HI there,
Last time I had just arrived in Belize. After 1 week on a tiny island there, I headed North into Mexico and spent 3 weeks getting across from the scorching Yucutan Penninsular to choking Mexico City via various interesting mountain towns and colonial cities.
Belize (previously British Honduras)
Spent a week on Caye Caulker, a few km long but only 200m across, a sort of really laid back place with loads of snorkelling opportunities. And they speak English! Paradise in so many ways...
Plus points
- Nurse sharks, up to 2m long, cruise the reef and shallows. They have unusual tails for sharks, long and wavy, plus really small eyes. A few of us went out with an old guy on a boat who claimed he was best friend of the family that lived in that area having rescued one years ago and these were the descendents. I took that with a large pinch of seawater as we snorkelled around the boat watching these timid creatures. Then he got in and they went straight up to him and swum next to him, following him around for the next hour, even though he wasn’t feeding them. I don’t normally touch anything alive underwater as they are wild animals, but these sharks seemed to be loving the attention, being stroked and not caring if they bumped into us or we into them. Sharks are great fish, I wouldn’t describe them as friendly, but then there are always exceptions!
- Manatees (dugongs, sea cows) – odd animals a bit like sea lions only much slower. They are quite rare and didn’t get to see a great deal of them but I can tell you that they are bulky with noses like cows and tails like semi-circular fans. Unexciting? Definitely. But interesting just ‘cos they’re different!
- Sting rays – huge flying saucers over 1m diameter plus another metre for the tail. Beautiful to watch in motion as they flap their wings so gracefully as they swarmed around us in the shallows. They are not dangerous unless you stand on the sting, which is at the base of the tail. However, when they form a carpet around your feet it is difficult not to stand on them, though luckily I didnt stand on the wrong bit!
- Coral, large green moray eels, spotted eagle rays, queen trigger fish (possibly the most beautiful fish I have encountered), dolphins and disco fish (small dark fish inlaid with bright blue luminous jewels). And stacks more – great snorkelling.
- Last, smallest, slowest but definitely the most surprising: sea horses. Just 5-7cm high they cling underwater to small branches with their tail and hang on as they are weak swimmers. They come in brown, yellow and orange and are as an intricately designed as I could imagine (like one of those airfix kits with tiny parts where most of the glue ends up between your fingers), with (relatively) enormous snouts. The males look after the fertilised eggs in a pouch so it is they that are pregnant (don’t go getting any ideas now…)
Minus Stuff
- its expensive – but then it’s worth it. After all it is Paradise! - did I mention that already?
Mexico
Large parts of Mexico are the same as Central America but with (a lot) more VW Beetles. However, some parts are a little different.
Expected bits
Mexico has been populated for about 20,000 years by Asians who crossed the land bridge across the Bearing Strait during the last ice age. About 1,200BC they started forming organised, structured civilisations, the first of these being the Olmecs (at their height 1,200BC to 900BC) followed by numerous others, the most famous being Mayas (peaked 250AD – 900AD) and Aztecs (peaked 1400AD – 1519AD). Despite having a capital city of 200,000 people (built where Mexico City is today) the Aztecs could not resist a small force of Spaniards who arrived in 1519 and within 2 years had dismantled the whole civilisation. Each civilisation left its own cities and buildings celebrating their beliefs, gods and religious practices. The most impressive being:
- Chichen Itza (Maya with Toltec influence) with magnificent pyramid and a huge ballcourt where a rubber ball would have to be put through a hoop by use of elbows and hips only in the lowest scoring game ever. One goal would determine the winner and the losing captain (or sometimes the winning captain) would be sacrificed.
- Palenque (Maya) – Surrounded by jungle, the pyramids here contain tombs (very unusual in this continent).
- Uxmal (Maya) – More Pyramids and complex geometric patterns, plus rain gods with noses like elephants trunks.
- Teotihuacan – Including the 3rd largest pyramid in the world built around 300AD.
Unfortunately the Spanish built over or destroyed most of the Aztec sites although there are a lot of buildings underneath colonial Mexico City.
- There are of course plenty of colonial towns with fantastic buildings, plazas and cathedrals and streets on a grid system – the Spanish were advanced at town planning.
- With total Spanish control the indigenous people were reduced to the bottom of the society, a place they still firmly occupy. Odd (and sad) that the peoples who built such great civilisations thousands of years ago, now live at an economic and artistic level below that which they had then.
Unexpected bits
- Cenote snorkelling – most of the Yucutan Penninsular (the bit that sticks out to the east) is flat limestone with hardly any surface water. The water has formed numerous caves and caverns underground, the tops of which have collapsed and become accessible through vents. Snorkelling through tiny caves, cramped between floor, roof, stalagmites and stalactites and often squeezing through minute gaps (at water surface level) is a weird experience.
- Off the Pacific coast in deep water on a boat we saw manta rays launching themselves out of the water several metres into the air before crashing back into the water in an uncontrolled dive. We jumped in the water and I came across a huge ‘shoal’ of about 200 manta rays each about 1m across just a couple of metres below me – incredible sight.
- The biggest single biomass in the world (or so they claim). Its just a tree, 42m high, 58m truck circumference and a total volume (presumable including root system) of 817,000m3. And it is over 2,000 years old.
- Sleeping in hammocks for a while (it was cheap, and Yucutan peninsular isn’t, but it is warm at night). Got fed up of it after a while and went back to sleeping in dorms.
- The indigenous Zatopec people commenerate the uprising in 1990’s by selling dolls with guns dressed all in black plus balaclavas – very striking and surely an angle the Barbie doll people have missed!
- We visited a church in an indigenous village. The locals were forced to convert to Catholicism when the Spanish arrived, but this church suggest otherwise. Firstly, from the outside it is a normal church. Inside it is completely empty of furniture other than a small altar and 22 saints in glass cases around the walls (no seating at all). At the focus of the building stands St John the Baptist who is the local patron saint and the centre of any formal worship (Jesus ranks about 5th). The building is choked with incense smoke. Pine needles cover the floor giving a feel of nature whilst people sit on the floor in small groups staring at large groups of candles of differing colours, each colour referring to a part of the body that they are praying for. If you are very ill then a live chicken is used and waved over the candles, then often sacrificed. Each saint has a 3 day festival with much smoke, incense, fireworks and a procession where they take him ‘out for a walk’ around the church square. And most surprising of all the whole ‘congregation’ are in church drinking coca-cola, pepsi and fanta as they have been told by the marketing men that these drinks help you burp which releases the evil spirits from within. Clearly indigenous religion practiced under a thin veil of Catholicism with more than a hint of ‘Well what did the Spanish ever do for us?’ Monty Python couldn’t have done it better.
- Mexico City – A sprawling megopolis of over 22 million people. However it is not as bad as I thought. Most of it is like any other very busy modern city but with a liberal dusting of smog and an even liberaler scattering of VW Beetles.
Other things I learned during this trip:
- It is possible to fit 32 people and all their luggage in and on a 15 seat minibus.
- ‘Carga Larga’ is a long load and not a type of beer.
- ‘No Banarse’ is not an organisation in favour of liberalisation of nudity (it just means No Bathing).
- A ‘Joyeria’ is a jewellers, not a brothel.
And a bit about the food
- If that damp rag aroma of another tortilla catches my nostrils, I will puke. Before this trip I used to like them!
And so fearing the tortillas may rise up and rebel, I caught a flight back to London and home where I will be for a while at least. If you want to meet up for a pint of lager, rice, beans and tortillas, then sod off. If you can stretch to real English beer and cashew nuts then mail me!!
See ya
Luv
Pete
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