Feliz Navidad en Feliz Año 2009!

We left you last at the start of November in Mexico’s southern mountains…

After leaving the ruins of Palenque, we drove for 7 hours to cover a grand total of 180kms of windy mountain roads. This section of highway contains more Topes (speed bumps) than any other that we drove. Most of them are sign-posted, but sometimes the signs have been ‘borrowed’ by the locals for use as a tortilla frying pan. Needless to say, we hit a few at speed.

Our destination was San Cristobal de la Casas, a beautiful mountain town. We spent many hours wandering the colourful streets, adopting stray dogs, climbing up to the church to enjoy the scenic overlook of the town and watching local women herding goats of sheep (with hand-knitted muzzles to stop them eating along the way). We also took a bus tour out to one of the local villages with a primarily indigenous Mayan population. It was led by an anthropologist and it was really interesting to learn about their way of life, religion and customs.

On our way down from the mountains to the beach, we passed through the town of Tuxla, in Chiapas state. Our guide books showed that we were in luck, as there was a well-acclaimed zoo, and it was listed as being free on the day that we were there. We were initially disappointed to find that it was only free for locals, but the disappointed quickly vanished when we realised that they were only charging us around $3 for what turned out to be one of the best zoos that we have ever seen. Chiapas is at an animal crossroads, with North American animals like beers and deer mixing with Central American animals, including Toucans, Macaws, the incredibly cute spider monkeys, and the cutest of all, ant-eaters! Mistakenly, we visited the Arachnid enclosure last, and gave ourselves major heeby-jeebies. Coming to the realisation that the surrounding mountains are filled by hairy spiders the size of an adult fist (keep that thought in mind as you read on…), we quickly left the zoo with chills down our spine and continued our drive to the Pacific.

Just as we were pulling into our first pacific coast town, we saw one of those massive spiders crossing the road about 100 metres or so in front of the RV. Shit you not, this thing was that big that we could easily make it out from that distance. It looked like a black hairy hand (like “Thing” from the Adams family) was dragging itself across the road. Our arachnephobia is thus significantly increased.

So we pulled into Huatulco, our first pacific coast town, and took a couple of days of R&R after all that driving. Our campsite was only about 50 metres or so from the beach. We pitched our hammock between some palm trees, cut up a pineapple, cracked open a couple of Coronas and lazed away a few days with the sun on our backs and the sand between our toes. While we were there we met a lovely NZ / Canadian couple in the RV next to us (our only neighbours) and struck up some good conversation. They’d just bought (like, earlier that day) a condo in a nearby town and invited us over to meet their new neighbours, share a few drinks and enjoy a swim in their pool. So we found ourselves bathing in a gorgeous little fresh water condo pool (with ocean views), Modelo in hand and good company. It’s a hard life, but someone’s got to do it.

A little further north we stopped off for a “couple” of nights at Puerto Escondido. We’d had recommendations for this town from Callum, and we were not disappointed. There was a surfing competition on while we were there, which meant eye candy for both of us, as in addition to all the surfer boys wandering around, were the sponsor’s “Corona girls” in the teeniest of bikinis. Oh, I forgot to mention the bars dotting the beach offering 2 for 1 cocktails for around 55 pesos. Mmm, Banana Coladas are tasty! After a couple of nights free camping along the main strip, we popped into a campground for a night and accidentally ended up staying about a week. We befriended a lovely group of random travellers that were all doing much the same thing as us and just happened where we were! We tended to get up late in the mornings, struggle down to the beach in the afternoons and stay out even later in the evenings - and what do you know, a week flashed by before we knew it.

We said our goodbyes and started north again, stopping off this time in Acapulco. One of the first things we noticed is the crazy buses here – if you are heading to Acapulco anytime soon, check them out. It’s like a nightclub inside – UV lights, strobing neon lights in the shape of a cross, techno music blaring. We laughed when we noticed that the seat behind the bus driver is for “VIPs” (ie his friends or goodlooking girls) rather than for disabled people. We also swam and walked along the beaches, checked out the cliff divers (don’t try this at home), went on a lagoon tour, gorged ourselves on whole fish (found everywhere along the Pacific coast – yum!) and enjoyed plenty of obligatory sunset cocktails.

Next stop was Zihuatanejo (which is the place the final scenes of Shaw Shank Redemption were filmed). More swimming, Mexican food, cheap cocktails, big hairy spiders, etc. Then Barra de Navidad. Ditto. Then Faro de Buccarias. Ditto again, except this time we also snorkelled along the coral reef. Life’s good.

Leaving the beach bum lifestyle to rest for a day or two, we popped into a larger town for a little while - Puerto Vallarta. You can tell there are some serious tourist dollars at play here. The five star hotels, statue lined esplanade and trendy restaurants are a stark contrast to the mainly open beaches we’d been playing in for the previous few weeks. Very close is the Four Seasons Punta Mita, where Danya’s old work friends Alex and Jorge are now working. It was lovely to catch up with them again! It’s made us think about transferring down there – now all we need to do is learn Spanish… I can say “Me casa es su casa” - that’ll do won’t it?

A little further north we stopped by Sayulita for a few nights. Anyone planning a Mexican holiday would be well-advised to stop in here for a while. It’s gorgeous and they have awesome street-side tacos on every corner. Following our counter-tradition of learning to surf outside of Australia only, we hired some surf boards and gave it a good attempt. But we suck, so I don’t think there is a career change ahead for either of us...
We caned it the next couple of hundred miles up towards the US border, crossing in Arizona, marvelling at all the cactuses along the way. These were the cartoon cactuses that I’d been dreaming about, but don’t appear further south. Don’t you just want to hang your sombrero on one?

Speaking of sombreros, some of our friends from Sydney joined up with us for Christmas Day in Tijuana. Tequila bottle in hand, it was always going to be a messy night…

So we left crazy Tijuana and headed for even crazier Las Vegas where we met up with more friends for New Years Eve. Did anyone say more tequila?

And so, with a few less brain cells, we started the next part of our adventure in early January – skiing in Lake Tahoe, California. But that can wait for next time…