Deb's Parents visit Cozumel

We have been travelling in our motorhome for 6 months and planned to get out of it for a time while we scuba dived in Cozumel. Deborah's parents have been building what is supposed to be the last house they will ever live in, while living in their large motorhome. The problem is that constuction delays have pushed them from a fall occupancy to a spring one and while nice, the RV is not that comfortable during the periodic deep freezes in Alberta. They seemed quite happy to enjoy a month of lounging with us by the Caribbean Sea. Judge for yourself.

Agua Azul - And it Is

Activities in the Villages Around St. Chris

Around the St Chris Area

San Christobal de las Casas - Chiapas

We think that the state of Chiapas has been the most interesting of our travels so far. When the majority of people you see from the very young to very old are wearing traditional aboriginal dress of many varieties you know you are infor a treat. This first series of photos shows us at the zocolo or town square. Note what we Deb is wearing at nine in the morning - and we are only a few miles from the Guatamala border.

Zipolite

This might be the best travelers beach anywhere. Zipolite (Zip-o-leet-eh) is near Puerto Angel on the Pacific Coast of Mexico about 6 hours south of Acapulco. It is about 1.5 km long and is lined with extremely inexpensive and rustic bars and resturants. Travellers of all ages and conuntries including Mexico come for the layed back attitude. Towards the north end it is clothing optional and towards the south much more traditional and somewhat mixed in between. The surf here can be deadly slamming the unsuspecting into the sand bottom and other days quite benign. We hung out here for about ten days and went in the water everyday except one, when the volunteer lifeguards posted a red warning flag. They literally pulled someone out of the water every 30 minutes or so with one poor UK traveller air medivaced home paralyzed from the neck down. If you play in the water heed the warnings as they are serious. The evening can be enjoyed eating excellent food drinking cheap drinks and dancing to a variety of live and recorded music. The ultimate chill-out place: sling your hammock under a beach palapa for 30 pesos - that's 3 dollars folks a room might be $15 and that's during the high Christmas season.

Noche de Rabanos

The entire city of Oaxaca is one big festival during the Christmas season with hundreds of food stands, carnival rides, craft markets and parades or posadas every night. Legend has it that 350 years ago two Dominican monks came up with a marketing idea to help indigenous farmers sell their produce. They encouraged the farmers to carve their beets, carrots and radishes into fantastic shapes and thus were born the “Night of the Radishes”. The radishes are specially grown for the occasion and have been heavily fortified to grow to their sometimes-enormous size of 40 inches – needless to say they are not consumable. Since 1897 the management of this special festival was taken over by the municipal government and promoted as a tourist event. Each year on December 23 dozens of displays are set up for the three-hour evening event and thousands upon thousands of people converge on the zocolo to witness these very original folk artworks. Here is but a small sample of the sculptures – my favorite: farm life with tractor.

Mescal and Tequila

There are eight varieties of the maguey plant all of which are used to make mescal, a small-scale artisanal product. Tequila a variety of mescal only permits the use of blue agave maguey exclusively. The process of production is essentially the same with tequila production being much larger in scale. It takes about seven years for the maguey plant to mature and be harvested. The leaves are trimmed off leaving only the “pineapple”. The pineapple is split into quarters and left to dry for about two weeks. The pineapple is then crushed under a millwheel to create fibers, which are then placed in a large barrel with water and allowed to ferment for about two more weeks. The mash is drawn off and distilled in copper kettles producing raw mescal (this is the real porch-climber stuff ) and then aged in barrels, blended etc. While this producer had dozens of crema or flavoured mescals and a respadado the distillery’s 3 year old anejo (aged) mescal reminded me of a very smoky peaty scotch. Worm negotiable.

Hierve el Agua - Frozen Water

Well not really frozen but they are white from all the minerals in the water. They also call it boiling water but really it is carbon dioxide - soda water. This must be the original infinity pool. Photos of the site were first published to the outside world in 1989 and the photographer took them while on a remote mule trek in the mountains searching for remote native culture. It is still quite remote. The ride to the site was up about 4000feet and then over a ridge and down about 3000 feet all on a one lane gravel road. On parts of it I was thinking of possible headlines in Canadian papers - Ok just kidding - barely. We met some very nice people on this tour and hope to tell you more of them sometime in the future.

Santo Domingo Church - Oaxaca

This Dominican Order church and monastery was built between 1570 and 1608 and like all the churches on Oaxaca have thick stone walls – some being in excess of thirty feet according to my estimate. The exterior is fairly austere but the interior cloister and throughout the monastery we start to get hints of the glorious sanctuary of the church itself. Deb and I were wandering around marveling at the paintings and all the gold when we stumbled upon a string trio of musicians standing in a small alcove. We continued wandering around the Alter and a priest came out from behind it and started setting up for a mass. We moved discreetly away just as the trio started playing the wedding march and as the wedding party began their procession. Really quite nice! Note that we are pretty much in the tallest structure in the city. Most buildings are only one or two stories high – wise considering Oaxaca gets over 200 earthquakes per year. Apparently we were there during a 5.2 quake but we were entertaining some friends in the RV at the time and never noticed the shaker.