Travels with Hayley

Day 14, 2 weeks done! It’s absolutely flown by and I’ve packed so much in already. So glad it’s not time to go home yet though, loving life Meh-ico style.

After an early start to do some writing and enjoy the peace and quiet, the girls and I headed to breakfast at the very nice restaurant next door. This is an interesting town, apparently there’s a lot of poverty here and we’ve definitely seen some, but the town centre is absolutely full of hundreds of really quite fancy shops selling high quality clothes, jewellery, handcrafted souvenirs and the like. And while there are a few traditional looking restaurants dotted around, on the whole they are much more like you’d expect to see in a ‘nice’ neighbourhood at home, beautifully decorated and serving a mix of Mexican and also a lot of international foods. Apparently it’s a popular place for Mexicans from other parts of the country to come for a holiday, it’s all rather chi-chi and nice. However, we’d been warned it’s the place on the trip that always has the highest incidence of food poisoning so we’ve been expressly forbidden from eating the ‘casual food’ as JJ calls it and to stick to recommended restaurants.

After my pre approved breakfast of yoghurt with granola and fruit (lovely) and a hot chocolate (not lovely, their chocolate is very bitter here) where I successfully managed to ask in Spanish for both honey and ‘a little bit of cold milk please’ (you would definetly learn it so much faster if you lived here, I’m already picking up more words and phrases every day), we jumped onto the mini bus to a national park about an hour away.

We arrived at the park which is the home of the Sumidero Canyon, a natural phenomenon that was created at around the same time as the Grand Canyon in the US. Boarding the banana yellow speedboats – in my role as official group photographer I was offered the coveted front seat which was lovely if not a bit pressurised to get the good shots – we headed off. We had lucked out with a daredevil captain who loved a hairpin turn so the air was full of whoops and cheers as we spend down through the clear and sparkling water.

A quick stop to greet a couple of crocodiles – of which there are about 300 living there (who is counting them and why is that a job you would pick?!) and to watch the beautiful birds soaring overhead. We saw a couple of magnificent grey pelicans sitting serenely in a tree, looking down their pale blue beaks at us disapprovingly for disturbing their peace and some ‘fish eagles’, which according to google are the same as ospreys.

We made our way through the canyon, the looming walls growing higher and higher around us. It’s hard to tell the sheer scale of what you’re looking at until another boat would happen past and you’d realise how minuscule they were against the soaring slab of rock towering over them.

The canyon stretches for 17km (10.5 miles) and the walls reach to 1km (3,280 feet) at it’s tallest parts. At it’s deepest it’s 187m which is 613 feet or 93 Martins standing on top of each other! The river flows all the way from Guatemala to the Gulf of Mexico and is home to an important hydroelectric plant with the power driven from the world’s ‘11th biggest dam made of clay’. Honestly, who is making these lists and why?!

We passed by a stalactite that looks like a seahorse, a catholic altar set set up in a cave, accesible only by boat and wildly rickety looking ladder, a part of the wall nicknamed the Christmas tree for obvious reasons, see below, and some energetic souls who were kayaking. The kayaks looked like ants against the giant walls above them, it was quite surreal to see.

I made a couple of deep and philosophical observations whilst we sped through this incredible feat of nature. Number one – motion sickness tablets are a miracle up there with water into wine. Never in a million years did I think I could be in a boat bouncing up and down so high that you were half vertical at times and actually enjoy it. This is from a person who has actually been nauseous on a pontoon…

Number two – it’s almost impossible when on a boat not to wave wildly enthusiastically at the people on a passing boat. It’s as though we all feel a need to say ‘Look at me! I’m on a boat! It’s so cool!’ And they reply back ‘I know right! I’m on a boat too and it is indeed super cool! I’m so glad we’re sharing this awesome experience together!’. And all this through the power of a wave. I like it.

As we headed back to the dock, the water became full of the local children splashing around and having fun – do they know something we don’t or are they just crossing their fingers about the crocodiles…?! I feel like a health and safety officer on these trips sometimes – who signed off the risk assessment on this activity?!

Back on the bus – today’s soundtrack included some 80’s bangers including Bon Jovi, and then a bit of Michael Buble to chill everyone out. Mexico has a really eclectic/weird taste in music…

Back in town the weather took a turn and it got really chilly – I ended up in a long sleeve thermal top, hoodie, leggings and jacket and was still cold. We headed to a very zen vegetarian place attached to some kind of Buddhist centre for lunch and while the service was a bit slow and chaotic (highlights included me asking for my toast for the second time and being told the electricity would only currently work if she manually held the plug of the toaster into the socket – I told her non toasted bread would be just grand…and then me doing a spot of waitressing for them when they got a bit overwhelmed!) but the food was so pretty and delicious (white bean dip with ‘toast’, falafel and pickled vegetables)

After we were full of Buddhist cuisine, we hit the laundry to pick up the next set of clean clothes. They smelt so lovely when we got them, the lady has just spritzed them with something and I kept smelling them and telling her how nice it was so she got the bottle and gave me a spray down, front and back! I smelt amazing, I couldn’t stop sniffing myself on the way home!

We spent the rest of the day mooching around the town, looking in all of the shops and people watching. This town is full to bursting of both hippies and hipsters. Lots of dreadlocks, tie dye style clothing, patchouli and crystals but then also a plethora of man buns, kombucha, charcuterie and even a natural maternity shop proudly advertising menstrual cups and reusable sanitary pads outside…

Getting too cold to wander much further, we huddled in a chocolate shop for a hot drink and then headed out for a light dinner of another bowl of sopa azteca, in a restaurant whose wall was totally covered in wide mouth clay toads – which is annoying as that was how I was going to redecorate next time and now it will just look like I’m copying them…The soup itself was really nice but the toppings were on the skimpy side as was the portion! Good job we’d had a late lunch and the Buddhists were much more generous with their helpings.

Finished up the day buying a fabulous Mexican inspired clay nativity scene which they wrapped up before I could get a picture – you’ll all have to wait until Christmas to admire it I’m afraid. I do hope Jesus makes it home ok in my suitcase, I’ll put Pedro in there to watch over him maybe!

Early start tomorrow so bed for now, fingers crossed for a raise in the temperature as I’m sleeping in thermals with three blankets tonight!

Lots of love always xx