Palenque

Hola blogworld!

You are reading the brain vomit of Thorsten, Ella’s sidekick in this Bonnie and Clyde cultural killing spree across Central America. Today we cross into Guatemala so it’s only fitting that I write about the final instalment of the first Mexico leg – Palenque.

The allure of shhweaty jungle climate and Mexico’s ‘best ruins’ are Palenque’s main draw cards. We waltzed into town with a keen bean attitude but the central shopping district proved expectedly disappointing. Tour companies battle for your business and badly lit tacerias offer variations on the same theme: taco, carne, queso, salsa. I miss the culinary adventures of Mazunte and the sizzling street stalls that lined all corners of Dé Efé (D.F. – what the cool kids call the capital).

We followed our noses to El Panchan, where one can find a cute wooden cabana in the moist womb of jungle. Imagine a room where mosquito netting substitutes wall and the cacophony of a million unidentified insects coo you to sleep every night. En route a homeland acquaintance, Lachlan, hops onto our collectivo! It’s a small world after all. He waxes lyrical about a remote self sustaining eco lodge called El Jardin, run by Martin, a peace loving German hippy. We arrive at our destination, forcing hasty directions. “Follow this road (which is long) for a while and turn right on a white path (of which there are many) you will come to a gate, climb it and walk a while along a paddock until you see a broken white van, that’s where it is”. Sometimes a recommendation works on the mind like a myth. It is delivered with all the theatrics of an ancient orator and comes wrapped in mystique and madness. We, the architects of awesome on a pilgrimage to the holy grail of truth were convinced! Tomorrow’s to do list was decided on – breakfast with a healthy dose of literature, an early visit to the ruins and the quest for El Dorado!

Upon arriving at the ruin’s entrance one is greeted by a swarm of peso hungry parasites (you know the ones that demand you buy a pile of Mayan arrows, which of course, would’ve been a tremendous purchase had I not forgotten to pack my bow) and a herd of hopeless tour groups (you know the ones that wear those dreadfully tasteless beige pants and Kathmandu trekking boots because walking on third world terrain is always such a struggle). A sour start. History is a business after all.

But the ruins were not ruined, in fact they remain very much intact! Gargantuan temples, adorned with detailed engravings, swallowed by cannibalistic vines. Howler monkeys unleash their guttural commands from the canopy above. Wet, humid jungle air clings to your clothes like molasses. It’s all very primal and yet somehow you find yourself dumbfounded. You stand amidst all its grandeur and ogle silently in a stupefied daze. THINK, PIG! The cleverest conclusion we could manage were platitudes like ‘wow, it’s so old’ and ‘how did they build this?’. Great thinking guys! We turned to our budding tourists for clevererer answers. Alas, we found an army of clueless conquistadors occupying the space with their colonial selfie sticks. Susan Sontag writes that ‘most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture. This gives shape to the experience: stop, take a photograph and move on.’ Our favourite subjects were a Colombian duo who had brought a bag of props, including fedora, flag and Chanel handbag. They proceeded to legitimise their attendance with a fully fledged photo shoot, working through poses, interchanging props and scrutinising the photos until they got what they wanted: proof of the experience. But how did they experience creating that experience? I certainly don’t have any experience in such an experience so I may as well give shape to it with my favourite toy – GoPro! In response I proceeded to stalk the vapid Columbians for 8 min 37secs. The video sits on my computer. One day I will show it to you to prove my experience. With knowledge of that proof you will understand that my travels had a purpose. I learnt things about people, I was culturally enlightened, I had an EXPERIENCE!

Ruins, tick! Off to the garden of Eden! After two thwarted taxi journeys we finally ended up at a gate. The driver pointed towards the horizon: “El Jardin, si”. All that lay before us was cow shit covered paddock. We walked. After a lost in translation pantomime with a confused farmer and another gate hop we caught a glimpse of the white van. A smiling, bare chested German welcomed us with an ohm and a hug. “Those that are meant to find ze garden, will find it”. Martin. The man, the myth, the mantra.

A magical mystery tour through the estate revealed an eco friendly paradise, aplomb with water well, ayahuasca vines, organic vegetable gardens, grazing cows, sweat tent and yoga temple. All built by Martin’s loving hippy hands. We had already paid to stay at El Panchan but the romance of clean living and unconditional love proved irresistible. The reality, however, was a bizarre, uncomfortable mess.

We lit up a pre dinner doobie with newfound legend Fin Begg, a Sydney based artist. Martin interjected and ordered us to smoke outside the property. There are rules to be followed, including mandatory attendance to post dinner singalongs, which amounted to some stinky hippies singing two keys flat about ‘eternal happiness’ as an out of tune guitar doodled beneath them. Martin whispered some spiritual buzz words and giggled like a cult leader stuck in a permanent psychosis of ersatz happiness. Next we sat in a circle and passed around a talking stick (made of ayahuasca vine, of course). Counter culture kindergarten. Martin opened proceedings by demanding positive energies, untainted by the voodoo of ganja. Great way to welcome your happily stoned guests you divine dictator. The ceremony ended with a hit of raffi, which is a combo of tobacco and mystical herbs shot up the nose via a blow pipe. It is supposed to clean the sinuses but really it just felt like a shit load of cinnamon burning my brain and resulted in a headache. Off to bed. The plan is hatched, let’s get the fuck out of here first thing in the morning!

Things we learnt from this EXPERIENCE: ambition is awesome, love is conditional, enforced spirituality is as yucky as evangelical religion and we are not hippies! We are critical, eloquent, hedonistic, hygienic, capitalistic whores. And I’m ok with that!

shanti shanti shanti,

TH

San Cristobal de las Casas

Chapter 5: The Confusion Continues

Some things about Mexico I saw coming. I was prepared for the disproportionate ratio of gel:hair in Latin American men. Jalapeños I have encountered before. I’ve read about the mammoth portions and overconsumption of soda (although seeing a group of 3 tweens gulp down a litre of Coca Cola each in a single sitting is a bit confronting), but some expectations about Mexico are just way off the mark. San Cristobal de las Casas is where I’ve felt the most acute bafflement thus far.

We were told it was the prettiest town in Mexico, smaller and cuter than Oaxaca and not on the main gringo highway, so we were hoping for a bustling mountain village full of diminutive indigenous families (of which there are a high proportion in the state of Chiapas) inhabiting the colonial buildings left behind by conquistador architects. To an extent, we got what we ordered – but instead of salsa our tacos came with a side of ketchup.

Pastel buildings, cobbled streets, Parisian lampposts and streetside cafes, Santorini churches in an alpine mountain setting, there’s no denying San Cristobal is pretty. However I’ve got Oxford’s lecture series on the philosophy of art echoing in my newly empty skull and if you ask me (or Hume), San Cristobal has high aesthetic but low moral value. Slotted next to stores vending rugs woven by female indigenous collectives are H&M ripoffs and chemist warehouse-style pharmacies. The ‘artesenal market’ had a stall that would have gone down a treat with Bondi hipsters on Sunday mornings, but unfortunately there were then 200 other stalls with the exact same ‘unique wares’. Suddenly the value of handmade jewellery is lost when any old hand can make it.

By a stroke of luck we could try to pass off as clever planning, we arrived in San Cristobal on the day of the festival of Guadeloupe, Mexico’s patron Virgin. The town is a destination for partying pilgrims, with a whole street named for old Guadeloupe leading up to a pretty white church perched atop a Montmartre-style hill. Sleep-deprived zombies after our 13 hour night bus, we floated through the throngs of festive families and gawked. San Cristobal’s confusing facade aside, this was Mexico. NOISE! Swimming carnival chants about MARIA MARIA MARIA, boom boxes strapped to juice carts, jeeps laden with party popping people set off their own car alarms to add to the din. COLOUR! Clashing flags of fuschia and lime green, rainbow confetti, tropical fruits and absurdly coloured collections of fluro candies, not to mention the different indigenous tribes all decked out in their own respective traditional textiles. Litres of Michelada oozing with chilli sauce are sucked up with supersize straws, ice cream drips on confetti’d cobbles, sweat, folk dancing, a black Jesus wept in the church while we wielded our selfie stick with obnoxious abandon. Footage to come.

Item 7 of our Mexico manifesto reads, ‘the truth is cool but it’s unattainable’. So why are we as tourists continually seeking the ‘authentic’ experience? San Cristobal’s reality has evolved past the ‘authentic’ trade centre for the hill tribes of Chiapas, and now the truth is that it’s a tourist-oriented town with a pretty face. To me, the kitsch and warehouses of loud Christmas lights disrupting the village veneer are integral to an honest understanding of San Cristobal; the cherub-faced child has become a pimply teenager.

Interesting but underdeveloped point: political unrest is palpable here. My limited lonely planet understanding points to a clash between indigenous rights, colonial oppression and the Zapitista movement and you can see it in the graffiti scrawls demanding libertidad and protesting placards in the plaza. Something to read up on.

Confusion is sexy and if travelling met every expectation what would be the point? However San Cristobal has too much city squeezed inside its cobbled calles for us road-less-travelled wanderers so we are currently hitching a ride to the jungle town of El Panchan in a car with so little suspension we come to a complete stop on top of every speed bump.

Firecrackers and fiestas,

PT

Oaxacan Coast

Readers bewarned: this is the inevitable chapter of inneedofdirections that totally shoves my perfect life right up in your face. I’m not going to shy away from glorying in how well I’ve done at life for the past 8 days. Let no piña colada go uncelebrated!

Sooo, yep, I’ve been living in a corona ad for over a week now. We started in Puerto Escondido chasing That Goa Feeling and expecting to party our tits off with loosest Aussie legends, etc. However after one day of wandering Puerto’s weirdly empty streets, paved with shell tiles and lined with expensive swimsuit stores, we realised we were in the Mexican Noosa, and chasing natural highs is way more appealing than drinking games with drongos. We hopped on a collectivo outta there to a back of beyond blip called Mazunte, population 150, to truly “escape”. Our most important achievement in Puerto was taking advantage of the fact that it was totally unpopulated – I have no idea where anyone was – so we broke into an unoccupied cabana and stole a dip in someone’s private pool. A backpacker budget is a speed bump not a stop sign.

brand allegiance

Mazunte! What happens in Mazunte?? Where on earth did the last six days of my life go? I feel I’ve gone full Mayan and just sacrificed all of them to the sun gods. It’s really been a blur of swimming in deliciously warm ocean, coconuts off enthusiastic beach vendors, doobies with new mates, hammocks, yoga, sunsets, cocktails and the best food yet (!!! It keeps getting better!!). How can I begin to describe a cactus and shrimp taco to an uninitiated reader? Avocado, coconut or maracuya ice cream? Hunks of pork roasted for three hours over an open grill, slathered in oil and chimichurri? Fresh ceviche, devilled octopus and two caipirinhas for $15? Alfajores and homemade carrot cakes materialise, gluten already removed, at your elbow whenever the munchie monster is awake. We had two dinners every night. It just never gets old, there’s always something new to try. If you haven’t yet I highly encourage everyone to involve blue cheese sauce in their diet, it’s like finding faith, it’s changed my life.

We strayed from the beaten track one afternoon (got lost) and found ourselves scrambling through a ten man film crew setting up in a tunnel of undergrowth. We thrashed through them, thongs thwacking, and were delighted to discover a horse grazing in the gorgeous twilight. Cue ‘dumb tourists play with horse, horse nearly eats dumb tourist’s bag in return, dumb tourists scram’ scene. Unfortunately we only realised at the end of this scene that it was exactly what the film crew had not wanted to film, and we’d just stolen their shot. Sorry to whichever Mexican blockbuster that was…

horsten

When you skinny dip as the sun sets on majestic ocean with strangers, those strangers become your friends, and when your friends suggest a hard to pronounce and ancient ceremony that you’ve never heard of, you say yes, and that’s how we ended up in an underground sauna with 10 other randoms screaming mythic chants and drumming while a naked shaman with scars from eye to nipple bellowed at us in an ancient tongue. Temescal is a sort of local cleansing practice where you trap yourself in an underground circular cave with volcanic steamy rocks and keep shovelling them into the hole until you can no longer see, either because there’s too much steam in the air or because you’ve fainted. Before entry the shaman told us “you’re gonna scream, you’re gonna cry, you’re gonna want to die, but if you last it’s gonna be worth it” and I was THIS close to throwing in the towel and leaving early because I’ve never been that hot in my life. The idea is that when you emerge from this hole in the ground you’ve been cooked up in Pachamama’s uterus and reborn into the night and it feels that way! Definitely one of the most archaic things I’ve ever done, pretty fun, would recommend.

A 10/10 moment: psychedelic sunset plays out in the background as a naked German man named Justus (‘Justice’) describes the Internet phenomenon of dickbutt to Thorsten. PHWOAAAR

We also went to a nudist beach and read Waiting for Godot.

pray for us

Finding time to be affected by your environment is really nice. City slicker Sydney student life is generally full up, and doesn’t leave much room for introspective reflection or extra learning. With the fine spread of time that Mazunte has left on our hands I’ve found myself indulging in lots of self evaluation (particularly in yoga classes: “who are you? look within yourself, the whole universe exists inside you, don’t do the action, be the action, om”) and also enjoying using my freed up mind on stimulating podcasts and literature. For not the first time I am thanking Steve Jobs for iTunes U – look into it if you value free education/are curious about anything at all.

Biggest lessons from the Oaxacan Coast: – idleness is a welcome relief but I am a doer, not a Buddhist – Add all the salsas – Prep your offline Spotify tunes because wifi is as uncertain as Godot’s arrival – Be naked more

Seafood and sandy bits,

PT

sunset in someone else’s unfinished hotel

San José de Pacifico

Perched on top of the misty mountains in the corner of Oaxaca’s eye is San José de Pacifico, a “town” of a few buildings peppered on either side of a highway. It’s strange how certain places can attract you for no apparent empirical reason – we spent the same amount of time here in this blip on the map as we did in culture capital Mexico City.
When in Rome, do as Romans do, and so for our three nights here we did mainly nothing (idleness! A thoroughly un-Sydney disease I had forgotten about). San José was the start of the ‘holiday’ and so we actively relaxed, chomping through books as we sipped one dollar bowls of hot atole with a million dollar view. The mountains here are like runway models – tall, striking, inaccessible, very nice to look at.

During the spouts of sun that penetrated the dense cloud living in San José we strayed from the highway into the surrounding greenery and fell down Alice’s rabbit hole. ‘Twas mimsy, the flowers sang and we met the mushroom-mounted caterpillar (though still too young and dumb to answer “whooo aaaare youuuu?”).
The entire San José experience led me to question the ethics of tourism. The community is 100% reliant on the influx of tourists who arrive to sample the local hongos and then flee the following afternoon when they’ve got their fix. Such a temporary population of strangers conjures questions of how semblances of sustainable action and community can exist in an economy based on such short-term investment. On one hand, the gringos are the livelihood of these people; our expenditure may pay their children’s school fees. However there is something false about a town constructed purely for temporary guests. While a town created for strangers is strange, I don’t actually think it’s such a bad thing. The people there seem happy, and they were glad for our business. It’s not become well-known enough to be overpopulated by loud litterbugs yet, and the staff were all so trusting and honest that they clearly expected (and hopefully have received) the same in return. We (I) sometimes try to shy away from the fact that I am just a gawky tourist in a foreign land, ogling the oddness and sticking out like a blonde thumb. San José was honest in its inauthenticity and, moral dilemmas aside, has good vibes, 10/10 nature and the best chorizo taco we’ve had yet. Watching the clouds roll over the rippled earth right up to our feet I fully expected Katy Perry to be perched on top of a passing cirrus complete with cupcake tits and T-Pain.

selfie stick in nature

Dopest dude we’ve met yet is Carlos, a film loving artist who designed some work for both Thorsten and I (thank you!). Worst dudes we’ve met yet were some cocky French boys who stole Thorsten’s phone. Apart from these characters however there has been a notable lack of fellow travelling gypsies. Unlike previous trips, there is no omnipresent slap of thongs on concrete and cries of ‘ken oath’ that would usually signal a hoarde of Aussies. We’re now headed to the coast, however, where I fear we may come across some more bumbling bogans. Bring on the billies beers and bellies!
Vistas and visions,
PT

“the internet”

 

 

 

Oaxaca

Oaxaca (wah-ha-kah) has been quoted in so many must-see lists and was very present in our Mexico research, possibly because it’s so fun to say and probably because it’s as pretty as Paris and pleasant as Palm Beach. The city itself (situated in the state of Oaxaca) is a pastel painted pueblito, cobbled streets that echo Cuzco, mountained horizons quite like Quito, cooler churches than Rome, munchier markets than Bangkok, comfy climate, navigable layout, clean, quiet, connected, you get it: Oaxaca delivers. 

Probably the only not nice thing about Oaxaca is its proximity to perfection. There’s something a bit Privet Drive about the tidy corners and accessible industries. Oaxaca has dotted it’s i’s and squiggled it’s ñ’s, and the guidebooks know it. We saw more American tourists and high end glitzy gold shops here than in Mexico City, and there wasn’t the grit or grime of the ‘uncivilised’ that voyeuristic confrontation-junkies like ourselves seek. Please note this is a weak criticism concocted because, much like an ATAR, a city score of 100 is impossible! Oaxaca is welcoming, happy, and easy on the eyes, ears and most of all mouth… At risk of becoming a food blog I feel I need to recount the continued culinary odyssey we’re on. 

• Mole – spiced, earthy, dark stew served over meat or in tamales – warming and homey, no idea what the ingredients are but it’s what hobbit grandmothers would feed you after a breakup, combined with the Oaxacan variety of clove and cinnamon spiced hot chocolate served with sweet briochey bread
• Our first quesadillas included zucchini flowers and Oaxacan cheese, which is like paler mozzarella except not nearly as expensive judging by how much is layered onto every dish 
• Tlayuda is a local specialty which is the ultimate Mexican pizza (dominos has not got it even close to right) – huge, crispy tortilla spread with frijoles, avocado, salsa, chorizo, cheeeeeeese which you crack off in shards of shutthefuckup gooey crunchy goodness. 
• We also went a little overboard ordering in the carne asada (grilled meats) food hall. After wading through jabbering crowd of hungry midgets (not sure if politically correct but sorry, they’re short) and almost corporeal clouds of smoke coming off chargrilled mounted BBQs lining the walls we arrogantly asked for ‘all of it’ and were presented with a basket of meat that could potentially have shamed my past vegetarian to tears – sorry Louis. 
• Grand snacks – limey, spicy fried grasshoppers, chilli/garlic-salted peanuts, mango on a stick cut into an artichoke flower of juicy flavour, and homemade ice cream, the winning flavour of which was (of course) ‘Oaxacan kiss’. Ingredients unknown but imagine something between rainbow paddlepop, vanilla cake mix and fruity coconut cocktail

Important too to the Oaxacan tastebuds is of course mezcal as here is from whence this cactoid spirit hails! There’s a complex distilling process between cactus plant and shot glass, and depending on how long it’s aged it comes in different grades with very different shades and tastes. However my Spanish is shady and that’s pretty much all the information I can give you. I can attest to the fact that it made it to the shot glass. Salud! 

I nearly forgot that apart from eating and drinking we also did Activities in Oaxaca. The cathedral of Santo Domingo has got to be the most ridiculously overdecorated and mindbaffingly exquisite interior of any edifice I’ve ever seen. The architects had clear instructions to leave no wall without portraits, no mantle ungilded, no corner without a cherub! In contrast, the modern art galleries we visited here were in a more minimalist style (minimally interesting) and to be honest wandering the manic mercado was much more anthropologically educational than anything in a museum. 

On our second day we ventured beyond the cobbled calles into the surrounding suburbs and happily discovered some very excellent ancient Zapotec ruins named Monte Ablan. Machu Picchu was probably better to look at, but Monte Ablan takes first place in my book because of the unobtrusively small crowds bumbling their way up the impressive stone pyramids. Not only was it mega gorgeous, but we had room a-plenty to swing our selfie stick around, which, if you ask me, is an appropriately 2015 indicator of population density. 

Later, heat of the day implanted in our shoulders and cheeks, we collectivo-hopped our way to El Tule, the home of the world’s biggest tree. Imagine a tree, but bigger. It was a bit like that but not at all like that because you’ve never seen a tree this big trust me. Planted prettily next to it was the most adorable church of kitsch dolls in beaded dresses, Jesus statues looking more cooked than Shooter Williamson on a Monday morning. Only adding to the weird string of coincidences and against-all-odds moments of the trip thus far, Thorsten’s ayahuascan vision of amorous swans was made manifest in a surprising but perfect garden of topiary bushes surrounding tree and chapel… The romance film of our lives slow-zooms on two kissing swans as wedding bells toll from the pastel painted tower, fade to black on the lanky lovers loping into the sunset.

This episode of inneedofdirections apologises for all typos and syntax sins, I’m writing as we hurtle down a highway (patchy, potholed but paved I guess) driven by Speedy Gonzales himself – ten minutes after being given a ticket he’s overtaking cop cars doing 140 in an 80 zone. My iPhone keeps asking me if I meant to ‘undo typing’. We could die. 

Update: not dead! Bumbones bruised but teeth miraculously unchipped we’ve made it to the off-the-map cul-de-sac of San José de Pacifico. The mountains were moaning for us so we’ve angled up for a sniff around some different scenery. 

Sugar skulls and sugar plums, 

PT

P.S. We’ve taken to peeling multiple avocados and eating them like apples as an afternoon snack, $4.99 hass from Harris Farm feels happily far away. Holy guacamole! 
 

Catedral Santo Domingo

  

Picturesque Oaxaca

  

mezcaleria

  

carne asada

   

gringos mounted monte ablan

  

THE TREE, THE MAN, THE CHURCH

  

Mexico City & Puebla

Attention seeking thespians by nature, we can’t help but make an entrance, so as we touched down in the heart of Latin America it was fitting that an earthquake tumbled the rumbles of Mexico City. We are HERE!!! 
Sprawling, 20 million people strong, it’s a scrambling mass of sweat and soda wrapped in tortillas and smogged by polluted grey. A Mega McFlurry of sound and sight and smell. Diabolical traffic jams snake through the spraypainted skyrises, emitting a faintly annoying glow of Latin pop music (not my cuppa tea but so far less intolerable than reggaeton) and car horns. If America had a Starbucks on every corner, Mexico has 2 taco stands for each, all proclaiming delectable andojitos (meals between meals, bigger than a snack but not a commitment to being full – a fab invention if you ask me) for less than the price of a 7/11 coffee. The people are generally obese, and rightly so: I’ve seen more fat, cheese, cream and grease on one block of Mexico City than you could have siphoned off the Biggest Loser entrants in episode 1. In the name of “culture” (read: temptation) we abruptly and entirely gorged ourselves upon entry. Lemme tell you, debate over Guzman’s vs Mad Mex all you like, the cuisine here is nek level. Every mouthful is a culinary explosion! I cannot name most of what I’m eating but I assure you, it’s all DIVINE. 

 

classic taco stand

 
We stayed in Roma, the bohemian neighbourhood where beatnik poets like Kerouac and Burroughs churned out their junky philosophy and debauched to find the raunchy truth. Kerouac had big addiction problems and Burroughs ended up shooting his wife, so inspiring as they are, we won’t be following too closely in their footsteps… But wandering the once-glamorous streets of Roma is lovely all the same. 
Day one in Mexico City took us to the typical tourist tickoffs, for the lame reason that we ‘felt we should’. We saw some neat stuff: Mexico has done well for gorgeous palaces/cathedrals/towers etc, and being amongst the hustle of a supercity is exhilarating in itself. Dodging hawkers and struggling with the lack of toilet paper in public baños feels like I’m back in the game again, me gusta. But after the fourth charming fountain and fifth ornate altar, we decided that tourist traps are for tools and beating your own path is how we’re gonna pave this trip. El Dorado wasn’t in Lonely Planet.  
Armed with a fresh attitude and fistfuls of funky fruit (again unidentifiable but DIVINE) we conquered modern art on our second day in the big manzana. Actually not as hard as it sounds, I recommend just visiting the Museo de Arte Moderno and Museo Jumex, they basically cover your bases for contemporary creativity and leave visitors with the obligatory smug superiority that you would usually spend 3 years of a BA in Art History attaining. Not bad for a days work! 

  
Newly artified we decided that although tourist traps are for tools, we are cleverer than the crowds, so the next morning arrived super early to the famous and queueless Casa Azúl, Frida Kahlo’s childhood house and home to many of her wondrous works. Can I say, worth it!! Frida kicks ass, shoutout to that manic monobrowed minx. The big blue bastion of surreal and sexy creativity was a highlight for sure. 

    

  Original plans were to remain in Mexico City for a weekend of underground techno gigs, anonymous dance parties and the like, but the subliminal “por que no?” attitude has already gotten under our skin so we took up a hugely generous invitation from Roland (the lion of love) to hook us up with a local connection in Puebla, a smaller town about 3 hours south of Mexico City. He told us we would be staying with “the most beautiful woman in all of Mexico” and he was right. Mónica is an angel on earth and the most generous, welcoming host we could have asked for. It was really awesome to stay with REAL LIVE MEXICANS and chill out with her groovalicious family, and having a linguist take us through the local market was enlightening. 

  

pretty puebla

  
Painfully, our main day in Puebla was spent fasting in preparation for an ayahuasca ceremony we were invited to participate in so we couldn’t sample the sizzling snacks and had to really amp up the self control. However the required abstinence before the ceremony was worth it because it was a really special experience. An indigenous Peruvian shaman from the Sierra in the Amazon was travelling Central America performing ceremonies with keen beans like us, and it was full-power adventure in every sense of the word. After a bone jangling journey hanging out the back of Monica’s jeep through windy unlit dirt roads outside of Puebla we arrived at night to a half-constructed hotel where other curious contenders connected for a decidedly weird (but good weird) night. 
If you haven’t seen the Bondi hipsters sketch on ayahuasca, don’t. 
For those who haven’t heard of the Amazonian tradition, it’s basically where a bunch of people drink a potion made from indigenous Peruvian plants which causes hallucinations, spiritual experiences, third-eye communications and projectile vomiting. It’s been used by South Americans for centuries as a sort of mental medicine – it unlocks your subconscious and can clarify internal dilemmas and release ‘blockages’. Today it’s used to treat drug addiction and also definitely to some extent as a form of drug tourism, as it’s local to the Amazon. Spiritual, emotional, chemical, whatever you want to call it, it was a unique experience. Nasty part: you and everyone around you solemnly spewing your guts out as Mama Ayahuasca purges you of ‘negative energy’ via your oesophagus. Great part: inner journey and trippy fun! Hilariously Thorsten and I were surrounded by 20 strangers, mainly over 30s, moaning and appearing to have out of body experiences while we giggled to each other about pretty much everything. Beautiful but most of all FUN (and weird), it was a night to remember. 
We leave Puebla for Oaxaca this afternoon, stomachs stacked with post-purge tostadas and tamales and already slightly plotless 5 days into our trip. The madness is descending. Loco here we come!!
Sculptures and salsa verde,
PT

smoggy mexico city

November 22nd

Although the trip has not technically begun, our journey here deserves a post of its own. I’ve had a countdown to November 22 going for most of the year and it has been more than worth the wait.

At 12:01am on this day of all days we were at an electrifying gig with some dedicated ravers (props to Mia, Will and Rory for their stamina and commendable boogie attitude). By 3am we emerged thirsty for more madness and found our way to a secret party in an office tower of Sydney’s CBD – think 400 people crammed in an abandoned office, with a sound system loud enough to drown out the fire alarm that was set off by the amount of sweat in the air. We danced as the sun rose through the corporate blinds and skipped through an empty but gorgeous Sydney to make it back to Bronte by 8am, just in time for a final feast on extravagant muesli and coconut water and the other Bondi hipster treats our fridge has to offer. All in all a truly fitting Sydney sendoff.

So before midday we’d already achieved a lot and our journey hadn’t even begun. We floated through the airport with zero queues and waltzed onto our plane in perfect timing, only to discover that the only empty seat on the 14 hour flight to San Fransisco was next to us. Obviously the preceding bender was strategic because we passed out in seconds and slept pretty much the entire way… Thorstella winning once again.

We made it to San Fran and the time vortex some call the “international date line” means it was once again the morning of November 22! The theme of no queues and perfect timing continued all the way from bag drop to metro to our sneaky hop on the famous tram trolleys one stop ahead of the 1 hour line… After accidentally straying from the main road on one of the only starbuck-less corners, we spotted a Banksy artwork and a Beatniks museum! Happy coincidences followed fortuitous findings and EVERYTHING WAS FINE… Someone must have slipped some felix felices into our Americano coffees.

There were so many MURICA moments during our 24 hours here: ads on every surface, brand allegiance and patriotism, obesity, assertiveness, inequality, supersize everything, even guns and cops and racism. Every stereotype seems to unashamedly come true. Thorsten’s lunch was a cheeseburger followed by peanut butter & choc chip pancakes with scrambled eggs, bacon and maple syrup and that is the recipe for FREEDOM. Our foray in Frisco was too short, I definitely want to come back. It’s pretty and hilly and happening and diverse and not even that cold for almost winter! But our next connection was waiting so we trundled back into another sleepy flight to Los Angeles.

The LA leg was frankly lame, all you need to know is that lasagne pizza is not a laughing matter and American cinemas have reclining seats which means the new Bond film sent me to sleep. 14 hours there was too many but we survived and here we are in MEXICO CITY!!

All 36 hours of November 22 were ridiculous and it’s only the very start of the adventure. If this is anything to go off, you could safely say it’s gonna be a big one.

Fast food and freedom,

PT

illuminati

frisky in frisco

WE OUT

banksy

liftoff

Fans, family, friends, fairies,

I think we’ll all agree it’s been quite long enough. Sad, sappy Sydney has been a struggle for the past eight months. Somehow I have survived what felt like several sunless semesters and stashed enough cash in the shack I call home to once again strap on my backpack and step out into The World. I’m hoping my South American Spanish hasn’t totally vanished from my memory because I’m going to need it in CENTRAL AMERICA.

I feel very clever for having recruited a partner in crime for this chapter of inneedofdirections. Not only has he helped with the aforementioned stashing of the cash by splitting my rent (and how else could I have saved for this trip without stripping or selling drugs?), he can carry heavy bags, dance like a monkey, hoover up leftovers, and gives out kisses for free. Fans, meet Thorsten, best mate and lover of your old pal PT. Treat him nice and he’ll do a guest feature down the track.

This time around I’ve hopefully learned from previous misadventures and packed very little; naively determined to figure it out on the road. As it stands, my bag is probably 30% polaroid film, 10% empty notebooks, 10% toiletries and 50% impractical-but-fabulous fur coat. Plans are loose: we’ll land in Mexico City in about 2.5 days, snake our way south to Guatemala, Nicaragua, maybe squeeze in Costa Rica and then zoom back home in 2 months’ time.

As our wheels leave the tarmac I’m farewelling reason and rules, lockouts and logic. SEEYA SYDNEY YA SMELLY CITY XXXXX

 

Special Features and Deleted Scenes

Here we go fans, strap yourselves in for a quite bitter final blog because this backpacker is not ready to hang up her bag.

Four months, one new continent, five countries, thirty two cities, eight flights, one train, countless bus rides, from sea level to 6000 metres, from less than zero to forty degrees, booming metropolises and campsites and miniscule villages, mountains and lakes and rainforests and deserts. I’ve made it out of this crazy continent only having lost my SIM card and headphones and sense of personal hygiene, which is spectacularly lucky when everybody else I’ve met has been robbed of valuables and several meals through dirty food poisoning. South America has truly been kind to me.

Apart from the adventures and events I’ve related to you here, there have been so many memories of this trip that feature behind the scenes. For example, we developed a ranking system of toilet on a scale from 0 (bush) to 100 (mum and dad’s ocean view loo with heated floors, a good book and Kleenex standard paper). I find myself constantly constantly asking questions that nobody can answer: how do the women of Bolivia balance tiny bowler hats on their flat heads all the time? What do the women of Peru keep under their enormous skirts? Why does nobody have any change ever? ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué? and, more importantly when making decisions, ¿por qué no?

Biggest regrets: not having enough money for Galápagos, the Inca trail or the Sambadrome, not having enough time in Brazil or Colombia, skipping Argentina and Chile, not volunteering anywhere, not learning Portuguese, not bringing a filter bottle or good headphones or buying Spotify premium, going home.

Things I hate (add an expletive before each of these for full effect):
– Money
– Shoes
– Responsibilidad
– Pants
– Time
– The bus
– Marco the monstrous

The three best things about travelling are also the three worst.
1. It makes you mentally compare your own home a lot more. In some ways I totally appreciate Australia when I’m away – working Internet, flushing toilets, clean air etc – but at the same time it will never be as exotic or exciting or insane as anywhere over here.
2. Meeting awesome people every day is 50% of the adventure, and there are so many different types of people over here who have inspired me to be more or less like them and taught me a heap. The sucky thing about that is that you have to say goodbye to them and it’s pretty unlikely you’ll ever see most of them again.
3. Travelling to basically anywhere that isn’t Australia makes me realise how ridiculously lucky I have been. I really am the 0.01% on a world scheme. This also sucks because it hurts to look at the disadvantaged masses every day and know that your cushy bed and $1500 laptop are waiting for you across the world… Feeling lucky comes with feeling guilty.

I return with eight whole toenails remaining, a defined watch tan, several hundred mosquito bites including 27 on my face (pretty xx), no dollars and many new resolutions, the biggest of which is to come back. I will miss the disgusting scabby deal-sniffing rat that I have become, rejoicing over dumb hostellers leaving enough shampoo in the shower for me to be clean(ish) and stealing free breakfasts to keep as lunch and accepting that sand will always be in my lady bits and never changing my underpants and ignoring the stench from my washing bag that doubles as my bus pillow and using seawater as facewash and spreading avocado with my fingers when there’s no knife and mixing every liquor with water (tap water if you’re feeling yolo). The messy Ella whose hair falls out and who will eat ants and roll in the dirt and walk around towns barefoot and wear the same uncoordinated outfit every day and not bother with mirrors or looking before crossing the road or making a mess at the dinner table doesn’t really fit in Sydney so I’m going to have to try to leave her on the plane. There will be bits of her that can’t be shaken, and I hope she’ll remember the good stuff she’s learnt (being friendly to tourists, reading more, shouting randoms drinks). A pair of hairy bears from Idaho I met in Quito had driven from Alaska to Ecuador en route to Chile, and they had the secret to happiness pretty close to down. They both had tattoos saying PALS on their bulgy biceps, and in their words I’m going to aim to unboredomify Sydney and “Put A Little Sunshine” in my life. First stop: Bronte beach and sushi.

My adventure has ended with a short (or long, depending on how you look at it) jaunt through the US of A, which was everything I expected it to be and therefore continually hilarious to my jetlagged brain. Who knew grits were a real food item? Slash that customs queue organisers behave like the FBI? Or that Americans will actually tell you, a total stranger, that you’re in the greatest country on earth, where “freedom reigns” and there are more opportunities than anywhere else? MURICA.

I step off my final plane after a 65 hour journey to a comforting “g’day”, and even though it’s no “hola”, it’s probably the next best thing.

Plane food and puffy eyes,

PT

Brazil

Hey goobers,

Awfully sorry I’ve been off the grid the past couple of weeks, I’ve been whirled away by the kaleidescopic tornado of sights, smells and sounds that is Brazil.

I’m bitterly disappointed that I only had two weeks in this immense country, really it’s as sinful as eating a magnum here that is not dulce de leche flavour that I didn’t get enough time to get into the funk of Brazil. I think if we’d had a couple more weeks to get to know each other it could be my favourite country so far. Despite my total lack of Portuguese (it’s nothing like Spanish, don’t listen to anyone who tells you so), whenever I was in need of directions somebody would help me out with a smile and a wave and a pointer and a little bum pinch. Sexism is still as common as fezzy facial hair here, but it’s done with more of a playful grin than a rapey leer so it’s (kind of?) okay.

In order to avoid minimising Brazil more than I already am with my schedule, I’ll split this bloggle into sections by city. First up: São Paulo.

São Paulo
We’d been warned by guidebooks and gringos alike that São Paulo is gargantuan. The biggest city in the Southern Hemisphere, we flew in from a stopover in Paraguay and it took about 20 minutes to fly over half the city. Teamed up with a surprisingly non-douchey Wild Rover bartender, it took 2.5 hours to navigate the sprawling shuttle/metro/bus system to get to our steamy hostel in bohemian paradise Vila Madalena where we collapsed in a sweaty, midnight snacked haze. Carnival was beginning and Brazil was buzzing, which meant buses were booked and we were bummed to learn we had to leave São Paulo that night for a dumb amount of buses to get to Paraty, where we were hoping to spend carnival. This meant we only had one day in São Paulo to explore the city centre, wander Batman Alley admiring the psychedelic street art, and eat eat eat. Big shoutout to helpful Carlos who gave us directions and bought us a bag of mystery fruit, and Julia our guardian angel who gave us samples of every ice cream flavour on earth and also drove us home. Despite being an unnavigable mammoth metropolis, São Paulo has this amazing small town friendliness to it which was totally astonishing and also a gorgeous refreshment from Bolivia’s somewhat colder shoulders.

Paraty
Many fitful naps on bus terminal floors later, we made it to Paraty to Party for the week of Carnival! First a side note on this world famous festival: I know nothing at all about it and neither does anybody else. It’s essentially a week long street party centred around extravagant samba performances, loud loud loud music, and displays of drinking, debauchery and disorder. I dunno, it’s fun. The craziest spots are Rio and Salvador, but I’m actually really glad we were in a smaller beach town for the week because it meant carnival was less about scoring smooches and more about boogieing with children and grandmas. We met so many awesome people that week, I want to talk about them all but you would be bored – if you ever read this, you know who you are and you rock. Every night we donned our most ridiculous clothes (Winning Outfit I’m proud to say goes to me with my floor length purple rain poncho, trekking boots, Jesus socks and sparkly 420 hat) and hit the main square for street food and endless dancing before following insanely loud live parades through the streets so cobbled it hurts to walk on them. Every night was the ultimate in hedonism and holiday attitude – middle aged fat men laugh with girls in sexy outfits and their buff boyfriends alike, kids set off fireworks, grandmas flash their knickers in drunken yolo moments, British schoolboys match Brazilian break dancers in DF battles, everyone gets proposed to and nobody sits down. We felt one hundred percent safe and happy the whole time, so what happened next was absolutely out of the ordinary and unexpected: there was a shooting in the middle of the party a couple of metres away from us when two men broke into argument. At first we were just confused and thought the running and screaming was part of the carnival mood, but when we saw crying men, screaming women, friends carrying bleeding bodies and blood stains on the floor we followed the crowd and ran for it. It would have been much more scary if we could understand Portuguese; we didn’t find out until the morning that 10 people had been injured, one of whom died – and to think that we were less than 10 people away from the shooter was not a comfortable moment. I want to stress that this was really weird, though – we weren’t in a dangerous area at all and it was a one off fluke accident. People in hostels tell horror stories about travelling in South America all the time and if you tried to take a lesson from them all you’d never leave your couch. I learned from this one that guns are bad and you can’t see the future; take from that whatever pearls of wisdom you will.

Rio de Janeiro
For the last night of carnival, and Mia’s last night in #americabutsouth, we lucked out big time and leeched off the wonderful Joel’s generosity, crashing with him and some of his mates in a penthouse apartment right on Copacabana beach. After a sketchy bus which we lurched onto at 3am still full of our lethal vodka/water mixture and 5 dinners (legit), we spent our first morning in Rio stumbling around the atmospheric Copacabana being offered zipper bags and prostitutes. That afternoon and evening we Rio-lly celebrated Carnival at several street dance parties where Mia and I both affirmed our white chick status when trying to keep up with the bouncing behinds of every Brazilian babe in sight. Stuffing a still-sparkly Mia into a cab to the airport at 3am was bad (miss you my girl) but the rest of Rio was GOOD. My newly adopted mates cooked me yummy things, took me to Sugarloaf mountain and Christ the Redeemer for panoramic views of Rio and the sea of accompanying selfie sticks at each of these tourist hotspots, and actively participated in consistent childlike behaviour during intense games of ‘the floor is lava’ and ‘get down mr president’. Between late night reggaeton dance parties at the apartment, having caipirinhas delivered on the beach, and deciding the latest hunger games movie is a dud, we bonded in Rio. And I’d say we bonded with Rio as well, I rate it erotic (5 stars). Convenient and functioning public transport system, friendly people, good variety of food, very gorgeous, could be a little cheaper but on the whole I thoroughly approve.

Trindade
For the last few days of my trip I have been determinedly holidaying in the little beachside gem of Trindade. It’s a teeny town with a street and lots of sand and very little else which suited me just fine. I was staying at the superb Kaissara hostel which made me feel at home before I flew home and hung out with the usual suspects of beyond interesting people who all made me pre-emptively bored of Sydney and jealous of their future travels. I happily spent my last morning overseas having a solo dance party on the deserted beach at sunrise, which seemed a more fitting way of working out my emotions than a tantrum.

Should wrap this thesis now and go get on my triple bus, triple flight, 60+ hour journey home. Basically if you like happiness, variety, nice people, natural beauty, and fun, get over to Brazil.

Nuts and actually not so many nits,

PT