Andy's Blogspot: December 2006

Hello!

We have been busy travelling the east of Mexico and are now lapping it up in the Caribbean at Tulum, where is is absolutely stunning! Killer diving snorkelling and beaching. We will be hanging around here until just after Christmas, and then head back to the Mexico city here. Tommorow the plan is to celebrate my birthday in style, Coconuts, rum and pinepple, snorkelling with a dash of Mexican driving : a winning combo.

Mark is doing his open water diving course at the moment and afterwards we will be off to dive some Cenotes, underwater freshwater caverns which have about 50m visibility, absolutely incredible.

A very merry Christmas to everyone ( Feliz Navidad) and Happy new Year!

San Cristobal

We loved San Cristobal, and ended up staying about a week around the town, We stayed for the Dia de San Gaudalupe, meant to be a highly celebrated day, there was people who run around with an olympic style torch, lots of music, and street food.

Limon (limes)

Frijoles (Beans and other market goodies)

Part of the Oi Oi Oi Crew around the Campfire: Kris, Andy, some guy, Bram

Outer town in San Cristobal

Dog in an aquarium

Dia de San Guadalupe

Dia de San Guadalupe in the night

tambien

Palenque

We managed to organise 12 backpackers to charter ourselves a bus, see a couple of waterfalls and get to the Jungle where the ruins of Palenque were. The jungle was good fun with our crew and the temples were stunning, located in the hot, steamy jungle.

Campeche

Bram and Marko

From Palenque, We have been travelling as the Oi Oi Oi Possi, Bram ( Dutch), Kris (Dutch), Mark and I.

An interesting yet boring Colonial town, with what compared to a dutch beach at the coast, according to our dutch travel companians (nb. dutch beaches must really suck and I have no idea why germans would want to dig holes in them....)

Love at first sight...

The malls of Campeche

Cerveza y Kris

Merida

Merida was a very nice town, we based out of there for a couple of days, bought some hammocks, visited Flamingoes, the ruins of Uxmal, and drove for the first time in Mexico.

We got Bob, the beetle, which was an incredible speciman of a beetle, 2004, and started driving on the roads, it is pretty mental driving in Mexico, not many rules, or indications, it was a lot of fun and interesting.

When we arrived at the Uxmal ruins, we had a photoshot, with many poses with our beetle before realising the park was going to close in 45 min. So we rushed around the ruins, shooting madly before being directed out of the park by a security guard with a whistle.

Then the fun began....night driving in Mexico, Mark decided to take on this role, but it wasnt too bad: Hitting a truck with our wing mirror at speed , running a red light and being stopped by the cops, who then said (in spansish), no there isnt a fine, only 4 days in jail. I confimed this to Mark, saying " no dude, you are going to jail" and there was a prompt reply: " No no no no, señor, I cant go to Jail" With a little help from Kris, flirting like mad with the cop, I then proceeded to pull out a bribe, which we tried to hand over, but he wouldnt take it, and he let us on our way. We met the one straight cop in Mexico...

Bob the beetle

Flamingo´s of Celestun

Kris at the Uxmal ruins

Uxmal

Me drinking a suprising delicious, fermented maize drink (kinda like drinking tortillas)

The meat market

Cenotes - freshwater sinkholes

Cenotes and shaft of light.

San Cristobal Region

We have been hanging out in San Cristobval de las Casas for sometime now, at least 4 days, Very beautiful city and a lot to see in the surrounding area. Including a village where they drink coke and moonshine in the church, which is full of pine needles and candles galore, a bit of an HSE isssue, really...

We have a pretty big crew here at the hostel and have been doing a lot of chilling around the campfire, and I really mean chilling, it is damn cold here, using all the ski stuff for europe at the moment.

We even managed to muster up 12 people from the hostel, to charter our own bus to the next town, Pelanque where there are ruins and to stay at the hostel as a group, so it all should be a lot of fun. Mixed nationalities galore.

El Cañon del Sumideros