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Joie de vie

This post is about a joy-filled Californian trip. And, no, it has nothing to do with France, except that this trip was preceded by a short stay in Chicago which had followed a short trip to France. In other words I was very jet-lagged, but the memories of those days are so vivid as if the concept of day and night are only a make-believe philosophy of life, residing in the realm of the weak. 

My boyfriend E and I reached Los Angeles at 11:30PM. The plan was to spend the night at some hotel and then the following day, embark on what is soon going to be one of the most memorable experiences of our lives. But we had some problems to address before all that. First, getting to the hotel. We are a non-believer of comfort (read: poor), so we decided to challenge LA’s frightening transport system in order to get to our hotel. 

Info: A) There is a free airport shuttle called “Green Line” leaving from right outside any terminal, which will take you to the “LAX aviation green line station”. This is a city metro station, so you can get anywhere from there, easy eh? Wrong! After switching two trains, we were only a 15min(!) uber ride away from our hotel. One could write volumes ranting about LAs train systems and about its psychedelic riders, but I will spare this beautiful post from that. 

B) There is a bus called “Flyaway” (every half hour, at least during the day) to and from the airport (connecting to the union station). It is pricey ($9.50 one way) but is very convenient. We figured this on our way back. Might be worthwhile finding these info before going to LA. Google does not know about either of these.

Our second imminent problem for the night was hunger. I don’t know if food truck is an LA thing to do, but boy, that night time mexican food truck around the corner from our hotel was probably the best way our trip could have started. Inevitably, many more food experiences will be ardently shared, but the food truck was a good indicator of what California had to offer us.

TBC...

[canonicalmind]

Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico

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Writing a travelogue is quite a commitment. Especially when the memories are slowly escaping one’s mind. But when you have created happy memories with your most favourite companion they are destined to come back to you. 

We are two brave girls from India, traveling from all the way across the world to the land of Tacos and Mariachi and a few of the most ancient civilisations. Our goal was to travel by public transport from cities to cities with a scanty knowledge of Spanish in our arsenal. By the time we took our first inter-city bus my less-proficient friend could identify the word “pais” (= country) and was eagerly replying “INDIA!!” to the question “¿Donde esta tu pais?” (= where is your country?). By this time I also had my chance to flaunt my scanty spanish, surprisingly enough I was appreciated. My greatest achievement I thought was when a policeman thought I was latino. 

We were traveling to the ancient Mayan city of Palenque from Mexico city. Again from the ADO bus station off San Lazaro stop on linea uno. Our goal was to visit the Palenque ruins and possibly Agua Azul waterfall and then leave for Merida at midnight. Two consecutive nights of over-night bus journey was something I definitely was not looking forward to. My friend, with her characteristic exuberance, was trying to convince me that we could visit ruinas de palenque, Agua Azul and Misol ha waterfalls all in one day. Agua Azul is 70km south of palenque and Misol-ha 30km on the way. We could not find any obvious transport online. Relying on taxis or collectivos on the top of the worry of making it to our next inter-city bus on time seemed like an impossible ambition to me. I hesitantly agreed to figure out if this was even a remotely plausible plan once we get to plaenque. 

Sleeping on an overnight bus is definitely a challenge. I am not sure if it was the comfortable seat of ADO bus or the trip to Xocchimilco earlier in the day, we both slept like babies on our way. It was only later on we learnt about various instances of robbery or theft  on overnight ADO buses around Chiapas region. Thankfully our trip went uninterrupted in that respect. Although around 6AM we had a change of bus somewhere near Palenque and my otherwise eloquent knowledge of Spanish failed me at the hour of need. My map told us that we were still about a 100km away from Palenque and from their hand gestrues we figured that we needed to wait until our bus comes back with fuel. Well, we did not have an option but to wait. 

In any case, we reached Palenque around 8AM. Did we end up going to the waterfalls? Yes! Right outside the ADO bus terminal we were surrounded by taxi drivers offering us rides and tour companies offering us tours. Would we fall for such offers? At least not in India. But then they said a day trip would include Misol-ha and Agua Azul for M$600! I could see the awe on my friend’s face and clearly I did not have a say. They came to our hotel to pick us up at 9AM! I took a quick shower before leaving. It was a small van (collectivo) and unsurprisingly all other tourists were from Spanish speaking countries. Our fabulous guide enthusiastically described the history of the surroundings on the way, in Spanish. He instructed us to meet back at this parking lot about 2km away from the entrance of the archeological site in two and half hours, again in Spanish. I definitey did understand all of that, but my otherwise astounding knowledge of Spanish was lacking confidence.  However the lush tropical forest in the backdrop of the exotic sight of ruins from thousands of years ago did not trigger the alarm of safety in our head. We forgot to ask the name or the phone numer of our driver. More so, we had a very faint recollection of how he looked like. The only smart thing I had done was to take a picture of the number plate only to find out later on that the picture was not going to come to our aid in retrieving the way back to the van. 

While walking around the ruins we tried to keep track of one person that we thought was one of our co-passengers from the car. Nonetheless, the tall pyramids and the mere joy of climbing them to get a better view of the tropical forest and the ancient Mayan city was too distracting. We bought Necklace carved out on stones corresponding to the Mayan month of our birthdays. We climbed as many pyramids as we could in the two and a half hour that we had. After that we started heading back to the parking lot that we thought where we would find our collectivo. From the lost look on our face or probably even otherwise many collectivos ranging from fancy ones to precariously old ones offered us ride. We said in response, “no gracias. buscando mi carro.” (= no thanks I am looking for my car.) They looked amused and left. Eventually when we were at the verge of giving up on finding the parking lot in time, we took an collectivo for M$20 each. At some point I screamed, “aquui aqui aqui!” (=here here here!) and we got off the collectivo. Unfortunately what I had thought was the parking lot was not the parking lot we were probably supposed to go to. In any case, we finally were able to find our guy and headed over to Misol-ha waterfall. My friend looked happy, the trauma of being lost did not seem to have an effect on her. And there would be many more times during the course of next six days when we will lose our way, including once when we almost got lost swimming in a cenote (a cave full of water).

Misol-ha is a beautiful waterfall and had a bat cave behind it. You could literally walk in to the bat cave. We knew all of that, but being there was a whole different experience. We were in our slippers but we did not expect to be in waist deep water inside a dark bat cave. I was a little weary of getting my passport wet. My friend, characteristic of her, waded her way into the cave before I could warn her. Soon she was there with her backpack dipping in the water. By the time I caught up with her it was too late. Also we were busy trying to make our terrible cameras take a good picture of the bats hanging from the ceiling. Yes, she did get her passport wet. But again by mere work of luck it did not get completely ruined. 

We went on to Agua Azul through the mountains. It was unbelievably blue. Later we found out that the colour comes from high mineral content in the water. We did not have our bathing suits on, somehow we did not guess that we would be able to get into the water. The water was too attractive. Disappointed, we decided to look for the nacimiento de la cascada (birth of the cascade) and hiked quite a bit up the river. We came across many more less touristy and silent spots where one could take a quite bath away from the usual hustle-bustle of the enthusiastic tourists. Up there at some point the waterfall became a river and it went on and on through a forest. We were running out of time and did not want to make the same mistake of losing our way again. By this time we were friends with our driver, we had a discussion about poverty in India and Mexico. He said, “una pregunta, escucho que hay muchas pobres en India” or something like that. I replied that it was similar to many other countries. We have many people and hence the number was bigger. Who knows if he understood any of that. We made our way back to the hotel, intact. It was quite a day. But we were excited to be on ADO bus again. We were excited about what Merida had in store for us.

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Translation of a song

Slowly the night burns out... Smokey eyes that have opened its edges For several nights that passed. Those eyes, wide open, Now brought the dawn. From those salty eyes The smoke never goes away.

We tried to burn the eyes with dreams, Only to end up using all the fuel. If only pain could sing a lullaby! If only pain could wake us up! The smoke never goes away From those hateful eyes.

The burning flames would not let them fall asleep. So we put out all the stars with a puff. Who knows what awaits us In the treasure box of this night. Who knows if you opened it, It may bring a beautiful dawn. The smoke never goes away, From those swollen eyes.

Slowly the night burns out... Smokey eyes that have opened its edges For several nights that passed. The eyes, wide open, Now brought the dawn. From those salty eyes The smoke never goes away.

[canonicalmind]

Hiking the white woman

Iztaccihuatl-The white woman is about 95km away from Ciudad de Mexico. There are second class buses leaving from the TAPO terminal near San Lazaro station off Line 1 (linea uno). Second class buses in Mexico does not refer to suspicious buses or disgusting seats or no aircondition (actually maybe no air conditioning, but then global warming fellas!). Second class buses refer to really good buses that run (at least leave) on time with very comfortable seats operated by companies called “Sur” or “Volaris”. And no they do not speak English. If you struggle a lot, they will pity your ignorance and call someone with adequate knowledge of English to help you. It is ok to be a tourist in a foreign country that do not speak the languages you speak, but please care to know how to politely say that you do not speak their language and that you will greatly appreciate their effort of helping you. 

Coming back  to the nitty-gritty: Sur and Volaris run plenty of buses to the town of Amecameca. That is the nearest town before you lose contact with the civilisation. No need to buy bus tickets more than a day ahead of time. There are plenty of buses. They were extra nice to give us an “open ticket” ( a ticket with which you are not obligated to take a bus leaving at a particular hour) for the way back. We honestly had no idea how long the hike was going to be. So a ticket without any time printed on it is just what we were looking for. Once you have the ticket look forward to a journey of about an hour to Amecameca. Amecameca is a small town in its true sense. Once you are outside the bust station, there will be taxis waiting. The destination is “La Joya”. Negotiate for a return trip. The hike should not take longer than a couple hours. Depending on your Language skills and Negotiation techniques a return trip can cost anything between M$600-M$800.  

On the way to La Joya, you will need to pitstop at the checkpoint called Paso de cortes. This is the first clear view of Izta on one hand and Popo on the other. Oh how they are silently still in love. That view on a bright morning is undoubtedly an unforgettable experience. Rumours are that there are “collectivos” (small 12-14seater vans) to Paso de cortes from Amecameca. We did not see any in reality. At Paso de cortes you will need to register your name and a tentative time when you want to come back. Then as an experienced hiker you will try to ask for a map, only soon to be disappointed. You will be assured that the trail is well marked. Yeah, you will again be let down, but rest assured that this pair of lover-mountains and the valley will make it up to you. And no, you won’t be lost. If we could, you definitely can.

Paso de cortes -> La Joya: 8km long dirt road. Yes, roll up your cab windows, this is some serious dirt, volcanic dirt. No joke, telling from experience. We walked back to Paso de cortes. Walking on that dirt road seemed never ending and every passing car bathed us in that volcanic dirt. We did get offers for ride, from a spectra of people ranging from drunk creepy dudes to friendly ones apologising for not being able to offer a ride for they were going in the opposite direction. We, a pair of brave-hearted girls, refused all the offers until after an hour we started begging to the lord of valcanos for a ride. Finally, an open police truck was God’s way of ridiculing our adventurous souls. 

Going back to the beginning of the hike, the trail head at La joya is a large parking lot where the cab drops you. Be sure you carry plenty of water (1lt a person should be good enough). Altitude will give you a nudge within two to three steps. But worry not, if I could, you can! The terrain is full of lose rocks, so it is important to have good hiking shoes with grippy sole. The following trail guide was found on the internet. We carried a copy of the trail description with us. But unfortunately, for us, it was of little to zero help. I will quote it however. 

“Day 1:

13140ft: a deserted parking lot, La Joya

From here, it’s very important you veer right and take the trail that heads up the hill. Do not continue straight as this lesser used trail eventually descends down into the valley below.

13950ft: second saddle: crest of a small ridge. 1.6km from La joya.

14860ft: .8km from the crest, the third saddle.

15470ft: Grupo de Los Cien hut”

The second day, that we did not do, apparently require a day of acclimatisation at Los Cien Hut, level 2+ scrambling and crossing a couple of permanent glaciers.

Memory from that hike is being cherished in this blog not just because it is fresh in my head or because my friend’s mom is really insisting on writing a travelogue, the wild, unmarked, almost untouched nature of Mexico easily beats the mapped-out national parks in the US or the overly crowded Indian hill-stations. Such experiences demand a tangible record, solely on the premise that memories fade away with time.

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