On the road again

I'm heading to Oaxaca City tonight (taking a night bus!). I've been in Mexico City for 1 week and it's been awesome. Lots of museums and art, and pretty colonial buildings. And old churches on practically every second corner! The Spaniards really were enthusiastic with converting the populations. Hopefully Oaxaca will be as enjoyable as Mexico City.

I'm now trying to motivate myself for the next 2 and a half weeks, not that I don't like Mexico, on the contrary, I love Mexico! But it's just getting to the end of my trip, and I really miss home, and I just want to get on that plane! So, I'm just thinking, 2 short weeks left, hey?

And it's also bloody cold here! It gets down to about 9 degrees at night, thank goodness I have thermals. It's unusually cold for this time of year.

Pride

In my walk across the city, I managed to wander into the totally queer part of town. After 3 and a half months of queer abstinence, I was suddenly inundated! There were gay men everywhere! Everyone seems so out and proud too. There were rainbow flags, shops selling rainbow merchandise, gay clubs, cafes and restaurants. One of the cafes/bars was called BGay, BProud, something I did not expect to see in Latin America. Anyway, it looks like there's a pretty big gay scene in that part of town. The rest of the queers though (the LBT part) don't have such high visibility, as per usual. Gay men seem to always dominate the queer scene first. I wonder why that is...

Mexico City WOO!

Mexico City is nothing like I thought it would be! I had imagined a dirty, polluted, dangerous and ugly city (from what I've read and what other travellers have told me), but in fact it's quite the opposite! There are really nice buildings here, in the city centre and in some parts of the inner city area, and where I'm staying is really safe (I don't know about the rest of the city). I haven't noticed much of the pollution, although there are a lot of cars here. It's not as evidently smoggy as LA, perhaps that's the problem. It's not thick black smoke, lol.

I'm staying with a friend of Fabiola's (Fabiola and Christian owned the farm I was working at for the last 3 weeks), she offered her apartment when I said I was going to the city for a few days, and she's asking another friend in Oaxaca (where I'm planning to go next) if I can stay with them. What nice people! Patricia (the woman I'm staying with) lives in the inner city area, really close to the centre (if you count the presidential palace and the Zocalo as being in the centre), and is walking distance to all the major museums and galleries. It's very convenient!

So I arrived yesterday, and I went to the National Museum of Anthropology today. It is a ridiculously huge museum! There are 24 rooms in total, and they're all pretty big, with lots of displays and some bilingual captions. Needless to say, I spent the entire day there. I could've spent more time, but I was freezing! When we arrived yesterday, it was hot. Today, it was overcast, windy and raining a bit, it was a complete flip in weather! It's like I'm in Melbourne again. I'm wearing 4 layers of clothing as we speak. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of warmth in the museum, I just had a light jacket, so I was absolutely freezing. In between unsuccessfully trying to stay warm and trying to absorb the information presented to me (half of which was in spanish), I nevertheless was able to pick up some bits of information. The Aztec and Mayan rooms were really cool. I didn't know this before, but they were really big on blood sacrifices. They'd sacrifice animals, people, even children to whichever god who needed it at the time. They also built huge pyramids and temples. It was pretty cool.

On the food note, I've been eating lots of street food lately. I love street food, it's the best food you can get in any country! If only Australia had enough history to have good street food. I know enough spanish (and names of Mexican foods) to know what I'm ordering, and to get it without cheese! Seriously, everything has cheese and/or chilli here. You can get all fruit salads with chilli powder, salt and lime juice, same with corn on the cob, except they put cheese and mayonaise on that too! Regardless, I still love Mexican food, it's awesome! Oh, and they have blue tortillas! They're made from a blue variety of corn, unsurprisingly. They have a million varieties of corn here (ok, not that many, maybe 40 or 50). I thought Ecuadorians were obssessed with corn, that was nothing compared to Mexico! There's always at least one thing made of corn in every meal, most likely tortillas. Anyway, I'm trying lots of different foods, I just get whatever is vegetarian in the stall and ask for it without cheese, and then wait for the surprise. So far I haven't been disappointed!

Costa Rica update

A quick follow-up on the Costa Rican referendum for the free trade agreement with the USA. The results were frustratingly close, 51.61% yes, 48.39% no. I wonder what will happen now.

Farm update

Well, I'm still at the farm, my last week here (if everything goes according to plan) before I head off to somewhere else. Just an update to say that all is well, I've only got about 1 month left before I head home, so I'm really looking forward to the next part of my trip, as well as going home again, yay! Tempus fugit.

I walked to a waterfall close to the farm yesterday, and I don't want to sound religious or anything, but once I got there, it was the most amazing experience I've had for the entire trip. The place was so peaceful and serene, so beautiful and devoid of human presence, I was overwhelmed with happiness. It was the most pure happiness I've ever felt, it's hard to describe in words. But I'd have to say that was one of the best days of my trip, all the more intensified because it was so simple. No touristing around, no gardening, no nothing. Just sitting next to a waterfall appreciating everything around you. It was great!

Life and death

I saw a rabbit being killed and gutted today. For some reason, the actual killing wasn't as disturbing as I thought it would be. It certainly wasn't as disconcerting as the cow milking, possibly because I wasn't the one killing it. The rabbit seemed surprisingly peaceful, so much so that I felt bad knowing about its impending death. Just moments before it was hopping around in its cage; it seems so incredible that we can take away a life with such ease. In case you were wondering, the rabbit was killed by having its neck broken. Christian held it upside down by its hind legs, and whacked it hard. I had expected it to be screaming and squealing etc, but it didn't make any noise. Perhaps I was just ignorant to the fact that rabbits don't make loud noises like cows and pigs. I don't know. Perhaps it actually died relatively pain free? No, probably not. It was spasming for a few moments before it became still; it didn't take that long to die.

I'm probably making this whole event sound very matter-of-fact and heartless. Make of it what you will. I don't know what to think about death now, and the morality of this whole animal killing business (not just killing for eating, but killing for other purposes, like mosquitoes and garden pests). Incidentally, I've had to do some killing of my own. There are these white grubs in the garden beds that eat the roots of the plants and eventually kill them, so really we have to kill the grubs before they kill the plants. It's certainly not vegan, but how far can you take it? If I don't kill them, they'll no doubt be killed by someone else. Using deterrents (if there were any) would chase them to another place where they'll also be killed. If, very hypothetically, we were to deter them so far away that they didn't have a food source and they all died, we would still be responsible for their deaths and eventual extinction. That doesn't make it any better. So the question is, does that make it ok to kill a grub or a mosquito? Or is this issue too myopic to be contemplating about?

¡Hola Mexico!

Yay, I'm in Mexico! I headed straight to the farm the day I arrived, because I had no idea what else I was going to do (being without a guide book and all that!). The farm (Rancho el Amate) is almost 2 and a half hours away from Mexico City. I don't have mobile reception at the farm itself, but there was reception in the little town about 5 minutes drive away. Go figure. Currently, my plan is to stay 2 or 3 weeks. I haven't decided exactly how long, and my plans will probably change depending on circumstances. But right now I have no plans, so am just going to play by ear.

The farm is cool. It's located at the foothills of very picturesque cliffs, so I have a good view when I'm gardening! They grow all sorts of stuff here, from ornamental plants like birds of paradise to edibles. The main production here is jams though. They make all kinds of fruit jams and preserves, which they sell at the organic market along with some other seasonal produce. Yesterday, I harvested carrots and weeded the garden bed, and today, I did more weeding and planted kale. It's amazing how long such a simple task takes. It took me the entire morning to weed and plant the entire bed, and by morning I mean until lunch time, which incidentally was at 2.30pm. Apparently people here eat very late lunches, at 2 or 3pm, like they do in Spain. Then they have a light supper at 9 or 10pm. I'm slowly accommodating by eating a late breakfast. It's quite an adjustment seeing as at the farm in Costa Rica, we'd have breakfast at 6.30am and lunch at 12pm, hours I'm more accustomed to. Speaking of accommodating, my body received a shock when I arrived on Monday. I was totally not used to winter weather, nor did I expect it, having just arrived from the Caribbean coast where it was too hot to even think about taking a warm shower! It is absolutely freezing here in the mornings and nights, I can see my breath in the morning, it's that cold! At night, I sleep in my sleeping bag along with 3 layers of blankets on top. But I prefer this than being perpetually dripping in sweat. The noon hours are very warm though. It's a bit like Brisbane's winter actually. I guess it makes sense, seeing as it's autumn here now. Has it been correspondingly hot in Brisbane?

The food here is awesome! I'm totally in my element. The first day I arrived, I had some grain bread and beans. I thought I'd be sick of beans after Costa Rica, but after eating it, I realised I couldn't stay mad at beans for a long period of time! I love them! They are the most amazing food! Also, Mexico is chilli central!!! I've been having my fill of spicy chillies here, and they are awesome, after being totally deprived of them in Costa Rica. The chillies here that I've been having are hotter than the ones in Ecuador! Oh what fun I shall have! The tortillas here are also really good. They're so different from the shitty Old el Paso ones (or whatever the brand name is) that you get from the supermarket. I can actually taste the corn in these ones, which is the best part. I kind of learnt how to make tortillas in the farm in Costa Rica, so I will attempt it when I get home and you can all be amazed by it. Oh, and I ate cactus today! Who knew you could eat cactus! I've forgotten its name though, despite being told several times. I really should write it down. And another thing, I've fallen in love with agave! It's an amazing syrup, and I had it for breakfast today with bread, it's so tremendously yummy! It's going to be my honey replacement. I'm going to see if I can buy a whole heap before I return to Australia, seeing as it is very rare and very expensive there. I think they have shitloads of agave in Mexico, they even make a kind of tequila out of it! Awesome huh!

Random post from El Salvador

Comalapa International Airport, El Salvador, has free high speed internet!!! Hooray for me :D I am currently enroute to Mexico City. All my flights within Central and South America have stopovers, I guess it's just how the airline works. But hey, free internet, I'm not complaining. Eat dust LAX!

So I was up at 3.15am this morning, to get a bus at 4.20am to the airport. Turns out, however, that for some reason, the first bus was at 4.40am, despite me double checking the timetables on the internet and also asking the guy who worked at the bus terminal. That was annoying, but it was ok, I got to the airport at 5am, 1 hour prior to boarding time.

I also have to say that Costa Rica has an abundance of vego/vegan groceries! I was very excited to find them in the supermarket. They had soy meat substitute stuff, they didn't taste meaty at all, they were quite literally textured soy protein. I liked it, they tasted like soy! The same company, Bioland (I think they're Costa Rican), also produces mostly organic vegan muesli bars, biscuits and cookies! I had to buy the whole wheat carob cookies, they were awesome!

Oh, I didn't say this in the previous post, but when we were driving from Puerto Viejo to Panama, we drove past HUGE banana plantations, and I mean massive. There were acres and acres of bananas all the way from Sixaola to Changuinola (both border towns in Costa Rica and Panama respectively) and beyond. Changuinola is practically a banana town. Almost everyone works in the banana industry, and the banana fields are landmarks for the town! Unfortunately, almost all the banana plantations are owned by one company, Chiquita Brands International, who are the successors of United Fruit Company, the company that totally exploited the Caribbean, Central American and West Indian countries and their peoples in late 1800s/early 1900s. So Chiquita are apparently the largest banana distributor in the USA, and they've totally monopolised the town. Modern day exploitation?