Campeche

Stayed one night in the pirate sieged village. Another ancient town of cobblestone and old churches, but this one was a bit different because it is completely surrounded by walls and cannons aimed out at the sea. Supposedly this place was ransacked for centuries by pirates. We found nothing cool to steal.
We stayed in a hostel in a 400-year-old building, which was cool until Garen ate some bad nachos and turned the patio and adjacent wall into a scene from some sick horror film. Wow, the noises! I felt bad for him.
We had this VW in our sights for nearly twenty minutes, but experienced a chronic and ongoing misfire.
A

Palenque Ruins

Here is the report from our second and now coolest ruin exploration. It seems as if most of these areas are pretty well picked over, but Garen and I were able to make some startling breakthroughs of our own. For instance: we have discovered that all ruins look exactly the same, and much of them look no different from the foundations of say, an abandoned 7-11 or our backyard aquarium in the Fremont house. Other ruins, however, were huge stone relics from the years before Christ that are definitely awe inspiring.

Also, we found this creepy bastard in the campground bathroom

This place is green, humid, and wet. There are some nearby waterfalls that are asthetically pleasing, but worthless from a cliff jumping standpoint.

We camped both nights in the jungle and hung out with some people from Sweden, Oregon, and SD. There was some great live Latin style music and even a dude giving salsa lessons to hippy girls.
A

San Cristobal las Casas

We stayed two nights at San Cristobal de Las Casas, which provided a great change in weather. We dug our jackets out of the Burban and got rained on a few times. The air was crisp and Sierra-like and I did not smash my head on anything, which was also nice. This place is a mountain town of cobblestone streets and old churches, including one that required a lot of stairs. Camper survived another vicious attack at this particular junction.

There are also some fun bars, though a bit short of young folks.
The best part of this place was our trip to the caves and forest area 9k out of town. The cave was okay i guess. A bit regulated, but dark and drippy as a cave should be.


We worked ol Camperschmidt to sleep in the nearby forest. She was visibly stoked to be off the hot sand. This shot took me the better part of a half hour
A

Back to the Pacific and zipolite...

Aiming for Puerto Angel, we ended up at zipolite for two nights. This is another tourist destination filled with whities, which are sometimes very nice to see after putting in 5 hours of slow, curvy road driving...
We surfed a fun little shore break for a bit and walked about enjoying some bars and seeing some damn good live music. This is another place swarming with nude people of all shapes and sizes. This is sometimes a real treat and sometimes a real bummer. We liked this place and met some nice people, including some Aussies who live in Antigua...
Camped on the beach for $100 pesos, a bit pricey, but a good location save for the dance hall reggae music blasting until about 11 each night.

Heading south (east, really) we stopped at Playa Azul and Barra de la Cruz to look at their non existent waves and shite camping operations, hitting Salina Cruz mid afternoon. This place is a dump. We don't usually drive at night but it's better than staying here, so for the second time on this trip, Northbound!!
Cheers
GB
PS: we've updated the Puerto Escondido post with a video of Garen taking one to the upper body and a written update, check it out!

Oaxaca City!

We drove a curvy mountain road over some huge passes towards Oaxaca city. It was like being back home; pine forests and cool, thin air, at which the Suburban coughs black smoke in protest during the climbs. This would be one incredible bike ride. Three or four hours later, we finally found a campsite on a hill in the San Felipe area overlooking Oaxaca city, $70 pesos per night. This place was wonderful and we met some very helpful Canadians who gave us some great info about countries further south.


We spent two nights in Oaxaca city wandering about checking out churches' and their fabulous architecture,

sampling some mescal at a few bars, and of course, making the trip to the ruins at Monte Alban, the first we've seen on the trip. Awesome; can't wait to see more.


two dirty campers:

the third was denied access to the ruins; bummer...
About time we get back to the beach!
GB