Mexico City - The Goldilocks Zone

09 MAR - 10 MAR 2011

'This porridge is too hot," Goldilocks exclaimed. So she tasted the porridge from the second bowl. "This porridge is too cold." So she tasted the last bowl of porridge. "Ahhh, this porridge is just right!" she said happily.......now is it just me or should someone have told Goldilocks to freakin' harden the hell up!?

I believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life. Thankfully these days that's not a far fetched notion as the further we look out into our universe the more we realise that there are possibilities that life, even intelligent life, could actually have made the cut somewhere just as we have. In astronomy, the habitable zone or the Goldilocks zone is the distance from a star where a planet of the same type as our own can maintain water on its surface and in turn support life that may be equivalent to ours. Indeed from a mathematical perspectice the Drake equation is a formula used to determine/estimate  both the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy and also the possibilty of intelligent civilizations. The results from those equations, whilst not overwhelming, still suggests that it is feasible to assume that there are possibly between 1-10 intelligent civilizations just in our galaxy...and by the way, if you're a smarty like me and immediately said, 'Well der Fred, the one in our galaxy is on Earth', note carefully that I did add the world 'intelligent'...then of course there are also  the billions of other galaxies  circulating in the universe but then they could be supporting rebellion bases who may want to bring down the Galactic Empire, so we won't get into that discussion either.

As a kid I was always fascinated by astronomy and for some reason always held onto snippets of random information that related to the subject. One of those snippets that still intrigues me is the story of the WOW! signal - check it out if you're interested (WOW!). Basically what happened was that back in 1977 an astronomer that was working on a project specifically  designed to search for extraterrestrial intelligent life encountered an extremely long interstellar signal whose location and intensity was dramatically different from anything else that had been encountered before or since. This in turn got me to thinking, what if our intergalactic neighbours had a pretty odd sense of humour and what if we had just missed a cracking joke? I mean if I was in charge of sending a signal out of home base to our neighbours I'd love to shoot out something such as 'Dogs balls, we have a hankering for delicious dogs balls, do you guys deliver? And if I don't get my order in 14 years is it free?' or perhaps, 'Hammer says we're too legit to quit and Ice says that we should stop, collaborate and listen, can you guys get back to us on that!'. Yeah, how about that? The small dreams I have. So now you're asking, what the hell does this all have to do with Mexico!? And truly, not much really, aside from my thinking as to how damn odd it would be for alien life forms to make there way down to Mexico one sunny afternoon and check out something like the Lucha Libre (free wrestling) that is such big business in Cuidad de Mexico. I mean I went down to the Consejo mundial de lucha libre (aka Arena Mexico) one evening to check out these masked crusaders and one of the much beloved art forms of Latino culture, and man oh man, it was a trip! But I'll get back to that a little later.

Now I'm not sure if you remember but in my last post there was mention of a BBQ that I would apparently be hosting at the hostal on the evening after my arrival. Information on the ground was kind of scarce, it involved Patrick saying, 'Henry, tomorrow night you will be hosting a BBQ for around 30 people'. Then the following evening after having spent several hours in the sun atop pyramids of granduer, I rolled into the hostel a little tired and weary. There behind the reception desk were bags of food and the simple order from Patrick of 'Now you cook!'. Ummm really Patrick? What exactly am I making? You want me to make guacamole for 30 people from two avocados? And please tell me that you actually had a realistic plan for the 5kgs of carrots that you bought!? It was only with some time contemplating in the kitchen and with the good grace and assitance of Vinko Milic, a chef from Cabo on the Baja peninsula, that we managed to pull it off. In the end it actually ended up being that Vinko managed to get it together and I was desiginated to acting as Patrick's bitch for the evening, a role that had me running up and down the three flights of stairs in the hostel for 2-3hrs.

 Vinko at the grill - giving it the Cabo touch - Hostal Regina - Mexico City

 Hey, who has the chef's hat? I'm the CHEF damn it!

 See the sheepish looks that Tom and Kyall are sporting? Yeah, good 'ole Kyall urinated on the reception desk from the third floor the evening before - stellar performance!

 They just both sneezed at the same time - it really looks like it could have been anything hey

As always our nights at Hostal Regina carried over to early mornings at the hostel. Somewhere at about 4am, huddled around the glowing embers of a BBQ that was having its last rites read, Frichot came up with the ingenious idea of placing some of the left over raw potatoes into the hearth in the aid of post alcohol redemption. Needless to say, the plan didn't work and several potatoes were witnessed exiting the orbit of Hostal Regina at around that time. I think the next day I did read a small article of news in the Mexico City local regarding the surreal occurrence of potatoes falling from the sky. My Spanish is only very basic however, the meaning may have been lost in my errant translation. 

 Downtown Mexico City - The Torre Latinoamericano in the background

 The massive Mexican flag at the Zocalo

 View of Mexico City from the Torre Latinoamericano

 View of Mexico City from the Torre Latinoamericano

The next day was relatively cruisy for myself and Jetson. We managed to make an appearance in the foyer somewhere close to noon even if our heads were somehow conducting impromptu bongo lessons. The light of day, even though mildly disconcerting was something that we feared we were required to brave at this point. So we took in the company of both Rachel and Nino for the afternoon and went strolling around the Zocalo and city centre to see what we could find. If you did the maths in that moment then you would have figured out that you had two Australians, a lovely English lass and a soccer mad Swiss walking around the heart of Mexico City ,something was bound to give...........so of course we stopped in a bar to watch a champions league match between Barcelona and Arsenal, now that's Mexico City sightseeing for you! We did however manage to pull ourselves away from the bar after  the match and after drowning several Sol's so as to make our way to the observation deck of the Torre Latinoamericana for a 360 degree view of Mexico City, Distrito Federal. At 183 metres it is one of the tallest buildings in the capital and offers exciting views of a sprawling city that unbelievably is built upon what was once the bed of Lake Texcoco, which in was the support  for the old Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Seriously, just look at the photos that I've included and imagine all of it as water, it's kind of insane isn't it!?

The view of Mexico City from the Torre Latinoamericano

 Frichot on the observation deck

The Zocalo as seen from the Torre Latinoamericano

 

Making our way back to the hostel in the early evening we discovered that we had timed our run to perfection. That evening we had booked ourselves in for what promised to be 'good times' at the Arena Mexico but not even had we managed to take three steps inside the front door than we were being turned around and marched back on our way for stop one of the evening, a fascinating place which we later found to be the local pulqueria. A pulqueria you say? What the hell? Well, a pulqueria none too surprisingly is a place where people sit down to enjoy a thirst quenching drink of pulque, a desperately viscous alcoholic beverage that is made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant, and by all accounts is the traditional native beverage of Mexico. As we entered through the saloon style swinging doors orders were taken promptly and the locals met our whimsical gazes with an almost apologetic look of 'Yeah, sorry guys, our ancient ancestors didn't know what the hell they were doing!'. Somehow I managed to score myself a pint of mango flavoured pulque and when it arrived I attempted to swill it but sheepishly realised that this blob of a beverage wasn't really moving. Taking my first semi-fizzy sip of the drink I felt a somewhat stringy glob of goo hit the back of my throat, it felt like someone had just had a mango induced bukake party in my mouth. Looking around the room it certainly felt that everyone had made their own assessment in the manner that I had, this certainly was going to be an acquired taste. As with most culinary delights that are of dubious nature in foreign lands the selling point quite often is that this stuff is potent in the 'love' department. The 'man juice' or 'Mexican viagra' will make you strong like an ox...and you know what, after I downed that pint I could have probably gone back for another, I was certainly feeling some type of sensation!

Kimble getting ready for some nasty Luche Libre

 Commencing proceedings on Mexican cooking night

 Commencing getting TequilaNated on Mexican cooking night

 Yup, that's how you cook, Mexican style

[A night at the Luche Libre - AWESOME!]

A little later on and feeling somewhat more manly after the pulqueria experience we arrived at the Arena Mexico. It was Luche Libre fight night! So let the masked bandits get their freak on! For the first hour or so, and none too surprisingly at that point, the cheezy wrestling bored the living daylights out of me. I mean if you had watched the WWF as a kid then this seemed to be a masked backyard version of that. As the night progressed however and as many beers were passed into my hands I started to get a feel for the action. I found myself getting up and cheering for absolutely everyone and I also found myself yelling out random abuse and jibes such 'C'mon dude, take him down like a G6' & Yeah, your mama is gonna be making Kan Tong for him tonight'. It ended up being quite an awesome experience and I loved the fact that the crowd were so involved and really into supporting their favourite dirty little Sanchez bandits. By the time we got to the final bout of the night we had ourselves an epic duel between good and evil. I don't remember the names of the combatants but by that time I didn't really care, the whole theatre of the event was a treat and I really didn't want it to end, but it did unfortunately, with good thankfully triumphing over evil. We all get to live, love and fight for another day - phew.

 I love the faces these guys pulled, they hadn't even had a drink yet!

 OK, so they had drinks by this stage

 ....and by this stage

Evil did however get its revenge on both Jet and myself latter that evening. Back at the ranch a Mexican cooking class was in full progress and by the time that the luche libre crew showed up there was only one thing that could be done. You guessed it, time to get TequilaNated. This evil, evil little drink seemed to be following me wherever I went and  on this evening it seemed as though it was hell bent on taking me down, actually it seemed like it was hell bent on taking everyone down. The Mexican cooking class of course turned into a drinkathon. At random points in the evening I do recall Patrick just walking up to me, turning over the tequila bottle and pouring, whilst at other points I also recall that I thought it would be hilarious to get some random Japanese guys drunk because of their wicked karate moves and the epic faces that they pulled.

 It's blurred because the person taking the shot was hammered also...you can figure it out

 Alright boys - take the shots and show me those fight moves!

 

   Yeah, whatever I said to Rachel was just hilarious....obviously

 That's my 'go to' photo move - seriously, that's all I've got

The night of course drew on, and yes, it happened again. Midnight became 2am, became 4am and became something after 5am. By that time most of the hostel family had cleared out and we were left with only four stalwarts holding up the table, although I was secretly working behind the scenes to get rid of two of them. Several hours later I woke up in the darkness of the TV room wondering how it all ended up there...well, in actual fact I did know but unfortunately it only involved falling asleep. In any case all I'm going to say is that you know who you are and yes, you owe me! 

Mexico City - The fifth sun

Mexico City &Teotihuacan (Mexico)
07 MARCH - 08 MARCH 2011

The Tukanoan people of the Amazon did not consider their fellow forest dwellers, the Macu, to be people. They would say that the Macu were not born of the anaconda but rather were breathed into being from the dust of the first human, Yeba, the child of Jaguar Woman and Father Sun. They were subhuman, mediators between the realm of the living and the spirits of the forest. I wondered in that sense if the Macu still wondered the earth and if in fact I was some sort of descendant of these people. I mean only three to four months ago I had the mouth of a puma wrapped around my knee whilst politely asking it in Spanish for it to 'chill the hell out' and now, standing atop the pyramid of the sun, acting as a mediator between Jet's post apocalyptic piñata night binge and listening to the spirits of a civilisation that disappeared so abruptly some 1200 years ago it was me that needed to breath a little life into what looked to be quite a torrid day for my cohort. Ahh, the residual effects of being tequilaNated! Still before continuing with the story of how we arrived in Teotihuacan it needs to be pointed out that the little idea actually sprouted in the backstreets of Tijuana, so let me take this story back a few steps!

Back in the days when our bank balances were flatlining and our desires for NYC crumbling under a frontierland evening sky, Frichot and I were throwing around options in what appeared to be a losing battle for the continuation of the wing and a prayer tour. Feasibility studies concluded that options for travelling further south into the heart of Mexico might just allow us the chance of surviving for a few weeks if the kindness of the friends of Frichot fan club were to come to the party - which they in actual fact did and spectacularly so! So right here, right now, big thanks to Warren (muchos gracias) and Jet's flatmate MH for saving us the trouble of having to sell Jets' talents on the streets of Mazatlan! Trust me boys, pickings were slim but some of the Mexican mamas were eyeing Frichot off like a picante morning burrito after an all night tequila bender, it would have been brutal for him but necessary in order to save us!

 Near Hostal Regina - Ciudad de Mexico - Mexico

 Near Hostal Regina - Ciudad de Mexico - Mexico

 Love Bugs in Mexico City - They are all the rage!

 Near Hostal Regina - Ciudad de Mexico - Mexico

 Near Hostal Regina - Ciudad de Mexico - Mexico

Several days after our last ditch attempts to save the tour were realised we cruised into Cuidad de Mexico to commence the last few days of an escapade that had had more lives than a feisty frog (get it, a frog croaks ...constantly!!?? Ahhh, doesn't matter). With a touch of good fortune we had located the Hostal Regina via an hasty search on Hostelworld and landed in their foyer early  on a Monday morning without so much as a hint of the alcohol fuelled antics that would be attacking us within the next few days. We should have known of course, there were tthe old and familiar tell tail signs. Immediately upon arrival a mohawked behemoth with what I thought was a German accent (in fact it was Dutch) made his presence known and introduced himself to us in the following manner, 'Hi, my name is Patrick and I work here. Anything you want, anything you need just ask me. My role here is to get you f**ked up every night'...and you know what, the mighty man stuck to his words and did just that. Now Patrick is kind of an odd fellow. Ten times cheerier than Sydney on it's best mardi gras evening and louder than Ken Done mashed with Maggie T, this guy had Jet colouring his hair purple within 20 mins of our arrival and me ripping out a blinding rendition of Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil in the foyer of the hostel a few mins later. He also had us signing up to a piñata making carnivale of tequila and misguided confetti bombardment that very evening, and this my friends is where our days in Mexico City took a violent but inevitably brilliant turn.

 Seriously, this happened within minutes of arriving at the Hostel - Patrick on duty!

 No kidding, it was really going to be a pinata night!

It sounds relatively tame doesn't it? In fact it sounded like the perfect way that I would be able to cure the nasty bout of insomnia that I had been suffering the last few days. Earlier in the day Patrick had put it to me that I was 'obligated' to partake in the piñata making antics of that evening and added nonchalantly 'Oh and by the way, tomorrow night you'll also be hosting a BBQ!' (but more of that in my next post). 

 ....and so it begins!

 Can you see where it started to go wrong??

Oh yeah, fire fight! Head for the hills hombres!

 It was innocuous enough to commence with. Several randoms at a hostel being guided in the fine art of piñata making and the intricacies of its design. Sitting back in the foyer of what I must say was easily the best hostes I've stayed in, I kind of had it in my mind that this would more than likely be an early night as Teotihuacan was beckoning us into its breaches on the morrow, but something happened. The other misfits that actually turned up to the event were quite cool! Usually at events such as these you encounter one or two people that you click with but it seemed that right at this moment we had close to 10 congregated around a table wondering how the hell they got roped into doing the same thing - and then 'it' commenced. The first few rounds of tequila shots. What good can EVER come of tequila shots, right! Through Patricks' warped guidance and direction we somehow concocted a drinking game that involved the creation of random geography questions, more drinking and the wild throwing of wet rags that quickly turned putrid shades of grey with ensuing throws. I'm not sure if it was the tequila (lol, really, I'm not sure) but we all got a little boisterous with our antics until we realised that there was a huge bagful of confetti that was just waiting to be cast in to the rarefied air of a Hostal Regina evening...and then it was made so! With beers aplenty and regular visits to nearby Oxxo's (the Mexican equivalent of the 7-Eleven that thankfully also sells cheap alcohol), we were throwing confetti bombs for the rest of the evening. It was an odd way to spend a night but it ended up being a hell of a lot of fun and as I've mentioned, it was one of those rare situations where everyone just gets along, so thank you to the following people for making this night such a laugh (Rachel, Patrick, Sophie, Kyall, Tom, Koganti) and a few others whose names escape me. We closed out the evening, or rather morning, at somewhere close to 5am with Rachel and Tom somehow occupying our room until the early hours. Not that I minded too much, I kind of had a thing for Rachel by that time anyway, but hey, no news there, she already knows it (don't you Ms Englishman?). 

 

  Sophie getting ConfettiNated!

 This vendor loved our business! Drunk idiots = muchos pesos!

[Link to the Adventures of Jet Frichot - the camote incident]

Waking up just a few hours after our ordeal however proved to be the real litmus test. Sensitivity to bright lights, a dull throbbing headache, an arm that had lost all sensation hours ago and a bed full of confetti? In those first few mins of a new morning I had myself questioning the ongoings of the mind bending piñata event and how exactly the outcome had led to the situation that I now found myself in. I know there are informants out there that can answer those questions for me and if they were ever to arrive in Sydney, well...anyway...I digress.

Teotihuacan

[Check out Frichot's vid of Teotihuacan here!] 

Teotihuacan had been my big selling point to Frichot back in Tijuana several days earlier. With funds dwindling I put it to him that seeing this archaelogical site just outside of Mexico City might just be our ticket to getting this tour back on track (aside from the fact that it was a place that I'd always wanted to visit). As we sat in silence at the breakfast table that morning however and mentally patched together some of the shenanigans and sometimes vile concoctions that had made their way into our systems, I looked at the dull, listless shell that was Frichot and wondered how in the world I'd manage to get him standing let alone riding in a mini-van for several hours just so he could walk in the blistering sun for another few hours and then climb the highest legally climable pyramid in the world. As Frichot 'dry wrenched' a few times whilst at the table he looked up at me sullenly as just said this, 'Go hard or go home mate'. We were definitely back on!

 Frichot - the aftermath

 Google it - seriously, just Google it!

So a couple things that I didn't know about Teotihuacan or Mexico City for that matter. I had assumed that Teotihuacan was actually an Aztec site, wrong! The site was in actual fact quite a large cultural and commercial centre that existed some 1000 years prior to that of the Aztecs. At its zenith in the first half of the first millennium AD there were something like 200,000 people that inhabited the complex, although the specificity of the ethnic groups who lay claim to the site vary (Nahua, Otomi or Totonac). This therefore had me asking the obvious question, 'then who the hell were the Aztecs and where was their hideout?' - good question, am glad I asked it.

 First glimpse of the Pyramid of the Moon from the Avenue of the Dead - Teotihuacan - Mexico

 Frichot loved the stairs!

Teotihuacan - Mexico

The Aztecs were a people of central Mexico who from approximately the 13th century adopted the city of Tenochtitlan, located on an island in Lake Texcoco as the capital of their empire. Whilst this in itself doesn't sound that impressive there are a coupld of 'add-ons' to this snippet of information that may make it so, 1) The city of Tenochtitlan was built in a manner very similar to Venice, small cities and villages all tied together by a series of canals. Indeed when Hernan Cortes and his crew turned up to Tenochtitlan in 1521 they termed it the 'Venice of the Americas', just before they set about destroying it, and 2) The entirety of Mexico City is actually built on top of what was once Lake Texcoco! That to me was quite a headspin. Where the hell did all that water go and how did they manage such a feet of ingenuity and engineering (all questions that I haven't had the chance of Googling as yet). 

 Pyramid of the Moon - Teotihuacan - Mexico

 Pyramid of the Sun - Teotihuacan - Mexico

 Frichot with the Pyramid of the Sun in the background

Our Aztec buddies aside, arriving at Teotihuacan that afternoon had me sinking back into some of the golden memories that I have of my first arrival to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The size and scale of the site is daunting even by modern day standards, let alone for a pre-Columbian people of two milennia ago, and just the same as Angkor, it's that initial realisation of enormity that just has you mesmerised from the start.

 Pyramid of the Moon taken from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun

 On top of the sun

Trying out my Indiana Jones look - yeah, I kind of like it

 Looking toward the Pyramid of the Sun and Avenue of the Dead

Walking around the complex for something like three hours, with Frichot losing half his weight somewhere along the Avenue of the Dead (aptly named I'd say), we managed to climb up to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun and take in both the view of the complex and the entirety of the surrounding area. Sometimes when you take a seat and try to absorb places such as these attempting to use adjectives to adequately describe them or provide a sense of perspective just doesn't seem to cut it. What I will say is this. Once again, on the wild ride that I've had for the last year I feel more than fortunate to have been provided with the chance of seeing a place that I've always wanted to see. To have done that with a great mate of mine, no matter how ill he was (even though he managed to tough it out quite successfully) is something that I'll always remember and cherish.

 

Mazatlan - St.Christopher in his cadillac dream

  

Mazatlan (Mexico) 

03 MARCH - 06 MARCH 2011 

Staring out of his window as the world rushes by, Arthur Robinson closes the glass and replies, ´I dream of ballerinas and I don´t know why but I see cadillac´s sailing...out there in the shadow of the modern machine walks St.Robinson in his cadillac dream

Offering protection to travellers was the manner in which Saint Christopher, via his unfortunate martyrdom, became the the revered patron of all travellers. Closing in on Maztalan and feeling the sharp pains of bus seat punishment in my lower back I wondered if an ethereal chat with St. Christopher might in some way allow for the granting of a penance for all my travelling sins over the years. So there I was on the Central Pacific coast of Mexico thinking that my well intentioned thoughts could somehow bring home tomorrow to today, and there of course I remained, endlessly waiting. I assume that if Saint Christopher were to hit the roads of Mexico in this day and age that he´d want to cruise the wilds of the Mexican countryside in the drivers seat of a cadillac, wearing some sinister black shades, his hair blowing as he coolly acknowledged fellow hombres as they danced around their taco stands hoping to acquire his patronage. Now would not that be the way for the patron saint of travellers to roll!? These are the things that I contemplate as I dance across the Mexican landscape in a modest, if not honourable form of cross country travel. I ask you Saint Christopher, please ´hook me up´ the next time I hit the road!

 The ´place of the deer´, i.e, the meaning of Mazatlan in the Nahuatl language lies on the Pacific coast directly across from the most southerly point of the Baja Californian peninsula. Cruising into town on a beautiful bluebird afternoon I was looking forward to getting down beach side of this resort town and checking out its colonial style historic centre. My dreams of swaying palms and beach huts filled with Corona induced conversation was briefly destroyed  however when the reality of the location of our accommodation hit home. Really, why I should ever trust a blurb that stipulates online that the location of your nightly abode is ´5 mins from everything´ is beyond me? I mean, ok, if ´everything´ means the local bull fighting ring then maybe they would have an argument but I should have known better. In any case it wasn´t really that bad, we did find taxis in the town to be cheap and the local bus lines even cheaper.

Mazatlan - Mexico

Mazatlan - Mexico

[Mazatlan street buskers on - The Adventures of Jet Frichot] 

Making our way down to the playa Camaron and playa Gaviotas we stopped for a while at the northern end of the beach and saw how it beautifully stretched in a crescent shape for over 5kms to the south, ending up at the headland of Los Pinos, which in turn acted as the ´invite´ to the historical centre of town. After hiding out in the wild west frontier town of Tijuana for nearly five days and then peering endlessly into the shadows for hours on end on the journey down the rhythmic rolling of Pacific waves and the endless blue that met it´s other blue cousin at the horizon was just the tonic for me. I´ve got to say, I´m not sure how it was that I made the transition from being a creature of snow, ice and gentle carves down pine laden slopes to a man that thinks that food tastes better when there´s sand between his toes and a mojito in tow but San Sebastian, you have a lot to answer for.

Mazatlan - Mexico

Mazatlan - Mexico

Mazatlan - Mexico

Stopping several times for beers during the day the hours just faded away as the evening hues started to paint their way across the sky. Sitting down on the beach at one of the huts watching some of the local fisherman attend to their nets before the night closed out I realised how odd it was that my negated plans of South America had actually thrown me onto a Mexican beach with one of my best mates. Had I have still been on my original journey then I would have been in my last few days, more than likely somewhere in Rio on a beach doing  pretty much the same thing. Somehow the dice that I rolled produced a perfectly acceptable replica but replaced the Atlantic for the Pacific. Alright St.Christopher, you might just have pulled through for me. What´s more, news on the street was that we had arrived in Mazatlan just at the start of their very own carnivale, it´s almost as if the cosmic forces got together and decided that my stolen wallet in La Paz was a fairly raw deal. As I´ve said a few times in my posts thus far, I don´t know why luck has decided to touch my crown right at this moment but I´m happy to claim it.

First night in Mazatlan - taken from the Oyster Bar

Our second day in Mazatlan ran a little like the first, which wasn´t too bad a deal at all. Have always liked the concept of the 2 for 1 deal, have got to figure out a way to trade futures on daily wish lists. Wonder if that would ever catch on? In any case, waking up at our now Mexican standard time of 12pm or just ´mas tarde´ we approached Mazatlan with the speed and conviction that one might have when they operate on ´island time´ - things get done but somehow the concept of expedience just gets traded off against absolute necessity. It´s all  about ´mañana my man!´.

Pueblo Viejo - Mazatlan - Mexico

Mazatlan - Mexico

Another calendar shoot for Frichot!

Pueblo Viejo -Mazatlan - Mexico

Settling into the historic part of town (pueblo viejo) for a few afternoon hours I got an appreciation for what actually makes Mazatlan the draw card that it is. The cobbled streets, faded colours of  buildings, crumbling edifices and drifting sounds of mariachi bands melding into the scenic set of this quaint locale, it drew my mind back to a few places that I had encountered within the last year. There´s always something pleasing about a location triggering a sentimental dose of another place and time. Ahh Cancerians, we can be, how would one say it elegantly? Soft cocks at times! As one crafty English lady said to me at 4am yesterday morning, ´Man up!´ - and really, who was it that added the additional softener to my mental fabric? Never the less, a walk back out of peublo viejo and down to the beach for an encore performance of our previous nights corona´s under the stars was called for. Watching the sun drop out of sight on its westward journey and admiring its lingering after affects accompanied by the lingering after affects of the alcoholic kind I entered into a peacefully buoyant state. I remembered that years ago in high school screen printed a shirt with the words ´Pacific dreams´ on it. Now not wanting to go into why screen printing on a Tuesday afternoon was actually part of our curriculum, the question of why the hell I chose to print ´Pacific dreams´ on my shirt when there were other far less cheesier options, albeit cliched band name options, is something that I´ll never resolve. Still Mazatlan can now happily sit alongside some of my other realised Pacific dreams such as Tahiti, Hawaii and Vanuatu, and as my boys from Ratcat might neatly add at this point, ´and that ain´t bad´.

Mazatlan - Mexico

From the places where you'd rather be - a Corona induced haze

[Link to the Adventures of Jet Frichot in Mazatlan - YouTube]

I'm a sucker for sunsets, what can I say?

The sun commencing yet another journey across the Pacific

A Mexican sunset can be aaaaalllright!

Heading out of our hut haven later than evening we set out down for the peninsula of Los Pinos and went to check out if the Mazatlan Carnivale of 2011 had anything to offer. In short, it didn´t. A bunch of taco stands, wandering streets performers and intermittent stages with bands of less than mediocre talent made carnivale look like a Rooty Hill street party gone wrong. I mean think Rooty Hill, add an airy feel of cheap cheeriness, mix it with moustached fiends who appear to be afficionados in bastardising the Dali look and then smear it with cream cheese (I don´t know why I went with cream cheese, just felt like I was on a roll) and then just maybe you´ll be able to acquire an image of carnivale 2011. The best performance of the night went to a bunch of Brazilian samba dancers who looked as though they were about to burst their breaches. It was kind of awesome actually! Aside from that the most enjoyment that we got was when we ditched the crowds and ducked into a ´spiffy´ little rock joint called the Time Out. It´s the type of small bar that Sydney would die for and probably a type that Melbourne is renowned for. We hung out their for a few hours under the inimitable moves of Mick Jagger on the overhead flat screens, downed a few pina coladas and contemplated whether we did really enjoy walks in the rain? Night two in Mazatlan drew its curtains on us at this point. We located Mazatlan´s finest golf cart driver and sequestered him for our journey back to El Bucanero.

Waking up on our ´exit strategy´ day in Mazatlan we encountered a phenomena that we had heard of but not realised for quite sometime, ´the morning´. Since Vegas our mornings had been spent in a slumber and it was only for the sake of figuring out a way to Mexico City that we needed to beat the midday alarm. Sorting ourselves out at central de autobuses we managed to acquire a 2pm ride to the capital and thus had a few hours up our sleeves to play with before departure. Accepting one last opportunity for some time on the sand we had ourselves a great little seafood feast and wiled away the hours on the back of few ales. This however is where our travel itinerary turned a little nasty. Rocking back to the bus terminal with 15 mins to spare we made our way for the bus stands only to be told that the bus had left? What the hell? My Spanish wasn´t quite able to get the point over the line that the bus had by its own accord decided to leave before it´s scheduled departure time and the man explaining it to me couldn´t quite get across to me that the time ´we thought it was´ was not the time it actually was. From what we later could deduce somewhere between Tijuana and Mazatlan we´d lost an hour and the bus that we had anticipated to be on right now was already cruising the Ventura highway! With a bit of a song and dance at the bus counter and an emotional, appealing story to the manager we did manage to acquire a standby seat to MC about 2hrs later. Saint Christopher obviously had our backs yet again and we were now once again off in our own cadillac dreams to continue the tour on a wing, and perhaps a prayer or two included.

 

Tijuana to Mazatlan - Confessions of a border jumper

Tijuana (Mexico) to Mazatlan (Mexico)

03 MARCH 2011

I use to think that jumpìng a border anywhere was the duck´s nuts, setting foot in a new land, accepting a unique welcome stamp in my little booklet of ´proof of citizenship´, being the Neil Armstrong of my family, these were some of the travel moments that I use to look forward to. I recall one trip a few years ago when I did my very best to convince a similarly hard headed hombre of mine that jumping the border from Laos to Burma, even for just a few hours, would have been a worthwhile experience. His preference on the other hand was to travel ´lines´, you know, do the length of a country, cut across continents, take a few lines down in some outlandish Bolivian prison. Sometimes I get the concept of ´lines´ confused, apologies it´s my advancing age ofcourse.

For a few weeks prior to the start of this escapade Frichot had been pushing the cause of Tijuana. I knew why ofcourse. He had become the border jumper that I once was and whilst I didn´t so mind the concept of hanging three feet within the Mexican/Mexican´t border there was always the desire to head south, much further south and check out what the United Mexican States had to offer (really, that´s it´s official name - Google it bro´).

The Mexican/Mexican´t border

What I had kind of deduced from the haphazard organisation of the world wind Frelisher wing and a prayer tour was this, that one, the inconsistency and intermmitent transmission of funds would produce scarcity and scarcity in turn would lead to absurd and or enlightened decision making - take your pick. I mean it´s what lead us to slyly abduct a basket of deep fried pickles from a random Canadian guy who was oddly pondering over them in an equivalently random rock bar somewhere along the strip in Vegas. It was also the reason that hangovers were a constant companion as 1.2litre bottles of Corona should always be considered with the good grace in which they´re received. Secondly as logistics co-ordinator and associate to the tour´s purveyor of finances I had the ability to acutely focus the fiscal dilemmas of our journey and redesign them in accordance to our more modest realities. It´s why the return back to LA for a cross continental flight to NYC was postponed to another day and its why the bus out of TJ turned south at the border instead of heading north.

On the road to Mazatlan

On the road to Mazatlan

Now if you haven´t heard of the Mexican town of Mazatlán then don´t fear, up until five or so days ago I hadn´t either. In fact we probably wouldn´t have even stopped here but for the fact that the big woosbag Frichot couldn´t handle a 48hr straight run from Tijuana to Mexico City on a rehabilitated cement truck that now functioned as a people mover. Aside from the fact that most bus seats are uncomfortable when you´re seated in them for 2hrs straight or more what else is there to complain about? Lack of sleep, screaming toddlers, huge Mexican dudes blasting Sepultura from the back rows, all in an honest days work of the budget traveller right? In any case I relented to Frichot´s demands of splitting the journey in two and through a little reconnaissance found a nice little beach town on the Central Pacific coastline that would fit the bill for a quaint little two day layover.

Out of business

With a scenic tour of TJ under our belts on the morning of departure, provided kindly by the taxi driver that thought I was speaking Swahili instead of Spanglish, we boarded the 10·30am ride south for what was going to be a 28hr run down to Mazatlán. I could already see the fear in the eyes of Frichot as he rocked back and forth in seat number 35 of the red eye express. He didn´t know it at the time be he was just about to get hit with a healthy dose of chicken express fever, a rare disease that strikes at the internal ´acceptance nervous system´ of pundits of an overnight express. Irritation and mental stability are attacked first, uncontrollable bowel movements follow and the finally the individual ends up in a ball of misery on the aisle floor, hysterically laughing at themselves for their own stupidity at accepting such a journey. Essentially he was now f**ked!

Leaving TJ that morning we encountered a plethora of ramshackle buildings that hung precariously to the hills that rounded the city, it was if God has just run his first ´How to become a builder workshop´ and the results remained for all to see. As we continued I felt the slow onset of drowsiness attack me and my eyelids started to drop below the horizon. I must have been knocked out for some time as the next thing I remember we were in the midst of a wild mountains that were totally boulder-ridden and completely lacking in vegetation. More than worthy of snapping a few photos and an excellent way to wake up from a slumber induced by the gentle sway of Mexican roads.

Final light - 16 hrs to go

Cutting through the border town of Mexicali and then following the Mexican/Mexican´t border that had us peering into California and then Arizona for the rest of the afternoon. As a relatively cheap way of funding a tourist drive through the desert it was more than interesting. With night falling and the scenery hiding being its evening shade curtain both Frichot and I stared off into the abyss for the next few hours, a mind numbing experience if ever there was one. A lack of sleep on an all-nighter with the inability to switch on a light for reading purposes only means that there´s time for personal reflection and contemplation, as superficial as it can be at times.

Day of arrival

With the first rays of sun lighting the interior of the cabin in the morning and a roadside stop  that had us bleeding tears of caffeine in the hope of managing our levels of comfort into Mazatlan, we cruised into the cozy Pacific Coast town somewhere after 2pm. The painful ordeal for Frichot was now over and a 2-3 day hiatus was now in store. Not that I wanted to burst the little bubble of sweet euphoria that Jet was riding at this point after conquering the 28hrs down but I knew that just around the corner there was another ride waiting. It wasn´t going to be 28hrs but the run to Mexico City was still going to be enough to cause a little pain...sometimes it´s the things left unsaid that can be the most painful, right!?