Mexico's sporting heart - Futbol

Our time in Mexico City would not be complete without seeing Mexicans in action at the football. Fortunately choosing a home team out of the eight or so teams in the city was not a problem. UNAM, the university we are attending, has its own team, the Pumas who play in the national league.

Puma pride is everywhere in our neighbourhood, a five minute walk away from UNAM's mammoth campus. People walk around in Puma jerseys even on days when they're not playing, there are merchandise stores everywhere and their logo is graffitied on most walls around here.

The Puma's home ground is the Olympic Stadium, which is part of the uni campus. It hosted the controversial 1968 Mexico City Olympics, which were marred by a massacre of student protesters just 10 days before they started.

In the underpass leading to the stadium, we were first struck by the incredible security presence. Riot police with plastic shields lined the perimeter. We were patted down twice before being shunted to the entry way - girls on one side and boys on the other. Moments later, we saw why all of this manpower was necessary - a fight broke out near the entrance, and as the police mobilised themselves it quickly spilt onto the main road out front, stopping passing traffic.

Inside the stadium, fans of the away team were housed right down the end behind one of the goals and were snugly encircled by a ring of police. Our Mexican friends who we came with to the match said there is always a big effort to keep the home and away side fans well apart. Apparently, when Los Pumas play América, the nearest local team, the stadium is divided in half with home fans on one side and away fans on the other, under a big guard of the riot squad.

Nothing actually happened during the match, I guess with all that security and distance between the fans it wasn't possible - but that didn't stop the passion of the home side fans. Most of them were on their feet, singing and chanting during the entire 90 minutes of the match. At the start everyone sung the Pumas anthem while doing the Puma salute - right arm raised at 90 degrees with a fist (fingers out straight would be a Nazi salute).

The Pumas were playing Monterrey - the second-biggest economic zone in the country after Mexico City and home to some of the worst drug cartel violence at present. It was a bit of a grudge match seeing as Monterrey had defeated the Pumas in the semi-finals at the end of last season.

Nevertheless, the Pumas prevailed. When they scored their first goal about midway through the first half, the crowd went crazy, screaming and cheering, then singing the official Pumas chant, while we scrambled to learn the words. Monterrey then scored a penalty goal, which was met with extremely loud boos from the time the penalty occurred to well after the goal was scored.

In the second half the Pumas scored again, a magnificent header off a well-placed corner. They followed this up with another goal near the end of the match, the nail in the coffin for the away team. At the end of the match, everyone just stood around for while - I discovered that it was because the police let the away side fans out first and give them a really big headstart before letting the home side fans loose.

Mexico's sporting heart - Lucha Libre

It is often said that the best way to get a taste of the true spirit of a country is to attend a sporting event. Sport is a microcosm of culture, brimming with fierce pride and nationalistic spirit in both the competitors and the crowds.

What better way to get up close and personal with Mexican culture than watching a few bouts of wrestling, or Lucha Libre, meaning free fight. The sport is reminiscent of WWF exhibition fighting with a Mexican twist. For one thing, its really camp. I mean, with the tight leotard outfits, the elaborate colour schemes, the gimp masks, the amount of oil smeared over participants, who are they trying to kid? Some of the moves, which involve much thrusting and vibrating at very close range, are also highly dubious.

We went to a Friday night showdown in Arena Mexico, one of the country's many wrestling rings. There were four bouts on the bill, each of them tag fights with three or four wrestlers per team, with names such as "La Sombra" (the shadow) "Mascara Dorada" (the golden mask) and hilariously, "Mascara Enchilada" - needs no translation! Here is a pic of us with the Enchilada.

The headline fight was the most hilarious, not just because the moves were more advanced, but because of the soap-opera type story that was being played out between the two teams. There was infighting in one of the teams, where two wrestlers turned on their third team-mate, who had rocked up late to the fight in a poncho.

The pair started attacking poncho-man, and eventually had to be pulled off him by the opposing team. The domestic continued after the official round was over, all the way up the aisle leading into the arena. At one point poncho's attackers pinned him down and ripped off his mask, the ultimate mark of shame for wrestlers. Poor poncho could not show his face to the audience, and just lay there, covering his head with his hands.

The fight continues up the aisle

In the final bout the fighters were joined by midget helpers, one dressed as a parrot and the other in a gorilla suit - I'm pretty certain they were midgets and not kids (fingers crossed). One midget was assigned to each team, but disappointingly they did not get involved in the fighting. They did help out from outside the ring, whacking their team's opponents with saucepans when they leant back on the ropes. Some wrestlers are accompanied by mini-me's - identically dressed midgets who snap at the heels of their opponents during fights.

Wrestling is hugely popular here - this was just a regular weekly bout yet it drew a crowd of at least 20,000. Sections of the arena were enclosed in tall wire mesh fences, where the rowdy participants were sat. Kids rocked up in the masks of their favourite wrestlers, and everyone seemed to follow the masked characters, egging them on or booing them at various times.

Security was pretty tight in the arena too - everyone was patted down at the entrance, and cameras were banned apparently. So we snuck in the iphone and took some pics, which partly explains the poor quality!

From the ridiculous to the absurd

Travel in any foreign country and you are likely to encounter rules, systems and processes that differ to those in your home country and which, frankly, appear strange and ridiculous.

No matter how Americanised Mexico is becoming, it is still rife with quirks and oddities, presumably stemming from its strangely blended colonial and indigenous past. Even my history teacher says that Mexicans have identity issues - and historians don't agree on whether the country was conquered by the Spaniards or whether the invaders simply learned indigenous languages, introduced catholocism and sort of blended into existing society.

Some things in Mexico just don't make sense. Like the fact that everyone, including men, are good dancers, if you peel back the veneer of everyday life, absurdities and oddities bombard you at every turn.

Take the boarding house-type place where we are staying. It is like living in an escher drawing - the one with all of the staircases in three dimensions that don't really lead anywhere. The house is such a maze of rooms and stairs and terraces that it is easy to get lost. When we first moved here I went to find the laundry room - it took five flights of stairs - three up and two down - to reach it. The house has three separate kitchens and even has two street entrances that lie perpendicular to each other.

The Mexican postal service is an other oddity. We tried to send a package containing a present to a friend for a birthday. We put it in a box and taped a sturdy plastic shopping bag over it.

This would not do, instructed the stern-faced woman at the post office, after keeping us waiting a few minutes while she was shuffling papers. For a start, we had to open the package up so she could inspect the contents. Then, it had to be re-wrapped in yellow or manilla- coloured paper which they did not sell so we had to go to the stationery shop and come back.

The stationary shop only had manilla envelopes which were too small to fit the box, so we emptied its contents and placed them inside. This would not do either, informed the postal wench when we returned, as the envelope might break so we were ordered to cut the envelope open and wrap the box in it. Of course, it didn't completely cover the box so I was sent to buy another envelope and tape them together. And throughout this whole drama she didn't once check to see what was in the box!

Our innocent attempt to use the university swimming pool also found us mired in a tangled web of rules, procedure and frustration. We had already obtained the required request form for a medical exam from our faculty, paid the fee at administration, visited the medical centre to obtain an appointment and attended said appointment where they asked a range of bizarre medical questions that had nothing to do with swimming.

The final stage was to visit the swimming centre and obtain a "credential card". It took us about an hour to enter in our details to the computer to generate a code to then enter our details again to get a printed form which would then be used to generate a photo ID card. We couldn't get the ID card because apparently there were problems with the system, so we were told to return the next day. We did, and the system was still down. The following day we found the office shut with a sign to go to the sports department, 2km away in another part of campus.

After hiking there we were informed that it was not possible to obtain an ID card in the month of January, and no credentials would be issued until February. After nearly three weeks and hours wasted trying to navigate the bureaucratic maze, we weren't going to be allowed to use the pool in the first place!

I suppose any time you deal with a government entity there is some level of box-ticking and procedural confusion. It's no worse than dealing with the RTA, only here the computer systems are more antiquated and many offices are still stocked with typewriters. I can only imagine how things work in Cuba!

La vida chilanga

It's been about three weeks and life is sweet here in Mexico City, whose inhabitants are known as Chilangos. The city has it all - bars, clubs, great food, live music, galleries, museums, huge parks and of course, Lucha Libre, or Mexican wrestling where mask-clad fighters do choreographed moves a la WWF.

We haven't yet been to a bout, but hope to get there this week.

There is so much to do here that we're getting to it a little at a time, in between class and daily homework assignments. The class sizes are so small that its hard to slip in late or fake having done your homework. But we are learning fast!

We checked out the Bosque de Chapultepec on Saturday, a massive parkland in the centre of the city that is packed with museums, a zoo and a big castle where an Austrian emperor once lived. This is a nice example of how incestuous European royals used to be. In the 1840s, after Mexico had been declared independent from Spain but during a power vacuum of sorts, France invaded and decided to install Maximilian from Austria as emperor, with his wife Charlotte from Belgium. The castle was built Euro style to accommodate them. Unfortunately the reign didn't last and they were executed.

The zoo was fun, although as usual I was saddened to see so many of the animals living alone in such small enclosures, like the poor rhino with his broken horn. But at the same time there were lots of native Mexican and Central American animals, including jaguars, monkeys, tapirs and curious rodent-y looking things whose names I can't remember.

On Saturday night we hung out in the mecca of the Mariachis - plaza Garibaldi in the centre of town. Mariachi groups congregate here to serenade the public with their songs - each group wearing distinctive uniforms. It's not like an en masse performance - the groups weave in and out of the crowd, charging 80 pesos (about $7) for each song. They also wind their way in and out of restaurants playing music for individual tables. Luckily if you don't want to pay for a song you can always listen on to the music being played at other tables.

The people-watching was the best part. Sitting at an outdoor table of a cheap restaurant, we observed a group of trashed uni students trying to dissaude two of their mates from fighting each other. Old couples swooned around, dancing to the Mariachis while hawkers strolled around selling cuban cigars.

We splashed out on a cuban and puffed away for hours, enjoying family-sized coronas and margaritas mesmerized by the action taking place around us.

Organised chaos in Mexico City

It isn't easy to imagine what a city of 20-something million inhabitants would actually look like. In reality, Mexico City is far less crowded and far more organised than you might imagine.

For a start, the city itself (that which lies in the federal district) is neatly sliced into 16 big areas or Delegaciones, which are then subdivided into nearly 1800 neighbourhoods or Colonias. This makes getting around much easier, when you know which Delegacion to scour on a map for the Colonia you're after.

The city has amazing diversity: the inner blocks are neat and tidy and look just like Europe, with beautiful grand tree-lined boulevards and lots of parks. Trendy Roma and Condesa are full of cafes and bars, while the Zona Rosa is the gay capital and its tackiness reminds me a bit of Sydney's Kings Cross.

In between classes we have been checking out different neighbourhoods - we had a great afternoon out in nearby Coyoacan, which is set around a beautiful stone plaza and super-old church, and has lots of trees and stylish-looking villas. We visited the Frida Kahlo museum and then had dinner and drinks at this impressive-looking Cantina, which was decked out with stuffed bulls heads and advertisements for bull fights (common but not massively popular in Mexico anymore).

Move further out and things get a little grimier, with massive busy arterial road networks and entire suburbs of vertical villages - one we almost moved into comprised 50 separate four-storey buildings, with four or five apartments on each floor. And it was one of about 10 such villages on the same avenue.

The federal district is home to a relatively civilised 8 million people, with the remaining bodies spread out in all directions in neighbouring states. Thankfully, the authorities had the foresight to build an underground metro system when it looked like traffic was getting out of hand in the 60s. The metro is a lifesaver - its possible to get from one side of the city to the other in a hour or less, and not have to deal with any traffic.

Another upside to the metro is that it never fails to entertain. A network of buskers, hawkers and beggars are constantly moving through the carriages, selling their wares, playing music through loud speakers in their backpacks or sharing their hard-luck stories.

You have to hand it to the hawkers - normally they are selling everyday items, like batteries, gum and even childrens toys. But each has their own remarkable sales pitch, which they chant as they walk up and down the carriage. The battery guy (speaking in Spanish) - "batteries, get your batteries, only 10 pesos for a four pack. I got AA, AAA. Perfect for your digital camera, your walkman, your torch, only 10 pesos."

The funniest guy was this stout, hairy creature with an enormous 80's style ghetto blaster who was singing along to his favourite hard-rock classics including "born to be wild" on a late-night ride home. And he proved popular - nearly everyone in the carriage gave him some coin after his performance!

The roads themselves are not actually that bad - I was expecting something as mental as Bangkok. Yes, they are always busy and as a pedestrian are really hard to cross - very few pedestrian crossings and nobody indicates when turning. But no worse than some of Sydney's choked arteries in peak hour.

We have been constantly impressed by the ease of getting around the city. Every time we descend into a subterranean metro station the rumble of the next train approaching is never more than three or four minutes away, even at midnight after a night on the town we barely had to wait.

And I know what you (especially if you are a parent) are thinking - what the hell are we doing walking around, let alone taking public transport in Mexico City after dark? I'm not sure precisely where the city earned its dangerous reputation, but in the areas we have been, it is entirely undeserved. I'm not sure where travel writers were staying (maybe they got the wrong town?) but with so many well-lit areas and so many people on the street, the inner suburbs of the city and even where we live near the university feel just as safe as Sydney.

For a start, there are no individuals or gangs of people just hanging out on street corners. Everyone is going somewhere, or doing something. No-one looks even remotely threatening. We felt far more unsafe in downtown Los Angeles walking to the Greyhound bus station past housing tenements than anywhere we have been in Mexico.

Mexico City mania

Life has stepped up a notch since our arrival in Mexico City, and I'm not just talking about the warp speed with which the belching VW mini-bus "pasajeros" tear around corners.

The streets are like a big theatre, with something always going on. Food is never far away - in many places I've spotted the backs of vans being used as makeshift taco stands.

Yesterday we visited the centre of town, which pulsated with activity, even on a Sunday with many of the shops closed. The main cathedral was packed to the gills with those participating in mass, and those unreligious types (such as ourselves) just keen for a bit of a stickybeak. Adam was most impressed wtih the organ, which took up most of the inside of the building.

Outside, vendors of every persuasion were trying to capture the attention of the masses. There were numerous shoe shine stands - ever popular with Mexicans to keep the cowboy boots polished - and the usual array of handicraft sellers. Men in what looked like old army uniforms played those old wind up accordians, herdy-gerdys, with their caps outstretched.

Several men paraded about in traditional Aztec garb - a big feathered headdress, loin cloth and not much else, selling "purifiaction rituals", promising to rid the body of the participating person from evil spirits. Basically this involves lighting a vessel full of incense, screaming a lot and dancing around the person.

The historical centre was very neat and tidy, with many amazing buildings and museums, like the massive Palacio National, which we spent nearly three hours getting from one end to the other. The design was all European decadence, with state rooms decked out in Louis XIV style chairs, drapes and chandeliers.

The main plaza and the pedestrian malls leading up to it were a hive of activity, packed with people watching street performers - the kind dressed in various shades of metal that hold still until you throw a coin their way. When we arrived at the Alameda - the big park just down from the main plaza, the crowded streets suddenly turned into a crush of bodies.

What we didn't realise was that we were standing near the entrance to a Metro station. A bunch of student-y types had just arrived on a train, and were heading to stage some kind of protest. We thought maybe they were doing a flash mob - especially when we looked to the ground and realised they were all wearing only their underwear (although no G-strings thank god).

One thing we found funny about the city centre was that while we felt totally safe at all times, if anything the only thing we found nerve-wracking was the security presence, which bordered on the insane. There were security guards (in cop-like uniforms) hanging out on every corner, with dozens stationed out front of the main monuments and museums. We even spotted them doing drills in military-style formations.

On the home front, I can report that after much frustration and many broken-Spanish phone calls we have found ourselves some accommodation for the next six weeks. We're living in this curious rambling establishment that is sort of like a boarding house in that other students live there, but is very private as we have the ground floor almost to ourselves with our own bathroom and shared kitchen.

The place is nested in a maze of back-streets, where people have randomly added to their houses, building concrete or corrugate extensions, and everyone has a rooftop courtyard. Ours has a great view of what Mexican houses really look like - they're all neat and colourfully painted in front, but all ramshackle and lopsided in the rear.

City within a city

As the number of cars sounding their horns increased, so did the realisation that we were in the Mexican urban jungle. No longer were cars prepared to slow down and let you cross in front of them as they had in Baja and the Yucatan.

We broke up the nasty 22 hour haul to Mexico City with two days in Vera Cruz, a bustling port city on the gulf of Mexico. It was even invaded by the American Navy to serve as a vantage point during the First World War.

Vera Cruz is pretty gritty, and although this meant that we were the only tourists, it's not a place I would go out of my way to visit. The central plaza was teeming with activity at night time, and we were pleased to watch a traditional dance performance - although I couldn't tell if it were uniquely Mexican or a variation on the flamenco Spanish style.

Everyone was clad in traditional gear, the guys with ponchos, sombreros, cravates and even cutlasses, while the women had big full skirts and twirled around a lot.

The bus trip to the capital was a steep climb into the mountains - Mexico City is 2km altitude while Vera Cruz is port side. Dusk fell as we descended into the valley that is home to the city. The setting sun illuminated the slightly foggy sky surrounding the city lights, which stretched as far as the eye can see in every direction.

We have not really checked out the centre of town yet as we are staying in a borough about 10km south of the city, near the university where we are going to be studying. We took a walk around the enormous campus yesterday, which is a city within a city - home to 280,000 students, it has its own free bus network, hospital with emergency department and acres and acres of sporting grounds and recreational areas. A slightly shabbier version than what I would expect an Ivy League university to look like.

Campus was pretty dead because it was still technically holidays, but the following day it was much busier and had been opened up to cars. We enrolled in the foreign language institute, a relatively straightforward process but it proved to be a real test of my Spanish skills, as nobody spoke English.

We turned up in the morning and straightaway had to sit an oral exam. Adam's lasted long enough for them to determine he couldn't understand a word he was saying so he was placed in the beginners' class. I had to then sit a placement exam with multiple choice questions and a written section - the first exam I have done in about 9 years.

Besides the intensive three-hour per day Spanish course, we also got to pick some electives. Adam's are all language-related, while I chose Mexican history and cinematography - both of which are to be conducted in Spanish.

Even though we typed our own details into the computer system, the admin people still managed to stuff our names up. From now on I will be known as Louisa Kate Burgess and Adam will be Benjamin Adam Homan. They must have decided our middle names are easier to pronounce in Spanish than our given names!

It was really tiring having all of these conversations in Spanish, particularly when we visited the housing office to try and arrange accommodation. The lady there gave us this massive list with people to call about apartments and also families where you could rent rooms on their property separate to their house. I called a bunch of them to ask if I could see the room, which was really tiring - talking on the phone in another language is much harder than speaking to someone in person! 

But the biggest bureaucratic hurdle lay in trying to gain access to the swimming pool. We had to get three forms from our faculty, take one to the central admin and pay a processing fee, then visit the medical centre to sit a medical examination, before taking all of the documentation to the swimming centre and being issued with a sports card. We got to step three before being waved away and told to return in a week's time. So for now we will have to be content with gazing at the pool rather than swimming in it.

10 things about Mexico

 The colours

From the brightly-painted buildings to the Christmas decorations and even people’s clothing, the dry deserts and dusty streets of Mexico are lit up in a dazzling array of colours.

Even hardy, dry-climate plants help to put on the show – bright red and pink bougainvillea flowers are just about everywhere, and even cacti manage to squeeze little bright flowers out from their chubby spines.

The music

You can’t escape the cheery strains of Mariachi music – be it the traditional fanfare with accordians and trumpets, or pop music style. It booms from shops, from taxis and street vendor stands. Even vacant blocks are rigged up with big speakers blasting the stuff.

Music is everywhere you turn in Mexico. Most restaurants have roving musicians pass through them and men walk down the street, whistling their favourite tune. Many simply spontaneously burst into song. Even better, everyone can sing! One hostel we stayed in was in part a works zone during the day, and the dredging noises of construction were drowned out by an immaculately in-tune chorus of building workers.

Ranchero massive!

Clint Eastwood movies might have you thinking that cowboys are an American invention, but surely Mexico was the original Wild West. Rancheros, as they’re called here, enjoy cult status. It’s the height of fashion – just about everyone owns a cowboy hat. Shoe stores have entire walls dedicated to cowboy boots. Some of the best-dressed guys I’ve seen sauntering about town have been clad in big white cowboy hats, tight jeans and long pointy steel caps.

You will never starve

Food. It’s everywhere. From the humble street vendor selling pork crackling chips and hot dogs to taco stands and bustling markets, you will never go hungry in Mexico. The variety, both in flavour and prices, is insane, and varies in each region, even from town to town.

Some of the best food we have tasted was bought for a few measly pesos on street corners and eaten standing up.

Everyone can dance

It doesn’t take much to encourage Mexicans to dance, and any bar that plays music is likely to attract a small crowd busting their moves on the pavement out front. Many towns have dance performances in their main square on weekends, showcasing traditional dances to Mariachi music with the women in full skirts and the guys in sombreros and ponchos.

Unlike Australia, everyone is adept at busting a move, even the oldies. There is no jogging on the spot, or swaying from side to side. People dance the salsa, and couples pull off complex routines they must have practised for hours.

Laaaaaaid back

It’s no accident that the term “Rancho relaxo”  refers to Mexico. From the pace at which locals take to the streets or serve customers in shops, to the rapidity of their speech, it’s clear from the outset that nobody here is in any hurry.

This has an interesting effect on touts – people employed by restaurants, shops and tour operators to attract tourists. Sure, they’ll ask: “hey Senor, what you doing today, need a tour, a taxi? But that’s about all they can manage, and when you say “no gracias”, they’ll either shuffle off quietly or gently mumble a few more things as you walk away. The guy trying to sell us a whale watching tour simply muttered “lotta whaaales” after we’d passed him.

Mexican road rules

First, indicating is optional. Most intersections have no traffic lights and no discernable right of way, unless you count first in, screw everyone else as a road rule. In Baja there is this interesting practice of erecting a stop sign at each way of a four way intersection, but not giving priority to any particular direction.

The willingness of drivers to stop at pedestrian crossings or at ordinary street corners varies. In some places cars stop dead at every intersection and encourage you to walk; in others, they zoom past at top speed.

Gringo love

Mexicans love complaining about their northern neighbours – “get a load of this Gringo, he’s so big and so loud!” But culturally, the US has a firm grip on Mexico.

Mexicans aspire to the big ol’ US of A – the lifestyle, in embracing mall culture and video games, the food, with their love of US burger chains. And of course many aspire to go and live there to earn a higher salary – it’s no accident that border traffic is utterly congested heading north and almost non-existent the other direction.

Annoying and imperialist, yanks may be, but somewhere in their heart all Mexicans have a soft spot for the US.

Law enforcement

If the effectiveness of a police force had anything to do with their visibility in public places, I’m sure Mexico’s cops would win worldwide renown. They are everywhere; directing traffic, cruising up and down in their Policia utes, filling up at taco stands. Municipal or so-called Preventia police – obviously not the ones tasked with reining in the drug trade - are the most visible around town. State police control road blocks around each town, and cruise around on big black motorbikes with M-16s slung over their shoulders. They were searching plenty of cars around town on New Years Eve.

Internet everywhere

The national broadband network has some catching up to do if it is to be as fast and ubiquitous as in Mexico. Even in the tiniest of towns, every single place we have stayed has had free wireless internet, if not in our room, in a common area.

Airports, most cafes and other pubic places also have wifi, and unlike the rip offs in Australian airports and hotels I’ve experienced, it doesn't cost a cent.

Feliz Año Nuevo!

New Years Eve festivities are pretty hit and miss, even if you’re partying at home. In a foreign country, there is a bigger chance that the night will fail to live up to expectations.

For one, you never know where the real party is. Second, you don’t have a big group of friends to share the night with. And while some towns seem like they would have great nightlife, you often find that bars and clubs leave a lot to be desired.

After below-average experiences in Borneo, Vietnam and Perth the past three years, we were determined to have a vaguely enjoyable new years eve. Fortunately our friends Larry and Larna were also in town, so we had company.

We kicked off the night with a visit to an Italian restaurant that made handmade pasta. It was difficult to pick a dish off the bamboozling array on the menu that included fresh salmon ravioli, gnocchi, tortellini and sauces made of prosciutto, sausage and eggplant. Finally I settled on fettucine puttanesca and was not disappointed.

We then cruised the streets to find where the party was at. One of the streets in town had been blocked off and the bars had tables spilling out onto the street. We picked the one with the live music - a singer and a keyboardist covering popular latin songs.

 

It wasn’t long before the street was full of people dancing. Unlike Australia, everybody knows how to dance – even the old men are adept at shaking their booty. It was great to watch couples dancing with each other, effortlessly pulling off complex salsa routines.

I was sitting at an outside table watching the party, when a Mexican guy dressed “al ranchero” with hilarious pointy white shoes asked for a dance, or rather pulled me to my feet and dragged me into the crowd. He was pulling off all the salsa moves – spinning me around, shuffling from side and doing the cha cha, and I attempted to copy. Like most Mexican men, he was a good head shorter than me!

All up it was quite a chilled night. There was no countdown to midnight, apart from the informal one we did at our table – it seems like Mexicans aren’t fussed about the exact timing of the new year. They were too busy enjoying the party.

It was great to see people partying in the street – although I can’t help thinking the real Mexican party was in some other part of town that we had failed to find.

Curiously the main plaza in town was really quiet that night. I had expected it to be a focal point of festivities. The previous night it had been packed out with families watching a clown perform. He had formed a conga line out of a bunch of kids picked from the audience. As we walked over to see what the fuss was about, the clown’s eyes fell on Adam, and within seconds Adam had been dragged into the show.

The clown made fun of Adam’s big feet (they were the same size as his clown shoes), then made Adam pick him up. Then he had Adam stand with his legs far apart, and made the conga line of children walk in between Adam’s legs one at a time.

I filmed part of it – watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6bLJSP12JQ

Ruins and people-watching

Uxmal

People have differing reactions to the idea of visiting the ruins of ancient cities. "Seen one pile of old rocks, you've seen them all," some sigh dismissively, while others are entranced, and spend hours staring at temples and stone carvings.

My level of interest lies somewhere between the two extremes. I'm glad we visited two Mayan sites in the Yucatan - the massive Chichen Itza and the smaller, but more exquisitely decked out Uxmal. The main temple pyramid buildings were pretty similar at the sites, but they had different decorating techniques.

Most, predictably, centred around religion - temples, places to hold funerals, places to bury people. But the Mayans had other interests, including astrology and bloodsports. Both sites had the remains of sports pitches, encased by long corridors - apparently to increase the echo factor so you could shout at people and be heard on the pitch. Stone rings were built on the walls as the goals. All sounds pretty much like soccer or basketball, except they used to decapitate people a lot.

Mutilation is a pretty recurrent theme in some of the other designs on buildings. A popular motif was a carving of an eagle holding a human heart in its enormous talon. And like most other ancient cultures, human sacrifice was popular. To this end there are entire walls decorated with surprised-looking skulls.

Eagle holding human heart

Chichen Itza was a much bigger site, with many different buildings spread over a bigger area, but Uxmal's buildings were made of a fetching salmon-hued stone, and I found the crazy geometric glyph writing more interesting here.

Of course, when visiting these places its not just about the architecture, there's always some entertaining people-watching to be had. Like this lady, who so liked the concept of donning a sun umbrella she bought a hat with one on it.

Chichen Itza was pretty empty in the morning but enormous groups of package-tour people began to pour in and by lunchtime the place was a zoo. The paths were brimming with handicraft sellers (they seem to follow the package-tour types around), calling out to us "special price....almost free!"

A small wooden jaguar's head, which if you blew into it made a callous hissing that is meant to sound like the super-cat, was a popular item. The thing is you need enough air in your lungs to make it sound convincing, otherwise it sounds like an asthmatic cough. They started to get pretty annoying as people stupidly bought them for their kids - enough to make the vuvuzela sound as delicate as a violin.

The most hilarious handicraft of the day played on the phallus theme - a common feature in the carvings at both sites. This one is actually an instrument, and is being played like a Xylophone.

The mighty Maya

Merida had all the makings of a great Mexican town – stately Spanish colonial buildings, a lively and bustling central plaza, interesting markets and shops to poke your nose into.

But the real point of coming to this part of the country was to get our Maya on – that is, to learn something about this amazingly advanced and powerful civilisation that was mysteriously consumed by the Yucatan jungle several hundred years ago.

It’s amazing to think that just as the Roman empire was fizzling out, the Maya were developing astrological charts, implementing complex agricultural plans and techniques, building big cities and trading with other civilisations.

Even better, they were using chocolate for money! Actually cacao beans, where chocolate comes from, were used as a currency in place of metal coins. Apparently they were extremely rare, and their whole supply was controlled by the ruling rich class.

Another impressive thing about the Maya was their amazing hieroglyph language, which has only been partially deciphered to this date and is not even fully understood by the many thousands of surviving Maya people living in the Yucatan.

Advanced they were, but the Maya were also pretty brutal. They deformed the skulls and jawbones of their children by forcing them to wear a big wooden plate-like contraptions and beating them in the mouth from an early age. Apparently having a super-flat head and a lopsided grin was all the rage.

Our urge to discover more things Maya led us south of Merida to the ruins of the ancient city of Uxmal, thought to have been abandoned in 900AD. We stayed in a nearby town called Santa Elena.

With dusty streets, clapped out trucks and meandering locals, this is probably the closest we have come to a traditional Mexican village. Nearly everybody is indigenous here and speaks Maya. The women mainly still wear traditional dress – white tunic-style dresses adorned with floral prints around the neck.

Feliz Navidad

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone. As keen readers may have noticed, we always run a couple of days behind on this blog. Whether you spent it on the beach (heard the weather was great in Sydney for once) or in sub-zero UK/Europe/North America, hope you had a great time with friends and family.

Christmas while travelling is always relatively low-key, being so far from family, and for us typically consists of some kind of meal with people we don't know well, a few fake Christmas greetings and a phone call to our parents.

This year was no exception, if anything the most low key Christmas ever, owing to the fact that we'd forgotten that European types (including Mexicans) celebrate on Christmas Eve. We'd spent the entire day travelling, first on a ferry back from Isla Mujeres to Cancun, and then a 7-hour bus trip to the majestic Spanish-colonial city of Merida, on the other side of the Yucatan peninsula.

Christmas was in full swing when we arrived. Huge crowds throbbed through the narrow cobbled arteries, busily finishing off their shopping as the day died away. Firecrackers and bloated star-shaped pinatas were being sold on every street corner. The main plaza was buzzing with activity as street vendors sold games, toys and the ubiquitous Mexican hot dog stands did a roaring trade.

We were a little too exhausted to join in the merryment, and having only just arrived didn't know anyone in town. So we took off to a restaurant in a smaller, more peaceful plaza and had our Christmas dinner - a big cheesy pizza.

The island adventure and the mystery illness

Isla Mujeres is a skinny, pancake flat island just off the coast of Cancun. As soon as you board the ferry and get going, you can see it emerge on the horizon. Despite its proximity, it is absolutely nothing like its overdeveloped mainland cousin. I'm quickly discovering that the Yucatan is a land of contrasts.

Sorry to sound like a snotty backpacker, but I think if I'd visited Isla Mujeres (translates to Island of Women) 5 or 10 years ago, I'd have liked it better. It still has a really laid back feel, there are plenty of locals milling about but it seems like the main few streets, including the handicraft-stuffed pedestrian mall, are trying just a little too hard to attract fat-walleted Americans.

As with most places around here, its hard to argue with the quality of the beach - the same powdery white sand, and beautiful turquoise hues ringing the coastline are picture perfect - although sadly I didn't take any photos.

The other side of the island is a different story - devoid of resorts, it has a seawall that juts out onto sharp rocks, and has choppy swell. Most of the buildings here are either makeshift shacks or look to have been hurricane-damaged and abandoned.

Our hostel, on the surface, seemed like a traveller's paradise - huge, stone wall enclosed courtyard, big common bar area, loads of hammocks swinging gently in the breeze and backing onto the beach. We opted for the camping area out the back, and found ourselves wedged in between what seemed like a semi-permanent german hippie colonie and a bunch of glamorous english goodtime girls.

The place, Hostel Poc-na (sounds more Thai than Spanish) was pretty cool but let us down on a couple of fronts. One, it had all these stupid rules - we were tagged like prisoners with wrist bracelets. Two, there was a free breakfast but it was so strictly policed it didn't feel free at all - Adam was most upset that he got accused of not paying for things or helping himself to too many bananas several times.

Also, while the vibe there was pretty cool, the amount of annoying 21-year old Aussies with really broad accents (for some reason every time I hear the accent it really twangs in my ears!) who are trying to fit in all of South America in under a month really got on our nerves. And, not surprisingly, they were the most ridiculously drunk ones who kept embarassing themselves. They would say things like, "oops, I've spent too much money, oh well, I'll get mum and dad to top up my account."

Or maybe just a sign that we're getting old??!

The beauty of Isla Mujeres was unfortunately marred by a mystery illness that struck me down the day after we arrived. Now I just want to say right here, it wasn't tequila-related, it wasn't bad meat in a burritorelated or from eating too many ice cubes.

Adam had passed on a slight cold to me a few days before, but after relaxing on the beach one morning I began to feel weak and dizzy. We went to the chicken shop for lunch (yes, BBQ chicken works really well in a taco), but I could hardly finish one taco. Something was definitely wrong.

I spent the whole afternoon rolling around in the tent with violent stabbing stomach pains, throwing up intermittently. Felt like alcohol poisoning, but worse! We then transferred from the tent to a private room so I could be nearer the toilet for strategic reasons.

As a result, didn't get to enjoy the rest of the sun and the sand on the Isla, or the food for that matter. We did meet up with Larry and Larna, who are also travelling in Mexico at the moment as part of their one-year adventure, for a nice dinner on our last night. Larna tried cactus tacos, which actually looked quite nice - kind of like roasted strips of capsicum, or peppers as they are called here.

Full moon rising - Cancun and the royal tequila fail

When travelling, things don't go always as planned. Because sometimes places turn out to be different to what you are expecting. Cancun, which you could also call the 51st state of the USA, had a mysterious charm to it, and kept us there a full four nights instead of the 14-hour in-and-out job that we had anticipated.

Probably Cancun's greatest feature is that its "hotel zone" mecca of flash resorts, strip malls and annoying american package deal tourists is situated miles away from the actual downtown area, which is much more chilled out and packed with ordinary Mexicans.

The hotel area was in prime position though, it occupies this long skinny strip that juts out into the ocean, and hogs Cancun's entire beachfront area. It is immense, something like 30km in length. Fortunately just because the hotels are on the beach doesn't mean the ordinary budget traveller cannot enjoy the splendour of Cancun's beaches, which, I have to say, are absolutely out of this world.

You can't get much closer to perfection than this strip of sea and sand. And we waltzed on in, right through the lobby of a hotel, down the stairs and parked our cut-price butts right on one of their fancy deck chairs on the powdery-white sand and spent hours ogling the sparkling azure water, which was as clear as a swimming pool.

Unfortunately, as with most things set up for tourists, perfection comes at a price. The towering hotels lining the narrow strip of beach are causing the beach to erode, and with all of the natural vegetation stripped away there is nothing to hold the ground in place. Last year they dredged up tonnes of sand from the floor of the Carribean to stop the beach disappearing at a cost of $US70m.

Cancun just played host to the United Nations climate change conference -  a follow-up from the unsuccessful Copenhagen summit last year. The organisers were smarter with the setting this time around. I mean if I were an important policymaker I would be much more inclined to sign up to an emissions-reduction agreement if I were lazing on the beach in sunny Cancun than if I were in gloomy Denmark.

The conference, as expected, did not bring about a game-changing international agreement on climate change, but it did throw the spotlight on Cancun's own vulnerability to erosion and rising sea levels, as is set out in this article.

Lunch proved a challenge - as this was zone USA there were obviously no taco stands to fill our bellies for 30 pesos each ($2.50). The malls just had overpriced burger joints and did not look appealing. Finally, out of the corner of our eyes we spied heaven in bar form - a Cuban Mojito and cigar lounge. It had a back balcony overlooking the lagoon, on the calmer, non-beach side, where we sat, sipping mint-infused mojitos and chowing down on delicious guacamole and corn chips.

At last! An Adam-sized beer!

This was a positive cocktail experience. Our time with the tequila bottle did not prove so enjoyable. Walking around the downtown area close to our hostel - where we spent the majority of our time just hanging out because it was that kind of laid-back, appealing place - we spied a "European mart". Well it doesn't take much more than a few jars of olives, some cheeses and wines to get me excited.

The giant tequila wall

Adam was more taken by the wall of tequila - not surprisingly Mexico is not left wanting for varieties of liquor extracted from the agave plant (a succulent, not a cactus I'm told) - this includes tequila and its cousin Mezcal, which we have not yet tried.

I'm not sure if the mistake here was consuming the red wine with dinner before switching to tequila afterwards, or the fact that shot glasses here are double the size and we felt somehow obligated to fill them up.

Either way it was a complete disaster. We didn't even go out anywhere, we were just chatting to some other travellers in the hostel courtyard. Real tame. Next thing I knew I woke up in bed wondering how I got in there. Adam appeared later on looking decidedly unwell. The bad thing about tequila is its tendency to make things slide rapidly downhill. 

The crash landing came the next day, when we made a mutual decision to admire tequila from afar from now on. Shouldn't be too difficult to stick to the beers!

Cute german shepherd puppies at the hostel

Changing plans

The perils of last minute travel. Sure, its exhilirating and spontaneous, but it doesn’t work so well when you’re dealing with airlines and peak season. We were hoping to go to Cuba, but hadn’t seen the need to buy air tickets in advance.

In fact, we questioned the need to fly there in the first place. Arriving in Cancun, the resort mega-city on the gulf of Mexico, Cuba seemed so close – surely it was just a short ferry ride away?

This turned out to be incorrect – there were no boats plying the Carribean between Cancun and Cuba, or any other part of Mexico for that matter. Booking an air ticket proved no more productive – each airline we checked would not allow us to search for flights to Havana – mysteriously the city was blanked out or we were advised to consult a travel agent.

Turns out, Cuba is not an easy place to get to, especially if you try to fly there at the last minute. This led us to abandon ship and contemplate a couple of weeks on the Yucatan peninsula, on which Cancun is located, before heading to Mexico City for our Spanish course for which the enrolment date is January 5.

With Cuba off the radar for now, our thoughts turned to how we would get around for the rest of our time in Mexico and into Central America and beyond. We are not really too keen on catching buses – sure, they are reliable and comfortable, but they are expensive in Mexico and just drop you off at the biggest town. It is hard to visit villages and out of the way spots and therefore get a real feel for what a place is like.

So the plan is to buy a car – a ute, or pickup as they would call them in Spanglish, this would be great for going camping on the beach, no fear of being bogged and would help us blend in with other Mexicans. So would a VW beetle, which they still appear to manufacture around here. Although as one hostel owner pointed out, a 15 year old VW made in Mexico and worked on by Mexicans for 15 years is bound to have a few problems. 

The plan of attack is to visit the Yucatan's biggest town - the commercial and cultural centre of Merida and attend the mega-car yard sale which takes place on Sundays. Its also where we will be for Christmas day, a Saturday, on which there are big outdoor markets and dancing festivals. Hopefully Santa will find us a not-too-unreliable wreck for Christmas!

Camping in Los Cabos

Migrating North Americans

Like flocks of migrating birds, thousands of Americans and Canadians head south to Mexico to while away the winter. While some pop down for a couple of weeks around Christmastime, others take their migration more seriously.

Like the small community of caravans we found nestled in the scrub around a deserted beach right on the bottom tip of Baja. This place wasn’t listed in the lonely planet – in fact we almost found it by mistake, as the place where we were looking for had no turn-off sign.

Heading south out of La Paz, we overshot our planned beach and ended up somewhere called San Jose del Cabos, which looked like Mexican Florida. We busted a U-turn and asked a lady at a supermarket for directions before finally finding the turn-off, and arriving at tiny Cabo Pulmo well after dark. Cabo Pulmo is at the end of a rough 10km stretch of gravel, and consists of about five or six buildings, a few houses and a handful of dive shops.

Beach camping in random spot

Our plan was to camp on the beach, as we had heard that no beaches in Baja are privately owned therefore it’s perfectly legal to do so. The task of finding a campsite was a lot harder in the dark, but eventually we found this place tucked away and partially sheltered behind a sand dune. We were a touch disconcerted by some of the dogs roaming the streets, and even a lone horse, but none of these, or any people for that matter, disturbed us and we had a really peaceful night under the stars with only the sound of waves crashing in the background

We found the Canadian grey nomads the following day, when we decided it was a bit weird camping in a random spot right near a town. The Canadians' only amenities were a pit toilet and a communal bookshelf arranged under a tree in the centre of the campsite. Although individually, they were well-equipped; most of them got around on quad bikes, and I spotted electricity generators and showers near some caravans. 

Lance and Jennifer, who we met in Loreto, were not only generous enough to drive us to La Paz, saving us an expensive bus ride, they also gave us their tent. We were sick of paying almost as much for accommodation and bus trips in Baja as we had been doing in the US, and worked out that renting a car for a few days and camping would actually work out cheaper.

The beaches on this stretch of coastline are untouched and pristine. The harsh desert landscape comes right up to the sand dunes, to the point where you encounter prickly cactus plants growing out of them. Further south towards the end of the cape the surf picked up – big, glossy waves rolling into shore in perfectly-timed sets.

All of this changes when you hit the southern-most point of the cape – Los Cabos. Isolated beaches make way for big flashy hotels, American fast food joints and jet skis. It took just a lunch-time pit stop to establish that we were glad to have spent our time camping in the middle of nowhere, even if there were no showers!

Loreto fishing adventure

Loreto is on the non-Pacific side of the 1500km long Baja peninsula, that is, the sea of Cortez that separates Baja from mainland Mexico. It’s quite a touristy town, the smell of gringo hits you straight away as you head into the main part of town, which fronts a long beachfront esplanade, or Malecon as they are called. Loreto’s backdrop is a beautiful range of bald, jagged mountains that make up part of Baja’s spine.

We met a Canadian couple, Lance and Jennifer, who were trading freezing temperatures in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada for the Baja sun. They had travelled in Mexico many times before, so their local knowledge definitely came in handy!

A brief visit to the town jetty, where Mexican fisherman dock their boats and smoky blue pelicans gather to dive bomb fish, established that Jorge would take us out fishing on his boat the following day.

 

 Jorge the fishing man

The boat, slightly larger than a tinnie, seated five comfortably. Jorge provided the bait and tackle, and the boat even had a compartment filled with seawater to stow away fish once they were caught. 

 Trawling for fishies

It did not take long to begin filling the compartment. We sped out to a nearby island across the bright blue ocean, calmly rippling like a carpet of crushed velvet. Trawling up and down, it did not take long for the fish to take bites at the lures. Within minutes we had hauled in our first few fish of the day. 

Bonita bonito

By lunchtime, the compartment was heaving with barracuda, a type of Spanish mackerel called a Sierra, yellow tail and a brownish coloured local fish known as a Cabrilla. In total we caught over 20 fish, far too many for us to cook for dinner, so Jorge and his cronies took the rest off our hands. 

 Cabrilla 

It was pretty lazy fishing really. Jorge baited up the rods, we dropped them in and let them out, then waited for the fish to bite, which happened in a matter of minutes. The only thing we had to do was reel them in and hope they didn’t fight back too hard.

 Catch of the day

Lunching on the island, we snorkelled right off the beach, where there were dozens of types of brightly coloured fish, although their habitat was a shelf of dull-looking rocks rather than a dazzling coral reef. We circumnavigated the island after lunch to check out a colony of sea lions living off the rocks where sea birds such as ospreys and the hilariously named blue footed booby nest.

There was quite a bit of swell crashing onto the rocks on this side of the island, which made me seasick. Jennifer instructed me to keep my focus on the horizon, which worked surprisingly well although I still thought I was going to throw up the whole time. Luckily I managed to stave it off, and the awful feeling went away once we began heading closer to shore.

Our guesthouse, Posada San Martin, was blessed with a wood fire barbeque in its dusty back courtyard. We cooked the biggest four of the fish whole stuffed with garlic, onion and chillies and wrapped with tin foil. There was so much fish, there was some left over for fish tacos the next day!  

 I caught the biggest fish!