Gemma's Mini-Mexican Blog

As I write about Mexico I have a sour taste in my mouth and I worry that this bitterness may come across in my writing, rather like I'm sucking on a lemon, or should that be one of the many limes that are served with everything here?

It is a tale of stunning scenery, idyllic landscapes, broken promises and cunning crime. Right now, I can feel the tears forming although I know I won't let them flow, not because I'm sad to leave - quite the opposite - more from frustration. It is such a contrast from when we arrived in this beautiful country.

Mexico was the start of my part of the trip and somehow, instinctively, l knew it. The hostel in Mazatlan was my favourite so far and with a beautiful beach just 3 minutes away with beach bars selling delicious tacos and cold Corona, I was in heaven. When I found out that Mazatlan also claimed to be the shrimp capital of the world I knew that when Mother Nature was creating this place she was thinking of me. 

I was sad to leave, even though we had stayed an extra night because it was so lovely. Also, the thought of going to Mexico City daunted me, and I felt certain we were going to be robbed.

I was wrong. Mexico City was great, with beautiful parks and lots of interesting things to do. But it also spralled on for ever, with street after street looking exactly the same - a little bit unloved. Our hostel wasn't that nice though, which can really alter your perception of a place so we were glad to move on. One thing that did surprise me was how amazed people were that we had been to Mazatlan. Apparently it has a dangerous reputation as one of the biggest Cartels operate there. It is funny how I felt so at home there, but was scared of the much safer Mexico City.

From there, a short 6 hour bus ride took us to Oaxaca (pronounced wah-ha-ka, something I still can't say!) a beautiful city in a mountain valley bursting with charm and culture. Sitting in the main square sipping the local hot chocolate was a great way to soak up the atmosphere and catch up on some people watching. One thing we have noticed is how small but yet fully grown the Mexican people are. Darren nearly trod on one as she skirted around his kneecaps! 

But then it all went wrong.

I wish we had never arrived in Palenque. Quite a statement considering how stunning the Mayan ruins are as they sit so aptly in the misty jungle. Exploring them was a real treat. Sheltered by the trees, we hardly saw any other tourists and it felt like we had stumbled across them, like the first people to find them after 700 years of dormancy. It was an experience that will stay with me for a long time and I am very grateful for that.

However, the hostel was a dive, dirty, incompetent, unfriendly and there were constant efforts to extort money from us such as putting us in a cheaper room than we had paid for, charging an extra 10% service charge for food but not writing it on the bill so we would tip again and trying to sell us a tour of the ruins for 240 Pesos when the local buses charged just 10 Pesos each way and went from the end of the road.

On the first night in Palenque two locals stayed in our dorm. We thought this was a bit weird and I felt a sense of unease. They turned out to be the owners son and his friend but they arrived late, well after we had gone to sleep, had no bags and spoke no English so we didn't trust them. However, in the morning they were friendly and happily joked together before they had their showers and left.

So the following afternoon when another bagless local turned up the alarm bells didn't ring as much as they should have. He stayed the night, robbed us while we were sleeping and left early the next morning.

That meant that our last day in Mexico was spent in the Police Station rather than relaxing ahead of a taxing journey to Guatemala the next day. Initially, we were very pleased with the help we got. The police seemed very thorough, and even enlisted the help of a local translator. However, we were fed a line and paid a 400 pesos (£20) investigation tax, or corruption charge as I now like to call it. So by lunchtime we had been robbed twice, but there was more to come.

As it turned out, the translator was more help than we could have hoped for. We had made a small mistake when crossing the border into Mexico and did not have the correct visa documents. We were open and honest about this at the Police Station and said that we had planned to go to the immigration office that day and asked if that was the best thing to do. The translator assured us that we could easily sort it out on the border (he used to work for immigration) and in fact he now organises trips and could arrange transport and speak to immigration on our behalf. The only way to travel this leg of the journey was to pay around 300 Pesos for an organised trip, so knowing this, we felt a lot safer with a guide who was trusted by the police, spoke fluent English and assured is that he would come all the way to the Guatemalan border with us - something we checked and double checked before handing over the higher price of 460 pesos each, which included all costs and breakfast. (Robbery number three).

The next day we were collected from our hostel and began to make our way in a car, not the agreed bus, with no explanation of why. Already, something didn't feel right.

After an hour we stopped for breakfast which was where the translator left us, still two hours from the Mexican border, saying that he had to return to the hotel. He loaded us onto an already full minibus with other tourists (all Spanish speaking) and a Spanish speaking driver.

I am still sat on the bus, desperate to leave Mexico but worried about what lies ahead at the border - no doubt robbery number four as our white skins and lack of language skills will demand a high bribe to be let through. I can almost hear the cha-ching of dollar signs behind their eyes as they watch us approach the border. But I still haven't cried!

The happy ending

When we arrived at the border we were not surprized to be charged US$50 to cross. We moaned a bit and told everyone that we had been robbed. The men at the border patrol must have taken pity on us because when they discovered that we hadn't been stamped into the country they didn't stamp us out either and actually gave us our money back!

15 minutes later we were in a wooden canoe zooming up the river towards Guatemala. It was such a lovely way to travel with the breeze blowing through my hair and the sun beaming down through the clouds. My spirits rose as we got closer to a new country and having an open mind again, only hopefully a little bit wiser!

Palenque: Ruins & Robbery

We arrived in Palenque at 7am, and wearily made our way from the station to the hostel. We followed the instructions to the letter, but ended up about 2km too far down the road. We were hot and sticky, tired and in need of a rest, so we found a taxi instead who drove us back to the bus station to ask his colleagues for directions. We went back again, and this time turned off down a road not mention in the instructions. Frustating. 

We were checked in by a young man who didn't know what he was doing, he tried to put us in the wrong room, and didn't give us our security bracelets. But then, none of the staff knew what they were doing, as we were never challenged as to why we weren't wearing these bracelets. More on that rather crucial point later! 

When we were taken to the room the receptionist couldn't' open the door - whilst we waited a local monkey, a howler monkey I think, climbed into a tree above us and relieved himself on Gemma's bag. As soon as he finished we dived into the dangerzone to retrieve our belongings. Once we had moved them into a safer area the monkey decided to defecate on the same spot! Whilst it was lovely for the monkey to welcome us to his jungle, I did make a mental note to crap on the next monkey I see in London. In hindsight, this might have been a significant omen for what was to come, one we maybe shouldn't have ignored. 

After resting for a while, and deciding that the hostel was a dive, we walked into town. Palenque is a small town, the only large buildings are the hotels in the tourist zone, in the central area nothing is above 3 stories. There are a few shops, with a fairly limited range of stock, so shopping was never going to kill any time. There is a cathedral, but I've seen bigger confessionals to be quite honest, even in the last few weeks! 

We decided that night to head to the ruins the next day, and headed back to the hostel after a delicious and cheap dinner of tacos in a small restaurant frequented by locals. Back in our Spartan dorm two young men appeared. We did notice that they didn't have any bags, which seemed strange, but they had let themselves in so we didn't think too much of it. It turned out this was the owners son and his friend, who had decided to crash in some spare beds rather than return home, but we didn't find this out until later. 

The following day we ignored the receptionists plea to pay 280 pesos for the ruins tour, and walked out to the street. Within minutes we were inside a taxi-van, having paid 10 pesos each for the ride to the ruins. Unfortunately it decided to rain at this point, heavily, so we got out at the site museum and spent an hour admiring the art and artefacts from the Mayan ruins. 

There were a large number of reliefs, stone tablets, and hieroglyphs, and each exhibit was helpfully explained in both Spanish and English. Unlike Monte Alban, they also had pottery, jewellery, death masks and bizarre stone statues looking like a cross between a mask and a mini totem pole which were dedicated to specific Gods. The rain had proved fortuitous, and we headed out of the museum armed with some prior knowledge of the ruins we were about to see.

After passing a small guesthouse we began climbing up a flight of stone stairs into the rainforest. All around us the trees and foliage closed in, the light faded and a mist surrounded us. A few minutes later we reached a fork and took the right turn. As we reached the top of a second flight some small ruins appeared, overgrown with tree roots burying themselves into the stoneworks. We spotted another tourist scurrying off and followed him. He climbed onto another small ruin and began pointing into the bushes. We made our way up, carefully I might add as the stones were covered in moss and slippery, and arrived just in time to see a very small, black, pig-like creature darting through the undergrowth.

Now we were faced with yet another flight of stairs, much higher and steeper than the previous ones. We carefully picked a path up, and arrived short of breath, and bathed in sweat, at the foot of a large pyramid. In fact the whole site of Palenque seemed to open up before us, and it was breathtaking. Surrounded by dense jungle and mist, in incredible humidity, the ruins are just so beautiful. I did the first thing that came to mind and without considering the consequences I ran up the steps of the nearest temple. 

From here the view was even better, more buildings appearing through gaps in the trees. And hardly a single tourist in sight. One of the best features of Palenque is the presence of the temples atop the pyramids, and I was also able to peek inside one which had been briefly home to a Spanish Count when he visited 200 years ago. However, getting down was a different proposition entirely, I suddenly realised how steep and slippery the stones were, my issue with heights kicked in, and had to navigate my way down with the aid of my behind! 

We made our way around, stopping every few seconds as a new panorama opened up before us. The absence of tourists added to the sense that we were discovering the site afresh. We both climbed the palace building, and were rewarded with stone carvings and even a few examples of painted flowers which had somehow survived the years of humidity and rain. As we climbed the outskirts of the palace we noticed the rain clouds charging towards us, coming between a gap in the mountains, and took shelter in one of the palaces rooms, right at the top. Here we had our packed lunch, one of the greatest locations I have ever eaten a ham and cheese sandwich! 

We spent about 4 hours climbing up, over and into the ruins. We were quite surprised just how close you are allowed to get to everything, being allowed inside certain passageways and tunnels of the various buildings. But like all good things, we eventually decided it was time to head back, as by this point we were both in need of a rest and a good shower! We wandered down the other path from the one we had taken, past yet more smaller, later ruins, eventually coming to a beautiful waterfall. We had to cross a small bridge and eventually met the fork we had taken earlier. 

Back at the roadside, after just a few minutes we hailed another taxi-van and 10 pesos later we were back on the path near our hostel. We went to the dorm to freshen up, and met two new room-mates. A third person appeared, letting himself in and brazenly chatting to Phil, one of the Americans, and Gemma. He had a bedsheet and towel, nothing too suspicious so far, and after Gemma and I went off for dinner at the restaurant above the reception he apparently went out to get some beers. We met a couple of friends, and started chatting, not returning to the room until 11pm. 

By this time everyone was asleep, so we carefully maneuvered ourselves into our mosquito nets (necessary because the window netting here is torn). The rain made it difficult to sleep, the intense shower lasting for several hours, but we did eventually drift off. When we awoke we discovered that our wallets had been emptied of cash. The culprit had taken all the notes in Gemma's wallet, and bizarrely her shower gel. Somehow this git had come under my mosquito net to get my shorts (my wallet is attached to them by chain) and removed all my cash too. 

We were fortunate that it was only cash however, as all our bank cards were untouched. We spoke to the two americans, Phil mentioned that the mysterious guy had been sat outside the dorm when he went back that evening,followed him inside and promptly went to bed. Unfortunately he didn't know about the identity bracelet rule either, and as the guy had been in the room earlier had no suspicions. This stranger got up very early in the morning and disappeared, taking our cash with him, 

We walked into town and found the tourist information office. They took us to the police station where we were introduced to the officers. A few minutes later a translator arrived and we began to recount the story. All of this was taken down and entered into an official report (for which we had to pay a further 400 pesos but were refused a receipt, by the police for goodness sakes). But at least the officers took it seriously enough to pay a visit to the hostel later. They seemed confident they would catch the criminal, even though perhaps the evidence was largely circumstantial. Apparently the hostel has some CCTV which may give the police an image to work with. Annoyingly I now have to spend time dealing with an insurance company, and I don't know at this stage whether we will be able to recover any of the cash or the administration cost. 

The following morning we got up at the crack of dawn and waiting outside the hostel for our van to the border. Instead Fernando the guide arrived in a friend's car, and we drove around for 30 minute to find the van. It had apparently gone on ahead of us, so we moved into a different car and raced to catch up. Along the way, driving through and around the edges of the misty rainforest, we were stopped at a military checkpoint. The soldier said to Fernando that he had met Italians, Dutch, Poles and Japanese, but no English, so would we mind saying something to him in English. Putting on our best "plum" accents we gave him a chorus of "hello", "nice to meet you" and "good day old boy". He seemed impressed. 

Eventually we caught up with the van at a small restaurant, where we had a breakfast of eggs and bacon, and we crammed our belongings into the small spaces available. The driver raced to the border, unconcerned about the awful, awful camber of the roads, and banging his head to the beat of some terrible disco-pop music which he thoughtfully shared with us all, loudly. 

We arrived at the border a few hours later and began to panic. You may remember from our first Mexican blog, technically we were at this point illegal immigrants, having sailed through the border without a stamp or tourist card. Initially the guide tried to suggest that we needed to pay US$50 to leave the country. We nearly hit the roof, and loudly proclaimed that we had been robbed and now we were being robbed again. However, with hindsight this was actually the legitimate tourist tax, charged to people who stayed more than a few days. But at the time our protestations seemed to hit a nerve, and the guide agreed that as we had not been stamped in we didn't really need a stamp out, so we walked through immigration as if we had never even been to Mexico! We both felt that we deserved a little bit of luck, and although hardly recompense for the robbery it did at least save us some money. 

From here we caught a small boat down the river. It took about 30 minutes, but it was really fun. The little wooden boat seemed to tip up at the front and the occasional eddy made us wobble, but it never felt unsafe. When we reached the small town of Bethel, we were inside Guatemala. Amazingly the connecting bus was waiting for us (I've read some horror stories on the lonely planet website), and we drove to the immigration office. Here we were greeted by a cheery border official. "Welcome to Guatemala, please, enjoy your stay" he said with a beaming smile. 

After more than 2 weeks in Mexico, we were glad to be adding another stamp to our passports. The last 24 hours across the border had really dampened our enthusiasm for the country. We have had some wonderful experiences, and seen some beautiful places, and on the whole met very nice people. But as if being robbed wash't bad enough, we can't escape the feeling that people look at us and see dollar signs. And to be ripped off by the Mexican police really took the biscuit.