| We arrived in Argentina no problems in Puerto Iguazu. In the area there are huge rivers separating Paraguay, Brasil and Argentina, and some of the biggest falls in the world. The Argentian side is more extensive and is a national park so we went there. It was amazing (and nice to understand everything again, even if the accent is really strong). The whole park is very well set up and there are catwalks all over the falls and a boat ride included to go to an island in the middle of the falls that offers great views of one side. However, probably the most exciting thing (for me) was getting to see coatimundis finally! We first saw some on one of the catwalks, there were about 7 and I was stoked. The big male of the group was marked (ear tag) so there must be something going on there. Then when we had lunch we saw a group of about 20. So much fun. We could get quite close to them and I got a couple of good pics. They are soooo cute.
Other than that, we just spent the day wandering around. It was a bit drizzley, but good fun nonetheless. And there was the best pizza restaurant in the city. Yum.
The next day (we spent two nights in Argentina) we went to Foz de Iguaçu (the Brazilian side) but not to the falls, we went to a bird park cos there were anaconda there. It was nice and we got to hold a baby python.
That night we took another bus to Campo Grande to transfer to Bonito, but ended up taking a tour into the Pantanal there. | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment   |
| | After the excitement of Sao Paulo, we headed to Rio so that I could see O Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) above the city. It was raining, we tried to stay in Copacabana, where the footprint book had a cheap hostel, but I only ended up scaring Stew by walking through a car tunnel while it was dark. So we went to Ipanema instead. There´s still a song about it, so what the heck. We only stayed one night and the next day headed up the mountain to see the Christ. We ended up taking a taxi up to a lookout and then to the Christ (I´ve found him!). It was cloudy and rainy but we saw capuchin monkeys so I was happy! That night we got a bus to Argentina. Such a long way. Over a day in the bus. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| We arrived in Brasil early one morning, Stew rather nervous and me trying to figure out another metro system. We did manage it and after finding some accomodation we headed out to USP (Sao Paulo Uni) to catch up with Carlos, the guy I had worked with with Robbie. We just showed up cos we didn´t have time to email (we didn´t have email access in Texas). Obviously he was surprised but was wonderful and showed us around the lab and stuff. He phoned the other Carlos in the Butantan Institute which is next to the campus and Stew and I headed down there to see him. Butantan is Brasil´s producer of snake antivenom, and so Stew was interested. That day we got shown around the snake collection, 80 000 bottled snakes. Stew was in heaven.
The next day we headed back to USP to have a look at the antivenom production process. It was so cool. All the snakes here have huge fangs and sooooo much venom. The females are larger than the males and produce more venom. So cool. The area was all disinfected and all the rooms we entered we had to disinfect our shoes by standing in a bucket of the stuff. Which means that I disinfected my thongs - the ones with holes in them and consequently my feet as well.
Stew had a blast and I learnt so much. We met up with Carlos and had dinner with him, Anna (his wife) and Felipe (his son). They are so fantastic! We had a ball in Sao Paulo! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Ok, I believe we were up to the end of Canadia. A couple of days later and a couple of flights later (my first with American Airlines, which is beyond a shadow of a doubt the worst organised and worst in general airline I have ever flown, and I´ve flown with Garuda...) we were in Dallas, Texas to visit Stew´s sister. She´s just delightful. We pretty much just hung out, it was really nice. Lisa (the sis) had to work a fair bit while we were there so we went to do stuff by ourselves a fair bit. We went to the Dallas World Aquarium (great enclosures but completely lacking in ANY information - to the point of having enclosures that didn´t even label the species inside), we went to the movies, twice, ah the luxury. We went snake hunting in a great little private reserve but didn´t find any. Stew found a road kill the next day though and was a little satisfied. We went to a snake show of a guy who Stew had been in contact with previously and chatted to him for a good long while and got to play with his Burmese python. We also went to a comedy show thing. Good times.
However, probably the two most exciting things were side by side thickshakes and the break in to the car. Side by side shakes are two shake flavours - POURED IN NEXT TO EACH OTHER. These americans! The things they think of. However, they hadn´t thought of combining chocolete and orange to make a Jaffa - thanks to Lisa I had the best shake ever!
Anyway, after the comedy night we came back at midnight to Lisa´s work to pick up her finacé´s car which had had a window smashed in. So the fun began and Lisa looked up the tapes on the security cameras and we called the police. Someone came along about 20mins before, barefoot, and scoped out the two cars in the parking lot and then went to get a rock. They smashed the back window of the other car that was there and took a shirt and some documents and then smashed in the other car window and took some shoes and a cap which he immediately put on. The police came and Stew took a photo of me with one of them. Ah, the United States! Good times!
alecia | | comments: Leave a comment |
| In continuation...
In the entire time I was there, only two batches of eggs were collected for the hatchery, mine and one from the girl that was late back that night too. Other than that night, the tortugueros didn't really leave the hatchery area and actually didn't really help much with that work either. During these two months the locals are "allowed" to take the eggs. It's a federal offence, but the tortugueros turn a blind eye and they run the risk of being caught. I ended up understanding the social situation, but at the beginning I was frustrated that I souldn't see the parts of the process that I wanted cos two little boys were waiting to steal the eggs. Eventually I was able to convince teh people on the beach that I wasn't a threat and that I just wanted to see them digging and laying and all that and that they could take the eggs and I wouldn't say anything. But it was a lot of hard work. One of the kids that was out there every single night was a kid called Modesto. He was a tortugueros son. At first I found it hard to understand how the man, Gregorio, could work to save them 10 months of the year and take as many as his son could get 2 months of the year. I then went to his house. And we ended up really good friends.
He lives in a house that is no bigger than the bedroom that I had before I got here and he has 6 kids ranging from 1 month old to 18 years. I eventually met them all. María de los Ángeles was really lovely, we got her to stay at the camp over night, and then me and my two friends (we were the outcasts) took her to Maruata, which is incredibly gorgeous.
Anyway, Gregorio had had an accident 5 years ago and he had to learn to talk all over again, so he was a bit difficult to understand. And he can't work like he used to which is why his family doesn't have all that much. I will go on with them in a bit, but while we're talking about sad stuff, might as well get it all out and over with and go on with better stuff.
I haven't actually talked about the babies, they tended to hatch all at once and so a basket of about 40 would appear in 10 mins. Soooo cute. And they hatch out all night long, so there's always supposed to be someone there at all times to get them cos the birds had learnt that there´s good pickin´s there. Anyway, I did that when I wasn't walking up an down the 4.5 km beach.
I wasn't really part of the group and hung out with a girl, Jess, from the US, really good fun, and a girl from England, Abi. It wasn't that I didn't make an effort to start with, but noone was at all near as enthused as I about the turtles and most nights I ran around doing the work and then got people to come have a look cos they didn't wanna walk up and down the beaches. Abi and Jess were good for coming with me a whole lot.
Abi was from a different programme and so became one of the outcasts when Jess and I weren't going to the beach again (I don't need to see a different beach everyday and Jess had to be near a toilet, bless her) and so we spent the arvo with her and the coordinator of her programme when she got there and kept her.
A couple of days after she was there, her and another girl had their things nicked, they had a heap of money stolen and a camera and an ID and Abi´s bankcard. She had to call her mum which cost 60 pesos for 2 mins. The next day there were Mother's Day celebrations in the town, and I didn't go cos I'm anti-fiesta. At about 10 I was watching the crias (babies) and a girl came running in to get a tortugero. She didn't say anything to us but was obviously distressed so I ran to find out what was going on. The Dutch girl from the second night had been raped by the English speaking Mexican who was drunk from the party. The whole thing was surreal. Not at all I had expected, if ever I had been asked to think about what would happen in that situation. I ran to get the coordinator and then after all the stuff had been sorted as to who was going to the hospital/police etc I went back to the crias with teh outcasts and we dealt with the info there. The whole thing was wierd and I won't go into it here. The girl left, obviously.
So between the violence, the robbery, the stealing of eggs and the incredible and obvious poverty, I have to tell all the nice stuff that made it the best time in Mexico.
There was a restaurant that Abi had to eat at for lunch and dinner that I walked her to nearly every time she went with Jess aswell. The family were so nice and generous and because we went there and I spoke in Spanish and Jess tried they often gave us free food and joked with us so much. I got photos the day I left with them. It was a family of a mother (Doña Luisa) and her 5 daughters that came and went in their house that was the restaurant aswell. They make my heart smile.
The family of Gregorio, although incredibly poor, gave us a glass of coke one time when they knew we were coming and they gave us arroz con leche (rice pudding?) another time. I know they can't afford it, but it would be rude to say no. Gregorio gave me a tooth of a pig like thing as a going away present that he told me how to turn into a necklace. I have their address and have to send them the photo that we took all together as soon as I get home. They were amazing.
One night it rained and the next day there were a billion crabs out and migrating looking for new places to dig a burrow thing. They turned into dinner for a lot of people and were in every damp corner in the camp, digging. They were cool.
I'm going to stop there, this is just a story too long to read and to tell so that I can get everything out. The main stuff is there, it was really far too much to share right now. All the best. I'm leaving Mexico tomorrow. So sad!
alecia | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| The last 11 days have been my best and worst in Mexico. I'll start with the turtles and move on to the more shocking stuff in a bit.
I went back to the beach where the girls and I had visited the turtles on the Michoacan coast - Colola. When I got there, I had planned on seeing the tortugueros (the guys that work with the turtles) and convincing them that I should stay and help. But alas, there was a work camp starting that day from a group called Vive México, and the coordinator was lovely and said that it didn't matter to her if I stayed with them. The idea of group work did not inspire happiness in me, but I thought there would at least be a bunch of like-minded people and I wouldn't have to organise all the meals myself. So I became a part of the the group as it was their first day and things seemed peachy for a while.
However, I soon found out that it was not the season for the turtles (well, I didn't find out, I knew that, but had been told that not many come - not many is enough!) and that the tortugueros can come patrolling if you ask them, but mostly we'll be working with the babies.
I'll fill you all in (or zoology friends and those who I don't bore talking about animals!) on what the whole process is:
Turtles come out of the ocean and drag themselves up the beach. The most common is the Black sea turtle (negra), next Olive Ridley's Turtle (Golfina) and then hardly ever but sometimes the leatherback (laúd). I only saw adult black turtles. Their big season is September, October, November and December. Once out of the ocean (they're very similar to the green turtle) they climb up the beach and start digging a pit by flicking sand everywhere with their front and back flippers. After a while of doing this and if the sand isn't too dry, they start digging a hole with their back flippers. It's square shaped cos the flippers kinda are too. They are dexterous (is that the right word?).
After a good long while of this (it takes up to an hour to start digging and far more than an hour to actually dig the whole thing, up to two hours that I saw) they go into a trance and start laying the eggs. That can take over half an hour aswell. They then spend what I was told an hour (I sat and watched once, it took 3.5 hours) for them to cover the eggs back up, and they are still in a trance. It's mighty convenient and a little funny, as you can just pick them up and move them and tehy continue throwing sand about even when they're not on their eggs.
Once the eggs are collected they are taken back to the nursery and buried there and the position, date, species and number of eggs should be recorded. They then stick a cage around the area about 30cm diameter so that they don't run everywhere after they hatch and they can collect and count them all.
The first night we were all taken out and told that we were looking for animals to get the eggs. We eventually found one and we moved the female once she had layed and collected her eggs. They didn't go back to the hatchery, but I didn't know this then.
The second night I was still enthused and went out with two tortugueros and another girl. We found a turtle and I said I'd watch her as she was started to make the pit. So the english speaking guy who turned out to be a retired tortuguero went further down the beach with the Dutch girl and I stayed with the spanish speaker that turned out never to have done this before, he just came along with his friend. So one day into it and I had to figure it all out for myself. When they are digging, they aren't in a trance and are very easily spooked so I spent an hour creeping up on her to check if she was still digging or not. It's hard when they are digging the hole cos sand isn't flying everywhere. I did do it and I managed to figure it all out and eventually she started laying. So we watched her do that and I took a couple of photos. She was HUGE! When she started covering the eggs back up I said desparately to the guy that we had to move her, but she turned out far to big for me to lift and so I sent him running back to the camp while I tried to keep the eggs uncovered. I was fighting a losing battle, but did ok, with masses of amounts of sand in my undies, face and ears, but very little sand actually on the eggs. The guy came back with a real tortuguero and we moved her and I got all the eggs out. There were 120!!! She was massive! And so we took them back and buried them. The other girl was out all night and I got worried and asked the tortuguero to come get me to look for her and the guy if she wasn't back by 4:30 when I went to bed at 4. She apparently made it back before then. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I've handed in my last assignments (5!) and had my last exam EVER (for uni)! The day before that though was my birthday and my absolutely wonderful friends here made my day sooo special. I saw Jordie on Friday morning who gave me a homemade card and some choccy (which I have yet to consume) and told me that I'd have to wait for the rest. That night I went to Jord´s to do the last of my washing at her place and we headed off to the Tiki bar to say good-bye to one of my teachers and some other friends. It was nice.
We then had to go to Ángel and Beto´s place for a BBQ dinner. It was great! We had BBQ quesadillas and real meat! There was just the two mexicans, the four of us Aussie girls and two Canadians there and it was lovely. They then surprised me with a huge cheesecake and my birthday pressie! They got me a T-shirt with animals on it that says Nosotros Llegamos Primero (We got here first). They got it in Xalapa, sweeties.
Lots of good times. Anyway, on Sat morning I had an exam and after started packing up all my stuff. Too much, but that's another story. Jordie and Amanda had the same exam as I (actually, it was the same class but a different teacher and they ended up having a different exam cos they didn't cover as much stuff as my class during the semester) and an exam after and then we had planned on meeting up for some lunch at 3:30.
As we were walking to the Zócalo, they accosted me, blind-folded me and then lead me round the streets of Cholula with no idea what was going on! Amanda was supposed to be leading me but neglected to tell me (quite frequently) about stepping up, down, out of the way of cars... Alexis was very good at it, though. At one stage Jordie was saying she had no idea where we were (apparently in the back streets of San Andres - our part of Cholula) and suddenly yelled out "Hey, there's ostriches here!" They wouldn't let me look, but we standed there for a good long while as Jordie stood in awe of the ostriches, and then some cows. Cows aren't that unusual, but there are more horses, chickens and pigs. I think she was happy. Anyway, we walked around for ages with me blindfolded and finally they sat me down in a store somewhere in Cholula.
I was sitting on a bench waiting for who knows what and reached around for the girls who had gone quiet. I ended up patting a complete strangers thigh who told me, in Spanish, that my friends were standing up on the left, she was just another customer. Oh dear.
Finally Alexis got me up, walked me to a couch and put my feet in water (wierd when you're wearing a blindfold) and took the blindfold off. The girls were getting me a pedicure! They're so lovely! My feet have been a bit of a drama the entire time I've been here, but they look so pretty now! I've never had a pedicure before, so it was all a bit wierd for me, I left a lot of my feet in the store! Gross!
I thought it was all over, I had no idea where we were, but they blindfolded me AGAIN, walked me outside and then we GOT ON A BUS!!!! The buses in Cholula/Puebla/México are not easy to deal with at the best of times, so funny. I'm glad I couldn't see the other people watching me! The bus driver said "Surprise" in a very thick accent and the girls left me in a seat by myself. Getting off blind-folded was far more difficult than getting on - especially with Amanda telling me what to do! Bless her. I was stepping before she said anything and almost died. Well, not really, but it was funny.
We ended up in the Zócalo of San Pedro (the other part of Chols) and they sat me down, gave me a menu and then took my blindfold off. We were in Cafe Enamorada which was in a movie that Alexis and I saw in Literature class. We had an iced moka, bad service and walked back toward the UDLA later on.
These girls are so wonderful, I felt incredibly special the entire day and wasn't expecting anything after the fantastic BBQ on Friday night. I love them to death and am going to miss them so much, I have less than 24 hours left here! They are definately my favourite part of México.
alecia | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Just to let you all know, there are even more photos up on the other site.
http://alecia-in-mexico.blogspot.com/
And I'm trying to fix the left out bits of the semana santa stuff. So there should be place names soon. Hopefully. I am procrastinating cos I only have one week of classes left. I should decide what to do when I leave, but that would mean wasting more time. Come to think of it...
alecia | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Unfortunately, things were never quite as exciting for me after the turtles. We went to Guadalajara, which is the birthplace of everything mexican - Mariachis, tequila, mexican hat dance etc. And everyone was gone thanks to the public holiday. It made seeing the second biggest city in México pleasant.
We discovered one morning that MacDonalds makes breakfast burritos here - McBurritos. So sad, I had to have one. While ordering I dropped a peso and a very loud, old, short, dumpy american guy said "She's got so many pesos she's dropping them!" I said something in Spanish to the lady at the counter and when I turned around he asks me (please, please, please imagine one of the strongest US accents ever!) "You're not Mexican. What are you?" WHAT am I? I felt like saying human, female, harrassed but I said Australian. He tells he that hes english, from Las Vegas. The girls assured me he said he speaks english, but either way I would have given him the look that made him say "What, you never heard of LAs Vegas? It's in Nevada!" Oh dear.
We went out to the outskirts of the city to see a huge ass canyon and then travelled to see a waterfall into the canyon and got a ride back from the middle of nowhere with a Czech guy who spoke Spanish. And then we bummed arpund til the next day when we got the most luxurious bus ever back to DF, then one to Puebs then Chols. And walked home. And that was our one week off! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Colima is nice. It’s the capital of Colima state and again there’s not much to do there. But there was heaps to do outside the city. The first day we had big plans to go to a couple of cities about and hour aawy. I can't remember what they're called but I'll look it up when I get home tonight. They were really little. The first one is famous for the carved wooden animal masks they make. So when we got there we sat down in a cafe and asked them who we can talk to to find out more. They told us dirrections of how to get there and once we were lost we asked again and again until we got to an old house.
There were babies crying inside so had to knock a few times. All this while we're standing on dusty cobbled street being watched by dustly children. A lady came to the door and told us the workshop was around the back. We went around and there were two men working in a little shed. One of the men introduced himself, pulled us up some chairs and we had a good discussion about how to make a mask. He was really lovely and impressed with our Spanish.
We left him to his work and caught a bus to the next town on the way back (insert name here!!!). There wasn't much to do, though they did have a whole animal display in the Zócalo and we got icecream. It was incredibly hot so we decided to get back on the bus and go to Colima. Since the sun sets late here now that we've got daylight savings, we decided to go to the beach (finally - says Jord) near Amaría. Once again, I'll have to look up the name. so quite a lot of travelling in some very old buses and we were at a black sand beach that seemed to grow sleazy men and beach umbrellas. We walked for ages looking for families to sit next to and I read a book while the girls swam. It was nice to see the coast, but I much prefer the outback I've decided.
The next day we were 2 days ahead of schedule so I convinced the girls to go back to the beach to see turtles. I didn't do much convincing. The place we had planned to go to was Maruata which had been recommended to me by an English guy at the beginning of the year. We got up really early cos we didn't actually know how to get there. We planned to go to one town and then just work it out. It was interesting at the time but will no doubt be very boring but what eventuated got us on another bus, waiting an hur just to find the next bus was full and then getting a taxi with a stranger to an uninhabited beach called Colola.
Colola had a turle encampment which is why we went there. We asked to talk to the head guy that wasn't there and were advised to come back in an hour. So we walked down to the other end and I took piccies of birds catching fish, Jord swam in a rock pool (the Pacific coast doesn't live up to it's name, the waves were huge!) and Amanda slept. On returning 2hours later to the camp we found the leader guy hadn't, and I tried to get as much info as I could out of French speaking volunteers and an 8 year old. Try explaining temerature dependant sex determination in spanish! In the end I didn't learn anything new, except that black sea turtles breed year round and that there's no such thing as science in México. It is a prime place for a three year study of some sort, if you could ever convince the government to let a foreigner do it. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| La semana santa was finally upon us (we have all of two weeks left alter the hols), so last week Amanda, Jordie and I headed out West. Alexis went south, to Chile. Anyway, our first stop was DF to change bus stations. We thought that they wouldn’t start the student discounts until the next day and we’d be catching a bus at 1am to save a night’s accommodation in DF. We were pleasantly surprised though and headed off at 7 to Morelia, the capital of Michoacán. We also bought our return tickets from here too at the only place that sold them and so paid through the nose for them but we were warned by heaps of people to get them early.
We spent the Saturday walking around Morelia, very, very pretty but not much really to do there. In the morning, for some reason all of the emergency vehicles lined themselves up in painstaking order in front of the main church and Zócalo, blocking an entire block of traffic off. We couldn’t figure out why even though we asked a billion coppers what was going on. After about 2 hours of organizing themselves, they took off in the streets with all their lights and noise down the road. And that was that. Weird.
Morelia has a big old aqueduct at one end of the city and a couple of churches and a museum of history. We did all of that in the morning and were stuck for stuff to do for the arvo. We had gone to the Casa de Cultura to have a look at a heap of Mexican masks that didn’t exist there anymore and found out they were playing a movie that night. So after we all had a nap we headed back there and watched a really bad Hollywood film, came out and watched the second crazy Morelia show for the day. The lights of the main Cathedral were off and they were planning to turn them on at 8:45. They did that while they blasted fireworks spontaneously into the sky and playing the optus theme song too loudly through some speakers. Very strange. The thing with Mexicans though is they love to watch anything so there was a huge crowd.
The next day we headed to Patzcuáro which is a great indigenous city with a lot of tourism. We were recommended by the lonely planet for the Palm Sunday celebrations and stayed around all Sunday morning waiting for the procession. Which turned out to be a priest walking beside a car with a loudspeaker, four guys carrying Christ and 12 men in costume. I’m guessing they were the apostles. Not much fun. We headed to the Lake after that and got a collective boat out to a heavily populated island in the middle of it. It was nice, there were fishermen and the streets wound up to the top of the island where there was a huge monument visible from space, ok, just from the boat coming over, but it was huge.
That arvo we did something else that mustn’t have been exciting cos I can’t remember and went to bed. Jordie and I climbed to a lookout the next day (Amanda was feeling sick) and my sandal broke on the way up. At the start. So I walked the entire way with unfixable sandals. And back. Good times. We got Amanda and headed to Uruapan.
There’s not really anything to do in Uruapan except go to the national park there which is nothing like a national park I’ve seen anywhere else. Think botanical gardens, but with heaps more development. There were paths the entire way through and water fountains and you couldn’t walk 5mins in any direction without running into another eating place that served up 5hour old deep fried food. We obviously didn’t eat there.
The markets took up the entire Zócalo, which meant there wasn’t a zócalo at all which is probably why I didn’t like the palce. They were pretty cool markets though. In the morning we went looking for breakkie and we realized that the sellers of all the goods live with them. That’s right, as we were passing through, little families were pulling back the tarps and coming out of their stack of pottery or brushing their kids hair. Michoacán is probably the poorest states in México, up there with Chiapas.
We had planned on climbing a volcano in a nearby town that day but when we arrived at the bus station there was a bit of a problem. We were told to sit and wait and after an hour of this we were told the reason there were none of the frequent services. The teachers were protesting for higher salaries and were blocking all the traffic in that area. It had been going on for 8 days now and not looking to stop in the near future so we went back to the hotel, got the guy at the counter to give us back our money for that night (it took a while cos he had no money on him, we had to wait for someone else to pay) and headed back to the bus station to get a bus to Colima. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I went back to DF this last Friday night and Saturday with the Aussie Chicas. Friday nights in the Arena México is Lucha Libre night. Lucha Libre is mexican wrestling. Pretty much, you take the absolute worst of WWF, the worst acting, the worst costumes (seriously, what wrestler would wear green and pink together?) and the worst masks ever and you get close to having lucha libre. Nearly all the wrestlers wear a full face mask (on sale outside the venue before and after the event for the fans) of different colours and designs. Some had tassel-type things hanging around their necks, others, if they have long hair, have it sticking out of the top (the masks you can buy of these characters includes fake hair. Nothing but the best).
The event itself was very entertaining. We got tickets for the first floor, they were cheaper but still had numbered seats. The event started right on time at 8:30 with a three on three tag team battle between some amatuer wrestlers. There wasn't any good examples of back flipping at one stage but I think someone went flying through the air to a guy he had thrown out of the ring earlier on.
The next event involved female wrestlers which was far more entertaining as they were bitchier. There was a lot of hair pulling and acrobatics, they were much better than the men. They were also a three on three battle and one of the girls that won actually put another wrestler behind her back and twirled her around. I'm sure it didn't do as much damage as what she acted had happened but nonetheless it was pretty impressive.
The next more than an hour started with a fight between 12 guys all at once, which included a VERY large man, reminicent of Sumo. After the all out brawl they all went away and came out in pairs to fight each other, the winner going on to fight again. We got very bored during this part although there was the occasional air-flying jump at an opponent or backflip off the ropes that provided intermittent entertainment. Most of the fights spent more time out of the ring than in it and the people in the front row were often sat on by some flying wrestler or another. The winner of the entire thing got very bitter and after the other guy had his trophy he attacked him once again and stole his mask! Sooooo funny. He immediately covered his face with his hands while he was on the ground and the ref guy ran after the loser to get the mask back. Someone threw their mask up to the stage though and saved the day.
After all of that the main event started which was more fun as the crowd was really involved and the baddie tried removing the mask of the goodie. He successfully ripped it to pieces. After a while though, the goodie started winning and ripped the other guys mask. Anyway, this one was entertaining enough and ended with Místico winning as predicted (not that it's all staged anyway). By this time it was already 11:30 and we all left en masse to get to the metro and back to the hostel.
The next day wasn't as eventful. We headed out after breakkie to the Basilica de Guadelupe, the first indigenous image of the virgen in the new world. The story goes that a peasant was walking on a hill (dedicated to a "pagan" Mexica-Azteca god) when an image of a virgen appeared to him telling him to go tell the bishop to build a church there in her honour. The peasant did so, but of course the priest didn't listen to him. The peasant went back later and saw her again and told him to take the roses from the hill to the church guy. He wrapped them in his cape and when he opened it in front of the bishop there was an image of the virgen (indigenous) emblazoned on the cape. So now there are heaps of churches there. You can go in and see the cape. There are four travellators (three one direction, one the other) that you are forced onto so that you can't linger in front of the image. And it is packed. There were people everywhere and I had the feeling that it wasn't even busy by normal standards. There were people walking on their knees to the church from outside carrying babies or accompanied by their children or the elderly.
We spent the rest of the day on the metro checking things out and getting felt up as we stood like sardines in the trains there. It was Saturday so they were incredibly packed as were the markets that we went to looking for socks for Jordie. We were refered to as Barbies on more than one occasion which I thought a bit funny cos I haven't heard that for ages, not the least in different parts of one city on the same day.
We came home that night and now I am trying to do the 5 assignments I have due tomorrow. Wich me luck!
alecia | | comments: Leave a comment |
| In all the time I spent in Brazil, most of it was at USP. The couple of cultural things we did involved mostly food and drink and we went to a football (soccer) game. That was an other worldly experience. There is so much of a violent history that unbelieveable measures are put in to keep the fans from even having a chance at seeing each other, let alone fight. We met Renata (not sure of the spelling) who is in Carlos´ lab at USP a fair way from the stadium cos it´s hard to get parking close. While we were waiting, we saw lots of people selling beer in the streets (Robbie and Mike got one each, after checking with Renata that it was ok... There were police everywhere) and we saw heaps of police lining up the fans walking to the game and patting them down or making them lift up their shirts to check if they were carrying weapons. Very entertaining. When we walked passed, the guys walked slowly so that they´d be checked. Good times.
We were coming in on the streets that only the Corinthians fans could enter from. That´s right. The Palmeiras fans had their own streets to walk in from which were completely separate from the Corinthians fans. And it was a 20min walk at least, not a couple of blocks from the stadium. Upon entering the stadium, everyone is checked, patted down and bags searched, female police are there to check females, males for males. Very well organised. Once in the stadium, the two sides are completely separated by barriers and since it wasn´t packed, people sat out with ropes completely separating the two sides with a big gap, not just a huge fence.
The game itself was fun, but the best part was the taunting of the other side of fans. There were two section that we crazy fans of each side, they gave out balloons in the team colours (black and white for us) and we all sang stuff in Portugese which turned out to be rather rude when we scored a goal. Anyway, there were absolutely huge banners that filled entire seccions that they passed over our heads when something exciting happened, so when Corinthians scored a goal we couldn´t see anything but the underside of the huge banner and we missed the start of a fight that happened cos of a bad decision on the part of the line ref. Or something like that.
Anyway, it was a tie, but Palmeiras are out now cos of that. When we left we saw people burning Palmeiras shirts and more police than ever and choppers flying over with giant spotlights. It was surreal.
Other than that, I ate heaps of pizza and the lunch before we left we went to a Rodizio which is a kind of all you can eat place where there´s a salad bar and then they bring around all this meat on "swords", big skewers and cut bits of it off for you at the table. And Amanda is a vege. Poor thing.
All in all, it was great seeing Amanda and Robbie and doing science (it´s been a while). Can´t wait to go back.
alecia | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Robbie, my supervisor at UQ, had been globetrotting himself lately doing sciencey things in the US and he was headed t Brazil. Probably without thinking of the consequences, he invited me to spend some time with him and his girlfriend Amanda, who is doing her PhD at the moment along the thermal physiology lines aswell.
Probably without thinking, I said yes, madly organised a visa (a special trip to DF) and a flight (same trip to DF) and headed down to Brazil for 10 days. After some surprise stop overs in El Salvador and Panama, and a scheduled one in Bolivia I got to Sao Paulo and headed to some hotel there to meet Robbie and Amanda.
And so the fun began. I went down there on a Saturday and met some lovely people on the Sunday, went to a fruit market and had a vegetarian all you can eat lunch, reminicent of Govinda´s. On the Monday though, I started working. I met Mike Angiletta, a US thermal physiologist collaborating with Robbie and Carlos Navas, who´s lab we were working in. We had planned to work on leaf cutting ants, a type of toad and some amphispaenians (sorry about the spelling Stew) which are a type of burrowing lizard with no legs that nobody knows much about.
What actually happened was a bit different. I found the ants really interesting as did everyone else and we spent a lot of time on that when we realised that the amphispaenian work wasn't happening for a while due to technical difficulties and the toad project was just time consuming but not a really ground breaking question.
So the ant project turned out to be huge. We tested, among other things, the critical thermal maximum of a couple of populations. This involved sitting in a temerature controlled room at 42-42° for a couple of hours. I did this with Robbie during the first experiment and was only in the sauna room for about an hour and a half. The next experiment involved a lot more ants and all 5 of us (Robbie, Amanda, Mike, Pedro [doing his PhD on the ants] and me) had t watch them. We knew the 43° protocol wasn't working when after 2.5 hours they were all still alive (I should mention here that we were recording time to death, or at least until they turned over and twitched a lot). We started taking it in shifts watching them, 10 minutes outside and 20 mins inside, but it was so exhausting. We were all saturated in sweat and there was so much of it on the floor that the entire room was like a giant sweat puddle. So bad. After 5 hours and 20 minutes of this Amanda and I had to leave for good, I was really sick with all the temperature changes, my body just couldn't thermoregulate anymore. The guys started taking shifts and 45mins later they were all dead. The things we do for good science. That was my last night in Brazil! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I headed back to see the Monarch butterflies in Michoacán this weekend. I was a bit worried cos all the stuff I had read said they start heading back North around now, and it's a very long way on a lot of very bad buses. But I went anyway, cos I'm obsessed or something. None of the girls came with me, but a Dutch girl said she was interested, so met me in DF on Friday night.
We got up really early on Sat and caught the metro out to the Poniente (West) bus terminal just in time to take the first bus to Angangueo. Four and a bit more hours later we were there and then had to tackle transport up the mountain. We got in a van with some others for a kind of reasonable price and another hour later we were up the mountain.
As we were driving into Angangueo, we saw butterflies flying all over the place. They had obviously started migrating. I was a bit worried that they all would be off and there wouldn't be many left in El Rosario (the sanctuary). But I shouldn't have been. As we got higher and closer to the reserve, the more butterflies were in the air. Once at the sanctuary, the sky was filled with them, and as we headed up the mountain, they were flying all around us, making the trees orange and the sky dark. I couldn't hear them until they were very close and then it was only really a whisper of paper as they flew.
I was completely overwhelmed. Last time we had to walk 45mins up the mountain to see the colony. This time, the colony had moved down the mountain (it was a lot warmer now) and they were flying around everywhere. The path had been changed to a loop so that all the masses of people walked in the same direction. It was amazing. Entire branches were covered and all the butterflies would fly up at once from a branch and the sky and everything around would turn orange with bodies. I took sooooo many photos that all look the same but really will never do any justice to what I saw.
We headed all the way back to Puebla that night and got in at about 12. It was totally worth it and I think will be my favourite thing in México ever.
alecia | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Once again we decided to punish ourselves for endless hours scaling another of the highest mountains in México. Actually, Malinche (named after Cortes' indegenous lover and translator) is an extict volcano. It's one of the three mountains you could see from my roof if you were here to get on it. It borders the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala, so it was a 2 hour drive at 7am Tuesday morning to get us to the park. Once there, all us girls (me, Alexis, Amanda, Jordie and her aunt who is visiting, Liz) fell out and went looking for the bathroom. We had to pay $13 to use the facilities! ¡$13! The most I've paid is $3, and they were charging $5 at Carnaval (just to pee in a bucket, that's a story Amanda has to tell, though). So Jordie, Liz and I found bushes, and Alexis, who has a very sweet complex about peeing in the bush, paid the money to use the facilities. She's a legend. She has never squat peed (I don´t think she has plans to go to Asia any time soon) and holds it the entire day so she doesn't have to squat. Ah, the joys of being a girl!
Once on the hike we just kept going up. After a while, the pine trees ended and it became tundra like and we finally saw what we were actually climbing. It just kept going up! We were at about 3800m and it was hard going. I got into a rythm and just kept going. It was so much better for me than the last time. There was only one stage, when I was very high up, that I saw spots and I wasn't all that dizzy until I was right at the top, but it went away soon enough.
Anyway, back to the mountain. The first part was tundra like and relatively easy as the grass mad good stairs and paths. The second part was dirt, sand and rocks and really very hard. It was like Pacaya, take one step and slip back a half a step. The third part was giant volcanic pointy boulders of death, which I had to navigate myself as I had headed up there all by my lonesome. The last part was nice as there was a defined path, and then we had to literally climb left over lava to get to the highest point, officially at 4670m. The highest I've ever been without a pressurised cabin. It was so spectacular. We looked straight down into the crater and over so much of México. So amazing. A guy that went with us caught up to my slow but steady pace for the final part and we had a snooze at 4670m while waiting 40mins for the others to catch up. They tickled in slowly and unhappily. It was great.
There was ice up there and the temperature was 2degrees in the shade, and it was really windy at times. When the wind died down it was completely amazing and I could have stayed up there for hours.
We had to come down though, as the sun was going to set. We came down on what was called "El Autopista" or "the Highway". After the scary boulders of death that were even scarier going down, we practically surfed down the sandy rock part which also went to the side of the tundra stuff. Half way down, speedy man was at the bottom, I was near the bottom, and the rest were at the top, so I thought I had better pee before I wet my knickers. Easier said than done on a mountain side of quicksand. I put my bag on one of the only larger rocks while desparately trying to get my pants down and then realising when I was squatting that I was sliding down the mountain and my bag with the toilet paper in it was getting further and further away. Fortunately, miraculously, I didn't pee on myself (an Alexis nightmare) and made it down no worries.
We were all at the car at about dusk and driven home by 8:45. A very, very long day, but sooooo worth the money and effort. Much, much better than climbing Iztaccihuatl (which I can finally pronounce, but I have my doubts on the spelling).
alecia | | comments: Leave a comment |
| So Amanda and Alexis (two of the Aussie girls) and I woke up at 4:30 Saturday morning so we could get into Puebla and catch a bus at 6am to Veracruz. Veracruz is on the Gulf of México coast and 4.5 hours away from Puebla. We were delayed in Cordoba for some unknown reason (not surprising though) so we didn't get to Veracrux until after 11.
Anyway, once there, we wandered into the zócalo to get some info from the tourist info people, have a geeze and meet up with some other exchange students from UTS that the other gils know that are studying in Xalapa (or Jalapa, the capital of Veracruz). We had comida corrida (set lunch, I don't know if I've mentioned it but it's fabulous, you pay a set price for a soup or pasta entree, &/or pasta or rice, a choice of a main meal, like enchiladas, bifstek or chiles rellenos and a dessert, not a very big or tasty one) for lunch.
By the time we'd finished that, the three of us ran off to find the beach via some markets and enjoy the festive atmosphere. We wandered along the port and down to what technically should be called a beach, but really was just a collection of dirt and sand, kids wearing white undies for swimming in and a number of old wooden dinghy type things stuck in the sand-dirt. It was nice though and it was humid, which was a pleasant change after the very dry cold of Puebla. The parade was scheduled to start in Boca del Rio (further south down the coast) at 6pm and we were at the finishing end, so they told us that it would get there at 8. At 5, thoug, there were already hundreds of people sitting in the stands (which, outrageously, cost us $50 to sit in) so we decided to get some good seats and camp out. Good thing, too, cos it was packed by 7 (and of course they still tried putting in more people).
We waited and waited and waited and finally at about 9:15/9:30, we saw our first floats and Carnaval people. It was all very colouful and loud and fun and we all stood in the stands and danced and took photos. There were heaps of groups twirling batons, dancing salsa, dancing provocatively on top a float and very little clothing all round. There was one boy, who had to be less than 10yrs old, who danced so sexually it was scary. We also met a 9 year old girl (not part of the parade) who was wearing long boots, short short shorts and a singlet whose mother encouraged her to dance for us, and she shimmied so well we were all jealous. I felt sad for her at the time, but that's the culture here.
When we thought the parade was over (it was about 10:30), us three girls got down from the stands and started walking in the direction the parade was going with all the other people. The parade had obviously gotten to the end and they were all backed up to where we were (not so far from the end) and taking a long time to get out. We were having fun though, just bopping along to the music. Men (and boys, for that matter) kept trying to stop us and talk to us. One guy grabbed Alexis' new cowboy hat, that was attached to her bag, and tryed putting it on his head. He was so close to Alexis, and soooo drunk, it took us such a long time to make him let go of it, and it was completely squished after that (they are really hard, I had mine with me, too).
It was soon after that that we were walking along and all of a sudden a guy grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the group of men he was in the parade with. I reached for the girls but couldn´t get them and when I wrenched my arm out of his grip, he still had my jumper. Amanda said after that it all happened so fast, she just turned around and saw me reaching for them and then I was gone. I was getting worried when he wouldn't let go of my jumper and I was yelling "Dejame sola" (leave me alone) quite loudly. I then felt someone pressed up against my back and I was completely surrounded by men. I couldn't get out. I had my camera around my kneck and my purse in my hand and I was puching against everyone to try and get back to the side of the parade. One guy grabbed my ass, another grabbed my crutch, someone else grabbed my ass, and my thigh and then Amanda and Alexis rescued me. They pushed their way though and grabbed me as I was pushing my way out. By this time though, I wasn't scared, I was just angry and I hit the nearest guy, knocking the cigarette out of his mouth. And then we got out of there as fast as we could, one girl on either side of me, until we found a spot near the stands, behind a bunch of people and I calmed down.
It was the most threatened I have ever felt in my travels to date. Even the guy on the bus last week (who I don't think left me a little present, but still was incredibly drunk) wasn't threatening, and was comical to start with. These guys were all drunk and acting together and I couldn't do anything to stop them. And they were in the middle of thousands and thoudands of people. I don't know why me, other than the blonde hair. I was wearing long baggy pants, a long t-shirt and a jumper and still we couldn't walk two steps without someone saying something about us being foriegn or something more raunchy. And there were people walking around not wearing what I would call clothing but extravagant lengerie and inviting people to dance provocatively with them, without even being touched. There is such a focus in this culture on the wealthy, easy blonde that that is what every man is expected to want, and try to take.
Anyway, after that we watched the rest of the parade and wandered around Varacruz Centro Historico looking for the rest of the entertainment. It was about 11:30. There was a concert on, and in the zócalo there was a band playing salsa. Ramdom people tried salsaing with me, so I'd do a move and walk away, they were all to drunk to really care. We hung out in the zócalo for a while longer and then at about 1 we started walkning back to the bus station to catch the bus at 2. We got in thismorning at 6:30 and I was in bed by 8. Looooooooong day, but well worth the experience (maybe minus the sexual harassment). | | comments: Leave a comment |
| The girls and I had no plans for this weekend. After three weekends out and about in a row, we all felt we needed a break. We spent Saturday night in Puebla watching a free performance at the Cultural House called Noches Poblanos (Pueblan nights). It was so great! It was a historical recount of Puebla, but that was really just an excuse for them to get dressed up in different costumes and do different types of dances. They got audience members up to dance aswell, and of course the guys danced with us four. About half way through I was completely embarrassed. There was a guy that came out to tell the history while the dancers got changed and during one of these bouts, he came over to me, got down on one knee, asked to take my hand and told me a poem. In Spanish. That I didn't understand. I was so red.
Today I went to some ruins in Tlaxcala, the neighbouring state and the smallest in México. I walked from a highway in some random little town up to Cacaxtla. The site itself is very small but it contains the best preserved murals I have ever seen. They are fantastic. There is a long low wall of them depicting human sacrifices and other sections showing bird and jaguar priests and representations of venus. Really amazing stuff. It's on a hill, and there are fantastic views of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl from there aswell.
I then hiked through some quite hilly farmland to get to the site of Xochitécatl. There was a little pyramid and a circular one, which were the only remarkable features of that site. I didn't want to traipse back down the valley separating the sites so I headed out the front of Xochitécatl and asked a security guard how to get back to Tlaxcala (the capital of Tlaxcala state). He told me to walk down the other side of the mountain and get a colectivo from the highway. So I walked down the mountain into what you can't even call a village, got a licuado and asked there how to get back. They told me to go to San Martín and change there as it would be quicker.
So the saga begins. They told me perfect directions and in no time I was on a bus to Puebla. A young guy drunk on pulque sat down in the seats opposite me. I was reading a book for class. When he tried unsuccessfully to hold my attention for more than a glance at his drunken stupor, he moved to sit next to me. He then professed his love, informed me, with accions, about how good mexicans are in bed, told me that he loved me not just because of my skin colour, stroked my arm and other places I don't care to think about again and poured a really horrible au de tiolet on me so that I could have a memory of him. This is all while I told him to stop touching me, get away from me, you´re molesting me and other general 'I don´t want you anywhere near me' comments loudly, and the rest of the mexicans in the bus looked on. I think he left a little present of his adoration on my bag, but as I was trying desparatly hard to ignore him between telling him to go away, I can't be too sure, and I don't really want to know, either. (I actually think for sure that he didn't, now)
I was totally grossed out. I didn't feel there was anything I could do. The bus was mostly full and I felt vulnerable enough in my little corner of the bus seat that I didn't want to push myself past the guy to move. I didn't feel at all threatened by him, he was too drunk to do anything, it was just an amusing, uncomfortable hour.
Ah, the joys of México. It really is a beautiful country.
alecia | | comments: Leave a comment |
| México has a presidential system that's kinda based around the US system but there are a couple of big differences. For one, the presidential term is 6 years. The second, really important thing, is presidents in México can only be president for one term. There is a "no reelection" policy. It's to stop abuse of power as executive power in this country has a bit over judicial and legislative powers. The last guy who tried it after it was written into the constitution was assassinated. It doesn't mean that it isn't abused, just means it's less obvious.
Anyway, the election is coming up in June. So the Zapatistas are starting their own campaign and are travelling México with 'La otra campaña' (the other campaign). Last night they were in some weird part of Cholula and Alexis (an Aussie girl, really lovely) and I went. We had no idea where it was, so when we hoped in the taxi the poor guy had to radio people to find out and then when we got close he got out of the car and asked around for us. He charged us extra, but not much.
We had decided to get there late, as 'El Sub' isn't always punctual and we had gone to the start of the rally in Puebla the day before and it was just entertainment really for the first half hour that we were there. When we arrived, Subcomandante Marcos was sitting down and listening to all the other speakers. Most of them I couldn't underdtand. The first fella I heard spoke about México's oil (Pemex is the national petrol company, owned by the government). I think he said something about México selling it for cheap and other people making all the profit on it. After about 6 speakers, Subcomandante himself got up and spoke.
It was very interesting. In Puebla and Cholula, it is really easy to forget about the poverty that effects the population here, and how indigenous and poor are marginalised. El Sub spoke about the poor in Chiapas that can't pay the prices that the electricity companies ask (also government owned), he spoke about how difficult it is to get an education for young people and the difficulties in getting work. He spoke about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer off the back of the government and their power. He spoke about respecting women and the elderly. Finally he told us all that the Zapatistas stand for all the people that were different or marginalised in México - women, elderly, indigenous, homosexual. I think the most important thing is that he encouraged people to vote, and that their vote did count, cos up til now, things in México have generally changed through violence.
He is a very good speaker, I understood everything he said. There is a lot of conflict in this country still. It's really sad. All I feel I can do is buy things from the street and indigenous people when I can, and avoid the big American companies like WalMart (there are 5 in Puebla) that seem to be taking all that is México away from México.
I now have a better understanding of why things were SOOO expensive in the Lacondon Jungle (where the insurgency started in 1994, and where all the new postings of the EZLN come out of).
alecia | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This last weekend I finally headed out to see the butterflies (mariposas) in Michoacán, which is the state just next to DF. People had told us it was really hard to get to and really expensive, so we were a bit nervous. We headed out early on Saturday morning and caught a lot of buses. First to the bus station, then to DF, on the metro to another bus terminal in DF and then a bus to Angangueo. Long day. We got into Angangueo at about 6pm and we had left at 8 that morning.
Angangueo is a gorgeous city. It has so much to offer. It's in a valley and it's small and it reminds me of European cities in romantic movies. Very nice. It was really cold too. The 6 of us rented a room for nearly no money at all, and did a bit of an explore and watched the sunset (spectacular, over the valley). We then found the best place for dinner. Street food as usual. At one stage though, we a huge truck came along and we all had to pick up the table and chairs and move out of the way so it could gte around the corner we were eating at.
The next morning we had breakfast in the hostel and headed out to see the butterflies at the El Rosario Butterfly Sanctuary. It took about another hour to head up a gigantic mountain dirt road. Good times. Anyway, we got there just after about 9, payed the entrance fee and started hiking up to see the butterflies. That took about 40 mins.
Finally we made it. There were people standing around and for a second I couldn't work out what they were looking at. Finally it hit me. The trees that had been roped off were completely black. I thought they looked like they had been burnt. But it was hundreds of thousands of butterflies that were covering the branches and making them so heavy they hung down. It was fantastic.
After standing awestruck for a while, I spoke to one of the guys that makes sure the people don't take photos using a flash or make loud noises. He invited me to sit with him (I'm blonde) and then he gave us permission to touch one of the male butterflies that was near us and away from the main colony (again, we´re blonde). Bit of a conflict of interests. The day was cold and the butterflies weren't flying around so all we got to see was the masses of them on the trees. I wasn't dissapointed though, it was fantastic.
We headed down at about midday to catch the 1pm public bus back (there's only three a day) and then headed back home. It was a really good weekend and other than the hideously long time on buses. I think I'll head back for the festivals in a couple of weeks when they start to leave. | | comments: Leave a comment |
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