Mamelas

I don't much feel like writing at the moment as I am soaking wet. I was scouring Oaxaca for a flexible needle (a blasphemous thing in Mexico) to help with my beading, when it started to pour. Actually at the moment it began I was eating a mamela, which is a fantastic regalo de Dios. It is a thick tortilla with beans, salsa and quesillo. You can have it with other stuff too so I added mushrooms (believe it.) and some green yummy thing. It. Was. So. Good. Anyway I didn't find what I was looking for.

On another note, I started my week of Spanih classes today. I like the school and my teacher and there is space to practice my handstands. I still need a wall... Today we learned the present sunbjunctive and I am so happy because it is exactly wha I have been needing for a while. I already used it in an email. And cheap too. I paid $80 for the whole week!

Susanna and I made sopa Azteca for the hostal on Saturday night. We went to the market and got everything except the chipotle peppers fresh. She even taught me how to fire roast peppers so I never have to use them from a can again. Let me tell you, this girl can cook! We set up my Ipod with some speakers and cooked to Michael Jackson with beer between us. By the time the soup was ready, everyone was standing around the kitchen drooling. We set out little bowls of avocado, lime, quesillo, and tortillas on the table which looked quite nice I think. We served 8 people, and they loved it!!! There was not even a slice of onion left in the pot when we were through, even though we almost doubled the recipe. For Mexicans to love two American girls Mexican cooking was pretty exciting. We celebrated with a salsa party in the kitchen that I hope continues every night I'm there. The hostal brothers are fantastic dancers and because of that I felt like I could dance really well. Eventually, Susanna brought out her hyphy (I don't even know how to spell that) and it turned into a dance party for the two of us because apparently not everyone appreciates the finer points of Oakland's contribution to hip hop. Oh well, it was the best day of my trip so far.

Sin Miedo

Whooooooooohoooooooo, we went rock climbing again for the third day! It was so fantastic! My whole body is screaming but it feels really good. We left at 9 am before you sweat just standing still and set up further up the trail than the other two days, four dogs speeding up and down between us, barking their excitement to be in the middle of nowhere. I really liked the new routes, they are more fun than yesterday when I didn't climb at all because I didn't feel in control of my body. I started once and came down after a couple of meters. I think I was still recovering from the first day. I climbed two good routes today. I am starting to trust the little pieces of rock that look to me like nothing at all but when you just dig in and push, they really hold you up. I also wore shoes that fit today which makes a big difference. They are special for climbing and fit your foot tightly and the soles sort of stick to the rock when you put your weight on them. Susanna belayed my first and she is great at guiding without making me nervous. I think I would have quit if I had been with anyone but her. There was one point when I had no faith in this little spot and she said, "I really want you to just try this one, I am holding you really well and if you do it you take a big step." So I did it, and she was totally right. After that I was willing to try much smaller points and move a lot faster. "It's like a dance with the rock," I kept hearing. Don't think, feel where you need to go and then go there all the way. There is no need to be afraid. It feels so good to tangibly let go of fear. I had these moments where I thought about coming down but realized I really wanted to get to the top, but couldn't do so without letting go and I just decided to do it and omg it is so free! My shoulders have been really strong (although now they need a big rest). After working hard for the past four years to be stable and strong I see that I made huge progress. I can pull myself up the face of cliff! Holy Shit! I am having a proud moment. Before I couldn't even lift a gallon of milk with my left hand. Thank you Rosemary and Lizz!!!

I love the challenge of climbing. Like climbing trees as a kid but magnified by thousands. It's also like being under water. It's difficult to be anywhere but where you are, and isn't that what we strive for everyday?

I am about to make Sopa Azteca for the hostal. It is nice to be back in the same place with people I know and new people I am glad to know. Oaxaca is such an amazing place. I love the vibe here. I love the people who come here. I even love the man who walks through town completley naked all day long.

Campeche

I was in Campeche for two nights and one day. I went with Jan from Nomadas Hostal in Merida. We had a good time getting there but it was not the most interesting city and it rained for a good part of the day. It is right on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico so it was nice to see the water. I did go to the Mayan archiological museum which had some cool stuff that I took photos of. I will post them soon, I just don't have my camera. I also visited the tiny botanical garden and took tons of pictures of flowers. Patrick, I think I inherited this from you! I just don't know what to do with them...

The next morning I got on the bus with a couple of folks we'd met at the Monkey Hostal and headed for Palenque because there is only one direct bus to Oaxaca each week from Campeche and it wasn't for six more days. The ride is about six hours, not so bad.

Flashback #1

Ah, the hammock, thinnest couch in the world, bed that never touches the floor, cozy cuddle sack, swing for kids large and small, book-reading assistant, perfect cloud watching positioner, and not insignificantly, dealer of trauma of the long lasting degree.

Hammock Phobia: a condition in which a person is totally terrified of hammocks, although they may still partake in the activity of hammocking. This fear may be of rational, irrational, or unearthly origins.

When I lay in hammock, I am endlessly torn between ultimate relaxation and an intense urge to put a mattress or at least my shoes under where my ass would crack against the floor should one end or the other come unattached. I see and feel over and over the possiblilties and try to angle myself in order to minimize damage should such a thing occur. One day, I think it was the day before yesterday, it all came back to me...

I am 11 or 12. At the fifth week Camp Gold session at The Lair of Bear. I am wearing hideous super short black shorts. One of the families ( I think the one who always had the Mai Thai party) in the big tents near the stage has set up one of those big, white, cotten, fat-string hammocks with the wooden bars at each end to keep it spread out. It is screwed into two trees with big eye screws. There are 3 or 4 of us on the hammock, but two of them are pretty little so we are more like two adults. Somebody is pushing us, we swing big but it doesn't feel too big. We are having fun. All of a sudden I am flying through the air and I land on tree stump that has been recently broken off so that the edges are raw and sticking straight up. The wind is knocked out of me, which gives me a pause before I feel the cuts and splinters on my back. Somebody's mother comes running over and mothers me over to the doctor's hut. I am obviously fine because I walk there, but she makes me go anyway. Good I guess.

One of the eye screws pulled out of the tree. I feel like that could happen again at any moment. But now that I have remembered why, I can assess the quality of suspension and try to relax without images of splintering tree stumps, shattered tailbones, cracked elbows, or bruises of magnanamous proportions. It could still happen, yes, but I could also get hit by a bus when I step out of this internet icebox cafe. Maybe I should just stay in here... they do have free coffee. And candy bars. And endless house music.

Diving and what I found underwater

I didn't realize we were going to another cenote, I was mostly thinking about food. But we arrived at a second one and filed out to pee behind a hut, then climb down a little ladder to the slipperiest mud I have ever slid upon and surfed our way to the water. There was one shaft of light tunneling from the ceiling through the water. It was impressive. We couldn't see much else until Raul brought one of those shiny windshield protectors and set it up to reflect into the cavern. Wow! I thought I didn't want to swim again (I was so hungry...) but within a minute or too I was jumping off the edge and totally absorbed. We took turns diving under with the flashlight to see what was under the ledges. I saw a white line running along a low wall and asked Raul what it was. He said it was the linea de la vida, the line of life, used by scuba divers to find their way out if it's dark or they are having trouble. He dove down to touch it and told me it was seven meters deep (21 ft.) He started to teach me how to dive deep. You have to blow your ears at certain depths and then return to the surface slowly and relaxed. When he put his hand above his head, he would just float up. So I put my face under, took increasingly deep breaths and dove under. I swan down to the line and then turned up and waited to start rising. I panicked at being so far down and shot up to the top. Raul told me that was bad and could be dangerous. I could tell he was right because I was really dizzy. I had to try it again so I started my breathing and dove down again, this time touching the line and reminding myself to relax and bouyancy would do the rest. I put one hand up and expected to rise. I didn't feel it so I put up the other one. I was being calm and patient, trying to just trust physics, but I wasn't going up, I was sinking further down! I looked up to find Raul and his hand was just above my head, I grabbed on and he pulled me slowly to the top. I was so surprised. I asked him what happened and he said "I looked down and there you were going away." He explained that differences in body composition can alter bouyancy and that I have negative floatation. So basically it is because I am buff! Hahaha. This is apparently great for scuba diving, but not so helpful for surfacing. After that he started to tell me about his ecotourism company and how he needs another person to work for him. And so opens another opportunity...

Las Cenotes

Oh my I love cenotes. And snorkeling. Thursday morning at nine, eight of us at Nomadas Hostal got together at the front and headed out to visit some of the underground caves filled with water and stalactites and stalagmites. Not of course, before I ran all over central Merida looking for a bank that wasn't out of order and frantically took a taxi back and was totally late and totally relieved that I was't left behind. For 300 pesos, $30 usd, we took a van to a little market in a Mayan pueblo and wandered through chiles and verduras and raw carne hanging in the heat for those who dare to eat it. After that we drove way out into the middle of nowhere and stopped at a clearing with a big hole surrounded by some trees and a ladder reaching way down. We each received our freshly sterilized snorkel and mask and climbed down until we were close enough to jump into the gray blue water. It was filled with minerals and tiny catfish cuties and felt so clean and untreated. There were remnents of candles from Mayan ceremonies along the walls, this is a sacred place for them. It is easy to see why. I snorkeled my first snorkel in here, and learned how to dive while our guide was showing us how deep and far the cave goes underwater and all the otherwordly stalactites hanging low with black abyss behind them. I spent a lot of time just staring down, floating on top of the water. The colors and the feel of the water just pulled me in and everything else went away. When our heads were above water we learned about the history of the cenotes. There is no water on the surface of the Yucatan peninsula. No rivers, no lakes, nothing to provide fresh water for crops or drinking. Except the cenotes. So they have been very special to the people of the Yucatan for thousands of years.

*I have to meet someone now, so I will have to continue my long description a bit later...

Merida

So here I am in Merida in the Yucatan. It does not feel like October here at all. Last night I stayed in a hostel that had really cool three story bunks and ladders that were probably 15 or 20 ft. high! That was about all the place had going for it though, so this morning I looked at the one I had orginally planned to stay at and moved my stuff there. It is really nice and even though it is off season, there are enough people there that I don't feel like I'm in solitary confinement. They have a great kitchen where I made pasta with garlic, tomatoes, and quesillo this afternoon. I think I paid about $3 for everything and I have plenty extra for another meal. It is so much cheaper to cook than eat out and I think I eat better too.

My spanish is already coming back. I had a long conversation this morning with a guy who is from here but spanish is his second language too, his first is Maya. I would really like to spend a week at a language school to learn some new tenses, but that may have to wait because I think most of the schools are in northwest and central Mexico.

Tomorrow I am going snorkeling in one of las cenotes a little ways from Merida. They are part of a system of underground caves running throughout the Yucatan. I am really excited, the photos I have seen are unbelievable!