Trouches

Thursday 13 November 2008 - Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

As poor Raziel had to head off to rehearsal at 7:15 the rest of stayed in bed for a sleep in after our big day yesterday. Caught up on some washing, and just taking a bit of time to stop. When Raz came home we went for a walk to a Trout Farm (trouches) for some freshly cooked Trout. Wolfy has a bit of a habit of wanting to follow you everywhere, so he came along to the Trout Farm too. The Trout Farm sits along side a beautiful creek so you sit eating your trout, listening to the water running over the rocks. After our yummy trout, we walked back to the top of the hill and waited for a bus to Xalapa. Raziel was going home for a rest and practice, while Nikki, Pete & I took the laptops into the city to see if we could get onto the net. We tried a few places to connect wirelessly, and ended up at a fancy coffee shop to connect. My laptop was going so slow that the only thing I ended up being able to do was confirm our booking for accommodation in Cusco, and Nikki spent most of her time trying to make sure the antivirus software working, so it may have appeared that we didn't get much done but small successes are successes all the same. Picture shows Pete & Wolfy becoming good mates after lunch while we wait for the bus.

Travel all over the country side ...

Wednesday 12 November - Teocelo / Texin, Veracruz, Mexico
Today was a huge day. First we went to visit Raziel in the middle of his rehearsal so we could hear the orchestra play. They sounded really good, and it was a certainly a special treat as you don't get to see a guitar orchestra very often. The orchestra has only done one international trip to St Petersburg in Russia, and even though they have had many invitations overseas, the coordinators have not been able to get something organised which is such a shame. We joined Raziel for breakfast along with the orchestra in a lady's house across the road. She cooks breakfast for the whole orhestra and I think they pay her $20paesos each. Most great local haunts.

After rehearsal we started planning to go to see waterfalls and were going to Teocelo first to see friends of Nikki & Raziels, Daniel & Lolo to see if they wanted to come with us. Daniel & Lolo live with Daniel's grandfather. Their house has a beautiful square garden in the centre of it and the house is surrounded by the garden, with Daniel & Lolo living on one side. They grow coffee beans and some banana's out the back, and we were treated to some fresh coffee. Again magnificent coffee and if Melbourne coffee tasted like this I could become an addict. I asked Daniels grandfather if I could take his photo as he was so handsome, and he said that I could but it might take his spirit away - a joke. He was very funny and just asked that he could have a copy of the photograph. When taking the picture he changed into this statue, as he posed for his photo. Later I learnt that many don't know how to be in a photograph, and feel they need to do this special pose. It turned out that Daniel & Lolo were going to visit their property in Texin for the day and asked us if we would all like to join them. It was a lovely offer so we decided to go with them. So another bus and we were off to Texin. Texin was quite a rural area, and Daniels great grandfather had owned much of the land here until the revolution where his land was taken off him. Daniel & Lola were very warm and welcoming to us, and embraced us on our visit to their property. We stopped at a friend of Daniel & Lola's where 2 guys were living Arturo & Carmilo, one was a horticulturist and one made masks for a living. To get to Daniel & Lola's block of land was quite a walk as the block was actually surrounded by other blocks. Carmilo joined us on the walk, it was very hilly but the views were incredible. We eventually got to their block, and Daniel and Lola showed us where they had previously lived for 9 months. They had done an amazing job of building a shelter out of bits of timber and twine. I can't believe they lived here for 9 months! Daniel then took as for a walk to a mineral spring they found and tapped, this is where they got their fresh water from, then onto the creek where fresh mountain water was cascading over rocks in the cool air. There was also a small pool where they would bathe, and Daniel, Raziel and Camilo all went for a swim. By the time we got back to Camilo & Arturo's house it was getting dark and we decided to stay for dinner. Nikki, Raziel & Daniel went for a walk to find food, and came back plentiful with eggs, bananas, some vegetables and bread. Some had been given to them, and some they had bought. The generosity in the mexicans is amazing. For people who don't have anything they are so willing to give and help others. So a feast was prepared and after dinner Daniel read our Pete & my tarot cards. He was pretty good. As time was getting pretty late and poor Raziel was falling asleep, it was time to get back to Xalapa. It was a wonderful day.

Lets Buy A Laptop

Tuesday 11 November - Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
Nikki & Raziel have been saving for a new laptop as the one that Nikki had is very old, and can't run new programs. So while we were there were able to accompany Nikki to a few shops to get some quotes and see what they could offer. We met up with Raziel again after rehearsal and had some lunch. Some friends of Nik & Raziel's run a vegetarian restaurant, so once again we were indulged with delicious food.

After lunch we headed back to the computer shops and while Nik & Raziel sorted the details out to make their purchase, Pete & I had a walk through the local gardens called Parque Juarez. It is quite picturesque with water features throughout with an enclosed football court.

We then met up again, and headed off to a great pizza place for dinner.

Margaritas, Music and Curvesa

Monday 10 November - Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico
This morning we met Raziel down the road from his rehearsal hall for breakfast, the place was behind a gate and unmarked so if you didn't know it was there you wouldn't go. Gotta love the local haunts. The breakfast was great with tea, coffee, juice, and what ever you wanted off the menu which was pretty traditional mexican food, all for $40 paesos, about $6AUD. We then went to a coffee shop down the road and indulged in the local coffee. It is so good. It doesn't have that coffee aftertaste, is not bitter, and is so smooth it tastes like it has milk when it is black.

For the afternoon we bused it to a town called Coatepec. It has some beautiful churches and many bars. Maybe you could get drunk, get saved, get drunk, get saved here, just like in Butler? We ended up at bar, that specialised in seafood and had a fancy restaurant out the back. Pete & Raziel had curvesa (beers) while Nikki & I indulged in Margarita's. Before long we had 2 Mexicans beside us who were getting pretty drunk and wanting us to go to their hotel to stay for the night. We think they might have been running a hotel. Then some musicians came around and you can pay them to play some songs. They drunk Mexicans were all for it and were splashing out money for them to play song after song, singing along with them in their loudest voice. Until one song were they both sat down and looked somber and sad. He then told us that the song he just played was the song that was playing when his wife left him. God knows what they were serving with their coke, but they eventually staggered out of the bar, as did we, getting our bus back to Xalapa.

Travel to Xalapa (Al-Up-Ah)

Sunday 9 November - Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
Today we were on our way to stay with Nikki & Raziel. I completed 1st year Kinesi with Nikki, and Raziel is her partner. Nikki is now studying Homeopathy by correspondence and teaching english, and Raziel is Mexican and a guitarist in a guitar orchestra in Xalapa. When we first sent out a message that we were planning a world trip we received a lovely message from Nikki & Raziel inviting us to Xalapa, so we were very excited to add Xalapa into our travels.

With a breaky of tortillas and omelet we were in a taxi off to TAPO, the bus terminal in Mexico City. It took us a little while to work out exactly where-a-bout's we needed to get a ticket and where our terminal was with our limited Spanish but we eventually got there and were on the 11am ADO bus off to Xalapa. If you are planning on bussing in Mexico - go ADO, they appear to be the most organised and have toilets on their busses too, a luxury. We thought it was going to be a 5 hr bus trip, but ended up being 4 hrs. Nikki met us, and then we got a taxi to her house, about 30min up into the mountains near Rancho Vejico. They have beautiful little house they are renting, with views of Xalapa. Unfortunately their hot water system isn't working so they can't enjoy the pleasures of a hot shower but make do filling a bucket with hot water, boiled on a gas stove. We are so lucky. Their beautiful home is joined by 2 dogs and a kitten. Lucus is a german shepard who is very needy of attention and basically came with the house, the owners pay for part of his food. Wolfy is a white, long haired, medium size dog, have no idea of the breed, but he is a street dog that found his way to Nikki & Raziels house and decided to call it home. He is very independent and he and Lucus get along famously. Then there is the kitten, Lucus brought him home in his mouth, nearly dead with half his tail hanging off and filled with worms. Nikki and Raziel took him in and he is now about 2 months and full of life and energy giving off the loudest purr i've ever heard.

Nikki & Raziel cook at home most of the time and we were treated to a beautiful dinner of blue tortillas, beans, cheese, crickets, worms, soup, and chilli. It was so good. We were then treated to Raziel playing guitar for us for a while, he is a wonderful guitarist!

We had got some ceurvo tequila along the way and pulled it out to share. Nikki & Raziel are very much used to drinking the local tequila which is very nice, but very different to ceurvo as it has more of a sharper taste. Raziel has been learning english off Nikki and his description of ceurvo was that it tasted like oil - a perfect description, as I it goes down very smoothly!

Off To Mexico

Saturday 8 November - Salt Lake, Utah; Dallas; Mexico City
Our day started with a 4am drop off at the airport so we could pay for some changes to our flights. For future reference, when changing one flight on an around the world ticket, it means re-printing all the flights, so the check-in staff get a little nervous. Luckily we had the supervisor, and he only took 30min to reprint the tickets! On our flight to Dallas there were 4 army guys on their way to Fort Worth. It appeared like they were new-be's as their bags seemed brand new. Didn't think much of it until we were flying into Dallas at the air-hostess announces our descent into Dallas along with "and we'd like to acknowledge the servicemen on this flight and the great work they are doing for this country" and everyone on the plane started to clap. Very interesting experience. At Dallas, we were able to go to the Admirals Club as we were flying American Airlines. Couple of glasses of champagne, and it wasn't long before we were on our next flight to Mexico City. Mmmm, how to explain Mexico International? Our bags were fully searched by customs followed by a team of Mexicans coming left right and centre asking us if we wanted a taxi, accommodation, bus ... anything really, but really quite confronting and pushy. We still hadn't booked any accommodation in Mexico as we didn't know if we were going to try and get to Veracruz straight away, or stay the night, but after our long day it seemed a good idea to get some sleep before our next bit of travels. We went to an accommodation booth, but it didn't have anybody there and before you knew it, some guy had grabbed some of our bags and was leading off to a dodgy accommodation booth. Trying to be as polite as we could, we graciouséd and adiouséd our way back to a cafe to take some time out and work out what we were going to do. After a while the lady from the booth came back and we quickly arranged for accommodation at a hotel with a shuttle bus to take us there. Accommodation was fantastic and had a night to relax before our big bus trip the next day.

Goodbye to the Green Back

Friday 7 November - Park City - Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Today was technically our last day in the US and we spent a casual day getting our bags packed, sending a package home of bits and pieces we no longer needed on the trip and having some quality time with Wendy. In the afternoon we had some more homemade cocktails and Wendy took us to dinner again at the Westgate grill which was fantastic, followed by the one hour trip down the 'hill' to Salt Lake where we checked in to a hotel for the night for our early 6am flight. It was sad to say goodbye to Wendy. Thank you for your support, look forward to catching up with you in Melbourne soon!