Merry Christmas

Though this is a little early we wanted to let you know that you are in our thougths and prayers. Christmas in Mexico will not be the same and I have to admit that I´m missing Christmas at home. Christmas at our house is full of traditions and though we are trying out some new ideas while we are here there are some good ones that just can´t be replaced - mainly all the family dinners. Yes we miss you all.

So before I get too long winded, Merry Christmas!!!! We hope that it is special and amazing however you will be celebrating it. We hope that all the travelling many of you will be doing goes smoothly. May there be lots of fun had, good food eaten and great company enjoyed.

To let you in on what we´ve got planned so far: Christmas dinner wtht Esprit, church on Christmas Eve, we have a pinta Christmas tree ( that has been used as a decoration) which needs to be smashed open and a fiesta ( a party) held by our Mexican WILD family for my birthday.

Our tour from Oaxaca City

After exhausting ourselves trying to find the "ruin" site and still having a few key things that we were interested in seeing, we decided to spend the extra money and take a day tour that visited several different palces. We were not disappointed! The few extra dollars won`t be remembered. Instead some of the great facts and historical details shared by our guide will be. The group was a diverse mix of English and Spanish speakers all of whom were about our age. So we enjoyed the company of new faces and the stories and perspectives they brought along.



First Stop: El Tule

El Tule is the name of a small village which is home to the largest single biomass in the world. Are you curiuos now? What is with all the big words eh? Translation: a quaint churchyard has the world´s oldest and largest tree in it. It is a cypress tree that is wider than it is high ( 59 mwide by 42 m high.) And it is over 2000 years old. The tree is protected currently by an American environmental group.

Second Stop: The Village of Teotitlan and a Demonstration of Weaving

I think this was the best part of the tour. It was interactive and really fun to learn the age old tradition of waeving. The artisans from this part of the country are renowned for their taperstries. The community has also designed an impressive, totally self sufficient system of living. Meaning that the citizens pay taxes so that the government does not interfere and instead they use a system of heirarchy that relies on the wisdom of the elderly.

The weaving tradtition and technique were shown to us by a young guy, who is one of 25 weavers in a co-operative. His mother demonstrated how the thread is made, starting from preparing the lambs´wool to spinning it to dying it, while the son explained and translated it all. He then demonstrated how the loom is used on a piece of his own work. When we get back you´ll have to see pictures because so few words is not doing this experience any justice! Of course they had finished producs for us to buy, which we did. Something else to add to our collection.

Stop 3: Hierve el Aqua

Aqua what? Though the direct translation is ´the water boils´what we sw were petrified waterfalls. Several mineral springs at the top of cliffs form bathing pools but small amounts of water with huge amounts of minerals make their way over the cliff, making layers upon layers of a "crust" from all the minerals. So there is actually no water flowing over, maybe a few drips. What you see appears to be a "frozen waterfalls." The tour guide took us off the beaten path to get a better view and some great pics.

Stop4: Mitla and The Ruins

We´d contemplated spending a night or two in Mitla but because of our longing to get settled back in Jacomulco the visit with the tour would have to do. And it was great, thought the village would have been a great place to spend a bit more time.

This ruin was built in the 12th century when Monte Alban was becoming less important. It is very small and the patterns in the stones are what makes this ruin unique. The ruins are considered the Zapotecs´(another Indian tribe) main religious center. The cluster of buildings that are present ( many were destroyed and some were recently (1940s) even used as the market place) housed specific people (king, priests, etc...)

The designs in the stones were created by cutting the stone perfectly so that they would fit together just so. The stones were then covered in a paint, which used the cochineal insect. The little bugs would form cocoons on the prickly pear cactus, the plants would later be dried out and the bugs pulled off and ground to form a red powder( which is the same that they use to make red dyes for the weaving.) The powder is mixed with water to make a paste and eventually paint. Today people are trying to speculate what the designs created by the rocks symbolize. It was an amzing form of art.

Stop 5: Mezcal Factory Tour

As soon as you stepped out of the van a distinct sort of bitter smell greeted your nose. Ahhhh alcohol. Mezcal is an alcohol that is made from cactus that look like jumbo sized pineapple tops. Tequilla is a type of Mezcal. The core of the plants are baked in an underground pit and then mashed by a donkey powered wheel. This pulp is then fermentated for about two weeks and distilled over a small fire, so that the alcohol is evaporated, cooled and then collected. You are left with a clear liquid that they do all sorts of things to: colour it, flavour it, add condensed milk to it ( so it is like Bailey´s) and sometimes even a worm is added.

We got to try all sorts of samples. Jay liked the stuff straight and aged ( and most expensive.) I liked the fruity, more melllowed out kinds. In the end not a single person from our group bought anything.

Oaxaca City - Our adventures on the bus :0)

Monday we took a trip to Monte Alban, which is an archeological site outside the city. We`d gotten directions on which city bus to take and where to take it from via the lady at the front desk of our hotel. Now remember that the bus system here, though organized in some fashion (we vaguely understand it now) is like nothing back home. It proved to be an important lesson learned when we got on the wrong bus. The name of the bus we got on was "Monte Alban COLINAS" and what we needed was "Monte Alban COL." The difference between the two was where in relation to the ruins they stopped.

Instead of a 20 minute walk each way that the driver promised us, we were hiking for 45 minutes to a hour. But you can´t complain much for a 35cent ride! The driver and his assistant gave us plenty to watch. The traffic here does whatever they want and since rush hour was winding down there was plenty of determined and maybe crazy drivers. When our driver decided the "lane" he was in was not going fast enough, the assistant jumped out and began pounding on the back of the bus, which meant it was safe to back up. This continued until he was far enough back. The bus we where in was at least 10 years old ( and that is probably being generous). The driver`s vision is narrowed because of this great Mexican tapers try that is hanging from the ceiling about 1/2 the window is covered with it. As you can imagine it was quite an adventure.

Visiting ruins is very unpredictable because you never really know what you are gonna find. This set of ruins dated back as far as 200BC, though most of it was built from 300 to 700 AD. Some of it had been touched up or changed over time. However there are a few key features that make it stand out. Monte Alban was a highly organized, Zapotec society that was run by the religious society of the day. It is found on a flattened hill top with an amazing view of the valleys surrounding it. There are many temples, a palace, several tombs and other buildings built our of huge stone blocks. All the buildings have steep walls. It is estimated that over 10,000 people were a part of this community. One building also has carvings and pictures on it that they believe tell stories of what must have happened back then. It is fun to imagine what life must have been like so long ago.

Oaxaca City: with all the details and then some

So Oaxaca City is described in the tourist info. as a Spanish built with loads of colonial buildings. I later read that the own has been around since 1529!!! It was built around the current town square or zocalo. The town has a fantastic feel with many pedestrian only roads, markets, churches and other cultural things.

This was by far my favourite place to visit so far. I did miss the warmer coast weather and the beaches though. After taking our first over night ride on a first class bus, we arrived in the cold city of Oaxaca (approximately 5 degrees Celsius)at 6:30. Getting a place to lay our heads ( we didn`t sleep well on the bus, I even got a little car sick) was out top priority but we wandered around for about an hour before we found a place to stay, not because it`s so big but because we couldn`t find what we wanted; cheap, cozy and safe. When we finally found a place it was such a relief.

Oaxaca is a city that is made for walking and we certainly took advantage of that the first few days. The Zocalo was our favourite place to go. It reminded me of down town Ottawa (sort of). It was a block full of flower beds with poinsettas and a pavillion in the center. The outer perimeter was full of shops, cafes and street vendors. We saw several live performances from an orchestra to a play to seniors dancing to Christmas music. Over the weekend they decorated this square for Christmas. And there was lots of good food to try!!

When the moment struck we walked into the churches, art galleries and markets we passed. One market in particular, the Central de Abastos stands out in my mind. We estimated that it covered up to 24 blocks with the vendors grouped together based on what they sold: fruits and veggies, meat, honey, baked goods, leather stuff, woven products, arts and crafts supplies, appliances and religiuos icons. You name it and you could find it there. In total we walked away with roasted peanuts, grasshoppers, bananas, oranges and a pack of Halls. Not bad!!

Oaxaca City

Oaxaca City Area

Photos of Our Beaches Adventures

Oaxaca State Beaches

Puerto Escondido

Puerto Escondido is a town of about half a million people that is known for its´ surfing. It has the best surfing second to Hawaii. It was crazy because everywhere you went there was evidence of Italian influence (mostly if was the numerous restaurants selling pizza). Apparently a while back there was an Italian movie that was filmed here and Italians were so impressed that they came over and made it home. The geography of this town was also really interesting. The main highway divides the town in two, the upper area is where the locals live and work, while the lower section is the tourist area. Down by the water and beaches there was a great pedestrian section, where lots of fishing boats where docked. You could certainly smell fishy smells. There was several beaches but this one right smack in the center of the town is where the locals swam. The night life exploded once it got dark with people selling things and enjoying each others´ company.

The other beach we visited was a little farther southeast from where I just described. It is known as the "Mexican Pipeline." The area surrondign it reminded of us a Whistler/Westboro combo. It had a classy, well-done resort feel. There was a lot of shops and artisan vendors, as well as several Americanized resturants. We found a really great place to stay here for a great price: a cabana ( a wooden structure, sort of like a cottage) with a fridge ( as well as beds and all the other amenities!)

Following are some of our highlights from the time we spent here. Just to warn you this will be a long blog entry because we had a lot of fun in this place.

The first highlight was a public transportation adventure. Up until this point we had been with other people from WILD but people were beginning to branch out and do their own thing, so we followed suit and headed out from Zipolite armed with vague directions and a scribbled map. We had the town name and knew there was an intersection that we had to get off at. So we turend left at the main road and waited for a "colectvo." A colectivo is a cross between a bus and a cab. It is usually a small pick-up truck with seats in the flat bed and you plunk your bags on a shlef on the cab roof. There is a simple metal structure from which a tarp is hung as a roof ( mostly to keep our the sun.) When you are ready to get off ( whether there is a stop or not) you ring a bell to buzz the driver.

We didn´t know that the colectivos have a specific route, but we figured soemthing was up when the first driver dropped us off with his friend only about 400m down the road. It turned out with the help of 2 most interesting English speaking people we made it off at the correct spot once we were in the right colectivo.

The first character was an elderly man ( maybe Indonesian or Asian background) who was well accustomed to MExican culture and choose to hassle the driver when he felt that the driver wasn´t going fast enough. He seemed all polite and was well dressed but when a few swear words slipped out when he thoght we´d passed our spot we couldn´t help but laugh to ourselves. He was chatting it up with a classy middle ages European woman who handmade chairs. She sounded like quite the established artist. Yes I was eavesdropping.

From there we caught a local "city to city " bus. We waited a grand total of 5 minutes (which was so little for a bus that we didn´t know the schedule for) and teh transition went so smoothly. The bus driver´s assistant opens the doors and once you are settled comes and gets the money. It cost 15 pesos/person for an hour bus drive that stops wherever there is a person and lets you off wheneve you are ready (which turns out to be fairly often.)

The second highlight was running into 2 of my favourite instructors from WILD as we walked along the surfers´ beach. Esprit has a whistle/call they refer to as the cooey (? spelling) and it is sounded to get someone´s attention or in an emergency. It´s a basic way to communicate when you a bit of a distance from each other. We´d been walking on the beach and both heard the cooey but ignores it since we assumed no WILDers would be around.

Mel and Tenzin finally called our names to get our attention. They were equally excited to see us and invited us to join them boogie boarding. We were riding waves that were 5-8ft tall, as the sunset over the ocean. We were hooked after ust an hour so we changed hotels to be closer to the beach and rented boards for 24 hrs. the next day. All that after being scared away from this particular beach by the tourist information lady!

On Friday we had a taste of why you had to be a good swimmer and know what you were doing (well sort of.) We´d learned at ZIpolite how crazy the under tow could be. On this particular day the waves were biger and stronger, more like 8 -15ft. We´d given back our boogie boards as I was frustrated because the foamy, crashing surf kept preventing me from going out to catch the waves and our 24hrs. was up. After walking down the beach we spotted Mel and Tenzin in the water body surfing. Of course we had to join them! Body surfing is using your arms and legs to swim and try to catch the waves. There is alot of swimming, diving and archniig your body involved. It was super fun and tiring but the meal that we had for dinner that evening took care of all that hard work. The resturant and bakery was owned by a Canadian couple. I was delighted when they began to play Christmas carols.

After spending a long time at the resturant (since we had booked out of our hotel) and the bus didn´t leave until later we finally boarded the first class bus and got settled in for a long journey.

Huatulco

So after our partying with WILD what did we do?

So the next few journal entries will highlight the beginnings of our travels and explain what we`ve done and seen. Remember that this was about two weeks ago now (yeah I`m a little slow but catching up.) But to summarize everything first :

Sat to Mon we were in Huatulco
Mon to Wed we were in Zipolite
Wed to Sat we were in Puerto Escondido
Sat to Wed we were in Oaxaca City

The first 3 places are all on the Pacific Ocean, while all of these cities are in the state of Oaxaca(lower south-west Mexico.) Following are some things that they all share in common. Right now the weather here is warm to hot (20 to 30 degrees) depending on the time of day. They are just entering into the dry season, which they call summer. This means that the green, lush vegetation is slowing dying away since there is very little rain. Generally we haven`t seen things open until at the earliest 8am but 10am is usually when things really get going. What a life. We are beginning to adjust to "Mexican time." They kind of go at their own pace - usually a lot slower than what we are used to.

Huatulco is a small,relaxed resort town, with a population of about 25 000 people. This is a pristine area that was designed to be ecologically sensitive though many tourists frequent this town, including cruise ships. There are 7 bays on the ocean that make up this great place. Each one is different, some are heavily populated with resorts while others are much more rustic. One of them was the bay that we kayaked out into with out group as the grande finale.

Huatulco was the first plcae where we had a chance to relax, go at our own pace and practice our Spanish. Sat. was spent relaxing and sleeping, with occassional trips to the town square for essentials. We did however find an excellent Mexican "fast food"equivalent.

We just wanted something simple to eat and this resturant was just that. They had lots of choices of food but none of which was rich or extravagent ( we saved that for the next day) . It was like a local hotdog and hamburger place with your typical Mexican fare as well.

Sunday we wandered around town to find the bus station and began to plan what our next step would be. Most of the WILD students were still around so we hung out with them for dinner at a great pizza place. It reminded us alot of home. Just next door to the pizza place was a fancy hotel that had a coffee shop and book store. They had homemade ice cream that was rich and creamy. Jay also got a second hand Lonely Planet Guide to Mexico for cheap and was excited about his good deal.

So in closing, after having written this it is very clear that we didn`t really do alot except eat. It certainly was a highlight - you know how much I like to eat :o)

Zipolite

This entry is a little out of order. I thought I could switch the placement of it, but I can`t figure it out.

So for some info. on this fun little place .... Zipolite is a beach town of about 1200 people. It`s coined a "backpackers" hangout with a bohemian feel by the Lonely Planet guide. There is 2 km of pale sand and an amazing beachfront with rocky cliffs on either end of the cove. In 1997 Hurricane Pauline levelled most of the beachfront hotels and restaruants, but by now everything has been rebuilt and Zipolite is bigger then ever. We stayed in a place on the west end of the beach that was built after the hurricane. It is a 4 story wood / concrete building, which makes it the highest of the beachfront hangouts.

The highlight of Zipolite was the relaxed beach living we enjoyed. Our hotel was right on the beach, only about a hundered meters from the waterline at high tide. Between the main building and the water was a thatched roof with bunch of chairs and 5 hammocks - just enough for the group of us from WILD that were there. We hung out, chatting and drinking beer from the bar (about 20m away which was run by a chilled out American guy). Zipolite is probably the least "touristy" / developed place that we have been so far, and the swimming was really refreshing.

Jay had one of his first Mexico-bartering opportunities haggling for a single-person "chair" hammock. After barginning the price down from 280 pesos to 180 pesos (about $18) we knew that was the vendors last price when he walked away down the beach. We later saw them again back at our hammock-lounge area and moments later were proud owners of a new locally-hand-made hammock.

We discovered a mind boggling thing related to swimming.... it probably shouldn`t have suprised us as much as it did... but the lifeguards there aren`t really funded all that well. They don`t get paid for the time they spend watching the beach and people. Instead they get money on a per-person rescue basis!!!!!! They welcome any donation, but if you find yourslef in a bad situation and they come save you, we hear the going rate for saving your life is roughly 500 pesos ($50). Taking into account how strong the rip tides are and how many liefguards we saw it`s a little crazy to imagine that they can make at least some money with a system like that!

The end of WILD and the beginning of ??????

So aside form saying that the end of WILD was bittersweet I don´t think I said much else. So therefore it is time to give you all the low down.



WILD was the most difficult thing that I have ever done. If you ask Jason he might say something to the effect of, "Well she says she liked it but there were alot of times when it was really hard to tell." Alot of nights were spent venting about how I was having a hard time doing things or was afraid of this or that. I learned that I could do alot more than I gave myself credit for. Realizing that if I relaxed and tried hard I could do amazing things. My confidence grew and I have a much greater appreciation for water. I am looking forward to putting all my skills to use in the next little bit of time and eventually on the Ottawa River - when ever that will be.

So reach back in your memory, all the way back to the last week in Nov. and that will be when this post occurred.

We left the sweet campsite near the ocean (in Huatulco, a sweet resort town) on a Monday and made camp beside the Copilita River which was about 1.5 hr drive away on some crazy bump, curvey roads. We spent the rest of the week there using this as our base camp. Generally things went smoothly with the usual kayaking and rafting routine. The only difference was that as a group we were supposed to be in charge and lead everything. It was a hard transition for us to make as we´d been given so much support for all the rest of our training. A little chaos errupted with food preparations, as well a few local kids liked some of our gear ( rope and knives) enough to try to take it. The other excitement was one day that I was on the river one of the girls had a concussion. I was choosen to administer the medical attention. As a group we had an adventure as we evacuated her out.

We had two special days. One was a cascading day that included a rapell down a 75ft clifff. I had a little slip at the top and decided that was enough for me. I wasn´t too keen on the idea anyways!! Cascading reminded me of the swamp walk that I did when I was at summer camp, the major difference was that we were making our way down this great stream of water that was a blue, greeen colour and had varying sizes of waterfalls on it. Most were small enough that you jumped or walked down. The big ones had swinging ropes or ladders.

The last day was pretty amazing! Earlier that week we had been doing the upper section of the rive, but Friday we finished off the river by starting at our campsite and paddling out, all the way to the ocean. It was a 4 hour paddle with mostly class 1 and 2 rapids ( so some people were bored) with a few class 3 at the beginning. We all paddled into the ocean together and tried surfing. Mine was just a small baby surf and then I was done ( didn´t want to flip and scratch my face on the sand). Prior to going out we all stopped ang Jim shared with us how proud he was of what we had done. He also reminded us that thought this was the end of our trip it signified much more: an open door with many options and excitements ahead that where waiting to be explored. It was an amazing feeling!!

Esprit booked all of us into an expensive hotel ( which was so awesome after many nights spent in weird and wonderful places). We had time to clean up and get ready for our closing party. It was a big affair that involved getting dressed up. I got to wear a dress that I had bought when we were in Texas!!! The food was great - the second best shrimp I´ve ever had and cake for dessert. We each drew a name and had to give that person some sort of award and congratulate them on a job well done. It was really fun to hear the highlights and see what where some of the fun things that stuck out in people´s minds. From there we went to a bar with big screen TVs to watch the video that our camera guy, Mike had made. It was an hour and a half and featured all the places we´d been. It was so great to watch.

After that people went their own ways. Most spent the night partying and from there began their journeys. Some returned home, others to Jacolmulco and others to new jobs. Each of us has changed in some way and wondering what that will mean for the future.

We have adjusted to the idea of not getting the internship ( a 4 month training program while in Mexico using the skills that you´ve just learned.. We realize that it gives us more flexibility and independence. We aren´t tied to Esprit except if we want to be. And we still have the opportunity to join in their trips if there is room. We have the benefit of having them and their expertise around. Instead we have rented an apartment and are just relaxing. We hope to have some cultural experiences such as cooking lessons or coffee bean picking. We will take trips from here, using this as our home base. And of course as much kayaking and guiding as we can squeeze in.

What we will do with all that we have learned is still a pretty big question but we have plenty of time to work that out. Travelling and doing WILD has already taught us so much!