The second part of our mexican journey was very different to the first. We stepped away from pristine caribbean beaches and saw a different side of the country.
Of course our first stop involved the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. These are incredible temples with a lot of history and amazing architecture. Everyone has heard of the Mayan calendar; in fact the main temple at chichen itza is itself a mayan calendar. It was designed by observations of the sun through the year, highlighting different parts of the temple depending on where the sun rises at different times of the year. It is well worth a visit, very different to the guatemalan ruins at Tikal. By this stage, I had accumulated around 40 mosquito bites on my legs. Delectable! Yet john sat idly with one.
Chichen Itza.
Next we took a very early flight to mexico city to catch day of the dead. Wow, what a sight! It seemed all 20 million inhabitants flooded the centre, dressing up in everything from the mario brothers to zombie brides. Of course, people dressed up their dogs as devils, too! We also got to see some aztec and toltec ruins, and the third biggest pyramid in the world.
Day of the dead displays.
Ruins at Tula
The mexican subway was an experience in itself!! If you believed the tube is bad, think again. John dwarfed the subway population, sticking out like a sore thumb. Even I am significantly taller than the average mexican! I've never seen more people crammed into a carriage. Think about trying to squash a sleeping bag into its cover. Thats how it felt! Except other parts of the sleeping bag elbow you in the ribs to get inside. Being tall was a disadvantage! Everyone else practically dove between our legs to get off. 3 days in mexico city was enough!
Me and john made our way down to Oaxaca after a brief trip to vera cruz (where for the second time, I was told that HIV was a man made virus gone wrong, to kill the gays. Seriously you cant get away from this shit!). Oaxaca was stunning. 2 days filled with drinking mezcal (a chimney tasting spirit), trying Mole (a chilli chocolate sauce traditional to the area; John said it looked like a turd on a leaf, charming as ever), exploring markets filled with amazing local foods and artesans. We had heard a lot about a town half way between Oaxaca and the coast, called San Jose Del Pacifico. We jumped on a bus, and made the terrifying winding journey up the mountains. No barriers to stop you going over the edge, and the roads were scarily narrow at some points! We hopped off at this beautiful little town, hidden in the clouds. We walked around looking for a place to stay, and found a little guy offering cabanas. We originally picked the cheapest one, until he tantalised us with a cabin overlooking what seemed the entire mountain range, with its own huge fireplace. We were sold. Money well spent, kind of. Oh, and they had puppies. That also helped buy me.
Our cabin.
We explored the town and went for a beer in a tiny wooden cafe on stilts, set up in the mountains, overlooking oaxaca. The view was incredible. We wandered around a bit more, until a local guy came up to us and asked what we were looking for, and brought us into his little shop, or "tourist information", of sorts. He told us he was of Mayan descent, and that his grandmother was a famous Shaman in Chichen Itza. He told us about his plot of land set on the mountains, and how he had built his own house and tamascal; a traditional stone sauna that's been used by local people for hundreds of years. We agreed to check it out, and he went off to go warm up the stones and pick some local herbs from the mountains.
We headed back to the cabin, and bumped into a group of awesome guys travelling from the US and Germany, because we all wanted to play with the cute puppy. They too were looking to try some local things, so we invited them along to this guy's ranch. We walked along the winding road for 2km, wondering if this place actually existed! We eventually rocked up to los 4 elementos. His place was amazing, set in the mountains, hand built wooden houses, and two stone tamascals. Nervously, we stripped down to our swimwear, and climbed into the tiny muddy hut. It's one way to break the ice with strangers! The tamascal experience was certainly different! The guy shovelled in red hot stones, and told us to add this herbal tea to it every few seconds to make the steam. He brought in hotter stones around every 10 minutes. These were the only source of light in this pitch black hut, filling with fragrant steam. The stones were scarily close to falling on our feet! The boys started to get pins and needles in their extremities, and when the hour was up, couldn't wait to get out! I, of course, manned up, and stayed in the longest. Wimps. When we got out, there was not a dry patch on our bodies. I'd never sweated so much in my life. We were taken to a freezing cold shower, and then cups of more herbal tea were poured onto us, for whatever reason!
The ranch.
Next, it was onto the tea drinking. He had a fire with a cauldron bubbling, and poured some tea into our cups, with some interesting looking slimy objects floating around... When the tea turned blue, it was ready to gulp down. "Take it like medicine, it's medicine!" we were told! So down it went, chomping on the slimy bits, which were virtually tasteless, with a few gratuitous flies floating around for good measure.
The tea.
We were told the tea would relax us, enabling us to broaden our minds, and reach the inner most parts of our soul, enhancing our visual senses. Nobody said anything for an hour; we watched the magical sunset in silence, only exchanging a few words such as "whoooa", "awesome" and of course, "pretty clouds". The sun lit up the mountains a bright orange colour, with dancing swirls of blue cloud. It was mesmerising.
The sunset.
We then started to not be able to feel our toes because of the cold, so we marched back up the road, feeling like the ground was moving away from our feet. We reached our cabin, and john spent 30 minutes trying to light the fire. Eventually, he admitted defeat, and we asked our guy to light it for us! Soon, the fire was roaring, and we watched the flames dance in our cabin, listening to the howling wind shaking the balcony. Time flew by; we soon realised we had been sat staring into space, soaking up the atmosphere, for about an hour and a half! Coming to our senses, we sat on the floor by the fire and exchanged life stories until we were all ready for some food and bed.
Our new chums.
San Jose was a truly magical experience, one that I would highly recommend to anyone travelling to the area who wants to indulge in some local practices, and immerse themselves into the incredible area that is San Jose.
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