Surprise!I’m back for a small intermezzo adventure.I wasn’t sure if I wanted to blog again but I got encouraged to write about my current trip by several people, so I decided to do it. I am not completely up to date about who is still subscribed to this, so if you’re not interested, this is your moment to unsubscribe 🙂 I also apologize beforehand for my probably pretty poor writing. I’m not used to it anymore and always tired in the evenings. This trip and blog entry is going to be a lot shorter than the last one but it is connected to the original version because I revisit one…

I have been postponing to write this “last”, “conclusive” blog entry for months now. Today is Sunday, we’re heading towards Christmas, it’s raining, and I have no more excuses. A long time has passed since my external journey has ended with my return from Mexico. Nevertheless, a lot has happened since then. My plan until the end of September had been to spent a month or so at home, then pack my bag again and return to Donosti, my “chosen home”, where my life was waiting for me. I had been trying to remotely find a flat to live in, had a few interviews with shared flats over Skype and…

We stood up at 8 and were picked up by Toño for the last time at 9:30. Our flight left Mexico City Airport at 12:40 as scheduled. Monitoring the time in Mexico and at home, and hoping to get some sleep and make the Jetlag milder, I didn’t sleep at all during the hole flight. It passed relatively fast anyhow. Lunch, snack, breakfast, a movie and all the available episodes of not less than 5 TV shows and 11 hours later we landed in Madrid. The night had been really short, as we were flying against the rotation of the earth and when we landed, the sun was just about…

Our last day in Mexico started early. The school where we had painted the mural two weeks ago had understood that it wasn’t finished yet and we would come back, so this is what we did. We were there at 8:30 and spontaneously decided what to do. In the end we added “energetic” lines of points, uniting the animals. We finished around 11:30 and walked to the neighborhood of San Angel, where we took a look at the richer houses and colonial architecture, finished off by visiting a Hacienda. Haciendas are very big houses of rich Spaniards from the time of the colonialization. The patios and gardens were stunning, full…

Trying to do something useful with our second leftover day, we did the free walking tour in the morning, which was quite interesting. I found out that the reason why everything looks like it has not changed and only declined since the 50s is the invention of nylon. Merida and Yucatan had reached prosperity thanks to the production of sisal. Especially during the first world war there was a high demand of sisal to make sand bags. When nylon came up, sisal could not complete anymore; Nylon can be made in 2 hours, whereas the sisal plant needs 6 years to grow. We also learned that there had been a…

As expected, this was the “leftover” day. Having done everything around here, our main mission of today was to kill time and survive the heat. We slept in in the morning and had breakfast at the hotel as always. Afterwards, we took a public van towards the northern part of the city where we had the intention to visit the Maya museum. It was extremely hot and when we arrived the entrance cost was pretty high compared to our motivation. The place was very new and fancy and empty. Nevertheless, we saw a poster for alternative cultural cinema in the museum and as this secured us 1,5 hours of AC,…

Today was the big day, the day for which I came to Yucatan. The day of Cenotes! We left from the same bus station as yesterday at 9:15 for Cuzama, one of the villages in the Cenote-area. Cenotes are big subterranean caves with springs inside that fill them up with crystal clear fresh water in which you can swim. Only around this village there are about 200 of them, many of which you can visit. Given the extreme heat, this is a very attractive plan for locals and tourists. From Cuzama, we took a “Mototaxi” to the beginning of the route of Cenotes. A Mototaxi is a small motorbike which…

One of the reasons why we are here in Merida instead of being in Cancun in the Carribean, is the fact that Iratxe is obsessed with flamingos. So today was the big day of flamingo-watching. We had a big breakfast at the hotel and walked 8 blocks to the bus station. It was exactly like the rest of the city. Old, falling apart, a little communist, but with the Virgin of Guadalupe on the wall, decorated with colorful Christmas lights and plastic flowers. In general, however, the city looked a little more friendly at daylight. The bus-drive to Celestun took 2,5 hours and was pretty cold and uncomfortable. Outside, the…

Today was mainly a day of travelling. We had breakfast and left the hostel at 9:30, as a shrunk group of 3 people. The rest of the group finished their journey in San Cristóbal and took a plane back to DF today, some to stay there for the last week, some to go home. Iratxe, Susana and myself were the only ones going on to Yucatan. A taxi took us to the airport of Tuxtla from where we flew with a slight delay first to Mexico City and then on to Merida in Yucatan. In Mexico City, we doubled our delay but we still arrived at 7, which was okay.…

Our original plan for Chiapas had been to visit the cañón del sumidero, a huge canyon through which you can make a tour by boat. Yesterday, however, Esmeraldas friend Diego had told us that there was lots of waste floating on the water towards the end of the canyon, as the rubbish goes into the river and the river ends in the canyon and nobody ever cleans it up. This little fact made us change our opinion and lowered our interest for the canyon significantly. Instead, he had recommended the pyramids/ruins of Tanino and said that in his opinion they were the most beautiful pyramids in the most beautiful setting…