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LA

Starting with the plane which couldn't take off cos someone forgot to sign the flight log, changing planes to a completely different company, and loosing our luggage in the process... didn't bode well, not to mention Phil suffering from some bad food poisoning. But we rented a car and headed to my cousins place to recuperate... Culture shock... everything costs too much, and where have all the street vendors gone? And where else but Hollywood could you go to try and find medical help for Phil and find the medical centre is being used as a TV set instead... Scrubs!

Universal Studios

Wow, very artificial but somehow still heaps of fun with rides, shows, special effects, giant characters and all.

San Diego Zoo

We took a drive down to San Diego to visit the zoo, and ended up experiencing LA's famous freeways, traffic, and bad driving. We counted 8 lanes in our direction at one point with 6-8 going the other way. Karen felt very nervous with cars zipping by ignoring speed limits, not using indicators and generally driving very agressively...

The zoo was nice, and highlights were the hippos, pandas, polar bears, gorillas, chimps... and some of their impressive enclosures. Think we have to visit the Melbourne zoo again when we get home.

Mexico wrap-up

Back to Mexico City, and time for a visit to the world renowned Anthropological Museum. So we wandered round, absorbing as much as we could, and admiring the numerous large carved stones, pottery, and big olmec heads. Not to mention watching some dudes dangle upside down in a recreation of an ancient ritual.

MEXICO SUMMARY
Food: Chapulines (grasshoppers) and Mole (pronounced Molay, and its a chocolate chilli sauce) are highlights
Ruins: We saw heaps, our favourites are Calakmul and Uxmal, and we couldn't stand Tulum which was overloaded with tourists.
Places: Hard to go past our time and experiences in Oaxaca with the street kids centre, spanish classes, and the ongoing civil unrest. Another favourite was San Cristobal, nice colonial town, good handicrafts and nearby local mayan villages.

3&4 Dec - Taxco, Grutas (caves), and Teotihuacan

Taxco

Taxco is an oh so cute old silver mining town perched amongst the mountains. Now, there's no more mining, but its main drawcard is selling silver to tourists from one of the 400-500 silver shops there! We happened to visit during its annual silver show, so things were a bit busier than usual with concerts etc, yet the place still has a real charm as we discovered when we wandered up cobblestoned alleys, and winding stairways to the large Christ on the hill with the help of a few ragged streetkids and their small kitten.

Grutas de Cacahuamilpa

These are BIG, VERY BIG! Photos really just don't do them justice... they are huge... think of a large cavern up to 80m high, and 120m wide at points, going 2km into the mountain. Lots of huge stalagtites and mites too.

Teotihuacan

No one is quite sure who built this, but they certainly thought big... 2 huge pyramids, and a very impressive avenue of the dead leading through the city. And still heaps left covered, waiting for money to excavate and preserve. It was my second visit, but I appreciated the extra time to explore the museum and some of the excavated ruins I missed last time. They've just recently excavated further under one of the main pyramids and continue to find more bones, offerings, and clues as to the life and death of these people.

02 Dec 06 - Ciudad de Mexico

We finally escaped the Yucatan Peninsula, and arrived in Mexico City (D.F. - Distrito Federal) and were greeted by the smog and the overwhelming mass of humanity that tries to sell you everything ... we mean EVERYTHING. The beggars will even go so far as to bring crushed glass into the train and lie down on their stomachs and backs on half-broken bottles for a couple of pesos!

Xochimilco

Cruising down the canals of Xochimilco in colourful trajineras while Mariachi bands croon from another boat, and corona sellers or photographers vie for your business.... a relaxing day, but still with that Mexico City seething humanity edge to it.

LUCHA LIBRE!!!!!

Mexican Wrestling at its finest... unfortunately no cameras allowed inside... Karen is still not a fan, but Phil recommends it HIGHLY!!! Loads of fun, drop-kicks, flying piledrivers, off-the-top-turnbuckle-fun.... if you´ve seen American Professional Wrestling, and you like mask-wearing lycra-clad men.... you´ll love this!!! We were treated to five tag-team bouts... the first a two-on-two bout, the remainder, 3-on-3 including the infamous Dr. Wagner (that´s his mask I´m wearing!)

02 Dec 06 - Riviera Maya

Cozumel
This is a diving haven. Pure and simple. Every third or fourth shop is a dive store, Phil was in Heaven, Karen was getting whiplash from shaking her head every time Phil walked into a dive shop. We did a couple of drift dives, including Karen´s deepest at 30m. We saw a couple of hawksbill turtles at an arms length feeding on some of the soft corals... oh, to have the underwater camera working again!!

Ever since Jacques Cousteau did a doco in the ´60s, tourism has grown massively...and when the cruise ships discovered it.... the week before we arrived, there was an 18,000 people in a day onslaught purely due to these ¨cruzeros¨. Not only that, we saw the QEII as it was coming in to the island for a day or two. Get off the main strip, literally a couple of streets back, and you´ll find the usual undercurrent of mexican life keeping this island humming under the veneer of the american facade.

Cancun
There are hotels here. Lots of hotels. Think of a Mexican Surfers Paradise, and you´ll be about 20% of the way there to the corniness, utter soullessness and depravity that surrounds this place. (Hence, we visited Isla Mujeres, see below). There is a nice beach, if you can get to it through the hotels. The only public access to the beach is a couple of kilometres apart, otherwise you have to act like you are a guest at the hotel, hide your non-existent ID bracelets, and walk purposefully through the lobby.

One piece of advice when dealing with souvenir sellers (tiburones) or officious hoteleros in Cancun was provided to us by a local restauranteur... say to them ¨Chinga su Madre!¨ (this is what you think it is... maybe the guy wanted to see us get beaten up?)

Isla Mujeres
About 15min off Cancun, is this little island which has a little of the american facade of Cancun, but no resorts and a life all it´s own... predominantly mexican. This is a backpackers hangout... primarily cause it´s cheaper than Cancun. We saw a local turtle farm which breeds and releases turtles back to the wild (good), this makes up for all the turtle shell souvenirs you find in Cancun. We also saw a water cage with about 3-4 nurse sharks which are periodically manhandled by tourists out of the water for photo opps (bad).