Act 28 | Mexico

San Cristobal del Casa

I was still a travel leech when it came to making plans for the day, as such I was easily convinced to join the trio of girls I met at breakfast on a trip to the Sumidero Canyon (which I didn't even know existed).

The outstanding feature along this spectacular stretch of river is a rock & moss formation that resembles a Christmas tree (highly appropriate given we were visiting on the 1st day of December - the first day of Advent).

It turned out that Andreja, Jelena & Helena - all from Slovenia - were roughly planning on visiting roughly the same places in Mexico as I was in roughly the same time frame, and so we ended up travelling together on a day-on/with-day off/without basis.

After lunch, the girls - or more accurately, the two girls with the shopping addiction - insisted on a return to the local market.

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El Pachan

A long winding bus ride through the mountains brought me to the jungle town of El Pachan.

I stayed in a simple room surrounded by jungle (& associated insects).

I arrived mere hours before Team Slovenia moved on to their/our next destination, which was just long enough to find out what to order from the local restaurant. (As long as you stick to the tourist trail you can still get a cold drink and a restaurant meal even when in the jungle.)

El Pachan is on the tourist trail because it is walking distance from the Palenque (Mayan) ruins.

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Merida

There was plenty of culture on display in Merida, most of which was local in flavour, unlike the dance review (shown below), for which they closed off a main street, that included a Michael Jackson medley .

Catching up with the girls (who were still a day a head of me) meant that I plans for the day we had together, plans - but not directions.

It also meant I had people to share my family photos with one more time. (Most of the photos were of Sasha.)

We took a bus to the coast to see flamigoes, which occasioned me with the opportunity to spread the audio love four ways via my starry headphone splitter.

We didn't get that close to the flamigoes; In fact they didn't look much bigger than the many mosquitoes that were biting us at the time (of course the birds were much pinker).

Guess who .?.?. guess where .?.?. MJ - everywhere.

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Playa del Carmen

The girls headed to Chichen-Itza, I was 'ruined' when it came to ruins, and so chose to travel on ahead to Playa del Carmen on the coast.

Playa del Carmen is a major tourist destination for sun lovers.

Mexico, as a 'second world' country, was generally good for being gently reintroduced to the developed world; But Playa del Carmen is not just developed, it is over-developed and stomach turning, I decided to avoid the avenue of affluence by spending time on the sand. (Avoiding the over-produced food options was more difficult.)

You know you’re missing home and probably ready to return when you start ordering items from a menu based solely on the fact that they are named after people in your family who you haven’t seen in a long time – this is me and the Tai Tai (tofu salad) & the Sasha (wheatgrass juice) – served in the colours of Australia.

I spent quite a bit of time reading my way to the end of the New Testament, which just left me with one book in the Old Testament to read (which I’d been putting off) in order to finish reading the bible in its entirety while travelling. (Quite by accident the last passage that I read to complete the NT was the parable of 'the ten minas' in Luke 19, a parable that haunted me throughout my lifetime with its' call to make good on the opportunities God has given you to live a productive and fruitful life.)

Jesus is still the best thing in/about the bible – there is so much weird stuff in the Old Testament (good thing I only read it once every ten years) – those pages of my bible are now filled with lots of question marks alongside the text.

The Bible I have carried with me and read all around the world is now probably my second most valuable possession in terms of sentimentality (behind 'murf the smurf).

The up side of being in a tourist trap is that there are plenty of beautiful spots to watch the night grow dark in comfort among friends.

My two options for getting back to Mexico City in time to see the city itself before flying out of the country, were a 24+ hour bus ride or a plane flight flight that was going to cost quite a few more pesos.

The decision was made a whole lot easier when the airline decided to have a timely sale.

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Mexico City

Mexico City is extra extra large.

It seems some countries around the world are less accepting of the idea of a warm Christmas than Down Under.

The streets are a little filthy.

Mexico City is full of Catholics and old impressive Cathedrals like the one below.

Catholics appear to have the blessing of the Virgin to gamble their earnings away.

The metro is a colourful place - yep that's a real lizard riding the tube in the photo below - didn't even turn too many Mexican heads.

At every stop another person with a back pack full of speakers would enter the carriage and plays a few seconds from each track of the pirated mix cd they had for sale.

Street food was the order of the night when I was exploring the city on my lonesome.

When in the company of new friends it was all about the sit down meal.

This is the Australian Filipino family I was sharing a room in the hostel with, who were simply awesome – they taught me to levitate …

We happened to be in town for one of the biggest pilgrim events on the planet.

Each year literally millions of Mexicans travel to the Basilica for the Feast of our Lady of Guadelupe on December 12.

A heap of them travel hundreds of kilometres on shonky bikes with their family icons strapped to their backs.

Team Australia decided to walk several kilometres with the pilgrims to see just how close we could get to the church that houses the original icon.

People line the streets with food to gift to the pilgrims on the night before the day of the feast.

The super zealous crawl the last kilometres on their hands and knees (and require a support crew to move the carpet pieces).

This is as close as we could get to the church before the movement on the street came to a stand still, we were still over a kilometre away from the church which was only just visible on the horizon (for those tall enough to see over the short Mexicans).

At this point the pilgrims began to bed down for the long night of waiting in the massive queue for their turn to file past the icon with their replica the following day (and in so doing receive the blessing to take home for another year).

These pilgrims are the real deal (they made the 'pilgrimage' I made earlier in the year look altogether too comfortable to be legitimate).

I mustered up just enough strength for another site of ancients ruins, Teotihuacán, belonging to the Aztecs (to complete the trifecta of ruins seen, the other two being Mayan & Inca).

When my Slovenian friends eventually arrived in Mexico City, I was able to be the social glue that stuck the two sets of people together.

We went to the rooftop restaurant with the great view for drinks (a little move I discovered in Cuba).

Tagging along with the Slovenians, as had become my habit, happily had me arrive at the home that the local artists Frida & Diego had shared for most of their married life.

Their wispy spirits hung around the place that has been preserved as a museum to their work and life together.

It was a place where creativity seemed to be easily found.

There was time that same day to visit the old castle, Chapultepec, up on the hill overlooking the modern city that had sprung up around it through the centuries.

We visited the local zoo which on two occasions at least, seemed to be preparing me for life back in my homeland.

Late on my last night in Mexico (before I started to head back home), I decided to set out to see the church that everyone was flocking to the day before, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

This is the second most visited Catholic Cathedral in all the world (after St Peter's in the Vatican City).

The icon that so many had come to see is housed in the new church on the left.

Above is the icon that more than a million people had gathered to see the day before my late night visit.

I found a quieter corner of the complex in the old church structure, and in it a small chapel where, on my last night in Central America, I found myself in a meditative and thankful mood, contemplating the experiences of 2009 and the prospects that 2010 held, beneath a picture of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying 'not my will but your be done' to his Father above.