Still here in San Cristobál de Las Casas

Today, I accomplished something I never thought I'd achieve. It was so bloody difficult to pay for a tour I'd booked on El Chepe (a very scenic voyage through a copper canyon, which can not be achieved by any method of transport, apart from that train), that I had just about given up. I thought I was going to have to travel there and put cash on a counter, to be able to book. And that was just not possible. I'm so far away and I didn't want to go there (even if I had known where the office was) ahead of time. Mexico is much bigger than I thought and it takes an age to get from anywhere to anywhere else you might want to go. It might involve a bus trip of 12 hours or more (like the one that brought me from Oaxaca to here in San Cristobal de Las Casas) or a project to find a travel agent that deals with airlines. (The majority of them, and there are many, only deal with tour packages from a certain town/city and not at all with airlines.) I knew that I couldn't book my own tickets online. I didn't have enough information.

Well, I had tried to pay many times for my El Chepe train journey on a link the Chepe Explora sent me, but my payment was rejected each time. I had to put my Telstra sim back into the phone to call NAB, to be assured that they weren't rejecting my payment. It was the Mexican tour company doing that. (Each day I use the Telstra sim, they charge me $10. Telcel in Mexico charges me about the same amount for a month!) 

Then I tried something else after the tour company, over many WhatsApp messages, let me have their banking details, bank address, business address, etc. One problem was that I had to keep putting my Telstra sim back in the phone to get codes from NAB so that they would allow my money to flow from my account (even though I'd already changed my phone number to the Mexican number on the NAB app). 

There were two addresses of twenty words each to enter in the Foreign Transactions section of the NAB app, and when I took too long, the app would shut (for security reasons) and I had to start the whole thing again. The app kept rejecting the stress marks used in Spanish words, so I had to keep starting again for that reason, too. It took me four hours, at least, today, to pay for my tour on El Chepe. BUT I WON! I managed to pay for the tour before they cancelled my booking!

Today is Monday 08/05/20230. On Wednesday, I'm taking a tour to Palenque from San Cristobal de Las Casas, and to avoid being on the road for 4 hours there and 4 hours back in one day, after hiking up and down a mountain in between the road legs, I decided to stay in Palenque at the end of the tour, and not return to San Cristobal de Las Casas. I'd seen there was an airport in Palenque, but when I tried to book a flight somewhere else from there online, every search I did showed there were no flights available. 

I thought I was going to have a hard time getting to Los Mochis to start my El Chepe tour. But I learned it wasn't that the airlines were fully booked.

The  Chepe Explora tour begins on 18/05/2023. Today is 8/05/2023. I thought that I should have booked flights earlier, etc, but I found out today, from a travel agent who deals with flights, that although there is an "international airport" in Palenque, it is closed. The nearest airport is a two-hour drive away. 

(This is not very interesting, I'm afraid, but as there's no-one reading this, I can be as boring as I like, recording the frustrating details of planning travel without the insider knowledge of a local travel agent.)

I found a travel agent who can book flights by rolling up to one that never has anything to do with flights. She told me where the office of the travel agent who books flights was. I found my way there with my usual spacial/directional incapacities, and managed to get flights which will take me into and out of Los Mochis so that I can board my train and return to Mexico City after my train journey, in time to catch my flight back to Oz.

Let's hope everything goes well, that no flights are cancelled or postponed, and I get to the airport in time for all of them. Fingers crossed please!

San Cristóbal de las Casas

Here I am after a 12-hour bus trip from Oaxaca. I'm in a new state (Chiapas) and so far this trip I've been in three states. The bus journey was quite good: I had the two reclining seats to myself, no children on the bus, and thankfully, it was a new bus so the usual audio from non-stop action movies was not blasting through the bus all night. Those people who wanted to watch and listen plugged in earphones and I was able to sleep (I'm pretty sure). It was a 100% improvement on the plane trip. 

Yesterday I had some problems with the bank. I'm trying to pay for my trip on el Chepe, but the link they gave me wouldn't accept my banking details. I got the same message from the accommodation on Booking.com. They wanted another method of payment. I just paid, however, with my credit card here, so maybe they've got that sorted. I'll have to have another go when I finish this. 

I'm sitting now in the garden courtyard of the hospedaje La Estación. This is it below. My room won't be ready for a couple of hours, so I'll sit here and play on the computer. 

Here are a few photos taken over the last couple of days. The first is "Customer Service". The guy had a food stall on the opposite side of the street to the old lady and she must have signalled him, somehow (it was a very wide street) and he brought her snack over the road to her.

My waiter prepares the salsa to go with my lunch the other day. Lots of ingredients, including chapulines (grasshoppers). 

 

Well, they managed to put me in my room 1½ hours early, and here it is. 

And the view from here:

Ok, I'm off to the restaurant to get a coffee and something to eat.

Ruins and Good Food

Hope this finds you all well and happy. 

Today is Thursday, and I'm up at 3:00 a.m., probably because of the mescal tasting I did yesterday. I started this entry two days ago and didn't finish. That's why, if you came looking for an update, it wasn't there. 

I went to Monte Albán on Monday. It was amazing! I didn't expect to find ruins here like I saw in Yucatan. Actually, I didn't know very much about Oaxaca, just that it was colourful, and I should go there, but the ruins were very impressive with thousands of giant steps to be climbed up and down again. (Not my favourite workout.) I asked to go on the Spanish tour, but there were a few people on it who didn't speak Spanish, lucky for me, because I only caught half of what the guide was saying in Spanish, so I had a chance to catch up with the English explanation. There were three people from the Philippines and they helped me up and down the steps. They work in Mexico but don't speak the language. There was an American from Hawaii there too.

The rest of the van came from Mexico but quite a few of them spoke English. And here I was thinking I was going to practice my Spanish. We also went to a place where they carve wood and paint them into fantastic, mythical creatures. It's a tradition here to paint strange creatures in very bright colours. They're called alebrijes. The place we saw was a kind of collective. We also went to a famous pottery producer.

I've been shooting the people going about their business in town in the early mornings, when the shadows and colours are most eye-catching. Below are some of my favourite photos.

• 
  
  
  
  

 

Yesterday, I went to Hierve el Agua, a site of a geological oddity, a waterfall made of rock, Mitla, an archaeological site.We also visited an artisanal weaving business, and had a mescal tasting, which is why, as I said above, I'm catching up on my blog at 3:51 a.m. Alcohol wakes me up during the witching hour. 

 

I've walked through a lot of monasteries and churches and they're impressive: the architecture, the walled gardens, the quiet coolness of thick stone walls. The comedic relief comes from the  statues of Jesus dressed in lacy frocks.

That's not it exactly, not everything I want to say, but I'm aware that if I don't post this now, I may forget to do it later. The account of what I did today will have to wait until tomorrow because I think I may be able to sleep now. I haven't even mentioned the good food, but it's all very good, and it's worth coming to Mexico just for the tamales. 

Hasta luego!

Oaxaca, where it's all happening!

This is my third day in Oaxaca, I think. Great food! So beautiful around the historic centre. And every day, it seems, is a fiesta. 

The day I arrived there was a parade down the street with all the kids wearing traditional Oaxacan clothes. Very cute (when you're not listening to them scream aboard a long-haul flight.) It's a paradise for photographers here. At least, I've taken so many photos, I haven't had time to edit them all, or even look at them again. That's why I've been slack with updating the blog. Between running around taking photos all day and not able to sleep well at night, well, I'm tired and a little slack. Then, on Saturday, there were three weddings and a 15th birthday party, all with their own parades down the street. It seems it's traditional here for the weddings to have a humungous bride and groom in the parade. (You can see the much smaller person controlling the groom peering out from his belly button.) I just thought this groom was a cracker. He's got such a beautiful smile. 

Today I went to a big market. Very hot and very crowded. I wanted to eat, but I didn't want to risk Montezuma's revenge, so I'll eat here in town again. 

Yesterday, you tried to call me Sophie, but apparently I don't have the right plan to receive and make calls to Australia. Please contact me on the new number from WhatsApp. It's not a scam. I have sent proof to Emanuel. (I don't want to put the Mexican number here because the blog is not as secure as WhatsApp.)

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours over breakfast, sitting in a cafe. I took photos of the zocalo from the shadows of the cafe which is right on the square. I had my Spanish lesson, with Breyner, there. 

I'm thinking of doing a day trip tomorrow, but I'm not sure about the sleeping situation. It's a bit tiring to be out all day and it's exhausting in the Mexican sun. Everyone dives for shade wherever they can. 

Ok, I'm going to sign off so that this entry can  go to you. 

Coyoacán

Was able to sleep almost normally last night. I didn't eat after a snack on the plane that morning, having bloated myself with the airline food the day before. This morning when I woke I had a great hunger and thirst.

Took an Uber to Coyoacán, famous for being the barrio where Frida Kahlo's house is. I remembered it as very pleasant, lots of trees and parks, with good restaurants. I found one of those and hung there for a couple of hours, eating and drinking and taking photos from the shade of the restaurant out on the parade of people passing and the hawkers selling hats and blankets, in the bright sunshine outside. 

When I couldn't squeeze in another mouthful, I walked down to an artesanal market. After that I found a bench in the shade and sat there for another hour. In the sunshine, it's pretty exhausting. 

Everyone finds shade and walks in it, if they can, or sits in it. I guess I'm still a bit tired, but there is also something about being at this altitude that wears me out more. 

Then I dragged my weary body to the church: Parroquia San Juan Bautista.

Tomorrow, I'm going to El Palacio de Bellas Artes, where I hope to see one of Diego Rivera's famous murals. Alex has recommended a restaurant there, too. I'm afraid I'll be wearing bigger muffin tops by the time I get home. 

In Mexico again!

 Finally arrived here in Mexico City after a 21 hour journey. The flight from Sydney to LA took 13 hours, during which time the seven or so children sitting in my vicinity screamed and cried, almost without pausing. When one stopped, another one started. That wasn't the worst though. One of the little darlings was kicking the back of my seat. I gave her and the mother a few dirty looks through the crack of the seats but the mother didn't take the hint, so I said: "Can you please stop your daughter kicking my seat? It's uncomfortable." I heard her explain to the child: "The lady in front is unhappy about you kicking her seat." Gimme a break. She should have said something like that the first time she saw it, and slapped her on the legs the second time. That would have given her the picture and I wouldn't have had to suffer for nearly 13 hours. 

However, I'm trying to put that behind me. Eduardo in reception has been really helpful about telling me where to eat around here, and other good advice. Got a new (Mexican) sim for the phone so I won't have the problems I had when I first arrived. For some reason, the Booking.com information about the place I booked was missing. I was trying to find the address on the internet, but the free wifi kept cutting out on me. 

I've already been out on my first photowalk around here. It's 7 pm and starting to get dark, but I'm so tired. I feel a little breathless, too. Probably due to the altitude of Mexico City and the fact that I haven't slept for 30 hours now. 

So, I'll make this a short one: I'm enchanted with the city. Here are a few photos from my short photowalk this afternoon. 

Testing, testing, testing. . .

 Just about to set off from Oz, again. Just wondering if you would like to follow me again. Here is the link, I hope. Every time I do it, I have to learn again, so we'll see if I have remembered. I will leave for Mexico on ANZAC Day, and I won't see you again until June.