.jpg)
We arrived in
Mexico in the afternoon on Saturday 26th April. This was to be our last border crossing in Central
America. The Mexican immigration was big and modern. We’d heard stories that it
can get super busy however the place was virtually empty. Whilst the building
was impressive, the entrance stamp certainly wasn’t. They had appeared to have
run out of ink but were continuing to stamp passports producing the most
faintest of marks. Over the last 8 months I have become increasingly proud of
my stamps and enjoyed pouring over them every week or so. Border crossings
excited me greatly with the prospect of getting a snazzy new entrance or exit
stamp. You can therefore imagine my disappointment at this most pathetic of
stamps and Kyle had to wrestle my passport off me to stop me from tracing over
it. Not a good idea, he said.
.jpg)
We got back on the same chicken bus that had picked us up back in Belize City and drove another 20 minutes to Chetumal. We gazed out the window, somehow not really believing we were in Mexico! We noticed all the Spanish signs again and tried to get our brains back into gear. After a short taxi ride to another bus terminal we booked ourselves onto a 4 hour bus north east along the coast to Tulum. At the check in desk we realised that we had gone forward an hour – it would have been more useful to gain an hour on a travel day. We would now be arriving in Tulum later; we hadn’t booked a hostel so didn’t really want to be roaming the streets at night!
This bus was
much more luxurious than that chicken bus we had been on. The air conditioning
seemed to be set at about -5. Brrrr….
We finally
arrived at The Weary Traveller hostel, very aptly named, not too late around
9pm. As we walked through the kitchen and common space area we spotted Anna,
our lovely friend who we’d first met back in February in Panama and then more
recently in Utila! What a small world! She was with some others who had also
been in Utila with her. We had a Utila contingent and began preaching to all
the other travellers who would listen about just how wonderful this little
island was!
.jpg)
.jpg) |
| Kyle loved the 'walk in' freezer |
We finished our
long day off with a fabulous Thai from a restaurant round the corner where we
drank Corona beer out of mugs and then had a cocktail on a swing whilst
watching a folk/gipsy band. We had arrived. Bliss.
Tulum sits on
the east side of the Yucatan peninsula, which separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico . The Peninsula comprises a significant proportion of
the ancient Maya sites.
The indigenous Maya make up a sizable portion of the region's population,
and Mayan languages are widely spoken there.
We went to visit the Tulum ruins on the first day.
Having recently visited the mighty
Tikal in Guatemala, Tulum certainly didn’t have the same grandiose structures
however the location is really quite special. The ruins sit right on the
cliffside, looking out over the beautiful turquoise Caribbean sea. It is
believed to have been an important port town during AD 1200 – 1521 and it was
one of Mexico’s last ancient cities to be abandoned about 75 years after the
Spanish conquest. It was fun to meet the only remaining inhabitants of these
ruins; lots and lots of iguanas, all shapes and sizes.
It was a baking
hot day and all we wanted to do was dive into the very inviting looking water.
Lucky for us there were steps down to a beach. The sea was jam packed with
tourists so we joined the masses. Crowded but undeniably refreshing! There were
some funny sights!
After visiting
the park we headed down the road to the public beach. Tulum has a very long
stretch of pristine white sandy beach. We bought a few Coronas and ended up
listening to a fat American truck driver talk to us about his alternative
theories of the Mayans; actually quite fascinating!
 |
| A police bike! |
 |
| One of our favourite meals in a restaurant... |
.jpg) |
| Our worst traditional breakfast in a hostel.. note the armpit tortilla wraps!! |
 |
| Chillies and multiple Mojitos |
That evening we
had a delicious Mexican platter; enchiladas, quesadillas and the like… This
made us excited to eat lots more authentic Mexican cuisine. Unfortunately
though, our subsequent experiences of the local food throughout the country was
not altogether positive. We actually grew to strongly dislike the Mexican
tortillas. We both agreed that they smelt of armpits.. and tasted worse! We
were most disappointed to discover that the shell for tacos aren’t actually
crunchy chips, but these horrible limp armpit wraps.
Additionally, maybe
because we have seen and eaten enough refried beans in the last 3 months to
sink a battleship, we felt we had really reached our limit!
The whole of
the Yucatán Peninsula is an unconfined flat lying karst landscape made up almost entirely of limestone. There are many
‘cenotes’ which are natural fresh water sinkholes caused by the collapse of the limestone bedrock to expose the groundwater underneath. Certain cenotes were used by the ancient Maya for sacrificial offerings. They also drank from other
ones, not realizing that all the water was connected. They wondered why they
got sick…
We visited a
few of these stunning natural sinkholes one of which is probably one of the
most famous; Cenote Ikil. This cenote is open to the sky with the water level
about 26 metres below ground level. There is a carved stairway down to a
swimming platform. The cenote is about 60 metres in diameter and about 40
metres deep. There are vines which reach from the opening all the way down to
the water along with small waterfalls. We were swimming amongst lots of black
catfish which we didn’t even realize until Kyle started taking underwater
pictures.
We swam around and treaded water for 15/20 minutes or so until we got
really tired; it definitely wasn’t salt water! It certainly was beautiful; we
just had to blank out all the other tourists there. It certainly was a popular
stop for the tour bus companies. It was very tourist ready with lockers,
showers and changing rooms, gift shop and restaurant; all this unfortunately
spoilt it a bit. Ikil is perhaps even more well known in recent years due to
the Red Bull Cliff
Diving World Series in 2010
and 2011. That would have been spectacular to see!
Not only did we
swim in a cenote but we wet scuba diving in one! We were joined by our Utila
buddies; Anna and Sophie, who obviously because they went to Utila are mad keen
on diving. What was really odd, before we even got into the water, was being driven
to our dive location rather than getting on a boat! We were taken to ‘The Pit’;
a cenote where we were to do a deep dive of 30m.
 |
| Divers air bubbles rising to the surface... if you see big bubbles... don't jump! |
We all jumped into the water
from a 6m platform; Anna, Sophie and myself all getting a bit panicky and
hysterical in the anticipation of it but wanting to do it again as soon as we
hit the water. Then we all geared up and got in again.
Our descent was
crazy. From the surface, the water was crystal clear but when we hit about
10-15m, things started to get blurry. It felt like I was going blind. Kyle and
I stayed close, watching each other and he just started to disappear from my
vision. It was like my eyes had gone completely out of focus. I could see light
but couldn’t distinguish shapes. I certainly wasn’t able to read my gauge for
that period! This is called the 'Halocline' was where the fresh water met the salt water. Because they have different densities, the freshwater
and saltwater layers stratify, much like olive oil and vinegar. Once a few more metres down and into the salt water; our
vision cleared immediately! It felt like being sobered up very quickly!
This 1min vid with David Attenborough describes and shows it very well...
We popped back
out into crystal clear water. We had torches and gazed around at the amazing
rock formations. There was no marine life at all apart from a few small fish.
Below us, it was all hazy and smoky from the reaction of all the debris from
outside. It looked very eerie and atmospheric with one lone branch poking up
out of the smoke.
Parts of the line were like a passageway; stalactites and stalagmites either side of us and looking up, you could see the roof; where the water went right up to it. No room for us to panic and come up to the surface…literally no room! It was a little bit of a tight squeeze in places.
These dives the
water was a cooler 24 degrees, (sounds balmy but trust me, that’s fresh!) Kyle
wore a very tight waterproof balaclava for the last dive and had us girls in
fits because he couldn’t hear anything in our pre dive briefing at the surface.
During the last
dive, we surfaced in a bat cave and just floated in silence for a while, gazing
up at the sleeping bats.
Once finished,
our Dive Master led us around the site outside to show us our route; our
bearings were thoroughly confused. It’s so hard to keep track of where you’ve
been and where your heading under water; particularly in a cave!
As always after
a dive, we were pretty hungry so we finished off our day eating plenty…Chinese
food, ice cream, nachos and of course, drinking Coronas!
Chichen Itza is
a well restored large scale Mayan site and my word is it impressive. Our guide
was great and it was interesting to gain a little more insight and background
to the Mayas.
El Castillo was
the highlight; the poster image- a striking castle pyramid. It was designed to
represent the Mayan calendar in stone. The four stairways have 91 steps each,
add the top platform and the total is 365, the number of days in a year. As a
group we all stood directly in front of it and clapped our hands in unison. The
acoustics were amazing; in between the claps we could hear the sound of a
quetzal bird! It’s also famous for the moving serpent illusion on the
staircase which is visible during the Spring and Autumn equinoxes. The Mayans really were amazingly intelligent!
We also saw the
Great Ball Court; where they played an ancient form of basketball! We couldn’t
really get our head around the practicalities though..for starters the ball
apparently was concrete?! And the hoops were adjacent to the floor rather than
parallel and it seemed you weren’t able to get that close to them. Hmm….
We were
enlightened a bit more about the Mexican perception of death, which steamed
from the Mayas but is still a modern belief now. Death is something to be
celebrated rather than feared. We saw stone carvings in Chichen Itza and
everywhere else we went in Mexico we saw skulls, smiling skulls, a symbol that
is part of their national identity. One of their biggest national holidays is
El Dia de Muertos -the Day of the Dead.
Our next stop
was Merida, ‘the cultural capital of the Yucatan peninsula’. We arrived late
afternoon to torrential rain, and in our relaxed traveler state, with no hostel
booking. We finally checked in, drenched through, to more of a hotel then a
hostel. We had a double bed each in our room!
In this city we
met a few very friendly locals that had all the time in the world for us,
wanting to show us around – not because they wanted our money, but because they
just wanted to help us so we could experience their city and their country at
its best (and practice their English a little bit too!) There was one guy who
was flyering for a local restaurant and we got chatting. The next thing we
know, he was guiding us to the main square, sitting us on a park bench
discussing in detail our proposed plan and itinerary for the next few weeks and
telling us what he thinks our best plan of action was....It was a really useful
conversation actually!
Even though we
had been travelling a long time, stereotypically, being British, we were still
amazed at these welcoming and kind people. We felt ashamed that our immediate
response was suspicion. I could not help but judge an old, disheveled toothless
man that approached me… ‘is he drunk and being weird or is he just genuinely a
friendly person that would like to engage in a bit of polite conversation…?!
Hmmmm…. There were both cases of course so maybe it is safer to have your guard
up still…!
 |
| Lovely hammocks |
We timed our
presence well in this city with a local holiday celebration. One evening we
went along to a free outdoor concert, luckily the weather behaved itself. We
watched some traditional Mayan dancing which was great. One number involved
some men and women balancing trays with glasses of water on their heads whilst
stamping, clapping and doing lots of twirling..pretty impressive! There was
music and even a monologue which unfortunately we couldn’t understand but we
enjoyed the dramatisation of it!
 |
| Mezcal - from the Oaxaca state |
On the advice
of our very friendly Yucatan man, we left Merida going South West and went via
Uxmal to see the ruins there. Unlike the hugely popular, large scale Tikal
and Chichen Itza, Uxmal is less famous and smaller so there were a lot less
people and it was more relaxed. This was nice as you were able to explore a bit
closer and lose yourself more; pretend you were an ancient Mayan person(!) or
some ancient king and queen (maybe just us…)- it was still very impressive.
We then caught
a bus, 3 hours further south to Campeche to spend the late afternoon and
evening before a night bus. After storing our bags at a different bus terminal we head into the town to chill on the sea front, wander a bit,
visit the main plaza and go inside the cathedral for a peek. We ate, drank, played Yatzee, battleships and Kyle photographed a few more VW’s for his Beetle project.
A very uncomfortable 13 hour night bus later we arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas (part of the Chiapas state). We found it instantly to be reminiscent of Cuzco, all those months back in Peru. Set in a gorgeous highland valley, with a cooler climate, this colonial city seemed bohemian with colourful buildings and narrow streets. We quickly liked it a lot, there was a buzz in the air; we could see why it was a popular backpackers stop. Typically we had no hostel sorted again but Kyle got chatting to a local pitching his hostel to backpackers and they would even pay for a cab there. We arrived and quickly checked into this cheap but nice hostel called Planet Hostel and then went out for food. We discovered a lovely restaurant which we were to subsequently return to over the next few days, working our way through the extensive and very reasonable menu!  |
| Yatzee!! |
It was only in
San Cristobal that we had our very first tequilas of Mexico. About time really and in celebration of our friend Lyle's birthday back home!
Unfortunately
for Kyle, his experience of San Cristobal was pretty limited to this day and
the next…by the end of the second day, he was bound to our room being extremely
ill for around 10 hours, his muscles were systematically cramping from his mouth and hands down to his ankles. Poor thing. He can never look at a Shawarma (a Lebanese wrap) in the same way again…(they
weren’t from that nice restaurant I hasten to add!).
San Cristobal
is surrounded by dozens of traditional Tzotzil and Tzeltal villages;
descendents from the ancient Maya culture. I went on a tour and visited the
villages of San Lorenzo Zinacantan and San Juan Chamula. The inhabitants of
these villages have a really interesting mix of Catholicism and more ancient
traditions and customs. They even have their own laws; one of which was if you
were to take a photograph inside their churches, you could go to prison! The
camera stayed firmly in my pocket! The churches were quite a spectacle; there
was a mixture of hundreds of beautiful bouquets of flowers and twinkling
candles displayed all around the interior – it looked absolutely stunning but
juxtaposed with vile tacky cheap statues and garish colourful Christmas lights.
The locals take enormous pride in the up keep of the interior of the church.
Apparently the flowers are always fresh, constantly being replaced; this is to
keep the saints (represented by the statues) happy…If they were to get angry
that could mean devastating repercussions...
We learnt about the Mexican’s general view of ‘native’ people and the prejudices that they hold, even though many Mexicans actually have native roots! The guide used the example; if a native person entered a coffee shop, it would often be assumed by the Mexican owner that they wanted to sell you something rather than buy a coffee.
Probably one of
the most bizarre experiences was visiting Chamula’s main church. As well as a
church, it seemed to be also used as some kind of alternative hospital. People
come with medical problems, having had no success with doctors or hospitals
previous. They believe that the reason why they are sick therefore is because
they have done something to displease the saints and their soul has been taken.
What they must do is come to the church with lots of candles (different colours
represent different things – I didn’t really understand but I got the gist that
the more colours the worse and more complicated the case was!). They also need a
whistle, drinks (better to have fizzy sugary drinks!?!), various plants, oh-
and a live chicken… You know what’s coming don’t you?!...Yep – a chicken sacrifice.
I witnessed it…
There was a
mother and grandmother together with two children – one of which was the ‘sick’
child. They were all sat down in a group in the middle of the church, set up
camp with their candles on the floor. There was a lot of chanting and brushing
of some green plant on the child. I tried to be inconspicuous by the side,
taking in the church whilst sneaking surreptitious glances. There were other
groups of people, carrying out their own ceremonies, lots dressed in big black
wooly coats and skirts. Luckily I think I missed the deed of them actually
breaking the chicken’s neck so for a while I felt confused as to why the
chicken was being hung upside down and making funny twitchy movements until
eventually it stopped. Did it die from a sudden rush of blood to the head?? No
Hannah…
The belief is
that through this process, the illness is transferred to the chicken and then
by killing the chicken, the illness is destroyed.
Later, whilst
reporting all this back to ill Kyle in bed, clutching his sick bin made me
think; do I need to purchase a chicken..?!
Besides nursing
the invalid, I experienced San Cristobal for the both of us; spending an
extended period of time in the local markets (because I could!), browsing
through the book exchange shop, climbing up to the view point and even going to
a contemporary dance class. All of course, wasn’t the same without my beloved
companion.
 |
| Climbing steps at altitude again... |
.jpg) |
| Final afternoon in San Cristobal caught in the rain! |
Just as Kyle was starting to feel better, we were leaving San Cristobal. Unfortunately we were on a tight time frame; with our flight out of Mexico City in one week, there was no time to extend our stay any further.
It was another
night bus to Potutla, 12
hours followed by a 20 minute collectivo to our final destination Mazunte. We were dumped in this small beach town on the
Pacific coast in the state of Oaxaca around 7am. Again, with no accommodation
booked, we found ourselves wondering the deserted streets, whilst I was semi
stressing out about the fact that my Lonely Planet no longer covered the area
of Mexico we were now in! We were on our own! Kyle thought that it would be a
good idea to walk towards the beach… ‘there must be some hostels by the sea-
that’s where we want to be after all’. Good plan.
As we were
heading down the street leading to the beach we came across the first sign of
life; a topless local man on a motorbike, riding towards us. He stopped for a
chat. We told him we were English; he spoke good English. He introduced himself
as Juan. We told him we were looking for a place to stay. Juan tells us that he
is leaving later that day to head to a different state to see his mother (for Mother’s Day) – ‘you can stay at my house if you like..’ Easy as that. We
love travelling, for moments exactly like this…
So that was
that; for the equivalent of about £5 a night we were to stay in Juan’s home for
3 nights. Within a few minutes of meeting him, I handed over my heavy backpack
which he put on his legs and in between his arms. He slowly drove off on his bike with us curiously following behind to his house ‘round the corner’. Sure enough, there
it was; a little community of basic bungalows. His home was modest – a thatched
hut, just one room, with a bed and little kitchen area consisting of a camping stove
and a fridge, an outside area with hammocks. Perfect. A bucket flush toilet and water mains shower were
separate and used by all the residents.
He made us some
tea and we met the gorgeous animals that lived in the community. Juan then
showed us the beach and pointed out where was safe to swim. He went back to
clean up the house and we had breakfast overlooking the crashing waves served
by a crazy drunk waiter who had not been to sleep yet which was quite amusing, if not a little to much to handle given our mostly sleepless night also.
After a swim in the great
Pacific (it had been a while – Nicaragua was the last time), we returned to Juan’s
house, which he had spruced up and prepared delicious fresh watermelon for us.
We chatted away on his porch getting to know each other. For a living, Juan
works as a tour guide, both on the ocean doing wildlife eco tours, swimming
and also in the mangroves – crocodile spotting. He offered for us to go on a
free tour of the crocs that afternoon! We were utterly bowled over by his
generosity and openness.
Around
lunchtime we got picked up in Juan’s friends car and the three of us jumped in.
Juan had invited some other new friends of his to come along too. We were driven
along the coast to a stunning deserted beach that stretched as far as the
eye could see. The reason why it was deserted was because the black sand was SO
hot! It was also magnetic which was demonstrated to us by our guide with a
magnet! Juan wasn’t working that day, he just came along for the ride.
 |
| No sandels... ops!! |
 |
| MAGNETIC SAND!! |
After walking
up the beach a short distance, with shoes definitely on(!) we headed inland to a
lagoon area. Straight away we saw two crocodiles! Apparently one had buried her
eggs close to where we were standing and she was guarding the area. She showed
us her teeth and opened her mouth wide! Gulp!
We boarded a
small paddle boat, which the guide steered. There had been a bad storm a few
years previous and destroyed about 80% of this area. They are slowly still
trying to clean up without disturbing the wildlife. We saw beautiful birds in
their nests, more crocs lurking and an absolute ton of iguanas. We got
seriously close to these fascinating dinosaur like creatures. Never again, do I
think we will get this close…
We enjoyed a
coconut after the tour, drinking the water and then mixing the coconut flesh with lime
and eating it…mmmmm…
We were dropped
back at Juan’s and he soon made tracks for Puebla – where his mother lives,
leaving these 2 strangers in his home! To Kyle’s delight he said that we could
use his motorbike…this is SERIOUS TRUST. Kyle picked up the bike from his mates with Juan and drove him back to test drive, Juan could tell he'd driven lots in the past and was not concerned at all. Would you offer this same level of
kindness, generosity and above all trust to 2 foreign tourists you’d only just
met?!!
 |
| Juan leaving us in his home! |
We were sad to
see Juan go but we planned to meet up again in a few days time in Mexico City.
In the mean time…we made ourselves at home! We spent the days chilling in the
hammocks, playing with the resident kittens, reading, writing, playing cards,
enjoying beach time and we even found a local Chinese restaurant!
 |
| 'Weeds' growing in the 'garden' behind our house |
 |
| 3 minute stroll to the beach |
 |
| Secretly taken... promise |
We visited the
Tortuga (turtle) Centre across the road, which had lots of different kinds of
turtles. We had mixed feelings seeing the state of some of the pens and just
the very fact of observing them in captivity made us uneasy. However it appeared
that they were rescued…maybe there was more to their program than we knew.
 |
| Rum and Coconut! |
It makes such a
difference to your experience of a place when you have your own base. We loved
Mazunte. It seems to be a lesser visited place with towns like Zipotle and
Puerta Escondida close by that are much more popular spots with internationally renowned surfing chamionships held there. We felt like
Mazunte was an undiscovered secret place and it is certainly on our list to
come back to and visit, especially now that we have a friend who lives here!
We caught a
long and windy shuttle onwards to the state of Oaxaca – Oaxaca City. We came
here only to see one thing; a tree. About a month or so previous Kyle saw a
picture shared on Facebook that caught his eye; it was the widest tree in the
world! When looking at where it was, he discovered that it was just outside of
Oaxaca City, sort of on route from Mazunte to Mexico City.... so typically he made it his mission that we would see it!
We found a
hostel, dumped our bags and hopped in a taxi to see this tree! Typically we
headed towards very dark clouds and by the time we stepped out of the car, the
heavens opened. Shorts and a vest top were no longer sufficient! Luckily it
didn’t last too long.
 |
| Look at the size of the tree compared to the church next to it!! |
The tree was
next to a church and was about 3 times the size of it! It was enormous! It was
42m tall and 15m wide. The circumference was 58m! It looked like 15 trees in 1!
They say that it is over 2000 years old!!! The tree used to be worshiped back in the day... so what does religion do... builds a church right next to it. You could see goblins’ faces in the
big knots. After 15 minutes we were satisfied with what we came for and headed
back to the city for the night!
 |
| Lions and goblins! |
 |
| Huge!!!!! |
The next day,
after an early start, we arrived in Mexico City around lunchtime. Getting
towards the end of our trip, we became very lax with planning. So much so that
we arrived in MC with no plan, no guidebook, no details on places to stay…!
There’s one thing arriving in a small beach side town like this but it’s a bit
different when arriving in the capital of Mexico! The bus terminal was a little
out of town. We had no idea the area we wanted to stay in. ‘El centro surely?’
says Kyle… We floated towards the metro and thank goodness there was a tourist
information stand. The lady there provided us with a map (very important), a
list of hostels and recommended areas. We settled on Zocalo, the historic
centre.
On the way
there we must have looked like lost sheep because a local guy asked us where we
were heading. Turns out that this guy works at a hostel in Zocalo…??!!!!He
escorted us all the way there … we are dead jammy sometimes!!
When walking up the steps out of the subway, we were instantly wowed. We found ourselves smack bang in the main square; everything was seriously large scale. The cathedral and surrounding buildings looked wonderful and the big empty square apparently holds concerts from time to time. Right in the middle was the biggest flag we have ever seen!!
The friendly
guy who shamefully we can’t remember his name, led us to a really nice hostel;
large with an amazing roof top bar with fantastic views of the city. It sat
right behind the cathedral. ‘One double room please.’
We had just a
day and a half to explore this capital city.
That afternoon we visited the
impressive cathedral; arguably the most impressive of our whole trip, took a
buggy taxi tour around the sites and finished up going up to the top of the
Torre Latina Americana.
This building was reminiscent for me of the Centre
Point building in Tottenham Court Road in London. It is a pretty old fashioned
sky scraper but with fabulous views of the city. We spent ages up at the open
air top because Kyle got carried away with taking photos. We then headed down
one floor to the bar area, fancying something sparkling like Champers… ‘why
not- it’s our penultimate night in Central America!’ No Champagne…Corana beers
it was then!
 |
| Up the Torre... |
It was such a
change to be back in a big buzzy cosmopolitan capital city. The last place we
were in like this was at Christmas time in Buenos Aries. 22 million people live
in Mexico City!!
The following
day we visited MC’s top museum; the Anthropology museum. This huge building is
incredibly designed and it houses extensive information, artifacts and
reconstructions. We had just 2 and a half hours to scratch the surface! It’s
absolutely mind blowing how many different native tribes and groups there are
in Mexico alone. Every single village is unique with their own dress, language
and customs.
Outside the
museum we caught an amazing practice by one of the native cultures; 4 men
dressed in their colourful traditional clothes climb a really high totem pole
and there’s another guy playing music perched at the very top! They wind
themselves up with rope and then fall backwards(!) spinning round and round
upside down until they reach the ground. It was a jaw dropping site!
That afternoon
we met up with Juan from Mazunte. He took us to a place called Coyoacan on the
outskirts where he used to live.
 |
| Gum tree |
 |
| Wall art in metro |
We chatted for hours over a few pitchers of
beer and nachos. Juan was fascinating; he had the most incredible set of
skills, a trained lawyer, student of anthropology (he’s been to the museum over
200 times!), keen actor not to mention fisherman and tourist guide in Mazunte.
He came across to us as such a humble and caring soul.
He took us to a
clothes shop that have traditional Mexican designs and we helped him pick out a
few tops for a friend; Rosie, that he met in Mazunte but lives in London. He
asked us if we would meet up with her when we were back to give her his gift. I
recently met her outside Brixton tube station!! She was lovely and very
flattered by Juan’s thoughtful present :)
We finished our
afternoon by sheltering in the rain in a locals’ spot for delicious cinnamon
hot chocolates.
Juan headed
back to the hostel with us and checked in for the night and we went up to the
roof top bar to toast to our last night in Central America watching a
spectacular lightening storm around us. We hope to stay in touch with Juan and
that he comes and visits us in England. He suggested that we get married on the
beach in Mazunte! Food for thought…! We’ll certainly be returning back to
Mexico that’s for sure…
And so this is
it. Our South and Central America adventure has come to an end…
We took a 10
day pit stop in Cuba on our way home and arrived back in Blighty on the evening
of the 25th May.
The trip of our
lifetime lasting nearly 9 months. We’ve blogged and blogged but really…words cannot
describe how brilliant this trip has been and what better way to do it than
sharing the experience together. x
Hannah and Kyle
over and out (‘til next time…)
