So Jeff, Beardy and I are now in a gorgeous little town on the Mexican Golf called Campeche. The little townhouse style buildings are all painted pink, blue, green, yellow or orange and are wonderful to look at. It has a beautiful old church, like all the towns we've been to, but also has a wall surronding the old part of town, from the old days to protect it against pirates.
Today is a religous public holiday in Mexico. For the past week, we've been seeing dozens of people running between towns with olympic style torches and a support van full of other runners. Basically, there is always one person running with the torch, late at night, up mountains at cloud level, you name it. They are all running to different churches and showing their devotion to the virgen (who's name I cant remember, and no, it's not Mary).
Since the last update, we've hung around the pine forest town in San Cristobal with the most VWs I've ever seen. The whole town is ridiculously good at reverse parallel parking and on every street there were at least 5 VWs, most of which were old school beetles. We walked around the adorable streets and went up the biggest hill in town for a better view. Jeff and I decided to seperate for 15 minutes... A few hours later, after accidently wondering into a market with chicken feet and raw meet alongside shoes and dresses, I ended up finding the place we were meant to meet. Silly Jeff, assuming I could find the main square one block from where we left each other! Being alone certainly brings a whole new wave of attention, Jeff got it from other tourist girls and I got an overwhelming amount from local guys wolf whisteling and making a gross lip smacking noice, a quick "no!" shuts them up for the most part.
We then headed to Palenque, a jungle town with some amazing Mayan pyramids and ruins.
The most entertaining part of the trip happened on the bus ride to Palenque. It was a very windy and bumpy trip for the whole 6 hours it took to get through the mountains and into the jungle. With only an hour to go, my bladder wouldn't wait for the next town, I had to use the dodgy bathroom on the bus. I managed to stumble to it and close the door and get my pants down to my knees and as I went to sit down the bus quickly sped around a corner and the door swung open as I fell into the bus.
That was not the only eventful accident that happened in the last hour though. As Jeff sat, concerned he was about to starve to death after not eating for a whole couple of hours and it being at least half an hour past dinner time, he realised perhaps it wasn't that he was starving. He was sick. He grabbed one of our empty chip packets and promptly threw up in it. It was only a little bag so he filled it up and reached for the next one. I won best sister ever award as I sat on a bumpy bus for the next half hour, carrying a chip bag full of his vomit.
Of course he was fine as soon as we got off and food was available again.
While being half naked in the back of a bus in Mexico comes close, it's not our favourite thing to have happened. The time in Mexico city when Jeff and I were racing to eat dinner before having to jump on the bus turned out to be hilarious. We were eating our chilli covered sandwhiches as we often do when Jeff said something that must have been quite funny because we both began to laugh rather hysterically, causing the chilli to go up my nose. He then continued to laugh at me as I began to cry from both the laughter and the pain of having chilli at the back of my nose. At least one full chilli seed, and that stuff hurts. You can imagine how curious we must have looked to the other people there.
Palenque had some amazing ruins which we spent a few hours climbing and exploring. The next day we headed to some waterfalls about an hour out of town. We are very good at getting up things. We walked behind the waterfall and had to climb a few rocks quickly to avoid getting soaked. Unfortunately, we dont spend too long thinking how we'll get down. Rocks are a bit slippery and take longer getting down, which means more time to get wet. Jeff was very helpful though as I stood at the top, genuinly curious as to how I got up seeing as my legs couldnt reach the rock below. And by helpful, I mean Jeff's advice was "jump". "Will you catch me?" I asked, glad he was there, "no" he said before he started to walk away. It was a lot of fun though, we saw lots of people we nicknamed, including the most beautiful girl in the world. No joke, she was stunning. She had definitely settled for her average-by-comparison boyfriend, both of which were a little creeped out by us talking about them when we noticed them come up behind us.
Another couple of hours on a thankfully less eventful bus with more Spanish dubbed movies and we're in Campeche. We're staying in a mansion from the 1500s (for about 8 bucks a night, of course) where we bumped into some French girls who caught the bus from Palenque with us. Their names are Sophie and Anice (pronounced A-nice). They didn't understand Jeff's amazing pun of "that's A-nice name!" We thought it was hilarious but they stood, staring dumbfoundly at us like we're the weird ones!
We headed out last night to explore more of the seemingly sleepy town. The water fountains have been rigged up to do a Christmas show and dance to the music. I have never loved a town more than I did last night. You cant beat a little town, on the water that is only colourful houses and christmas fountains! I danced around Jeff and Beardy and couldnt stop grinning for the half hour we watched them.
It is not often in a third world country that you see fat people. Not fat locals at least. In Mexico, everyone is overweight. The children are chubby and almost every grown man has a gut. The greasy food has already given me a pot belly but hey, do as the locals do, right?
Speaking of food, it's been two hours since we ate so I guess it's time for first lunch!
