The trail to Cancun

From Mexico i headed south to the city of Oaxaca (pronounced something like o-ahaka). Its a "small" town of about 900.000 people in a fertile valley. Its claim to fame is the Monte Alban ruins which lie on top of a mountain smack in the middle of the valley. The ruins are worth a look, but the best part is actually the view of the whole valley from the top.

"Oaxaca seen from Monte Alban"

Right : "The mandatory shot through the bus window going through the mountains. It didnt turn out that bad actually. Most of the green stuff are cactus. Lots of cactus."

"Monte Alban ruins."

From Oaxaca i went to a small mountain town called San Cristobal. When i was there it rained alot, and was actually pretty cold at night. I even had to use the extra blanket. This town is famous for being quaint (quote unquote). Its a small town with lots of purdy little buildings. Supposed to be a centre for handicrafts as well. Me, i left for warmer places...

"Yes, them be stairs......my next vacation will be in Denmark or maybe Holland. This is San Cristobal seen from one of the churches. Hard to get a good picture of the town unless you wanna do a little treehugging in the jungle..

Palenque is the next stop, mainly to see some more ruins. The town isnt much to look at. If

it werent for the ruins, theyd still be arguing about who gets to ride the horse...Still, they had

a Burger King so i guess that counts for something..

"Yes, its me. Im about to have a heatstroke due to the extreme humidity and climbing up and down stairs for a few hours. How i manage to look this good without a dry patch on my body is beyond me...."

"This is probably the temple the Mayan king used to show his son to the people when he was five years old. Due to the construction and their knowledge of the sun, the king would step out into a ray of light just as he announced their next king. The effect would be dazzling to the religious masses.

"The administrative palace building. It had a sauna and everything. And yes, even bats."

My journey so far has brought me to Cancun. Its much like i expected. Its overpriced, overhyped and a monument to american consumerism. Its actually two parts, the downtown area which is an "artificial" city (This means it was started from scratch. Ive never seen a natural city before, but at least i know know what an artificial one looks like ), and the hotel

zone (which is 20kms of beach, american chains and...you guessed it, hotels). Not a place to stay, but at least i got to laugh at the drunken americans. I still giggle when i think about the blasted guy who came on the bus, paid for the trip and walked right back out again. He sat down, took a swig of his beer and waved at us. What a nice guy...

I spent most of my time either trying to get down to the beach, or back up. Due to mexican law, the beach is public property and can be used by everyone. The hotel chains have cleverly bought up most of the land behind the beach, and blocked it off from the riff-raff (me). There are a few accesspoints for us poor folks, but they are far between. In desperation i ended up going through a fancy hotel just to get to the road. I was pretty pissed at the lousy corporate fascists (you heard me!) at the time, so if anyone had tried to stop me i might have rebelled and sung "fight the power". Mexican jail would probably not suit me though...

"The nice beach in Cancun."

"The not so nice beach in Cancun"