Hola!

So while most of my French students spent their holidays in the French countryside, alps etc. I ended up in... Mexico. Makes sense huh! I thought so too. But first there was a little trip to Barcelona to warm up the 3 words I know in Spanish... I haven't been to Barcelona in 9 years and wow has it changed, either that or I'm losing my memory (a distinct possibility I know... you guessed it, the 3 Spanish words I know are cerveza, sangria and tequila).

So after a delightful 6am flight which involved getting the bus from my place at 3.30am (yay for cutprice flights huh) Joris and I arrived for the weekend. The weekend pretty much comprised of wandering around checking out some of my favourite Gaudi sights, drinking beer and sunning on the beach and moving from tapas bar to tapas bar.

Now that is my ideal way to eat... cheap little plates of stuff so you can try as many things as you like... including the fried chillies, so much yummier than expected, and nowhere near as hot... but avoid the fat juicy ones! Lesson learnt there... The Spanish also know how to make a killer cup of hot chocolate, take chocolate and cream, melt, blend together and serve...so thick your spoon almost stands up but man is it good!

So after realising that my 3 words of Spanish were far from sufficient to communicate with the locals,I steeled myself for Mexico and hoped that the close proximity to an English speaking country and vast amount of tourism that the country attracts. Oh could I have been more wrong! If I was hoping to find a warm and welcoming country accustomed to tourists then Mexico City was definitely the wrong place to start! I'd heard mixed reports about Mexico city, some saying it was wonderful and full of culture and sights etc and others saying it was dirty, crowded, loud and not worth visiting. After spending 3 days there (probably 2 too many) I am inclined to agree with the later. The charming behaviour of the locals certainly didn't make me feel any warmer about the place... I have never felt more unwelcome or been treated more disdainfully than I was here, eye-rolling, grunts and sighs.. almost everyone we dealt with made it clear they wanted nothing to do with us.

Luckily as we headed away from Mexico City further through the Yucutan peninsular the people got better and a couple were even nice to us. We left the city for Oaxaca on a night bus and here I was definitely impressed. Travelling around Mexico by bus is comfortable, easy and well organised. Wherever we wanted to go there was a direct bus at a time that suited all organised through one central booking agency with clearly listed prices, no haggling, being ripped of or running around to find the best deal... it was heaven.

Oaxaca was a much nicer town with a lively central square and colourful streets. We started off on a tour of the nearby ruins, but after an hour of driving around in circles it turned out that access to the site was blocked due to a protest by the taxi drivers... so no cigar there.

The ruins of Palenque

From Oaxaca we headed out on a tour to Palenque, a Mayan ruin site. After debating and gathering information on whether to try and get there by ourselves and hire a guide or go with a tour we opted for a tour, which seemed the easier option and better value. At least it would have been if we hadn't been woefully misinformed.

After spending more hours than expected visiting a couple of nice but not spectacular waterfalls we arrived at Palenque with only 1h45m to check it out before the place closed. Nor were we happy to find that after asking about whether a guide was included in the tour and being told no, that there was indeed a guide... in Spanish, which was fantastic for everyone else in the group except the Aussie and the Frenchie. The guide also spoke French but didn't feel like helping us out there, so left us standing at the gate gapping at the Guide pricelist with a starting price of $60USD... so having decided against a guide we raced around the boiling hot site trying to cover as much of it was we could before the place closed.

We managed 2/3rds of it before the imminent thunderstorm and site closure forced us to give up. Still, even though under-informed about the history of the place I was amazed at the scale of the ruins and their beautiful location.

From there we headed to San Cristobal de las Casas, which is a really cute little town with stone paved streets and more colourful buildings set in the mountains. More time was spent wandering the streets and avoiding the rain in a great little jazz bar, where I had one of the best cocktails I've ever had... huge, green, lethal and delicious. Wish I'd written down what was in it...

After SC we moved on to the most anticipated part of the journey... the beach! And finally some sunshine... what a relief after the disastrous Paris 'summer'. Thankfully despite only being an hour south of Cancun, Playa del Carmen is developed but not overly so. 4 lovely days were spent swimming, sunning, strolling, snorkeling, relaxing, eating and drinking...the typical beach vacation.

The already missed Playa del Carmen

Bidding a sad farewell to the sun and sand we headed on to Chichen Itza, where we learned from previous experience and opted for DIY over the tour group. And happily so, the buses worked out perfectly and we lucked out and met an English speaking couple who'd just hired a guide and wondered if we were interested in joining in and splitting the cost...hell yes we were. Definitely worth it... the site was so much better with an explanation of all the details, fascinating! From the shadow of a snake that appears on the main pyramid twice a year to the sound of an eagle that occurs when you clap we learnt so much.

The new wonder... Chichen Itza

The zocalo of Merida at sunset (yep, I went a little panorama crazy, I know)

And then that was it, on to Merida for a day before heading back to Mexico city to fly out to head back to Paris and back to work :( Luckily there's more travel planned to look forward to Bordeaux, Venice and Prague here I come.

For anyone interested in seeing more photos you can check out my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7620750@N03/

Sunset in Merida