Safety

We will write more generally about safety later on, but for now let’s focus on Guatemala. We were a bit anxious there at first, having heard all those stories of lawlessness and rampant crime. Here is what the Government of Canada has to say to those planning a visit to the country:

Foreigners are often targets of robbery, carjacking, sexual assault and rape, and armed assaults [...] Avoid low-cost hotels with poor security. Avoid walking after dark. Do not openly display laptop computers, mobile phones, or other electronic devices at any time [...] Avoid travelling in public buses (city or “chicken buses”) at all costs. They are mechanically unsafe, drivers are often unlicensed, and armed robberies on board are common. Public buses are often targeted by gangs who hurl grenades or fire shots as a way of ensuring compliance [...] Never approach or photograph children and women, since many people in Guatemala fear that children are being kidnapped for adoption or for theft of vital organs.

View from Cerro de la Cruz, Antigua

Sorry, Government of Canada, perhaps your intentions are good, but this description is complete and utter nonsense - not to mention an insult to the people of Guatemala. Certainly there is plenty of poverty, and in parts of the capital violent crime and gangland murders are part of the daily routine. But despite the ongoing flood of foreign visitors, attacks on travellers are very rare - even, believe it or not, when these travellers crisscross the country by chicken bus, flashing their fancy iPhones and getting all chummy with the village kids.

Here is an attempt to draft a more practical, less hysterical “travel advisory” for Guatemala:

• Just go. The people are beautiful, friendly, and welcoming. The culture and scenery are world-class, and the prices are laughable.
• Trust your instincts. If you’re uneasy about being somewhere, go someplace else.
• Stay in touch with your surroundings. Talk to fellow travellers. Talk to shop owners. Smile and say hello to the people you meet. When you’re part of the community, it becomes everybody’s job to keep you out of trouble.
• Eliminate 95% of problems by minimizing exposure to drunken crowds and deserted streets. If local children are out in the street, then presumably their parents think it is safe.
• Carry little cash and only those documents that you actually need. If you’re ever confronted, just hand them over - cash and documents are renewable resources.

La Merced, Antigua

Fashion

We won’t bore you with flowery descriptions of traditional Mayan dress. If interested, try the Footprint guidebook - it makes a point of explaining the traditional garb of every village in detail. We were rather more intrigued by contemporary Guatemalan fashion. Boys hold their hair up with enough gel to support the weight of a small refrigerator. New clothing is dominated by those cookie-cutter designs from Hollister and A&F that we’re all too used to seeing on campus in Vancouver. Then there are the so-called “American and European clothing” shops: these are your typical second-hand clothing stores, until you arrive at the T-shirt section. There, every forgotten corporate slogan, community function, and varsity sports team can get a new lease on life. Browse the inventory and be filled with voyeuristic joy as you flip through swag from long-forgotten championship runs by the Fighting Poodles of Lower Glaucoma county, advertisements for Moe’s auto body and muffler repair in St. Paul, and staff uniforms from Paradise golf resort and retirement home in Maui.

"The sky was the limit... at Lauren's Bat Mitzvah!"

Finding good souvenir T-shirts to bring home has so far been difficult. The entertainment value of any particular “American clothing” shirt is limited once it is taken off the rack; the standard tourist fare is usually stupid and always overpriced; and we’re somewhat too old to serve as walking advertisements for Abercrombie and Fitch. The bottom line is, T-shirts just aren’t as much of a cultural icon in Central America as they are in other places.

A Trip to Mickey D’s

Now that's what I call a happy meal

A visit to McDonald’s normally isn’t on the itinerary when we travel, but the branch in Antigua is really worth a look. It spans a very pretty McCourtyard, with a fountain in the centre and the massive bulk of volcan Agua in the background. There is also a large McInternet cafe. From the menu, in addition to the usual staples, you can order bottles of McWater, or upgrade your fries to McPatatas - quite good potato wedges which, for some crazy reason, are not available in North America.

What does a third-world country look like?

If we could definitively answer that question, we’d write the Nobel foundation and demand that they hand over the prize for our contribution to economics. Instead, here are a few observations about Guatemala, and how things work there:

Semuc Champey

• It certainly isn’t uniformly poor. Like everywhere else there is a small rich elite, but there is also a middle class, the working poor, the whole gamut. The economic structure in Guatemala is not as different from the West as one might think.
• All modern products and services are available, but coverage can be patchy. This applies to everything from healthcare and roads to camping gear and imported delicacies. Mobile phone coverage is the exception: every dusty country road in Guatemala has cell coverage, including mobile internet.
• A very lax approach to business (or absence of greed, depending on your viewpoint). My little shop or guesthouse is doing well? Rather than reinvest the profits in expansion or improvement, let’s allow the place to deteriorate a bit, and see if people still come.
• Schooling for children in rural areas lasts for 3-5 years, and even then many of them will have to work in the morning before going to school in the afternoon. One in three rural Guatemalans never learns to read.
• Hordes of well-intentioned foreigners, with all sorts of motivations, running every imaginable community development project from organic agriculture to musical therapy. Some travellers pay a lot of money for the privilege of volunteering in Guatemala. Who these projects are ultimately helping is a question beyond the scope of this blog.

Fun times in Semuc Champey

What do backpackers look like?

We’d like to think that we look like backpackers, especially now that parts of our gear are starting to fall apart and bits of duct tape adorn shoes, clothes, packs, and glasses. Backpackers come in all ages and sizes, and while we’re above the median age, we are by no means an outlier. What mystifies us about the backpacker population is why they are so often tattooed, pierced in strange places, and continuously drawing on their cigarettes (tobacco, unfortunately; it wouldn’t smell as vile if it were pot).

What else? Americans and Canadians are naturally the most dominant groups. The other usual suspects are all represented: Germans and Swiss, Australians and Kiwis, Israelis, Britons, Scandinavians. In addition, there’s a substantial population of Latin Americans on the trail. Travelling with your Macbook by now seems to be completely acceptable (to most people). Work-travel arrangements are far less common in Central America than in richer countries, but many travellers take time to learn the language and/or do volunteer work.

Preparing to gobble up our Aussie burgers, Rio Dulce

Pacaya

Pacaya volcano is quite a sight - or was, until 2010. Lava flows were pretty much continuous, making Pacaya a must-do day trip. Then in May of 2010 the mountain exploded in its biggest eruption to date. Neighbouring villagers, having no time to evacuate, hid under tables while pumice rained down on the countryside. Fortunately no one was killed, and Pacaya, having literally let out some steam, calmed down substantially afterwards. No more lava flows, no more volcanic ash. But the day trip remains as popular now as it was then.

Roasting marshmallows on Pacaya

Ron signed up for the trip alone while Dana was recovering from what we suspect was some tainted salad. The transfer from Antigua was populated by two middle-aged Britons and four Aussies. As soon as we arrived at the trailhead a very aggressive sales pitch began: a group of children bearing heavy wooden staffs swarmed us yelling “Stick sir! Stick! Need a stick?” But buying stuff from street children encourages truancy, and we all opted out.

While shaking off the kids was relatively easy, the cowboys were a lot more persistent. Six young men on horseback started following us up the trail, calling out “Taxi! Hos! Taxi sir!” Presumably, what happens in Pacaya is that many people show up not realizing that climbing a volcano involves some elevation gain (not a lot in this case, just a quick stroll compared to Santa Maria). None of our group took up the offer of the “taxi”, but the men had little else to do, so they followed us halfway up the trail before finally giving up. Hiking up with a pack of horses right on our heels was slightly unnerving and not altogether pleasant.

The only active volcanic feature remaining on Pacaya is a number of steam vents. As we parked by one such vent, our guide pulled out a huge bag of marshmallows and some long wooden skewers, and everyone proceeded to stuff themselves full of lava-roasted marshmallows, all the while professing their dislike of the taste (we’re adults after all, we’re not supposed to gorge ourselves with candy and call it dinner). On the way down we were treated to a dramatic display of lightning bolts attacking the peak of volcan Fuego - certainly more inspiring and less intimidating when watched from a safe distance away.

Lanquin

The pools at Semuc Champey, one of Guatemala’s most famous natural attractions, lie at the end of a very rough dirt road - eleven km and almost a full hour of bumpy riding past the village of Lanquin, which in turn can only be reached by another long section of dirt track. Considering its poor access, Lanquin is actually quite a big place. It is a regional centre for the surrounding villages, and even has two restaurants.

El Retiro lodge, Lanquin

Guatemalan cuisine is quite different from the Mexican, although corn tortillas and beans feature heavily in both. Many dishes are fried: fried chicken, fried plantain, potato fries, fried desserts, fried eggs. Plenty of eggs. And tomatoes. And bread. The food here turns out to be close enough to Israeli home cooking that, once the backpackers started arriving, some of their dishes were adopted locally: shakshuka (eggs and tomatoes), chicken schnitzel, and falafel are all prepared in restaurants and homes.

Lanquin sees enough Hebrew-speaking traffic that the language is spreading, too. Hostel workers and guides would greet us in broken Hebrew and we would respond in broken Spanish, making both parties happy. Usually the conversation would revert to English if any complex ideas had to be conveyed. The native language here is Qeq’chi’, which sounds a bit like Hebrew although the two have no relation whatsoever.

Guatemalan-Israeli fusion menu, Lanquin

Guatemata

From Lanquin we took a shuttle to Rio Dulce, jumping and rattling along a road advertised as the “direct ecological route” to the Caribbean. Like most everything in Guatemala, the tourist shuttles are a bit of a hack: they are sold as a transfer service, and priced accordingly, but ultimately it’s just a guy in a minivan going from A to B (often through C and D) and running whatever errands need to be run - picking up locals for short-haul lifts, delivering groceries, and so on. Any estimate of trip duration should be incremented by two hours and taken with a grain of salt. Our journey included a delivery of eggs to a mining facility, ferrying kids home from school, and a brief reunion with the driver’s nephews in one of the villages. Eventually we descended into the lowland region that Ron insists on calling Guatemata (since “mala” means “upward” in Hebrew, and “mata” is downward), where maize plantations and roaming chickens and pigs are abruptly replaced by cattle ranches.

Kayaking on Rio Dulce

Rio Dulce is where the Guatemalan one-percenters build their vacation homes - not in the town itself, mind you, but on the shores of the river or in little inlets surrounded by lush tropical forest. We stayed in an Australian-run lodge called (somewhat unimaginatively) Hotel Kangaroo - a beautiful spot, built entirely on stilts and accessible only by boat. Their restaurant serves up some of the best Aussie “works” burgers to be found anywhere, let alone in Central America.

We later spent a few hours stranded in the town of Livingston, waiting for the boat to take us to Belize. Livingston seems to underwhelm most visitors, which is why we had decided not to stay there. Having seen it briefly, perhaps we should at least have spent the night. A Garifuna town (rather than Ladino or Maya), it looks and feels, and tastes and sounds, different from anywhere else in Guatemala. We will add it to the “to do” pile for next time.

Tapado, a traditional Garifuna soup, Livingston

More photos from Guatemala here.

Next report: old memories and new adventures in a strange little nation.

Location

Xela (pronounced “shella”), officially Quetzaltenango, Guatemala’s second city and capital of the defunct “sixth state of the highlands”. Xela was our first stop in Guatemala, following several recommendations. We stayed for twelve days.

Xela, view from El Baúl

Xela feels like a real place, as opposed to a show put on for the tourists. There is a sizable population of gringos to be sure, but the vast majority of passersby are quetzalteco locals, and they have better stuff to do than chase after travellers to try and sell them necklaces or tours. They will usually take time to greet a stranger on the street, though. The city is safe, fun to walk around, and surrounded by some amazing highland scenery. On the down side, it’s rather polluted, and the weather tends to alternate between “quite cold” and “quite wet”.

Chicken bus blues...

Language

We signed up for Spanish classes, like just about every other traveller to Guatemala. You can study Spanish anywhere, but Guatemala is a centre for Spanish teaching and learning, mainly because classes here are really cheap. We studied at an institution called El Portal, staying with a lovely local family and receiving private tutoring for five hours a day.

Xela, from the garden at El Portal

Afternoons were spent exploring the region or tracking down the best coffee, chocolate, and pastries in town. Xela does lose some of its authenticity when you step into downtown delis or entertainment spots, but you won’t hear the quetzaltecos complaining about the abundance of fair-trade coffee and organic sandwiches. There’s no shortage of deep-fried tostadas and other street food, either.

With our hosts Esperanza and Gerrardo

You can learn a lot of Spanish in a week. By now we are somewhat able to engage in small talk, rather than just ask for directions and order food. Interesting words we learned include the verb comerse, meaning “to eat oneself” (used for nail biters) and anteojos (eyeglasses, sounds like Antiochus). Dana complained about the excessive complexity of the word entonces (English: so; French: donc; Hebrew: az). The lovely pidgin expression “Yalla, let’s vamos” was an instant hit.

On the trail to Laguna Chicabal

Since time is short and the travel bug is biting, we decided not to stay on, but may yet sign up again someplace else if the opportunity presents itself.

Expedition

The Central America trip was supposed to be about palm-fringed beaches, hikes in the jungle and plenty of tropical fish and fruit. So why are we cowering in a tent nearly 4,000 meters above sea level, bundled up in borrowed down jackets and praying that the lightning storm would pass without turning our pathetic encampment into a pile of charred debris?

Early morning, Santa Maria volcano

An interesting question, but let’s start at the beginning. Santa Maria is a huge volcanic cone towering over Xela. In 1902, after centuries of silence, it erupted big time, showering the city with ash and killing over 5,000 people. The mayor tried to minimize damage to the city’s reputation by hiding the catastrophe from the rest of the world, which of course only made matters worse. How he expected to pull this off when the ash cloud reached as far away as northern California is not clear. Anyway, following the eruption the volcanic hot spot moved to a newborn mountain called Santiaguito, which has been spewing ash and lava ever since. Santa Maria now sits on a huge empty caldera and is expected to eventually collapse, but that might take some time - a year, a hundred years, ten thousand years, it’s hard to say.

Santa Maria casts a triangular shadow over its surrounds

We went up Santa Maria with a group organized by Quetzaltrekkers, a nonprofit that raises money for street children. Eleven of us boarded the chicken bus around noon for the short ride to the trailhead, then followed the route up the volcano, stopping to say hi to villagers who were coming down the mountain loaded with firewood for sale. Heavy packs and thin air made for slow going, but by late afternoon everyone was at the top (which is the single flat spot on the mountain), trying to catch glimpses of scenery through the cloud cover.

Starting out

The peak and its surroundings were a veritable garbage dump. So depressing. We collected some garbage on the way down, but it’s a drop in the bucket (or a grain of sand, to use the more optimistic Spanish expression). We shared the peak with a Guatemalan family on a camping trip, a dog called Galletas (Cookies) who frequently escorts groups up and down the mountain, and a team of local youths who had no tents or sleeping bags, but did have some tarps, a number of machetes that they used to chop down an entire tree for firewood, and a large quantity of gasoline.

Before the storm

Dinner was interrupted by pouring rain and rolling thunder, sending most people into their tents, except for a couple who decided not to care. The prudent thing to do given the lighting storm was to evacuate the peak and retreat into the trees, but in the cold and rain this option seemed even less appealing than getting struck by lighting. So we stayed, and reflected on how our “training” with the Varsity Outdoor Club helps deal with such situations with a lot more humour than we would have had otherwise. Everyone survived the storm, as well as the second one that followed later that night. The local kids also weathered the storm well despite their encampment turning into a large mud pool.

The Santiaguito show

By 2 a.m. the skies had cleared, and the two of us ventured out of the tent to watch Santiaguito put on its show. From the peak of Santa Maria you can see about half of Guatemala, from the Pacific coast almost to the capital, and it’s easy to understand why Santiaguito is considered one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes. Every few minutes the mountain would rumble, whistle like a kettle, then explode with lava and huge clouds of ash. A few hours later the whole troop was up to watch the sunrise, the volcano, and the gradual unveiling of the landscape around. In the distance we could see a second puff of ash rising over Fuego, another of Guatemala’s three active volcanoes.

The breakfast show

Eventually we tore ourselves from the site and returned to the city in time to clean up and eat a very late lunch, before hitting the pub scene to watch the Superbowl. For once, downtown Xela was completely overrun with gringos - few of whom had any interest in American football, but it was as good an excuse to get wasted as any.

Celebration

Just one festival this time - the celebration of the Virgen de Candelaria, in the village of San Juan Ostuncalco. Mountains of loudspeakers were set up in two locations in the village square, apparently by adherents of the “no such thing as too much bass” school of sound design. The noise was deafening. One location hosted an amusing dance by figures in over-the-top gladiator outfits and monster masks. We kept expecting Xena the Warrior Princess to make an appearance. The other stage was placed directly outside the entrance to the church, and featured traditional music that could have been pleasant if not for that disastrous bass. The scene inside the church was actually quite profound, with candles everywhere and long lines of people waiting to make an offering to the image of the Virgin Mary.

Fiesta of the Virgen de Candelaria

Religion

It’s interesting to see what passes for Christianity in the Mayan villages. Catholicism is already one of the more colourful denominations, but its Mayan interpretation is not something the Pope would likely recognize or condone. Religious icons span everything from mainstream saints to fantastic underworld creatures. On Santa Maria, live chickens are brought to the summit and sacrificed in a makeshift altar. These altars are everywhere - we also saw them at Laguna Chicabal, where flowers and other offerings are placed daily by the water, and at Fuentes Georginas, where the ritual is followed by a relaxing bath in the hot springs. Sure beats Sunday school!

Fuentes Georginas

More photos from Xela here.

Hello from Xela, Guatemala! This second and final Mexican installment covers our all-too-brief visit to the state of Chiapas.

Zapatismo

In prehistoric times before broadband internet, my grandfather would pass me his copy of Time magazine every week, and I would read the thing from cover to cover. Because of this, Chiapas was one of the few places in Mexico that I was aware of prior to this trip.

In 1994 a young ideologue known as Sub-Comandante Marcos led an armed uprising of indigenous farmers in Chiapas against the Mexican government. The Zapatista insurgency was quickly put down, but the social problems that gave rise to it never went away, and neither did the Zapatistas. These days, the organization known as EZLN seems to encompass everything from social activists in the cities to armed bandits in the jungle.

The cathedral in San Cristobal de las Casas

Our own encounters with the Zapatistas were completely benign. Their political wing operates freely, and EZLN-branded souvenirs are everywhere, with Che Guevara’s portrait often pasted next to the masked figure of Sub-Comandante Marcos for good measure. A Zapatista-affiliated “cultural center” in San Cristobal doubles as a very handy restaurant.

Tierradentro, a Zapatista restaurant in San Cristobal

We did take some precautions to avoid running into the other aspect of the movement. The green hills around San Cristobal were practically screaming to be climbed, but we couldn’t find anyone in the city who thought this would be a good idea. A few people who ventured out there either got lost or got robbed, and guided trips from the city tend to stay on the routes connecting different settlements rather than head for the peaks. The hiking plan was thus grudgingly abandoned, to be picked up again when the odds are more in our favour.

Festival Season

By sheer luck, we arrived in Chiapas during peak festival season. Latin America is very serious about its festivals: typically, every village will have its own fiesta, its own customs, and its own unique dress. We visited two events, both taking place as part of the festival of San Sebastian. In Zinacantan, everyone was out on the street in their traditional costume (worn even when there’s no festival on), a blue-and-purple embroidered garment with or without tassels attached. A sort of street parade was taking place: first it was cowboys riding horses at top speed back and forth, miraculously managing to avoid trampling any of the children. This was followed by a group of villagers dressed up as jaguars and other creatures, marching backwards (for some reason) through the street, banging drums and mimicking animal calls.

Traditional dress in Zinacantan

That event was relatively tame compared to the situation in Chiapa de Corzo the following day. The parachicos tradition commemorates a time following the Spanish conquest when indigenous men were forbidden from entering the cities, occasionally managing to sneak in by dressing up as women. The tradition involves villagers dressing up in colorful tunics, blond helmet-shaped wigs, and full face masks, marching through the streets with noisemakers and gladly posing for pictures with the hordes of mostly domestic tourists who flock to see the event. Eventually all the parachicos attempt to fit into the local church simultaneously for a religious-service-come-dance-extravaganza.

Hats off to the Chiapanecos for putting on one hell of a show.

Parachicos and viajeros

Basura

Basura - Spanish for “garbage” - is one of the first words we learned, due to its frequent appearance on trash cans and on highway signs imploring people not to throw their refuse out the window. The signs aren’t working. The amount of wayside garbage in some places is staggering - easily worse than anything in Israel, and approaching the regrettable situation we witnessed in Romania.

In an ironic twist, the prime natural attraction that draws tourists to the state of Chiapas is also a focal point for garbage. The Cañon del Sumidero is a beautiful sight, so long as you only gaze upward from the water at the kilometer-high cliffs above. At water level, it might as well be a repository for empty beverage containers. The configration of water currents in the area ensures that floating garbage from Chiapas and parts of Guatemala arrives at the Cañon del Sumidero and stays there, overwhelming the government’s permanent cleaning operation. Our guide explained that the only solution to the problem is to change people’s attitudes. Or at least that’s what we think he said - he was speaking in Spanish, and our listening comprehension skills are very rudimentary.

Cañon del Sumidero

So much floating garbage...

Palenque

Palenque is a beautifully restored Maya city surrounded by thick jungle, with an interesting museum and trails in the forest. A small settlement near the ruins (just a group of lodges, really) called El Panchan draws the alternative crowd like a magnet. El Panchan is a good place to enjoy the sights and sounds of the jungle, but it was somewhat too small and quiet for us - not exactly a happening place, so we moved on after just one night. Perhaps we’d appreciate the place more had we not turned down the offer to buy LSD from the guy standing near the gate. As we later learned, there are also psychoactive mushrooms to be had in Palenque, and they are said to be some of the best on the market.

Temple of the Sun, Palenque

Trip Aids

This is our first time traveling with a Footprint guidebook (the Central America Handbook 2011 edition). Normally we are Rough Guide types, falling back on Lonely Planet when no Rough Guide is available. The Handbook is a compact, hardcover package with flimsy pages and somewhat more detail than the competition, but it is organized in an strange manner, and occasionally not organized at all. For some reason the editors chose to separate the descriptive sections from the “listings”, so to answer the question “do I want to visit this place and if so how do I get there” you need to flip back and forth between two locations in the book. They are also rather stingy with maps, choosing instead to spend their real estate on free-text descriptions of relationships that a small map would make abundantly clear. A characteristic passage reads:

The Pan-American Highway heads west out of the capital passing through Chimaltenango and on to Los Encuentros where it turns north for Chichicastenango, Santa Cruz del Quiche, Nebaj and the Ixil Triangle, and south for Solola and the Lake Atitlan region. It continues to the western highland region of Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan, Huehuetenango and the Cuchumatanes Mountains.

The office at Margarita and Ed's, El Panchan

There are also occasional typos, sites of interest appearing only in the “getting around by bicycle” section, local words used without explanation (such as “zocalo” and “huipiles”), and other glitches. We picked up an abandoned copy of the 2010 Lonely Planet Guide in Isla Mujeres, for use when the Handbook’s prose becomes too obscure.

Another travel aid we used is a set of audio lessons in Spanish. We started going through them prior to the start of the trip, but didn’t get very far. The vocabulary is apparently tuned for romantic encounters, focusing on statements such as “let’s go have a beer, I’ll pay” and “my husband isn’t here, we have one hour”.

Agua Azul

More Chiapas photos here.

Next report: ground-level Guatemala.

Hola a todos!

A first update from Central America, covering the Yucatán peninsula and concerned mostly with food.

Tulum

Our Route (the boring stuff)

We landed in Cancun after a 24-hour bus-and-plane ordeal (including a drenching walk through downtown Seattle), and immediately boarded the ferry to Isla Mujeres. We spent two nights in Isla, two in Tulum, two in Valladolid, and four in Mérida before taking the night bus southwest to Palenque.

Maya Ruins

The Classic Maya clearly didn’t have the interest of tourists in mind when constructing their cities. They built scores of different sites, in highly inaccessible places, and gave them names such as Dzibilchaltun, Chunhuhub, and Kohunlich.

Ruins of Tulum

Sticking to locations that we’re somewhat able to pronounce, we visited Tulum, Chichen Itza, Ek’ Balam, and Palenque. The former two are saturated with tourists, and for good reason. Tulum sits on a cliff overlooking a magnificent Caribbean beach. All the structures are roped off, so swimming in the sea was probably the highlight of that particular visit.

Ready for some snorkel action

Chichen Itza has an eminently photogenic giant pyramid that appears on every other T-shirt sold in Cancun. But what the photos cannot show is the amazing acoustic design of the site: face the pyramid and clap your hands, and the resulting echo sounds like a bird’s call (a quetzal, to be exact). The site also includes a ball court - another acoustic marvel - where elite players would compete in a game somewhat similar to basketball. At the end of the game, the captain of the winning team was sacrificed to the gods. The Mayans sure knew how to motivate their professional athletes.

Chichen Itza - pyramid of Kukulcán

Ek’ Balam is another ruin, which relatively few people bother to visit. As in most smaller sites, visitors are free to clamber over the pyramids and other structures to their heart’s content. Palenque, surrounded by jungle and well out of range for package tourists, is a real gem, but it’s not strictly speaking in the Yucatán and therefore doesn’t belong in this report.

Ruins of Ek' Balam

Drinking Coconut price index

Grand Cenote (near Tulum): 30 pesos

Ek’ Balam: 20 pesos

Progreso (beach town north of Mérida): 20 pesos

Oxkutzcab (farm town south of Mérida): asking price was 6 pesos, but the transaction was complicated by the vendor’s shaky grasp of basic mathematics. He handed us 37 pesos change from a 50 peso bill, and when we protested he examined the coins, thought about it some, and gave us another 10 peso coin. We gave him back two pesos and departed, leaving the confused entrepreneur to try and figure out what just happened.

More snorkel fun in Grand Cenote

Tortillaland

In 2010, UNESCO added traditional Mexican cooking to its list of “Intangible Cultural Heritage”. You could argue that all of Mexican cuisine is a collection of variants of one single dish, but wow, is that dish ever tasty. We’re finally able to explain the difference between tacos, enchiladas, fajitas and tortillas. Still not sure about sopes vs. tacos, though.

Cheapo salbutes at the food court in Valladolid

The Yucatán region has its own variations on the main theme. We especially liked their salbutes, but the panuches weren’t bad either. We signed up for a cooking lesson in Mérida, learning how to make sopa de lima and pollo pibil. It was delicious, but not likely to become a house staple, since some ingredients are hard to acquire outside Yucatán.

Fresh fruit paleta, Progreso beach

Other observations regarding Mexican food: much of their diet seems to consist of snacking, which may explain why body shapes tend to range from robust to obese. Drinks are loaded with sugar, particularly local favourites horchata (rice flour and coconut, pretty good) and jamaica (hibiscus tea, pretty bad). Fried cow udder is quite tasty. Mérida has a large enough Lebanese diaspora that some of their food has been adopted by the natives, with street vendors selling kibbe stuffed with spicy coleslaw. Some of the local beer is quite drinkable (Negra Modelo in particular).

Roasting banana leaves for pollo pibil

Hawkers

“Merengue merengue!” cries the hawker walking back and forth on the beach in Progreso. Mexicans naturally love meringue, essentially pure puffed sugar. The next hawker tried to sell us a hammock (hamaca), but hammocks vary widely in quality and thus not a good choice for an impulse buy. He then offered to sell us cigars instead. That didn’t fly either.

Cenote Zaci, Valladolid

Grid Cities

Yucatán’s main settlements, Mérida and Valladolid, are arranged in massive grids. So is Vancouver, but whereas we find Vancouver very easy to navigate, Mérida and Valladolid can be disorienting and vaguely claustrophobic. Back-to-back building facades line the streets, all roughly the same height and with very few obvious landmarks. Streets are numbered, with even numbers running north-south and odd numbers running east-west.

Dana and Yaqing in downtown Valladolid

Navigation woes aside, both towns are quite appealing, with the sometimes-crumbling facades giving way to beautiful inner courtyards if you bother to peek inside. Mérida is a city a million strong and drawing new foreign settlers by the boatload. Valladolid is like a smaller, more relaxed Mérida, with a cenote (swimming hole) bang in the centre of town. It’s still a bit of a backwater: when we asked a local in Tulum what’s the best way to get to Valladolid, his answer was - “drunk and destitute”.

Downtown Mérida at night

More photos from Yucatán here.

Next update: Zapatista sympathizers and bizarro-world village festivals in Chiapas.

Quick Geography Lesson

We had some trouble explaining to people where we’d gone this time, and why. The first question is explored in this report. The second is discussed in various philosophical and psychological textbooks; if you’re too lazy to read them, feel free to come up with your own explanation.

Our destination was the islands of Mauritius and Réunion, collectively known as the Mascarenes. The area of Mauritius is about 2,000 sq. km, while Réunion is a bit larger. For comparison, Israel’s area is either 20,000 or 28,000 sq. km (depending on your political views), about half of which is desert. The population of Mauritius and Réunion is about 1.2 and 0.8 million people respectively, so for that “deserted island” experience it’s best to go elsewhere.

No one had much use for the islands until the Europeans started conquering (and trashing) the planet for the Greater Glory of Whatever Despot Happens To Be In Power. Starting from the 17th century, they brought in African slaves - and later Indian almost-slaves - to grow sugar cane and other crops. Today, Réunion is an overseas territory of France, with a poulation consisting of Africans, mainland French, and everything in between. Mauritius is an independent nation with a (usually) happy mix of Indians, Africans, and French. Prices in the islands are not always cheap, but definitely not in millionaire-playboy territory. Our costs for a double room including breakfast ranged between €35 and €80 (and that was for a huge beachside “sunset room” overlooking the best scenery on the island). A full-day boat trip costs around €30 per person.

Holy Mary Poppins

Piton de la Fournaise (Furnace Peak) is a huge active volcano in Réunion. It erupts pretty regularly and gives the locals something to fuss about. To our great distress it did NOT erupt during our visit. In fact, when we drove up the mountain to stay a night at the Gite du Volcan, it was so thoroughly covered in cloud that we couldn’t see 20 meters ahead. Well, maybe next time...

In April 2007 a major eruption sent flows of lava down the mountain and into the sea, covering the main road around the island on the way. As of Oct 2007, The road was still closed. For some reason, the authorities in Réunion see this not as a potential tourist attraction, but as a serious transportation problem. Construction crews are on site trying to rebuild the road, just like they did back in 2004, and 2002, and 1997, etc etc...

La Vierge au Parasol is a famous statue of the Virgin Mary under an umbrella, presumably trying to protect herself from the volcano (like Wile E. Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons!) In 2002 the statue was evacuated shortly before it would have been covered by red hot lava, and many of the island’s Catholics converted to Hinduism (or not).

Unholy Levantine Tourists

Our first destination in Réunion was the town of Hell-bourg, named after the famous governor Anne Chrétien Louis de Hell. Most people in Réunion don’t find the name funny or strange. That’s because they don’t speak a word of English. It’s either French or hand gestures, mate! Actually their native language is a French-influenced Creole, but they all speak normal French (with a funny accent) as well. In Mauritius the situation is more complicated, but simpler for the francophonically-challenged. The official language is English, and everybody speaks it reasonably well. Amongst themselves they speak either Creole or French.

But back to the subject of Hell. In a lovely picnic spot on the south coast of Réunion we were approached by an elderly woman. After a short interview, she proceeded to give a lecture explaining how all the world’s ills - from disease to war to global warming - result from the work of Le Diable. Of course the only way to fight the influence of the devil is to accept Christ the savior, yadda yadda yadda. Dana was wearing a look that was supposed to convey “What the f***”, but looked more like “Oh, this is very interesting, please go on!” Eventually Ron cut in and said that we’re not interested, at which point we were both immediately identified as “Complices du Diable”. Ron confirmed that we were, in fact, in league with Satan, which got her promptly off our backs. We ended up calling each other “Accomplice du Diable” for the rest of the week.

It turns out that someone had videotaped the crackpot, the sermon and the setting, and put it on the net. Now you can learn all about how the entire French political elite are “Complices du Diable”.

Croc, Monsieur

La Vanille is an interesting farm/zoo on the south coast of Mauritius. You can (and we did) eat sweet-and-sour crocodile salad, learn about tropical flora and fauna, and get up close with giant tortoises.

When the first settlers arrived in the Mascarenes they found the place literally covered by giant tortoises. In some places you could walk 100 steps on the backs of these animals without touching the ground. The settlers happily set about capturing them all, and in a few decades the entire population became extinct.

If you’re wondering what use an 80-kg human might have for so many 250-kg reptiles, the answer is that if you put a few tortoises on a ship, you have a supply of fresh meat for several months. We don’t know about the taste, but for sailors the alternatives were much less appealing.

Two populations of giant tortoises managed to survive - the famous one in the Galapagos, and the much larger one in Seychelles. At La Vanille there’s a breeding program for Seychelles tortoises, with about 100 of them crawling around in an open “savannah”. Visitors are allowed to touch them, sit on their back, and basically do whatever they like, except scratch the shells with a rock (there’s a sign telling people not to do that, can you believe?!)

Creole Food

Curiously, the first three times we were served Creole food, it was exactly the same food: chopped sausages, white rice with legumes, chou-chou pie. Eventually we found that they do have some variety in their cuisine. Here’s a quick glossary of Creole food.

• “Tomates”: looks and sounds like tomato salad, but it’s actually a very potent chilli sauce. Should not be tried without a drink handy.
• Chou-chou: a local vegetable, kind of a cross between potato and zucchini. Used in pies and gratins, but also in cakes, confiture, and what not.
• Rhum arrangé: a homemade drink of rum and tropical fruit.

• Ananas: is there any language except English in which this fruit is NOT called ananas? Anyway, one of the goals for this trip was to eat lots of tropical fruit, and we’re glad to say that we ate ananas almost every day. It goes great in everything from cocktails to kebabs.
• Thailand: packaged tropical produce (e.g. coconut cream, fruit juice) is almost invariably imported from Thailand (6,000 km away). The same phenomenon was observed in the Cook Islands (11,500 km from Thailand).
• “Malta”: non-alcoholic beer marketed by Guinness. Tastes like dead tortoise juice.
• Chicken: with much of the population of Mauritius either Hindu or Muslim, the business case for selling beef and pork is a little shaky. Many places stay on the safe side by just selling chicken. It’s completely voluntary though - no one is going to bother you for eating the wrong animal.

Road Rules - Réunion

1. Road shoulders are for wimps. There are no wimps (and no shoulders) in Réunion.
2. Bus drivers must fold their side mirrors before going into a tunnel, or risk losing them.
3. Beware of: blind curves, Parisian drivers, lava flows.

Road Rules - Mauritius

1. Dogs have right of way, followed by pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, buses, tractors with huge loads of sugar cane, and cars.
2. Driving is on the left - except when a bus is blocking the way, in which case driving is on the right, or on the sidewalk, or wherever you have to go to overtake the damn bus.
3. The horn is your friend; use it as often as possible. Remember - honking means “hello”.
4. The placing of speed bumps at every opportunity is required by law. Speed bumps keep children safe and auto mechanics employed. The height of a speed bump shall be no less than 0.5 m.
5. All buses must be decorated with dopey messages such as “have a lovely day”.

The Hall of Shame

1. Spending 17 hours in airplanes just to get to the islands.
2. Nearly freezing at night in the mountains of Réunion. Tropical island my arse! Where’s that global warming when you need it.
3. Walking 2 hours in deep mud to see a waterfall that looked much nicer on Google.
4. Sleeping in the third-floor bunk bed just below the ceiling, at Caverne Dufour guesthouse in Réunion; waking up at 3 a.m. because the other 18 people in the room are off to see the sunrise from the highest peak on the island (of course we went too).
5. Warding off taxi drivers, shopkeepers, necklace makers and other nuisances in Mauritius.
6. Listening to 1,200 in-flight messages on the way from Paris to Tel Aviv, each repeated in French, English, Hebrew, Japanese, and Spanish.

See more photos from Réunion and Mauritius here.