Bienvenidos indeed, to what has to immediately be called out as the culinary climax of the front 5 months of our trip. The prospect of eating tacos and quesadillas every mealtime for the 3 weeks we spent in Mexico was willy quivering, and knew from my Dad's trip further south of here, that we'd be getting variations of comida mehicano throughout our 6 week Central American leg. Here we go.
First on the agenda, as you could probably guess, was to do a food course. We found one that included a tour of one of the main markets beforehand, free Coronas all day, and promised 5 solid hours of cooking. Yup.
Oaxaca otherwise is a beautiful colonial city, very safe, and as the rep suggests, is wall to wall with mind blowing food, here are a couple of other standout plates -
Pissed post-day food back at the apartment, mini quesadillas with enough salsa to drown in.
Alice fully failing to stand up with her tank on.
The infinity pool at Zephyr. Woof.
We landed in Mexico City on the 15th January, slightly jaded from a spectacular, but as you know, rapid time in Colombia. Mexico City is the largest, and most dangerous city in the world, which having arrived at night, we became acutely aware of, seeing lots of moustached, tattoo-faced Latinos, some of which I recognised from Ross Kemp on Gangs. That said though, and like many of the other sketchier places we've been, we wanted to be open minded and not let it stop us from seeing it, so simply applied the usual rules of sticking to busier areas, not going out late in the evening, and not taking much out with us.
First on the agenda was a haircut, as my Barnet was getting a little out of hand. In hindsight, I should have known that Mexico was always going to glean one of the stranger styles from my lid. This was the result -
Alice was in bits.
As ever, not on the agenda was food. Alice had done her research and found a place that sounded like one of the new hotspots for good Mexican.
And my did she find a gem. We ate everything from a kebab-burrito fusion, to the wonderfully fresh prawn tostadas pictured above. All washed down with a local craft pale ale. What a start to Mexico.
After a few days of acclimatising to a new region, and exploring what is actually a very beautiful city, laden with monstrously grand churches and plenty of good value eateries (where you help yourselves to near 10 litre vats of Guac at your own table), we excitedly made our first steps down to the food capital of Mexico, Oaxaca (Wahaca).
The market was one of those misty, buzzy and vibrantly coloured markets you see chefs like Rick Stein clambering and shouting his way around. You didn't recognise half the ingredients, but luckily our food messiah for the day talked us through all the chillies and unfamiliar fruits, of course sampling the majority throughout.
We'd mentioned South America is unrivalled for full flavoured fruit, and that's still true to us, but Central has to be the most fascinating - the fruit Alice has her paw paws on, for example, is a prickly pear, which actually has a bizarrely creamy taste to it, and they sling in quesadillas with cheese and mushrooms (simple and sublime, as with all good food here).
Suffocating from bringing the dried chipotle chillies back to life.
Our appetiser, giant nacho with guac, chilly sauce and dried grasshoppers (a staple part of Mexican cooking and actually quite nice if you block out what it is).
I'll save talking through all five dishes we made, as I have recipes and notes for all, and would like to mock' them up on the blog when I'm back. The standout, however, were these puppies:
Made with homemade tortillas (see below the press used to make them - I want one), Oaxacan cheese (mozzarella but even stringier and saltier), courgette flowers, and peppers. We filled and folded them like a calzone, sealed the edges with a dab of water, and shallow fried. To serve, we piled on some of the smokey chilli sauce, a little fresh onion, heaps of guac, and another local cheese that was similar to feta. Do me on it.
Some shots of the other dishes we made:
Chocolate Mole Poblano with Chicken Thighs.
Chilli Rellenos - deep fried stuffed dried chillies with crispy banana slices as a garnish.
Oaxaca otherwise is a beautiful colonial city, very safe, and as the rep suggests, is wall to wall with mind blowing food, here are a couple of other standout plates -
Giant crispy tortilla with black beans, more of the Oaxacan crack cheese, avocado, spinach and beef skirt steak.
Another major food highlight was this breakfast (yes, breakfast) called Chilequiles - essentially a plate of nachos with spicy pizza sauce, two fried eggs, avocado, feta, and pink onions. An utterly mould breaking and mind bending breakfast.
From Oaxaca we decided to power on over to the Yucatan peninsula (the Western bulge of Mexico), as Christmas was approaching, and we were wary of how difficult it was going to be to lock down accommodation.
Our typical bus snack - avocado half with habanero chilli, noshed out with stolen plastic teaspoons from bus station coffee shops.
And we arrived, to this! We massively lucked out on an AirBNB we found that just so happened to have the above-photo'd private Cenote. Some of you may have seen the video we posted on Christmas Day, but in brief, we spent 4 days here, and on the big day itself, got invited to a private party with the Italian manager of the place, sipping Rum-filled Coconuts, dancing to funky house, munching panettone and jumping off the rocks with his super-model Italian friends.
It was the perfect anti-Christmas that suitably distracted us from the missed traditions of December in the UK (slightly missed).
Two raving ragamuffins from L.A. that made the day very entertaining.
Mid-way through our stay in Tulum, we decided to go and check out Cozumel island, another recommendation from our gone but not forgotten (and now engaged!) amigos - Stu & Tahnee. We'd arranged a Couchsurfing stay here for 3 nights with a scuba diving school. Initially we'd had no intention of diving due to funds, but having heard this area has the second largest coral reef in the world (after the obvious), we couldn't pass it up. I did my PADI refresher and Alice at the same time did some basic learning for what's called a Discovery dive.
After a morning of 'classroom' theory (the above location being the classroom...), we headed out to two dive spots. We both got down to around 14m deep and saw some of the most mesmerising coral, rays, parrot fish, and heaps of other wildly coloured tropical fish. A trip worthwhile, and definitely spurred (we.hate.Tottenham) us on to wanting to do more dives, most likely in Indonesia now.
After Cozumel we headed back to the mainland for New Year. With this region being the home of Spring Break, there was heaps going on, but it was all around the 100usd mark for entry, and frankly, full of total douche bags.
We had a few Europeans in our hostel that felt equally against the mega financial fork, so had a load of drinks back at the hostel, and managed to find a street party with all the locals that obviously weren't going to be forking out hundies to these tourist traps. In summary, the tunes were awesome, tacos aplenty & margaritas spilling everywhere, and all for about £8 each. Simple, cultural, belter.
Our remaining days on the peninsula were otherwise spent enjoying more of the cenotes in the area (late explanation - water caverns formed from the eroded limestone, providing perfectly clear blue water with amazing jump-off opps).
'Temple of Doom' Cenote
Cenote 'Dos Ojos' (two eyes)
Snorky-goon shot.
Our final stop in Mexico before heading on to Guatemala was Bacalar, a lake side spot for maxin' relaxing. I woke up at the crack one morning (as I do most : ) ), to see yet another idyllic sunrise. Is there anything more calming?
The view from the hostel.
Having met some Aussie and South African friends in Bacalar, we all ventured south together via Belize to Tikal in Guatemala, one of the largest Mayan sites across Central America. The scale of some of the ruins is beyond impressive, and getting to clamber on it all, and with minimal tourists, makes this jungle city pretty captivating. With a decent guide, imagining life in Mayan times here is nothing short of fairytale.
Flores - the little island town that we stayed in to visit Tikal as a day trip, beautiful, and very chilled.
Parting ways with some fun friends yet again, we hit the road to Lanquin, on one of the most breathtaking journeys across the mountains of Guatemala, one of our favourite bus journeys yet without question.
After a very arduous booking process for the highly tipped Zephyr Lodge (thanks Celly, Calum and Will), we arrived at one of the most beautiful hostels we've stayed in...
And without question, the best room with a view...
...and poo with a view...
...even if it was one of the more dangerous dumps I've had.
Lanquin was the gateway to another prime area of natural beauty, the pools of Semuc Champey.
...which we did as part of a tour that also involved tubing down this river with a few tinnies...
...jumping off this 15m high bridge,
...munching locally made chocolate made by the local Guatemalitos, and caving, which sadly without a GoPro, we have no proof of, but involved wading nipple-deep through underground rivers with candles, and climbing up waterfalls with said candle in your mouth.
After 4 nights in this idyllic spot, we bussed over to Antigua, another beautiful colonial town, but of more interest, the gateway to climb a dormant volcano next to the most active volcano in the world - Volcan Del Fuego.
One of the infamous Chicken buses - beautifully decorated old school buses from America.
The volcano hike was bloody tough, essentially five hours up to the top of the Volcano you see at the top of the picture above.
But the campsite was jaw dropping.
One of our very entertaining compadres we spent a few days with, Nick, guess where he's from?
After a very cold nights no-sleep, we 'woke' at 4am to climb the last stretch for an hour (up very very loose volcanic scree), but to an incredible sunrise over the surrounding volcanoes.
And as hoped for (but you never really know how you're luck will stead), we saw a bloody volcano erupt, right before our blinking eyes. This was never something I had down on my list before we left, but my lord, seeing such a natural performance really made you aware of the incredible shit this planet can show us.
After another quick stop (at this point realising we really don't have long to get down to Costa Rica before the end of January!), we move on to our final Guatemalan destination, Lake Atitlan.
We stayed at another yoga hostel in a little hippie village called San Marcos. Beeeauuutiful spot, right on the lake, with the yoga platform hovering above it.
Granola, fruit and yoghurt for breakfast every day : )
And this, is Dante, one of the most fascinating and utterly cuckoo creatures weve ever met. It is with this floop that we did a Cacao ceremony combined with something called Kundalini yoga.
Before we began, we drank concentrated Cacao that, as you know, releases lots of happiness endorphins but on a more extreme level, as it is pure. Then, Kundalini is essentially a yogic wallbanger that in so many words, gets you fucking high from breathing deeply in and out really quickly, then holding your breath. I totally see how Russell Brand is now hooked on it as a recovering drug addict.
The whole experience was amazing, and actually, I would highly recommend trying Kundalini if you're struggling to completely free your mind in other types of yoga practice. I'm gonna be all over this shit from now.
San Marcos is otherwise floop central. Some girl was floating around the hostel (White American) wearing a sari, face paint and swinging a hoop around her arm - plot completely lost. At one point she stared at Alice and just giggled and floated off (she was at least 26).
These hippy places we visit are bloody fascinating. A lot of it is a facade, particularly the already eccentric Americans, but actually, the proper 60+ year old hippies just laugh at them. These new age hippies think they're really in touch and happy in themselves, but the funny thing is, when they pause from the party in their heads, they still hop on Facebook to check how many likes their latest yoga posture has got.
But, all that said, and this goes for all our experiences, you take the best bits from these things and people, and just let the rest take its course without too much judgment. What we have taken? Yoga continues to be the absolute nuts for us, and totally clears the mind and makes you feel fucking wonderful - notably when you have the right tunes, smells and surroundings, but also, wait for it, mantra meditation. What this actually is, is much more physical than you might think. The science behind it is that when you make different sounds with your mouth (the obvious ummmm will come to mind for a lot of you, and rightly so as it's the top dog), it quite literally vibrates your brain, making you feel like a fizzing, melting refresher bar draped on the floor.
From Atitlan, we catapulted down to Lake Ometepe in Nicaragua, to another yoga hostel (what's happening to me?).
Ometepe is another beautiful lake overlooked by volcanoes. I actually got pretty ill here, not quite sure what from, but still managed to get out and enjoy the lake and the free yoga and yet another beautiful spot.
And finally, San Juan Del Sur! The surf town best known for Sunday Funday - a day when 3-400 backpackers descend for a pool-crawl across 3 hostels. We had an absolutely phenomenal group of people here, so this ended up being the most fun way to sign off our brief time in Central America.
And that, my friends, is the end of Latin America, and the first 5 months of our 10 month trip. Onwards, via New York, to Asia. Adios.
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