hannah

In San Cristobal now after seeing Palenque which had many ruins on a mountainside amid jungle. In a Palace building and others there are rooms and corridors intact. I thought for sure there would be booby traps. The drive to San Cristobal de Casas was brilliant. The driver threw his coach around twisty mountain roads and other buses like a touring car. I promise to post Jackie´s photos taken under these conditions soon. Jackie is plotting our next manouevre now while I gaze at the screen. Otherwise I freak like Dustin Hoffman. San Cristobal has eating in beautiful old courtyards and gunshots in the evening. Peaceful unlike Oaxaca which we might have to avoid.

We saw some boys playing a local version of brandy with a soccer ball in the extremely sloping streets of Zacatecas. we walked past them, heading down the hill. suddenly the smallest of the lot came speeding down the cobbled street at a precarious pace, turned a corner, and intercepted the ball coming down an adjacent street- an essential skill for enjoying ball games in this city situated as it is between two very steep hills.

We have flown east to the Yucatan Peninsula where the weather hits you straight away. Muy caliente! Todos, no solo el Chocolate. The Mayans made chocolate but had a real thing for corn. Mayans were created from corn according to Legend. We saw flamingos in Celestun whose legs seem impossibly thin as they wade. We walked along the beach one afternoon as the daily storm began to gather on the horizon. With the sun bearing down on us it began to rain. I think its the first time either of us have got sunburnt in the rain! Over we went to the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza which were well restored and grand and sprawling. The guides show how the sound of a clap reflected from the pyramid there sounds, at a certain spot, like the call of a bird of significance to the Maya. I´m not sure that was by design. Being on a guided tour brought back memories of the information we got from similar experiences in India. There, Krishna was variously reported to have 16 500, or 65 000 girlfriends (milkmaids, I think). We spent time in Tulum on the Carribean coast at Lobo Inn where there is an Italian concierge (Jackie calls him a dogsbody) whose name is Flaco. I nearly laughed at that. Breakfast is served there.

Ours was heralded with "hey australia".

Bananas are cheap cheap cheap here. Less than a dollar a kilo. Luxury. It took a short time for us to prove that we would persevere through sickness as I did indeed disgrace a pot plant in Aguascalientes. Nice gallery there though of lithography by Jose Posada. Gastrolyte is amazing. I was going to puke again the next day until I had some. Zacatecas is a town even higher than Mexico city. That is my excuse for the way we dawdled uphill there. Zacatecas sits between two large, steep hills, so there was a lot of dawdling going on. Found some nice food there at the Cantina Musical. There are stalls there where you get a prickly pear peeled for your immediate consumption. Hazard Free!. Travel tip: Learn Spanish First. No Entiendo!