I have left Mexico City!

Yes, I finally found the courage to pack my bags and head west. The decision was made easier by the fact that Beatriz was interested in going, Suha said she felt like a break from the city having quit both her job at the hostel and her university course within a few days of each other, and James had returned after a couple of weeks in New York and expressed a desire to join the fun, complete with a recommendation from his guidebook about a small town called Patzcuaro, which was well known for its 'Dia de Muertos' (day of the dead) festival. Hallowe'en is fairly big in Mexico, but apparently 'Day of the Dead' is more important, and occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November.

The next morning, I was up first, and as we had agreed to try and leave by about 10am, I made sure that there was enough clunking around to wake James, who was sleeping next door. I texted Suha to make sure she was up, but didn't hear anything for a while. I haven't been able to shift my organisational tendencies since I've been here unfortunately. Well, I say unfortunately, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that when I agree a time of 10am with people, I am usually ready by at the latest 10:15... (even though I must concede, I am also often the last one out the door as I always remember something at the very last minute). Beatriz wasn't up until 9:45, and then said she wasn't sure if she was going to come anymore because she was having problems with her bank card and needed to sort it out. We decided to hang around for a while, but eventually decided to press on (at midday!) without her. The bus we took was pretty awesome, first-class style seats (3 to a row, to give you an idea of the size and space), and the 5 hour journey went quite quickly. The views on the way were pretty spectacular (I took some photos and will post when I get chance, more on this later...), and I had a craving to go horseback riding across the plains and over the mountains. My imagination may also have had me plucking arrows from my quiver, and accurately dispatching them at any unfortunate beast that dared to cross my path.

On arriving in Patzcuaro, James checked his guidebook again and informed us that he hadn't seen the sentence which read something along the lines of "Because the Day of the Dead festival in Patzcuaro is so well known, many visitors throughout Mexico come to stay at this small town, so if you want somewhere to stay it is advisable that you book months in advance." And here we were, rocking up on the evening of the event, with no reservations to our name. Beatriz phoned to say she was on her way, and would be with us around midnight. She was also bringing a tent, and after one or two luckless enquiries, we were beginning to think we might need it. Even though the festivities began at 10pm, we decided to wait until she arrived.

As James and I poorly navigated the crowds, we lost Suha, who has a habit of wandering off without a moment's notice. When we found her again, she brought news of an available hotel room, which was a little bit pricey, but also quite comfortable. There was much rejoicing, partly because it was starting to get pretty cold and the thought of pitching up a tent in the middle of nowhere was getting less appealing by the minute.

The festival itself was held on the island of Janitzio, and we had to take a boat to reach it. The journey out was fun, and the mist falling across the lake added to the eerieness of the occasion. The boat back at 5:30am was less fun as the icy air clung onto our tired bodies without much retaliation. Up to this point, I have been referring to a 'festival', because this is what I fully expected it to be, a bit like Hallowe'en. However, when we reached the main hotspot for activity, it was clearly a lot more sombre than anything we imagined. Many Mexicans (for the most part indigenous older women) sit quietly by decorative arrangements scattered throughout a hillside graveyard, and mourn loved ones who have (recently, presumably) passed away. The huge line of tourists weaves in and out of these displays and even though it was fascinating, there was definitely a sense of intruding, and Beatriz (or maybe James) described the occasion as rather voyeuristic. I suppose this has been a tradition for many years, and so I don't think these women would have been offended as such, but I still felt it important to be quiet and respectful. We saw a couple of guys acting rather drunkenly and it didn't seem right. Then there was an American 'dude' who felt it important to share with James that there was "a lot of spiritual shit going on" and that he "really felt part of this". We came to the conclusion that he really felt nothing of the sort and that he was in actual fact, a complete tosser.

Dia de Muertos, Patzcúaro

We returned back to the hotel at about 6:30am, when Beatriz announced she was leaving to get a bus to a beach on the coast. It was a bit of a surprise, the three 'remainders' all felt far too tired to comtemplate anything of the sort, but it was fair enough as she wanted to get to the beach by the afternoon.

The next day we wandered round the main plaza in Patzcuaro for a bit and went to a 'Michoacana' for an ice cream. The state of Patzcuaro (and Morelia) is Michoacan, and is famous for its ice cream. I went for 'Choco Crispies' because a) I still have the mental age of a 5 year old and b) I thought it would be done really well. I was disappointed to learn that it was essentially frozen breakfast cereal, once you've left it in the bowl for several minutes. There was indeed the 'chocolate milk' ice cream supporting cast, but the stars of the show, the 'crispies' themselves, amounted to nothing more than soggy coco pops... most disappointing. I would like to say I learnt my lesson, but the next time I had such an opportunity, I went for 'choco cookie' which failed to yield significantly better results...

Chloe and Donna (mentioned several posts ago) had been in contact to say they were near Cancun and that their current island (Isla de Holbox) was amazing. James decided that he was going to brave the 30-hour coach journey and join them. He sent them a facebook message to tell them he was on his way, and at some point during his mammoth voyage, Donna wrote back to tell him that unfortunately they had already moved on. If you're reading this James, I hope that wasn't too annoying, but I get the impression you were happy lounging on an awesome beach regardless of whether the girls were there too!

This left Suha and I to spend to a couple of days in Morelia. I had read that it was one of the most beautiful colonial cities in Mexico. At first I was unimpressed, as it didn't seem out of the ordinary, but the more we explored the more I realised that it was actually a cool city and had a good mix of tradition style and modern practicality.

We hadn't booked any hotels, and wandering up and down the streets that I had checked out earlier in the internet cafe was to no avail. It rarely is to be honest; I always think that making a note of the road names and rough location will be sufficient to find a place, but the infamous lack of signposts, maps and advertising often come back to bite me. I don't know how hostels make money when their main objective seems to be to keep themselves as well hidden as possible. We reached 'Hotel Colonial' and decided to have a look. It seemed nice enough but we had also had another hostel recommended to us which was about a 20 minute walk from our current location. I felt we needed to check out the actual rooms of both places before parting with our money. My bag was killing me, and rather than dragging it all through the hotel, I told Suha to quickly go and check the room whilst I waited in reception and I'd trust her judgement. She said ok and then wandered outside; I assumed she was taking a phone call. After twenty minutes I went to see why this call was taking so long. Suha was nowhere in sight. I peered down the sideroads, but nothing. I found this a bit strange, but went back inside and waited a bit longer, having to try to explain to the hotel manager in Spanish that I was waiting for my friend to return but at the moment I didn't have a clue where she was or when she would be back... Eventually, about an hour later, Suha shows up and, I think understandably, I was bemused and a little bit angry. When I asked what had happened, Suha wore a puzzled look and replied, "I went to check out the room at the other hostel like you asked me to...." A bit of a misunderstanding then. Not sure what to make of the fact she thought I would ask her to walk half way across the city and report back like some sort of field agent. Chivalry is dead when I am involved, clearly. Thankfully, the 'report' was that the other hotel wasn't that nice, so we stayed at the Colonial. Having been sat in the reception for so long, I would have felt a bit awkward getting up and leaving for somewhere else.

There wasn't much to report in particular in Morelia, but I will try and put some photos up, particularly of the cathedral which was awesome. We went to see "Paranormal Activity 2" at the cinema before we left town. I was expecting something pretty dreadful, but it was actually not too bad. On my last night in Mexico City I went to see "Saw: The Final Game", which was less scary but far more gruesome. Some bits were a bit sick, some bits quite comical (but not for the squeamish).

Me, James and Beatriz preparing for Saw 3D.

The plan was to head to the south coast of Michoacan and find a beach, preferably the same beach as Beatriz, who by now had met up with San Diego Whitney. I make it sound like we would go to one of the several beaches along the coast and hope they happened to show up, but we tried to be a bit more coordinated than that. Unfortunately any texts from the others were a bit vague and uncommited, so we ended up having to make a decision without them. As it transpired, at 4am in Lazaro (a beach resort, but from the brief glimpse I got of it, also something of an urban eyesore) there was only one bus leaving in the next few hours, which was for Caleta. We knew Beatriz and Whitney weren't there, because that was their first destination and now they were on the move, but it didn't matter. We got on the bus.

We turned up in Caleta at about 6am. It did not appear to be a very nice place. Clearly a very small, very poor village, we wandered along the road hoping to see some sort of hostel or hotel. We found one eventually and went in to get a room. In hindsight, we could have ventured further down the road and checked out a few other hotels, but when it's pitch black, you're really tired, and you're in a relatively uninhabited place, you don't think too much about the options. No-one looks at the menu in a greasy spoon life. Nevertheless, the hotel room was decent enough, and overlooked the Pacific Ocean and the town's lighthouse. It was a nice view, and waking up to it in the morning (well, afternoon) was also rather pleasant.

View from the hotel in Caleta

We wandered down to the beach in the afternoon, and again I was surprised at how little there was there. A few beachside restaurants with no customers, and a couple of men working on a fishing boat. The first stretch of beach was a bit stoney and I was keen to walk further onto the next section. This was actually pretty breathtaking. It was like something from a film set. As the waves crashed in against the shore, a towering terracotta cliff face climbed above us, with palm trees gathered at the back of the beach. Walking further still, we found a small cave and rockpools, which sat below some larger rocks. The sand was perfect, no stones to avoid or suffer, but sand with consistency solid enough to run on, or lie on, without getting covered in the stuff. A few minutes after we had picked our spot, some local boys conviently decided to set up a football pitch close by, whereby any goal scored or any near misses would have almost certainly meant the ball rolling and hitting us. The overriding feeling was, however, that of desperately wanting to join in with the game. Once the boys had left, we were virtually the only people on the entire stretch of beach, save for the odd swimmer or photographer. It was amazing, and I will definitely be attaching a photo here soon so you can all be ridiculously jealous of me.





Beach at Caleta











The following evening we went back to Lazaro for a connection. Whilst we were waiting for the busses, we saw a news bulletin about the recent drug baron vs police war. There were roadblocks, car fires, possibly shootings, and it was all taking place in.... Patzcuaro and Morelia. We contemplated waiting until the morning, as our routes, particularly Suha's, would take us in that direction, but in the end decided we would probably be ok. Suha headed back to Mexico City and fifteen minutes later my bus was ready to take me to Guadalajara. It was 1:30am and took 8 hours. I managed to get a bit of sleep but not a great deal. Before we left Lazaro however, there was still enough time for me to realise my camera was broken. This was a slightly annoying development in my trip and I hope that it is fixable. Hence why there aren't any photo uploads at the moment. Sorry about that, but you know what they say, a word tells a thousand pictures. If the word is 'collage'.

Twig