Campeche and Merida

IMGP5311
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We arrived in Campheche in the mid afternoon and got the taxi driver to drop us at another hostel in the same chain as we had been using. It wasn´t great, but in quite a good location and we were able to have a private room. In our guide book, Campheche is in the highlights section for the Yucatan, but it didn´t really tell us much about it or give us a map! So we decided to take the tourist tram for a little sightseeing trip around the city. We saw lots of important churches (we suspect they were interesting) and the nice old walls. It made a nice change to be near to the sea again. There is no beach at Campeche but we could sit on the promenade and enjoy the sea breeze and look at the huge pelicans.
Campeche was nice enough, but we felt an afternoon was enough time there, so we caught anohter bus to Merida on Saturday.

Merida is quite a big city, but like all Mexican cities it is quite manageable as it is built around the central square and cathedral. We decided to splash out a bit on our hotel, as the last few had left quite a lot to be desired. The hotel Dolores Alba is a palace in comparison to where we stayed in Palenque. Our room is huge with a/c and a tv and it overlooks the swimming pool.
Sunday appears to be a very social day in Mexico. The roads surrounding the plaza were pedestrianised and we went for a walk up to the local museum. On our way we passed a band playing for lots of people of a certain age, who were having a great time salsa dancing. The museum was quite interesting, with quite a few artefacts from nearby Chichen Itza. In the afternoon we relaxed and then sat out at a couple of street cafes watching lots of people and listening to the various bands that were playing either at the cafes or along the streets.
Yesterday we decided to indulge ourselves with a day by the pool. We´ve been looking at where to go to the beach, and it all looks at bit pricey, so we are taking advantage of our pool whilst we are here in Merida. It´s good because it doesn´t get too much sun during the day, so we don´t have to worry too much about sunburn, but that does mean that the water´s a bit chilly.

Today we have had a look at a couple of local markets and a craft shop. We´re going to the art museum later and then will probably have a dip in the pool!

Chichen Itza tomorrow! Yay!

From Oaxaca to Palenque

IMGP5279
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We hung out some more with people from the hostel in the evening in the end, so it was quite a quiet one, but fun and late. We got up the next morning and went back to the market that we had eaten in the previous day. It was very cool. There were piles of dry chilies in baskets, all different sorts.There was an aisle full of huge piñatas - snow white, spongbob squarepants, you name it, it was there. There were also stalls selling packets of mole ingredients. If we were coming straight home form here we would have bought some, but it wouldn´t travel very well in our rucksacks. Also in town there were a couple of shops selling the bitter chocolate. We bought a bar - 52% cocoa solids, so we´ve been eating it in very small quantities!

That evening we caught an executive(!) overnight bus to San Cristobal de Las Casas. We had a lot of leg room, enough even for Chris, and there were tv screens. In our guide book it had said that usually films are in their original language with Spanish subtitles, but unfortunately for us, they were dubbed. We got a little sleep and arrived early enough in the morning to check into a hotel and have a bit more sleep. We did have to have an extremely confusing conversation with the receptionist though. He came up to our room a few minutes after we´d checked in and started saying things we didn´t understand. We think he was just trying to tell us that we had to check out the following day at 1pm, but we´re still not really sure!

Refreshed and ready for more exploring we headed out into San Cristobal. We were quite intrigued about this area. In 1994 there was a rebellion by The Zapatistas, who overran the city wearing balaclavas and wielding guns. When the Mexican government tried to oust them, the people of the city refused and gave the Zapatistas their support. It all stems from there being such a large indigenous population in the area, who are somewhat overlooked by the Mexican government. As we were walking around, there were quite a few men standing around in uniforms carrying assault rifles, we don´t really know who they were!

The indigenous people make very nice crafts, so we had a look around the large market and bought a couple of things. We also encountered some children who wanted to know our names, ´for school´, after we´d written them they asked us what donation we´d like to make to the school. We gave them a bit of money, hoping it goes where they said it would. When we walked up to the San Cristobal church we met some more children doing the same thing. We gave them 50p or so and then went to a stationers and bought a packet of pencils, so that the next children we meet can just have those instead of money!
The walk up to the church was worth the effort, as we could look out across the city. A beautiful blue church that we had walked past earlier, really stood out. That evening, we ate in the best restaurant so far in Mexico - Emiliano´s Moustache. The food so far has been quite hit and miss. It is very different to our idea of Mexican food. For a start, there´s hardly any cheese, and the cheese you do get is crumbly goats cheese. Most dishes involve a small amount of slightly dodgy meat, tortillas and mole. Some of the mole we´ve had has been great, and some pretty tasteless. It´s not spicy either, but usually there´s spicy salsa on the table for you to add. Both our tummy´s are feeling slightly upset by the food!
In Emiliano´s, we had tacos. There were lots to choose from. On our table there was 2 different salsas, a mole, limes and onion & corriander. When the tacos came, it was meat sizzling on a plate accompanied by lots of soft tortillas. It´s very hard to know what you are going to get, but that was pretty good!

Yesterday morning we caught a bus to Palenque. A shorter ride this time through some very verdant scenery, quite surprisingly so as this
is Mexico´s dry season. Our guide book reckons that all Palenque has to offer is it´s ruins, and it´s not wrong! The town seems very polluted, and there´s not much to see really so we got some dinner and then watched some tv in our room.

Today we caught a collectivo (a vw van) to the Mayan ruins of Palenque. They are set in amongst the jungle, so it was very hot and humid walking around them, but it did make it all look very cool. Talking of temperature, it has been pretty hot and dry in the day up unitl now but then with very cold nights. In Oaxaca, I stood with a blanket around me! Since we got to Palenque it has been hot all of the time, it´ll probably stay that way for the rest of time here as we´re mostly staying at sea-level.

Anyway, the ruins looked very cool, and it would have been spectacular in all it´s glory. The attached museum had intersting artefacts that they found in the tombs, including jade death masks.

Tomorrow we are getting another bus, this one´s headed for Campeche in the Yucatan.

Some other things that we have forgotten to mention about Mexico - there are a lot of VW Beetles. In Mexico City, about every 4th car was one. Also we are surprised by the small number of people who can speak English, and are pleased that we took some lessons in Spanish before we came here.

Oaxaca

IMGP5210
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We caught a bus from Mexcio city to Oaxaca (pronounced wahagca) which took us about 7 hours and was fairly uneventful. We arrived quite late in the evening so caught a taxi from the bus station to a hostel that we saw a leaflet for at the hostel that we went on the wrestling trip from. It is part of the same group the Hostel Moneda, but we hoped for better luck this time! It is a really nice place with an open air courtyard in the middle with a bar. It's really pretty with brighlty coloured arches. Much better than the Moneda!

We went and found ourselves some dinner in the town. We had been a bit disapointed with the mole sauce after hearing so much about it, but we we had some really nice mole negro in the restaurant. It's made from lots of different chillies and really bitter chocolate. It's nice, not spicy really and just a bit chocolatey.
When we got back to the hostel the Mexican barman offered us far too much to drink and consequently we have now had Tequila in Mexcio and have had hangovers today!

When we got up the barman/tourguide/receptionist announced that he was doing a tour of the town so we signed up for that before going in search of breakfast. The tour grew into a ride to Monte Alban and a trip to the market and was pretty cool.
We had planned on going to Monte Alban. It is a Zapotec ruin built between 300 and 900AD. Our first trip to a ruin was all it promised to be. Lots of shambly pyramids and nice views from the height of the mountain. It was quite fun to be in a group for a change, we had Slovenians, an Australian and two Mexican for company.
After visiting the ruin we drove back into the town and visited the market. Oaxaca is famous for it's crafts as it has a high number of indigenous people living in the surrounding area. There were some lovely brightly coloured blankets and lots of wooden animals. We bought a picture and a flat metal skeleton.

This evening has been a quiet one after the excesses of last night! Tomorrow we will have more of a look around the town and then probably catch a night bus to our next destination.

Lucha Libre

IMGP5173
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Friday night, we went to watch the wrestling (Lucha Libre). It was fantastico!

We were in a great big stadium with giant TV screens and vendors walking around selling Corona and pizzas. It all felt very american, and the wrestling was a lot like the WWE, except that 90% of the wrestlers were wearing masks. Its a big dishonour to have your mask removed apparently.

They were all very athletic, lots of jumping off the ropes and stuff. The final fight was some sort of three on three battle which ended up in the team who were clearly the peoples favourites winning with a double pin.

PEDROS! PEDROS!

Mexico City

IMGP5153
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We arrived a bit blurry eyed in Mexico City airport and easily got a taxi to our hostel that we had prebooked whilst in Auckland with STA Travel. The hostel is on a street just of the Zocalo - the second largest square in the world after The Red Square (we think Tianamen square was bigger). It seemed an ok hostel to be in so we left our bags and went down in to the square to have a little look around and then get some dinner. Armed with our phrase book and our few classes worth of knowledge we looked at a few menus and finally settled on the Cafe Popular. I ate Tacos (Yay!) and Chris had chicken with salsa sauce, quite a succesful start. We went back to our hostel and tried to go to the roof top bar but were told that it was closed, so we went back to our room. It was around 10pm at this point when we got a knock at the door. Our vistor was a man telling us to leave the hostel as it was unsafe, I think we heard the word fire in there somewhere, but we don´t really know what the problem was! We packed our bags, asked for our money back and found ourselves a new hotel on the other side of the square! It`s much nicer and not too expensive so we don`t mind too much. Quite a funny start to our time in Mexico!

We slept in yesterday to catch up on the sleep we missed the previous night and then went to the Zocalo for some sightseeing. The Catedral Metropolitana is the largest cathedral in Latin America and it looks really impressive form the outside. Attached to it is a church that gets used for everyday things which is also really cool, with it´s heavily carved facade.
We also went into the Palacio Nacional to have a look at some Rivera murals. They were very impressive. The largest depicted Mexican history, with other smaller ones depicting life before the Spanish. We might go to RIvera & Frida Kahlo´s house & museum when we come back to Mexico City at the end of our trip.
We had more good Mexican food for our lunch - fajitas. Yum scrum.

The Templo Mayor is the last thing that we visited at the Zocalo. It is the site of a big Aztec temple which was only discovered in 1978 when some workmen found a huge stone with the goddess of the moon carved into it. We had a look around the ruins where you can still see some of the carved sepants and things, some of which still have quite a lot of colour on them. The musuem which they have built next to the ruins contains the largest collection of Aztec artefacts in the world, it´s pretty cool stuff like skulls and sacrificial tools.
When we came out, the square was full of soldiers lowering the enormous national flag. They do this everyday at around 6pm and lots of Mexicans watch them.

In the evening we went to the Plaza Garibaldi. This is where all the mariachis hang out. It was fantastic! We watched from a distance for a while and then paid a group to play for us. A bunch of old guys with spangly trousers, it was great!

So far we like Mexico a lot. The architecture is beautiful, the food is yummy and there`s a lot of interesting things going on all the time. There are loads of policia all around where we are and we feel pretty safe (not particularly because of the ploilce though).
We are very excited as tonight we are going to the Luche Libre!

More Hollywood

IMGP5152
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We took a Limo tour of Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Strip, etc. We looked at all the celebrity´s homes (or gates in some cases), but we didn´t see any famous people. We did get to sit in the back of a nice limo with some obese people from Detroit though. We didn´t really understand what they were saying because they used the word dawg too much.
We didn´t go to the Viper Room in the end. The tour guide said that it had a bad rep these days. Instead we stayed at the hostel and enjoyed their surprisingly good "Open Mic Night". After that we managed about an hour and a halfs sleep before we had to get up to go to the airport. We had a connecting flight in Dallas, which seemed to be the largest airport in the world. Probably isn´t though.

Welcome to Hollywood (La la land)

IMGP5054
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

On our last day in Auckland we took a Harbour cruise and visited the Maritime museum before getting the bus to the airport. So far on our trip we’ve got to airports a few hours before the flight, checked in and then sat around for a while, but flying to America pretty much means you’re in a queue for the three hours. First there’s the long check in queue, then the passport control and bag scan queue and then the second bag scan and full body scan for when you go through to the gate. We weren’t allowed any liquids or gels still. We did have a good flight though as the plane had a new fangled entertainment system which meant that you could watch any of the 50 or so movies and TV programmes whenever you liked with the added bonus of being able to pause it when you have your dinner. Chris watched The Departed and Black Dahlia, and I watched Little Miss Sunshine and Marie Antoinette. It was a bit of shame that it was a night flight as we wasted valuable movie watching time by trying to sleep!

We arrived in Los Angeles and cleared customs in an hour or so, it wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be and the customs officials were very friendly unlike in most other places that we’ve been. We caught a shuttle bus and got dropped off at our hostel which is conveniently located on a road linking Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard.

We took a walk along Hollywood Boulevard looking at the stars on the pavement which was pretty cool and then went into the mall where the Kodak Theatre is to look out across the hills to the sign. They’ve got the Oscars on display at the moment so we went and had a look at those and I held one!
In the evening we went to a comedy show upstairs at our hostel which was quite a lot better than we were expecting. One guy was extremely funny.

Yesterday we took the tube to Universal Studios. It’s great because the theme park is on the same plot as the actual studios so you can take a tour of the studios as well as the park attractions. While we were there they were filming Desperate Housewives, but unfortunately it was a closed set so no celeb spotting for us. It was cool to drive around though and see some old sets and props. The attractions at the park were fun, especially the special effects show and the stunt show. Afterwards we went to Universal City which is just like an outside mall next to the park with some cool shops and lots of restaurants. We had burgers in the Hard Rock Café for dinner. When we got back to Hollywood Boulevard we watched Smokin’ Aces at the Chinese Theatre, which is where a lot of the movie premiers take place.

LA is enormous and we’re a bit lost here really, we tried to walk to Melrose Avenue to look at the shops, but it was miles and when we got there, it didn’t seem that great. We don’t fancy the tours of streets where film stars live and it seems too far to go to downtown LA. So tonight we’re going drinking on the Sunset Strip and we’ll see if they’ll let us into the Viper Room!
We’ve seen a fair few weird people in our 2 days here but no celebrities!

Auckland

IMGP4986
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We've spent the last few days of our time in New Zealand in the largest city and home to most of the population - Auckland.
Recommended to us by Lulu was the Domain museum. It's set in a large park, where we happened to see some people filming what could only have been Power Rangers! The museum was interesting and had some nice Pacific Island artefacts including quite a lot of Papua New Guinean stuff which was cool to look at. We particularly liked the spear edged with sharks teeth. After visiting the musuem we dropped our van off and walked into the city centre to our hostel. We've got a nice double room with a shared bathroom for 25 quid a night which is pretty good.

Yesterday (Friday 9th) we went to a market in the morning, had a bit of a look around Queen Street, the main shopping road, and did a few chores. In the evening we went to the Sky Tower. At 328m high it is the largest man made structure in the Soutern hemisphere and is 4m higher than the Eiffel Tower. The lift goes at 40kmph and is a pretty cool ride, with glass panels in the floor of the lift and in the side of the building to freak you out slightly before you reach the observation deck. We had good views out across the city. We could see our hostel, the harbour, Rangitoto and One Tree Hill, to name just a few things.
We decided to put our bad high tower experiences behind us and ate at the seafood buffet restaurant 2 floors above the main observation deck. We had a really nice dinner of quite fancy seafood and looked out across Auckland as the sun set and all the lights came on.

We didn't jump off the Sky Tower, unlike some unhinged people, although as you can imagine, Chris was tempted!

Today we checked out the slightly more alternative end of town, went to Albert park to eat our lunch and then on another of Lulu's suggestions, went for a drink at The Hog at the Viaduct Harbour. We are going to take a ferry across to Devonport this evening, to have dinner and find one of the rock pubs that we've been told exist over there!

Tommorow evening we fly to LA. We get there in the morning before we leave, which is all a bit worrying really. We're not sure if we'll be a day older or not and might have to move our birthdays. We'll let you know.

Bungy Chicken!

Yippee! I did a bungy jump!

Kia Ora

IMGP4879
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

That evening we went to a Maori cultural show and dinner. It was really good. We were picked up buy the coach and taken to the village a few kilometers out of town. It is a replica village put there about 20 years ago on the site of an old village to take the Maori shows out of the hotels and back into the natural environment. Whilst on the coach our driver, Dennis, asked for a volunteer chief, we also learnt a few words of Maori. Upon arrival in to the village the chosen chiefs had to stand in front of everyone else and be welcomed by a warrior from the village. We were all warned that laughing would not be tolerated before the warrior ran out, eyes bulging and tongue protruding. It was very cool. Luckily they decided we came in peace and we could have a look around their village. There was carving, clothes making and some other stuff going on to look at before we headed into the meetinghouse for the show.
The show was really good to watch with men and women singing to us and they did the Haka. Interestingly, the women were using poi which we didn’t know were a Maori thing, but apparently they were used by the men to limber up and be flexible for using their weapons.
After the show we had a scrummy hangi dinner. Lamb and vegetables cooked in an under ground oven. It’s such a great way to cook for lots of people. They heat up the rocks and then bury them in the ground with all the meat first then potatoes then veg, cover it over with hessian sacks and then burry it with earth, trapping all the steam and cooking it all perfectly. Yum.

Today we looked at the meeting house and church by Lake Rotorua. They sit opposite each other with the church having a lot Maori influences in its design. We had a round of crazy golf, because it’s fun and then went to our final volcanic park. The park is called Hells Gate because when George Bernard Shaw visited he joked that he’d been brought to the gates of hell for being an atheist! He also named some of the features. It was similar to the other parks but had big pools of stupidly hot bubbling water and mud and also had a mud volcano. We could have had spa treatments with the mud from the area but I just bought some samples instead.

This area has been cool to visit. It’s nice to have hot pools at your campsite and fun to be driving around and pass steaming areas of ground just to the side of the road. We’re heading further up the coast this evening to a beach where you can dig in the sand for your own hot water.

Geo-thermal adventures

IMGP4873
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We’ve had quite a busy few days sightseeing around this area. We started with the Huka falls, which are in Taupo just outside of the town center. They are pretty impressive with a huge amount of water rushing through constantly. Whilst we were there one of the jet boats came for a bit of a play in the swell. Looked quite fun but we reckon rafting is better!
After looking at the falls we moved on a bit further to a place named ‘The Craters of the Moon’. There is a lot of geo-thermal activity in the area and this is one of the places nearer to Taupo rather than in Rotorua so we thought we’d give it a look before we went for the big guns in Rotorua. It did look surprisingly moon like, with lots of barren steaming ground. There were quite a few colours because of the sulphur and the different algae but not as much as we saw later on at other places. It was quite cool there, for our first experience of a volcanic area.
Before we headed off to another thermal park we stopped by at the Aratiatia dam, which we’d passed the previous day when we drove back from the rafting trip. The dam gates were closed so there was just a small pool of water. Luckily we got there just as the sirens were going and we were able to watch the water gushing through the opening gates and filling the area so that there was water as far as we could see along the river bed.

When we were looking at where to go to see cool geo-thermal stuff we’d seen quite few leaflets and things recommending Orakei Korako, so we thought we’d go there. It’s in the middle of a lake and so you have to take a short boat ride before wandering around for an hour or so. The area used to be called geyser land, but they haven’t really got any active geysers anymore. We waited around by the Diamond Geyser (!!) for a while but nothing happened, not even any steam really. There was some nice bubbling mud that makes good plopping blobbing noises and some nicely coloured areas. Again nice, but we wanted a geyser!

Rotorua is the most popular tourist destination in New Zealand and we’ve had a good time here. We found ourselves a really nice campsite which we took full advantage of on our first night. It had a BBQ which we used before having a soak in the hot pools, one of which was about 40 degrees and the other about 37 degrees. That made us pretty hot so we had a swim in the swimming pool, but that made us chilly so we got back in the hot pool. Nice.
For a change we weren’t leaving the campsite in the morning so we were able to have a relaxing morning and then go to Te Puia. Te Puia is a Maori cultural center and geo-thermal area, but most importantly it has geysers. We spent around 2 hours watching the Prince of Wales feathers geyser going off and waiting for Pohutu – the biggest of their geysers which erupts of average 1-2 times an hour. In theory it goes to 25-30m but we didn’t see that happen. As it all steamy it’s tricky to tell which geyser you’re looking at. We waited to try to see it go really high, but aren’t really sure if we saw it or not! They also had the ubiquitous steaming ground and bubbling mud. We had a look around the village part of the park and looked at the beautifully carved meeting house and food storage house.

Whitewater rafting

IMG_9084
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We went white water rafting today on the Rangitaiki river just outside of Taupo. Chris has been rafting twice before but I've never been so I was quite nervous. Wasn't really sure how bumpy it would be or how likely I was to fall in. Turned out that it was Awesome!! (officially kiwi term btw).

We were picked up from our campsite and drove an hour or so up to the river where they have a permanent building. We were kitted out with wetsuits, life jackets and helmets and then drove a bit further up to the start of the rafting area.

We had a quick saftey briefing which did nothing to allieve my fears so I sat at the back next to the guide whilst two guys who were quite experienced got the front seats. We mossied along for a few minutes before going into a huge rapid. I instantly forgot everything we'd been told about paddling and just held on! We all got very wet but no one fell in. The second big rapid was the biggest of the day and bashed us around a fair bit, we paddled, held on and ducked down. We got drenched but it was fun.

The rest of the trip was good fun with lots of rapids and one long calm part. We played in one bit of rapid called 'the flush'. One lucky person - Chris, got to sit in between the guys at the front whilst we all paddled into the rapid. The result of which is lots of water flowing over us and we spun around!

We had a great time. No one fell in and we all paddled in the right direction and stuff when he told us to. It's about as extreme as I've ever got so am quite proud of myself. Chris wants to do bigger rapids!!!