been up to lately I wanted to add some props to the Rose Selling Lad of Merida who I forgot to include in my last post. This kid, no more than 8 years old, approached Jack and I as we were eating outside just like every other street vendor in this country. He walked up with a bunch of roses and said to me “Rose?” I said “no gracias”. He then, whilst maintaining a completely emotionless face, followed up with “come on! Buy a rose for your boyfriend” I laughed, he left. He then wondered over to a couple sat on a bench fully getting off with each other, plopped his roses on her lap without saying a word then stuck his hand out expecting money, the couple looked at him, paused, and continued to get off with each so the boy took his flowers and walked off in a strop. I just wanted to say well done to that lad – I appreciated his blunt sales technique.

So, we rode the 9 hour bus to the small town of Palenque, hidden in the hills and jungles. It was buzzing with the excitement of Mexican independence, but we were shattered so we booked into a hostel with air con, ate a pizza and whacked on Gladiator which was playing in English and rested for the mega tour we had planned for the next day.

 

The tour included a trip to see ancient Ruinas de Palenque, Misol-Ha waterfall and Aqua Azul, a lush river section of cascades and the like. The trip would then take us onto our next destination in San Cristobal de Las Casas; all in all a 14 hour trip with everything included for under £18 each.

So first we arrived at The Ruins; now we didn’t think much of Chicken Shitza so didn’t have massive hopes for this place… it was actually really good. The main attraction was you can climb all over the old stuff and significantly reduced numbers of tat sellers.

 This ancient Mayan city was nicely nestled in a load of jungle so all the surroundings were nice and set up well for an actually decent look round. Oh course after you’ve done the tour and you have your ticket left over, you really only have two options.

Then we boarded a mini bus to Misol-Ha, basically a big waterfall, also nice. You could walk round the back of it and also go for a swim. You would literally be a complete nutcase if you did, so some locals were doing it.

And finally went to Agua Azul, which means blue water. The water was more green really and we soaked it up, we were about to go swimming in it, then it rained. But rain was good because I had been so fed up with this gay Mexican heat which is super draining.

So then we got the mini bus to get on another bus to get to San Cristobal, a 5 hour ride through the hills and jungle. I would like to add that if you think these slightly less developed counties wouldn’t have speed bumps you couldn’t be more wrong. They are everywhere, as in like every 500 meters and they are laid down by locals apparently, and most are made from clay or something so not smooth at all. So I’m thinking, “wow these Mexicans really care about road safety and their children’s wellbeing”. But actually these speed bumps just serve as a spot for the children to run to the window and offer to sell you midget bananas or bags of unidentifiable black stuff!

When we arrived in the next town we hadn’t even looked on Google so didn’t know where to go but we made friends with some German Doctor called Christian that I had pointed out as being a pillow biter earlier in the day; but turns out he’s got a bird (allegedly) so he was alright (potentially). He said to go to this hostel which was good, and it was. The owner was a bit odd and he had a pet dog called Pollo (which is Spanish for chicken).

We went out that night after a long day and walked into some bar after food to see all that Strictly come Dancing shit, where locals were really like spinning around and looking very impressive. I was completely intimated and didn’t feel I could shimmy so leant on the bar, but J Bird pulled so must have been his sort of scene.

A few days passed and after more Mexicans selling shells, bags, hankies, hammocks, roses, chewing gum and 5 years olds trying to shine your shoes for 10 pesos and steal your chips; it’s time to move on and head to the coastal town of Puerto Escondido. We had tickets for a bus at 7 and had time to kill so went for food before picking up our washing and going. At 6ish it starts raining, like really raining:

We now had to trek down that road which seemed to turn into the river to get our clothes as the rain got worse. We were fully saturated which helped as we had to walk through knee deep streams. I would have been just as wet jumping of Cookham Bridge. It reminded me of when you have swimming lessons as a child and they go next week can you come in your pyjamas, I’m glad I went that week because If I didn’t I wouldn’t know what to do.

When we got our clothes we had to get changed and bag up all the wet clothes in like 5 mins, that meant our soaked clothes sat in a bag for 13 hours on a bus. Potentially ruined clothes include: my tramp jacket, Jacks leather boots and my 5-6 years old beautiful Adidas Gazelle II. Jack made the good point that at least he didn’t waste 10 pesos on a shoe shine.

x

Merida, is this the worlds worst town?...

We left Cancun full of spirits following a successful mix of fiestas, food and fannying around doing f all; the perfect combo. With just a 5 hour bus ride to Merida, the first leg of our trip across the Latin American hotspot. Now 5 hours might seem like a lot by bus but the buses here are by far the best buses or coaches I’ve taken anywhere, ever; and I took a coach to and from school everyday for 6 years! Plenty of leg room, seats that recline insano and films playing on flip down TVs, plus hardly ever full so can proper sprawl out and space out.

 

Anyway so we arrived in this town, and what a town? Ill tell you what a town, a really really shit town! Its about 500 degrees and has terrible narrowed roaded grid system which means no wind and therefore no escape from the heat, I sweated continually for 4 days, as in non-stop at all! The hostel didn’t help, simply offering a fan instead of air con. The fan had 2 settings which are explained in this handy manual: 

Merida was massive but had nothing in it of interest, even building up to Mexican Independence Day there was very little buzz about the place, even motorists actually on the road were so bored that they were sleeping.

Not even humourous shops could wake him.

The food may have had something to do with it. Mexican food is nice, right, if you can stand tortilla wraps or fried tortilla wraps in the form of nachos for breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea, dinner, snacks and midnight feasts. However Yucatan food, which is basically indigenous Mayan food is god awful. Extremely vibrant in colour but more bland and stodgy than WWII rationing days – avoid with immediate effect.

I would also like to add without sounding rude, that the inhabitants of Merida are the worst looking collection of people I have ever seen, it was definitely the worlds ugliest town. Men carried a perfect cuboid frame and women the same but with two football socks filled with a golf ball hanging form their Duplo block bodies; the ideal advert to avoid the local cuisine. Although I feel I have been a little strong there; it is not cuisine, I mean to say local sloppy flavourless pile of terrible!

Merida did have some plus points I don’t want to be totally negative, it provided a base camp to go and see the much advertised and over sold attractions. First on the list was Chichen Itza, one of the seven wonders of the world! Such an impressive title led to a brew of unmatched excitement as we boarded a bus for 2 hours to reach the spectacle, and when we arrived jack seemed impressed.

The thing with Chicken Pizza is that that is literally it, there is a few other little crumbled things but really not much else once you have walked round and clapped at it a few tines to make it make a funny noise there aint a lot else to do. Therefore your remaining time at this world heritage site spend saying “no gracias” every 10-15 seconds as Mayans approach you offering beautifully crafted artifacts. I wouldn’t have minded this quite as much except all of them are selling exactly the same stuff, nobody has a USP! Once you have seen 10,000 wooden masks you’ve seen them all IMHO.

Next on the list was the Flamingos in Celestun, a coastal town again just 2 hours away by bus. Flamingos are cool and everything and the boat driver backed up Pat’s famed animal knowledge about there general pinkness.

However the show stealer was the Lucozade water. We boated into mangroves and the water was the colour of Lucozade Energy Original, I wonder if that is where they bottle it.

The next day we thought, lets leave this sweat ball and head of Palenque, a town in the jungle with more sights but we hoped some sort of nightlife. However we missed the first bus at 8:30am so had to wait for 11:50pm to catch the 8-9 hour bus. To pass the time we embarked on a trip to see a Cenote. Cenote is obviously Spanish for “super lush underground swimming cave”. To get there we had a mini-trip on a modified scotter with what can only be described as a tray on the front for people to sit and fly perfectly in unison from should the scooter should it make contact with anything, almost like the worlds most eloquently designed human flinging devise.

So we went to get the bus at 11:50… Fully booked! I have never seen a fully booked bus! But I suppose that was our fault for not planning. This meant that we had to catch the next bus… AT 8:30AM! So we sat in the outrageously uncomfortable bus station for 9 hours before our 9 hour bus. Oddly though they decided to switch off the air con at 12am but made the decision to leave the arcade claw thing on which every 5 minutes would make some stupid space laser blast noise! I was sat thinking if you have to switch something off, I’d choose the item that nobody has used at all ever since the history of man, but then again not everyone thinks like me. Anyhow I go on.

The bus came, we left, we got there; but I couldn’t help thinking isn’t it funny how you can travel half way around the globe and toilet graffiti doesn’t change. xx