Long Ago...High on a Mountain in Mexico...

I'm going to continue, if I may, with the travel theme. Tobacco Cuay was wonderful but we did have really freakish weather. I woke during the first night because the wind was so strong it was blowing my bed clothes off. Obviously in my sleep I was only able to hang on for so long. On the boat ride to Tobacco Cuay, the waves were so rough our boat lost it's spare motor. Being a natural to sea travel as I am... anyway... the weather was still awful as we left Tobacco Cuay for the mainland. It was pretty shocking! Bernie and I had bruised butts for days but we managed to keep hold of breakfast. We got to the mainline and the driver cheerfully announces, "Arrive alive". As if this weren't enough, we went to Dangriga airport for a flight to Belize City. I don't like flying at the best of times and I will post the photos of the airport and the plane at some point. I am saying no more than that Susan and Bernie gave me a bravery prize.

We then covered the whole of Belize, giving a number of lifts to Mayan women with children along the way - my only opportunity to speak bad spanish in this country. There were wonderful beaches in Placencia, the Mayan sites of Xunantanich (which was beautiful and perhaps because it was quite free of tourists, very spiritual) and Nim Li Phut, Belize City, and we stayed with Susan and Bernie's friend, Jan, in St Ignacio. Belize has a very caribbean feel, is predominantly english speaking (it was British Honduras until 1984), and there are still mayan communities, mixed groups, and garifuna, from african and caribbean extraction.

Belize is snail paced. Like so many things, you have to be there to really appreciate it, but believe me, Belizians are so laid back it hurts. This didn't just happen once. In a restaurant you might ask, "So the chicken wings...what are they like?" The answer you will get is, "Well...they're like...(pause...incredibly long painful silence, unbelievably long actually...)... they're like...chicken". Ditto the question, "What's in the vegetable burritos?"... really, really, really long pause..."well...vegetables." There's not a hint of irony, I swear.

Just a quick thank you to Jan for putting us up. You were the perfect hoster. Jan likes tortoises, probably more than I do, so we spent many a pleasant hour looking at Galapagos snaps and talking about poor Lonesome George. Susan has known Jan for about 9 years. The day we arrived at Jan's, in fact probably within the first 30 minutes, I saw a plaque on her wall. Now Jan has a very unusual last name. "Jan", I asked, "Do you have a son called John?" "Yes", she said," He works at...". Susan and I have been on a working group with him for about three years. How did Susan not realise that, you may well ask. Much ribbing took place of our canadian chum.

Back on the travel theme for a moment...I forgot to tell you about the bus from Pelileo. I wrote on the blog a few weeks ago about the trial that was my journey with Taiga from Ambato to Banos: this bus goes through the town of Pelileo. When I met Susan and Bernie in Guatemala they informed me that a bus in Ecuador had come off the road killing a number of people. This bus...yes you guessed it...Ambato to Banos via Pelileo. You heard it here first.

And so our journey continued into Mexico. It all went swimmingly across the border as we headed for a few peaceful days by the beach in Tulum. When Susan and Bernie went there 8 years ago it was a hicksville, throw your tent down wherever you want to sleep kind of place. I asked in 18 hotels when we got there and there was absolutely no room at the inn. The hotels stretched the entire length of the beach. It has become a mexican Sandals resort. So we got on another bus, and after a full day of travelling, settled in for an overnight to Merida. Exhausted, now having been on the road for 26 hours, we arrived in Merida and we weren't a bit sorry. It is beautiful. If you get a chance do go. It is a gorgeous colonial town, with leafy streets, great places to eat on lovely squares and very friendly people.

Bernie and I had a day at Chichen Itza. While we were in the midst of the Dark Ages the Mayans were creating the only true writing system native to the Americas, mastered mathematics, invented the basis of the Gregorian calendar system we use today, and understood astonomical positioning better than any other civilisation until after Copernicus. They were also skilled farmers, weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster trade networks with distant communities to strengthen the Mayan Kingdom. Pretty impressive...even if they did think that the world was flat.

The Mayan Calendar, beliefs about the underworld, gods and godesses, and numerical patterns and rituals, has been really interesting to learn about. Their architecture represented all of these beliefs: 9 underworlds and 13 lords of heaven, 9 x 13 = 52. The pyramids had 9 or 13 steps and were rebuilt after 52 years. The structures were built to show, for example at Chichen Itza, the snake god climbing up and then down the side of the pyramid on the spring and fall equinoxes respectively.

And so in the year 7 rabbit, on the day of itzcalli-ceh cuauc nublado (January 6th), we headed to Mexico City.