Stuff

I was going to do a big post summarising Mexico, but I forgot to bring my notebook. So I might leave that be. Mexico was good though. Although it may have seemed like we weren't having a good time from our blog posts about sicknes and whatnot, I can assure you our bad times were limited to maybe 48 hours. Everything else was awesome.

We're in New York now. It just started snowing on us in Times Square while some rapper was trying to sell us his demo.

The only downer here so far has been logging into my Netbank account to notice someone has got a hold of my credit card details and bought themselves some $700 flights somewhere. I've got the Comm Bank investigating that one for me.

Also, the usually awesome music scene here hasn't really delivered for us. No worthwhile gigs to see, although we're going to see a guy called Loney Dear play a free show in Williamsburg tomorrow. Should be alright.

It's super cold. Between -5 and 2 degrees, but it's not really as bad as I expected. Good preparation for Montreal in a few days which is averaging -8 to -10 degrees.

We've been to the Guggenheim, the Natural History Museum, the Staten Island Ferry, Chinatown, Little Italy, East Village, etc. All the touristy stuff. All good. Walking through Central Park the morning after a big snowstorm was pretty impressive too.

I'll be back with a comprehensive Mexican summary soon. Bye.

Blake

San Cristobal

So, yes, I've been a little... unlucky with my health on this trip. A few too many visits to the hospital for my liking but I like to think it's made me a better person. I now know the Spanish word for doctor (which is "doctor") and that Mexican nurses like to mutter to themselves, giggle and hurt you. A lot. I also know that my lovely doctor was kind enough to type out a report for me for my insurance. On a typewriter. I thought he was watching Wheel of fortune " Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk- PING!"

San Cristobal was, besides the hospital stay, awesome. It's a beautiful little town, similar to Oaxaca, but with the added benefit of being nestled in the mountains. Crisp, fresh air, low cloud and even some rain made the surrounding range look otherworldly.

It's a politically active town, home to the Zapatistas but, more importantly, home to plastic shoes!! The local supermarket had walls of the things, from infant to adult sizes, all the colours of the rainbow. Like Melissa shoes, but about $76.20 cheaper on average.

I bought two pairs.

Uh-huh. Oh yeah.

Blake and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary at a gorgeous little restuarant with tea candles suspended from strings from the branches of the living tree growing out of the courtyard floor and through the ceiling. I was later struck down with food poisoning from that meal. Make of it what you will.

We've finally made it to Palenque, right in the jungle. We've seen the Mayan ruins (incredible), heard some cheeky monkeys in the forest and, after tonight, we're off to Campeche. We're in a bit of a mad rush, trying to make up for lost time but I'm dizzyingly happy just to feel well again, to be on the road, seeing things, doing things.

I'd like to post pictures but that will have to wait.

Love, Mads.

Maddie says ´HI MUM!

PS - We´re both well now and we´ve had a couple of awesome days exploring the jungle ruins of Palenque and seeing some pretty spectacular waterfalls. No monkeys though.

Eating Mexican food = Walking through a mine field

Mexican food is hazardous. People talk about the crime, but it´s the food you´ve got to watch out for! Though we´ve found that it´s near impossible to tell where an attack of the bad foods will occur. I thought, like most places, that the risks in eating the food would be exaggerated. But we seem to have copped enough in the last two weeks to make up for problem free trips to Thailand and China in the past.

First Maddie acquired what the doctor thinks was a ´Disentry Amoeba´. Some kind of parasite that most likely came from Oaxacan Cheese, which we discovered is not pasteurised and is stretched using bare hands and feet. Ewww. Tastes good in a Torta though.

We both suffered a few minor stomach upsets over the next week until we were hit by the big one in San Cristobal, incurring the wrath of the evil food demon ´Salmonella´ the night before we were due to travel onwards to Palenque. Maddie has suffered a little longer than I with ongoing stomach aches and some intermittent vomitting. Mine kind of came and peaked all in the one night, with an intense chilling fever which required an immediate injection to calm it. I´m feeling pretty good now. Maddie not so much, but she´s on the mend.

That was a few days ago and we´re still in San Cristobal. It´s not quite so bad as it might sound. We´ve really just stayed put because a 6 hour trip through winding mountain roads isn´t the first thing we want to do right now.

The hardest thing is trying to eat ´safely´. The night before we got sick, we ate at the classiest restaurant we´ve been to so far in Mexico... and the food wasn´t even Mexican. It´s just so hard to know. That and the fact that most Mexican food comprises of the same basic ingredients jsut arranged in different ways. It´s hard to avoid things like Cheese.

I´d love a roast.

Here´s some photos (not of sick people).

Puerto Escondido surf update 3

It´s been like this every morning.

(That´s me in both shots)

Puerto Escondido Surf Update #2

Our fourth day in Puerto today and I had my fourth surf this morning. Probably the best one so far too. Although it has been almost equally perfect each morning. I don't think the hardcore locals are too happy with the lack of size, but it's absolutely ideal for me. 3-5 ft, clean, hollow and powerful. Plus the water is a very refreshing temperature. I'm loving every second of it.

In addition to the great waves, the wildlife has presented itself in abundance. Yesterday I spotted a flying stingray jump 1 meter from the water just our from where I was paddling. There are flocks of brown pelicans that fly along the faces of the waves about 10cm from the water as if they are surfing. There was a snake on the beach on the 2nd day and the tree out from our balcony is full of huge lizards, hummingbirds and other colourful birds.

The pics below are from sunset last night. The onshore wind didn't pick up too much through the day and the waves stayed rideable for most of the day, although not quite as good as early morning when the wind blows just right.

TRAGEDY

My beloved casio calculator watch is dead.

The battery ran out.

Let's take a moment to remember him.

My ipod had apparently taken this loss quite hard as it is also on the fritz.

Vale.

Meh-He-Ko

Puerto Escondido is hot. Really hot.

I don't mean hot as in "Wow, that Jay Reatard 7 inch is hot!". I mean "It's HOT".

It's taken me by surprise. Mexico is pretty much always sunny and warm, it seems (even during winter) but this is something else.

Anyway, it's really pretty here and there's a lizard living in the tree outside our room. We named him Detective Goran.

Everyone, this is Detective Goran:


Detective Goran, this is everyone.

I've uploaded a few photos of my time in Mexico so far. Not lots but a few.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32860510@N04/

I'm keeping this short and sweet because I'm running out of time but hopefully I'll post again soon.

Puerto Escondido Surfing Update #1

Today is our second day in Puerto Escondido. Home of the world famous Mexican Pipeline. Yesterday the waves were epic. Perfect 4-8ft barreling beach breaks. However, I decided it was best to stay on the beach and take photos as my fitness level is pathetically low and I didnt think that surfing the biggest waves of my life while terribly unfit would be particularly wise. That and the fact there was no clear passage out to the back and I dont really like duckdiving at the best of times.

So I sat it out and went and hired the best board I could find (pretty average) and waited in hope that the swell would die down for the second day.

Luckily it did and I was greeted with perfect 3-5 ft waves. I was up at 7am to try and beat the crowds out there (The waves go bad at about 10:30 anyway with onshore winds throughout the day). This surf turned out to be a bit of a disaster though as on my second wave, one of my fins got sucked off and was lost for all eternity. I paced the beach for 40 minutes hoping it would wash up, but to no avail. I went back to our room feeling a bit dejected, but decided to get another pair from the surf hire place and get back out there. By the time I headed back, the crowd at Mexican Pipe was pretty big so I opted for a lesser peak a few hundred metres down the beach. While not perfect by any means, I had it to myself and got some decent waves.

Hopefully over the next few days i will regain some surf fitness and be able to say ive surfed the best waves of my life by the time I leave here.

Last picture is of me!! Thanks to Maddie for having the patience to sit on the beach and take a few shots. All other pics are from the first day.

Blake and Mugs

So I've been hearing about a "group present" that our friends were organising for Christmas. Something we'd all get "joy" from.

Turns out the gift is making a Blake and Mads coffee mug to take on holiday with them, since we couldn't go. Then they made a blog about it.
http://blakeandmugs.blogspot.com/

What an incredible effort. I'm stunned. I thought you'd like to see it, too.

They also were sad that we couldn't make it to a karaoke night they had. I made a passing comment to Annika that they should record them all singing November Rain by Guns 'N Roses. Turns out they did that, too. If you look carefully, you can see Cam drinking from said "Blake and Mads Mug", I think.

November Rain video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWb-BOpHCuM
(Password if you need to login)
username: teamawesomes
password: doubledare

Thanks to Team Awesomes for making me laugh too loudly in an internet cafe.

Miss you all.

P.S. Cars here have horns that play the Godfather theme.

Happy New Year!!

We´re in Oaxaca City now. 6 hours south of Mexico City. It´s a great old colonial style town. Very colourful.

We spent Xmas in New York, which was great. Perhaps slightly spoiled by our heavy jet-lag (it lingered for around 5 to 6 days) which prevented us from getting out at night to see the Xmas lights and stuff, which I had dreamed about ever since watching Home Alone 2.

We spent Xmas morning in a lightly snow covered Central Park and our Xmas lunch consisted of NY style Pizza and a Hot Dog (we had chicken and vegies for dinner, which is a little closer to the traditional meal, i guess).

New York was the only place so far that has almost been exactly what I expected. The way it is portrayed on TV is spot on. I also wouldn´t be surprised if it contained the highest amount of insane people per square kilometre anywhere in the world. Crazies eveywhere!! Really looking forward to getting back there at the end of the month and exploring properly.

Now on to Mexico.

I must admit, I was a little nervous coming into Mexico City. The statistics and media reports about the place are quite alarming and paint it as an extremely crime ridden city.... which I suppose it is. We arrived very early in the morning and between the airport and our hostel I saw what I thought were three separate crime scenes, attended by police cars with flashing lights. Turns out, the police have their lights flashing permananently to make their presence more obvious. As if a dude with a shotgun, finger ready on the trigger, on every block isn´t enough of an indication of their presence. So it took a day or two to realise that the police cars driving around weren´t all in a hurry to get to another shooting or something.

Cops and crime aside, Mexico City was a pretty awesome place. In our first three days in Mexico, we saw/experienced the following:

- Cops on Segways.
- Ancient Aztec pyramids.
- Buses and Trucks with bullet holes through their windscreens, still being driven.
- A fire breathing man who performs for traffic waiting at a red light, then collects money. Similar to the guys on the corner of Hoddle and Victoria washing windscreens except much more dangerous.
- The Mexico City favelas (which house 12 million people) that are almost entirely concrete grey in colour. If you paint your house, it means it´s finished and you have to start pàying taxes.
- Pandas (at the Mexico City free zoo. Funny that we went through China seeing nothing of Pandas, but then see some the minute we get to Mexico).
- Intense catholic devotees crawling hundreds of metres on their knees and bawling their eyes out in a pilgrimage to the citys holiest cathedral, where some guy supposedly made the virgin Mary appear in the lining of his coat.
- Fantastic colonial architecture.
- AWESOME food.
- Guys swinging and twirling 30m high in the air from a platform slowly making their way to the ground (pics below).

Given that Mexico City was my least anticipated place in mexico, i can´t wait to see what the rest of the country holds for us.