Time to post some details about my Mexico trip. After all I've been back for almost 2 weeks already!
The trip was a total blast. I went there fully expecting 10 days of fieldwork at 5˚C in the pouring rain. Instead, all the rain was very well behaved and only showed up during the evenings/nights. Perfect :)
So this is what we got up to:
Day 0: Flying from Vancouver through Houston into Mexico City. It was a pretty long trip, and thanks to the complete lack of TVs on both flights I managed be only 5 pages short of reading through my first book that I brought. Unfortunately it was a teenage-love-cancer story, so I went through way more tissues than the flight would have justified. It was late when we got into Mexico City, but after Diana had picked us up and drove to the hotel we decided to go for a drink anyways. Turns out our hotel was on Plaza Garibaldi, which is THE place in Mexico City where ALL Mariachi in entire Mexico hang out... or at least it feels that way. At least we got exposed to some local culture right away!
Day 1 was spent getting our work stuff ready. This meant hanging out at Home Depot for hours, trying to get our things together, with complications arising due to materials that can't be found, trying to explain in poor Spanish what we wanted to the Home Depot employees whose English was equally poor. We managed to figure everything out in the end. After a late lunch we drove to CENAPRED, the Mexican Natural Disasters Agency. They let us check out their volcano monitoring room, including their earthquake early warning system, which was extremely cool.
Day 2: A day off already! Because our instruments were stuck in customs at the border in Texas (Spoiler Alert - they never made it through while we were there...), and because we were only able to do 4 out of 6 sites (the last 2 were supposed to be in areas that are deemed too dangerous to access with the activity right now, pyroclastic flows could happen any time) we knew we were gonna have plenty of time to get everything done. We drove out of the city to check out Teotihuacan, one of the Aztec ruins (or potentially pre-Aztec? My guidebook couldn't come to a consensus.). It was really interesting, despite the large amount of people. I also managed to get a pretty epic sunburn on my shoulders :/
Day 3: Off to the field. We left Mexico City with all our equipment crammed into the van and moved to a hotel in Amecameca, a small town in the western foothills of the volcanoes where we were gonna meet up with our 4 Mexican colleagues the next day. We got a glimpse at Itzaccihuatl, Popocatepetl's not so active lover. The legend is a bit of a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque story, where Izta essentially killed herself because she believed Popo dead. When Popo returned and found Itza dead, he bedded her (imagine a lying woman when you look at the photos) and lit an eternal fire, so now they rest together forever as mountains.
Day 4: Our first field day. After an epic 3-ish hour drive up something that can't even be called a road, getting the trucks stuck, and only seeing some trees, shrubs, and fogs we finally made it to our next stop. From there, we took 2 ATVs to get to our actual site. The first site, went like all the other ones, remarkably quick. Because our instruments weren't there the only thing we had to do was to get all our stuff up there, dig three holes, mix some concrete, pour it in, leave the materials that are gonna be used to build the stations, and cover everything. The mountains was happy and gave us some glimpses at the peak through the fog, and we got rained on a tiny bit with ash from an explosion.
Day 5: Another day in the field. Same procedure as the day before, except we were able to drive on regular, paved roads, so everything went much quicker. That way we had time to stop at one of the shacks on the side of the road to try some pulque, a cider-like drink that is made from the fermented juice from the Maguey fruit, an agave-like plant that grows everywhere.
Day 6: We decided to relocate our base to the East side of the mountain, because it would reduce driving time for the next two days by quite a bit. We were supposed to meet the Sheriff of one of the small towns in the morning, but weren't able to find him. While we were hanging out waiting, this random old Mexican dude started talking to us. He ended up telling everybody they should drink more water, and adjusting everyone's spines/necks. My spine cracking sounded like breaking a big branch of a tree, but man, that felt good! Since the Sheriff was nowhere to be found we moved on to get some breakfast, and then drove to a small village called San Pedro. There were tons of people, as it turned out later the government gives out welfare money for elderly people at the church, which explained a) the high number of Mexican old folks, and b) the presence of highly armed policemen. We unloaded all our stuff, ready to carry it for quite a bit up the mountain. However, the local guy who is the Civil Protection representative, Don Roberto, showed up and decided we were gonna see how far we could get in one of the trucks first. We ended up driving almost all the way again, carried our things for maybe 10 minutes and found an ideal site. Only once we were back down did it turn out that we were maybe 2 km further from the summit than we thought, which isn't great for the experiment, but by that time it was too late.
Day 7: Again with the help of some local guys we made our way to the "umbilico" area. This is supposedly Popo's belly button. Every year in March all the people from the surrounding villages come up here and bring offerings like fresh fruit, etc., in the hope of making Popo happy so he won't spew too much ash. The road was in pretty bad shape again, and this time our ATVs were of no use. Instead, we ended up carrying all our equipment for an hour or so up the mountain. The site was really pretty though, lots of large pine trees with high grass in between, and great views down to the state of Puebla and up to the summit.
Day 8: Since we weren't allowed to access the area for our last two sites we made our way back to Mexico City. We located a nice restaurant for dinner, and ordered what the waiter recommended as an appetizer. What we didn't understand was that this appetizer was gonna cost almost $50, and when we had it in front of us it dawned on us what we had ordered: Insects cooked Aztec-style, to be eaten in tacos with different salsas! Since we were hungry and it was a pretty expensive dish we went for it anyways. The fried grubs were mainly crunchy and didn't taste like much. The ant eggs and fried cicadas were absolutely delicious! I'm ready to have more in the future :)
Day 9: Last full day in Mexico City. Yoshi had left to go back to Vancouver, and Diana, Mark, and I decided to check out Xochimilco, the floating gardens. It was father's day, and the gardens are a popular outing for the locals. After you haggle with the boat owners for a bit they send you on your private wood boats, which are basically better floats with a roof, long tables and chairs. The boats are super colourful and have their individual designs and names. There's tons of other boats, including small ones that float past you to sell food or cold beer, Mariachi boats that you can hire to float next to you and sing to you, and boats selling souvenirs. It's a bit like Venice meets Latin America. Definitely worth a visit! Afterwards we had some time left, so we went to the Museo Dolores Olmedo. This rich lady who was good friends with Diego Rivera and very well travelled gave her estate to the city (or the state or something, I forget) when she died. It's a peaceful sanctuary in the middle of this crazy city, and has lots of paintings by Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other affiliated artists. The collection includes "La Columna Rota" by Frida Kahlo, which of course immediately brought me back to my Spanish lessons in highschool. For an entry fee of $6 it was also a great thing to do!
Day 10-11: Off to the beach. Diana drove Mark and me to the airport, and I was headed to Cancun. I immediately left that city, since it has a pretty big party reputation and I wasn't in the mood for that. Instead I headed south to Puerto Morelos, a small village where I stayed for two nights. I didn't do much, except for lie at the white, empty, beautiful beach, swim in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, eat great food, watch the World Cup, drink beers, read books. It was great!
Day 12: Time to move on. For the next three nights, I stayed in Playa del Carmen, which is a bit smaller but otherwise probably quite similar to Cancun. Needless to say, I didn't love it. Too many people, many of them American tourists, i.e. no locals, lots of party/drinking venues. After dropping my bags in the hotel I took a bus south to the Mayan ruins Tulum. It was super beautiful, these old buildings emerging from the jungle, right on the edge of the cliffs where the turquoise water meets more white sand. Again, there were quite a few people, I don't really wanna know what it's like in high season (i.e. Dec-Apr, and Jul-Aug).
Day 13: I went back to Puerto Morelos for a Mexican cooking class. Lots of fun, in particular because the chef turned out to be Mexican, but having lived in Vancouver for years.
Day 14: Exploring the jungle. I had booked a bus tour across the border into the state of Yucatan. We stopped at a cenote first, one of many karst caves in the area, where you can swim/snorkel/dive in sometimes vast cave systems. This one was pretty small and pretty crowded, but an experience nevertheless. We moved on to visit the Maya site Chichen Itza, one of the seven man made wonders of the world. It was so cool! Our guide knew lots of interesting details about the Mayans and their culture, and the site in general is a great place to explore for a bit. On the way back we stopped at a small colonial village, which wasn't exactly mind-blowing, but a great stop to get some ice cream.
Day 15: My second to last full day. I grabbed my bags again and moved back north, to Isla Mujeres. This island is where I wanna live! It's tiny, you can easily walk from the West to the East side in maybe 10-15 minutes, has the most beautiful beaches and ocean, is only an easy 20 minute ferry ride from Cancun but much more laid back. Despite the fact that the people here live of the tourism, too, it seems much more authentic. I spent the rest of the day enjoying the beach and the local food, of course while watching soccer during lunch and dinner. The time difference worked out perfectly! After dinner, I randomly wandered down to beach and stumbled upon a beach zumba/kick/core class. As the only gringa among maybe 50 Mexican women I decided to participate anyways, in my bikini while everyone was in their gym outfits, and definitely more like a German robot than anything like all those hip-movement-genius Latinas. It was still fun!
Day 16: My last full day. I had booked a tour to snorkel with whalesharks. We took a boat away from the island for about an hour, before we encountered the sharks. There were lots of other boats, but each boat only has 10 people or so, and only 2 of each boat are supposed to get in the water at a time. There were maybe 50 whale sharks, it was just epic. You get in the water when they come close to the boat, they're slightly terrifying when they swim at you with their giant mouths wide open, even though in theory you know they only eat plankton. You can then turn and swim with them for a while, before maybe they get too fast. They're huge, and really pretty, and they have these little fish that live on them and clean their skin. So cool! After we spent maybe 2 hours or so in the water (I got a pretty bad wetsuit-sunburn on my backside...), we left as one of the last boats and went to a spot close to the northernmost tip of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. We had some time to snorkel around here, and when we got back onto the boat we were served ceviche and sandwiches and beers, while being anchored in the crazy blue water. Such a cool trip!
Day 17: Time to head back. I made my way back across to the mainland, headed to the airport, and after an epic Cancun-Toronto-Vancouver trip was welcomed in Vancouver by - of course - rain. I immediately wished myself back to the island, but sadly so far my Genie hasn't been able to fulfill my wish. I'll let you guys explore the photos (some of them credit to Diana/Mark/Oscar), enjoy them and dream of vacations. ¡Hasta luego, Mexico!
