Today I walked down the Avenue of the Dead and climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun. How was your day?

 Posted by: Chris

As I was taking a cold shower in Puerto Escondido trying to shake off a killer migraine, I noticed a roach crawling up my side and onto my underarm. We both became aware of the other at the same moment and I, much like the cockroach itself, paused calmy and assessed the situation. About 3 seconds later I, much like the cockroach, completely freaked out and starting flailing limbs around like a someone who just walked face first into a spider web. I’ve had countless random insects crawling all over me, some just curious, some with a vendetta. The roach friend is no longer in this world and I admit he did not go peacefully. A couple of the places we’ve stayed had hot water, the rest have not. We slept in mostly large dorm rooms locking valuables when we can and hugging the rest as we sleep. My earplugs definitely help block out the louder bunkmates even though I’m as loud as anyone with my violent snoring. The shared dirty bathrooms can’t handle flushed paper in the toilet or else it will clog, and thus you must throw used paper away in wastebaskets beside the stall (never enter without sandals on). Obviously air-conditioning is something I won’t feel for a long time but sometimes we get fans which really help keep me cool enough to catch some sleep(though I rarely am cool enough to actualy sleep under the cover). Our overnight bus the other day from San Cristobal to Tulum was 11 hours and included a military search of our bags at the Chiapas border. I’ve yet to learn how to sleep in a semi-reclining chair; Laura however has perfected the art of curling into a tiny ball.

The night buses do have English movies dubbed in Spanish, and my modestly successfuly attempts to figure out the plot have dramatically improved my conversational Spanish. I sleep a few disturbed hours every night, usually sweating and uncomfortable yet I awake with tons more energy than I ever did sleeping on the whatever count egyptian cotton sheets at my parents place where I rested quietly and cooly for hours. We rise, usually have some butter bread and eggs for breakfast, walk around all day long without much pause until the moment we return to the dorms to shower, eat dinner, and hopefully sleep. My sandals have torn up my feet since the’ve gone from ”too lazy to drive to the post office” to ”let’s walk around for 10 hours straight” in a matter of days, now I mostly stick to good old walking shoes. But still, I couldn’t care less. I’ve seen the largest city in North America built right on top the Aztec ruins the Spanish Conquistador Cortez destroyed. I’ve had fresh Ceviche after swimming in the small rocky cove at Puerto Escondido. I’ve slept in the middle of the jungle before hiking up to Palenque, the most impressive set of ancient ruins I’ve ever seen. I walked down the Avenue of the Dead and climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun. How was your day?

Travel isn’t about being comfortable. Life is much easier at home spoiled with high speed internet and mom’s fried chicken(my apologies to those non-southerners who’ve never tasted mom’s glorious fried chicken). But everyday is an adventure–good and bad ones both–but adventure nontheless. Mexico has outstanding Anthropology museums, the buses are top notch and run on time, the scenery changes dramatically and is beautiful throughout with traditional mayan culture in quaint colonial towns to beautiful white sand beaches of the Yucatan. And this is only our first stop.

Laura’ birthday is tomorrow so we’ll take it easy on the beach and splurge a bit on seafood and Pina Colada’s. Next stop, Belize.