Ancient history, Volume XXXIX

Previously, OH GOD, I'M DYING. Otherwise known as "Don't eat ice or sour cream in Latin America".

The following day, I was still sick, but not to the about-to-pass-out point, which was a vast improvement. Arizona Boy, Waterproof Trousers and Irish were heading off for the wilds of Honduras that morning, so I dragged myself out of bed and out to the lobby to say goodbye to them. A couple of hours after that, I had to dope myself up on Imodium, bid a very miserable farewell to my BFF Sara and board a minibus heading to Guatemala City. Once at the airport, I braved the first food I'd had in about 40 hours - McDonald's chips (that's fries to you, America).

Source

My logic in eating McDonald's chips was as follows:
1. Said chips are deep fried, and therefore very unlikely to result in a repeat upchucking performance;
2. Said chips are covered in salt, and salt is important when you're dehydrated;
3. Said chips would provide a large number of calories without me needing to eat very much.

Genius plan, no??

Anyway, the flight to Mexico City was relatively uneventful. Well, besides the fact that the flight contained the  Guatemalan under 10 soccer team, and that whichever member of the team was sitting behind me felt the need to kick the back of my seat for the ENTIRE flight. But once we landed in Mexico City? Things got...somewhat more interesting. We landed in the pouring rain, only to be told - after sitting on the runway for 20 minutes - that there were no air bridges available and that we'd need to disembark onto the runway and take buses to the terminal. Which would have been fine, except that half the plane - including myself - got stuck behind an old man who managed to walk down one step around every minute. So we were all rather drenched by the time we got to the terminal.

Upon arrival at the terminal, it seemed that around a millionty planes had arrived at once, and Mexico City only had about four staff working the immigration gates. The queue to get through immigration took over TWO HOURS, and by the end of that time, I was about to sit down on the floor and cry. About half way through the insanely long wait, there was a bit of a kerfuffle behind me, and a familiar figure ducked under the barriers. That figure?

Source

Okay, so it was Michael Richards and not Cosmo Kramer, but whatevs. Apparently he decided that being a celebrity(-ish. Seinfeld was more than a little passe by 2008!) should entitle him to queue jump. The Mexican authorities took great delight in giving him death stares and pointing to the back of the line.

Anyway, I eventually made it through the queue, claimed my luggage, and headed for the pick-up area. Only to find that two hours was apparently far too long for my $96 transfer driver to bother waiting. I attempted to find a phone number for the company to insist that they send the driver back, but the only number listed was in Peru. NOT particularly helpful. So I headed for the taxi rank, only to have half a dozen taxi drivers refuse to take me to my hotel because parts of the city were flooded. Thankfully, the concierge guy stepped in, and insisted that one of them take me.

So I eventually arrived at my hotel, arranged a tour to Teotihuacan, and collapsed into bed. Only to wake up the following morning with approximately a thousand mosquito bites on my back, thanks to a particularly bloodthirsty and unwelcome roommate.

I dragged myself out of bed and onto a tour bus. The tour consisted of me and three slightly mad Argentinian women who spent all day calling me Chris. I'm going to go ahead and just show you a bunch of pictures of Teotihuacan because I don't really remember that much about it on account of I hadn't eaten since the chips the previous day...

On the way back into Mexico City, we stopped off at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which I found rather hilarious. Why?
1. Because it looks like a football stadium from the outside.
2. It houses the original icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and in order to pray before her, you stand on a series of travelators. One goes left to right, the one behind that goes right to left, the one behind that goes left to right and so on. This ensured that everyone got a chance to pray without causing a traffic jam.

3. You could get yourself blessed with holy water outside the Basilica. Except that the holy water was housed in huge plastic rubbish bins, which just made it seem kind of gross.
4. There was a GIANT statue of Pope John Paul II and one of his Pope-mobiles outside.

Who doesn't love an unexpected statue of a dead Pope?!

Up next, the most enormous flag of ever, some weird happenings at the National Anthropology Museum, and I fly to Las Vegas.

K xx

Ancient history, Volume XXXVI

Previously, flaming tequila shots, canyons and putting saints in the freezer.

The day after we learnt that St Anthony is the source of husbands was a travel day. According to our trip notes, we should "Be prepared for anything". And anything is pretty much what we got... 

We left San Cristobal on a local bus and headed towards the border. After a couple of hours, it was off the bus and onto a collectivo, which took us from the closest major town to the closest SMALL town. From there, it was into taxis, which took us to the Mexico-Guatemala border. After walking across the border, we crammed ourselves into tuk tuks (things that are not fun: trying to hold your 20kg pack with one hand while riding in a speeding tuk tuk.).

The tuk tuks dropped us on the side of the road where we waited around for a while before Arizona Boy suddenly announced that we were to board a chicken bus. After throwing our packs up on the roof (EXTRA fun), we crammed ourselves into the limited number of available seats and HOLY HELL, my knees still haven't forgiven me.

From there, it was onto ANOTHER chicken bus, and this one was sliiiiiightly more interesting, in that karma attacked Arizona Boy. The whole way through the trip, he'd been talking about how much he hated children. So of course, he got stuck sitting next to a small child. And said small child sat veeeeeeeeeery quietly for approximately half the bus ride, and then promptly projectile vomited all over himself and all over Arizona Boy's feet. And Arizona Boy was wearing thongs/flip flops/jandals. Said small child then looked enormously guilty, and shortly thereafter, slunk off the bus.

Sara and I, meanwhile, giggled hysterically. Because we're evil like that.

Shortly thereafter, we were off the chicken bus and standing around on the side of the road while Arizona Boy disappeared off into the depths of a small Guatemalan town looking for a hose to wash his feet. The plan had been to take another chicken bus, but the next bus to come along was a first class bus. We briefly got excited, until we realised that said first class bus was completely full, and that we would be standing in the aisle, holding onto the parcel shelves, all while wearing our packs. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

This experience was made even MORE enjoyable by the fact that the very overweight woman sitting next to where I was standing was passing the time on the bus trip by clipping her fingernails. And her fingernails kept HITTING ME IN THE ARM. FOR ABOUT A FREAKING HOUR. How she had any fingernails left to clip by the end of it is completely and utterly beyond me.

Eventually, we were off that bus, and onto yet another chicken bus for the trip down into Panajachel. And, just when we thought we were finished, we had to take tuk tuks from the bus station to the hotel. Thankfully, that wasn't very far.

Understandably, after AN ENTIRE DAY spent on nine (NINE!!!!) different forms of wheeled transport, we went slightly insane. And so, that evening after dinner, we decided that - considering it was pouring with rain and we didn't want to try and work out who would stay behind trying to hail another tuk tuk - we would cram all EIGHT of us into the one tuk tuk. Sara ended up on the parcel shelf, there were three of us in the back, two in the front, and two people sitting on laps. And then the driver. Who thought we were bonkers. It's entirely possible that we were:

Next time, the details of Panajachel. (Also, I promise there's no puking in the next installment.)

Also, happy Thanksgiving, America. And happy Thursday/Friday to everyone else!!

K xx

Ancient history, Volume XXXV

Previously, archaeological sites, waterfalls, and Schrödinger's chicken.

First of all, this are going to get slightly more vague from this point on. Because I got so far behind with my travel diary that I just gave up altogether and figured I'd take bullet points on our trip notes and then write my travel diary when I got home. Four and a half years later, I still haven't bothered. So I'm going to be running on bullet points and my memory from here...

We left Palenque and caught a bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, which took approximately FOREVER. We finally arrived in San Cristobal at around 6pm, and had a quick look around town:

Then it was off to dinner at an all-you-can-eat steakhouse with a bullfighting theme. The boys were all "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY, STEAK!!" and proceeded to demolish approximately six or seven steaks each. I, on the other hand, had two steaks and, you know, VEGETABLES. After dinner, we had a DELIGHTFUL introduction to San Cristobal in the form of going to see a documentary about the Zapatista movement, which basically turned out to be a crapton of footage of dead bodies and people being executed... O.o

To calm(??) us all down afterwards, Arizona Boy took us to a bar, where we were presented with these:

Flaming tequila shots. I passed on mine, and ordered a strawberry daiquiri instead. Which, weirdly, was made with coconut milk. Oh, Mexico. Don't ever change.

The following day, we headed out for a boat tour of Sumidero Canyon. It's basically Mexico's version of the Grand Canyon, and it's pretty spectacular because it's in the middle of a rainforest:

CROCODILE

That afternoon, Sara and I visited the Amber Museum, which was...not particularly fascinating, and then climbed about a millionty steps to the San Cristobal Church, which has a nice view over the city.

Aaaaaand while we were there, we got swindled by small children. They claimed to be doing a school project, and that they'd been told to collect the names and countries of origin for passing tourists. Except the form they asked you to fill in included a box for "donation". I gave the kid five pesos on the basis that he knew the capital of Australia was Canberra.

The next day, we had another exciting excursion. This time, it was out to some nearby villages that have been excommunicated by the Pope.

Why, you ask? They took Catholicism and added in a bunch of elements from their traditional Mayan religious practices. Various saints are worshipped in preference to God or Jesus. The church has no pews, just pine branches all over the floor. And people go to church with the following: candles of varying colours, 2L bottles of Coke/Pepsi, flowers, eggs, and live chickens.

WHY do they go to church with these things? Well. The Coke/Pepsi makes you burp, and burping releases evil spirits (the richest guys in town? The Coke and Pepsi sales reps). The candles help you to specify what you're praying for. And the flowers/eggs/chickens are for drawing evil spirits out of you and then sacrificing. You ain't been to church until you've been to a church where chickens get their necks snapped, yo. Sometimes, they even do exorcisms in the church!

But my all time favourite thing I learnt while we were there? When the women of this town want a husband, they pray to a statue of St Anthony. If St Anthony fails to deliver a husband within a decent time frame, they take the statue, stand it on its head, and put it in the fridge as punishment. Genius!

Next up, we leave San Cristobal de las Casas for Panajachel, and it takes approximately a millionty buses and some permanent damage to my knees to get us there.

K xx

Ancient history, Volume XXXIV

Previously, tequila was evil and led to weirdness...

The day after the Infamous Helicopter of Love Incident, we were up bright and early (and, with the exception of me, VERY reluctantly) and on the hunt for breakfast. Turns out, there wasn't much within walking distance of the hotel that was open at breakfast time, which is how Sara and I ended up having doughnuts and soft drink for breakfast. Health food of a nation!!

By 8.30am, we were at Palenque, the archaeological site. To this day, I'm fairly certain I was the only person on the tour to enjoy it. Everyone else was hungover and sick of visiting ruins. I, on the other hand, was in my element and nerding it up like there was no tomorrow.

Personally, I found Palenque fascinating because only about 2% of the site has been uncovered by archaeologists. The rest is still hidden away in the jungle. I also loved a lot of the little details, like this door hinge:

Or this carving of Quetzalcoatl:

There was also a museum filled with fun things, which I was super excited about. Eventually, we finished our time at Palenque and headed to the waterfall at Misol Ha:

There was a path that let you walk behind the waterfall, and Sara and I decided that we should go behind said waterfall. That ended about as well as you'd expect:

From there, we headed over to Agua Azul. Now, usually Agua Azul looks like this:

Source

But just after WE got there, it started to pour with rain. And we're talking pouring with rain to the point of the water coming through my Goretex jacket, resulting in us having to hide out in an empty stall waiting for it to ease up:

Eventually, it was light enough that we were able to wander around without drowning. But of course, the rain meant that instead of looking like the above, Agua Azul looked like this:

Sigh. So much for the beautiful blue waters!!

That night, thankfully, was FAR less exciting than the previous one. And the next morning, Palenque gave us one last piece of hilarity: this sign at the bus station:

In case you can't tell, that second point says "No alive
and/or dead poultry".

Wheeeeeeee, Schrödinger's chicken!!

Next up, crocodile infested canyons, releasing evil spirits by burping, and unusual methods of finding a husband!

K xx

Ancient history, Volume XXXIII

Previously, horses plus butterfly infested woods = Kirsti's worst day ever. On the plus side, there were cenotes, which pretty much made up for it...

We left our hotel in Merida at 7.30am and had yet another delightful walk to the bus station carrying 20kg worth of luggage. The bus trip from Merida to Palenque is approximately NINE HOURS. Our trip notes informed us that it was "along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico", which implied nice sea views. Our trip notes lied. All we could see for nine hours was hedges taller than the bus... I spent a large chunk of it watching movies in Spanish with Portuguese subtitles - namely, Flyboys and The Wicker Man (the Nicolas Cage version). I don't think I missed much in terms of the dialogue...

Nic Cage's facial expression pretty much sums up my feelings towards
this film. Also, source.

Lunch consisted of the bus stopping at a roadside diner for an hour. The food looked less than appealing, so Sara and I made the executive decision to have ice cream for lunch. Because, you know, the Pringles and Pinguinos we'd had as bus snacks weren't enough...

After a millionty more hours of driving, we finally arrived in Palenque. After dumping our stuff at the hotel, Arizona Boy gave us a quick tour of the town. If you've never been there, I can tell you that you're honestly not missing much. (Do not confuse Palenque the town with Palenque the archaeological site. The former was kind of scummy, the latter was awesome)

Eventually, we went to dinner, which rapidly became...interesting. The restaurant we went to was run by a dude named Salvador who was our guide for the archaeological site the following day. And Salvador was OBSESSED with tequila. If you didn't order tequila, he would nag you. And nag you some more. And then nag you again five minutes later. Eventually, I asked for a margarita just to shut him up. Except that Salvador believed that the use of sugar syrup ruined the flavour of the tequila. So he presented me with a glass filled with tequila and lemon juice. It tasted like sour lighter fluid...

Mix with lemon juice and serve. Also, source.

While I stopped after (two sips of) my one lighter fluid margarita, the rest of the group decided that numerous rounds of tequila shots were the way to go. Over the course of the evening, the following things happened:

• Sara discovered that seven shots of tequila will make you throw up.
• Arizona Boy didn't believe me when I said that Sara had gone to throw up, and proceeded to sniff her hair when she got back from the bathroom, which was insanely creepy.
• Waterproof Trousers (so called because he wore Goretex trousers approximately half the time) seemed to be hitting on Salvador, despite claiming throughout the tour that he was straight.
• Arizona Boy thought it would be hilarious to throw various people's belongings off the balcony of the bar we were at and into the street.
• We then had to spend huge chunks of time trying to persuade various passersby to toss them back up to us. 
• There was an awkward discussion about how not all brown eyes are nice brown eyes, which resulted in Waterproof Trousers sulking. 
• Arizona Boy turned to Sara and said (in a deadly serious tone, I might add), "Sara, would you like to ride the Arizona Boy Helicopter of Love?". I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my chair. He did not appreciate my reaction.
• Upon leaving the bar, Arizona Boy found a stick in the gutter (ew), and proceeded to heard us all back to the hotel by smacking people's butts with the stick and yelling "Git along, little doggies!" in a bad cowboy impersonation.
• This VW Beetle from a nearby pizza shop (no, I can't explain the connection between pizza and a giant chicken either) was parked outside our hotel. Various people (ahem, Arizona Boy) thought it would be an excellent idea to climb on top of it:

To be fair, it DID somewhat inexplicably have a chair on the top of it...

The evening ended with Arizona Boy yelling down the hall to Sara and I that his room had a California king sized bed, and that the three of us should use it to recreate the Ringling Brothers Circus. Needless to say, we passed on that incredibly generous offer and cackled all the way to bed.

Moral of the story? Tequila is evil.

Arizona Boy's version of events the next day? "That wasn't me, it was my evil twin."

The best part of being the one who can't drink straight spirits because the smell makes you gag? Remembering everything that happened and being the one to fill in the gaps the next day.

Next up, a somewhat subdued trip to Palenque (the archaeological site), which I think was enjoyed by me and no one else, and we all make the most of our stupidly expensive Goretex jackets.

K xx

Ancient history, Volume XXXII

Previously, the trip from Cancun to Merida, with a stop off in Chichen Itza, which I can never type correctly the first time around.

We only had one day in Merida, which meant that we had to choose between two activities - a trip to the cenotes, or a trip to the ruined city of Uxmal. Obviously, me and my inner archaeology nerd were all for another ruined city. Unfortunately, EVERY OTHER MEMBER OF THE GROUP wanted to go to the cenotes. Now, I could have gone to Uxmal by myself. Except that a) half the fun of going to a ruined city is having someone to go "OH MY GOD, LOOK AT THAT AWESOME THING!!" to, and b) I was a little bit paranoid that I'd get lost in the depths of Mexico. So I abandoned my plans to hang out at an ancient city, and instead joined the group on a trip to the cenotes.

As it turned out, it was probably a good thing I didn't read the description of the cenote trip before we left, or I would never have left our hotel room...

First of all, we had to spend an hour on a minibus getting to some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. During that time, we became progressively sillier, especially after we noticed that the description of the cenote trip included pronunciation advice - "say-noe-tay". We entertained ourselves for FAR too long with that, saying it in a very similar way to this:

Eventually, we got to the town, and I discovered that getting to the cenotes required a half hour trip in a horse-drawn carriage. And to be honest? Carriage makes it sound FAR more luxurious than it really was. It was more like a cart that had been loosely hammered together, and covered with some kind of plastic that advertised a soft drink company. Also, the horses had a tendency to go a bit sideways and pull the carts off the tracks.

Photo stolen shamelessly from Sara. 

In case I've neglected to mention it before, I'm TERRIFIED of horses. And the trip to the cenotes took place through butterfly infested woods. I'm also terrified of butterflies. So yeah. It was NOT the most relaxing trip ever.

We finally arrived at the first cenote, which was almost as terrifying as the cart ride:

Also shamelessly stolen from Sara.

That's Suit Pants on the ladder. You couldn't see the bottom of the ladder because it was so freaking dark. AND the ladder was slippery with mossy stuff and water. So yeah. It was tons of fun. But once we got down to the bottom? It was TOTALLY WORTH IT:

The water was pretty cold, and 10-15 metres deep in parts. But it was also so clear that even in the deepest parts, you could make out individual rocks on the bottom. After half an hour or so there, it was time for another 15 minute ride through butterfly infested woods to the second cenote.

Yup, I stole this from Sara too.

That was even MORE fun - there was a platform about five metres above the water, and the water was deep enough that you could jump off it without any worries. Well, except for the part where I managed to fill my sinuses with half a cenote worth of water. That was not even remotely enjoyable, and my daredevil-ish antics ended shortly thereafter.

But the boys eventually decided that jumping off the five metre platform wasn't enough. Suit Pants started the trend, jumping the 10 metres from the top of the stairs. And when that proved non-lethal, he JUMPED THROUGH THE HOLE IN THE ROOF through which that photo up there was taken. *MY* excitement at the second cenote, however, was limited to a small case of "Oh God, I don't have enough upper body strength to get myself out of this cenote again...". Thankfully, after several awkwardly spectacular failures, I managed it or I might remain trapped in the cenote to this day!!

The third cenote had a nice shallow area at one end, so while the boys did their best to scare away the random people hanging out at the cenote by doing somersaults into the water, Sara and I sat in the shallows and watched the catfish swimming around.

Taken with Sara's underwater camera.

After half an hour or so at the third cenotes, it was back to the horse-drawn carts of doom, and then the bus to Merida. Which, let me tell you, was BUCKETS of fun considering there'd been no time to change out of our wet bathers...

Suit Pants left us for Cancun and his own tour when we got back, and the rest of us somehow ended up spending the evening at a tacky tourist bar where this happened:

Yeah... Because nothing says Mexico quite like gringos with guns in ridiculous sombreros...

Up next, Palenque, where there are more ruins and stuff gets...........weird.

K xx

Challenge recipe 22: Churros

I made these for Mexipalooza the other week, and they were pretty damned good, especially considering I have a) no experience making churros, and b) very little experience deep frying things. I have no photos of them in progress because I was too busy trying to carry on a conversation with Must Be Thrifty, Cheap Geek and L who were in the dining room while I was in the kitchen. And as I said last week, I was too distracted to pull out my SLR to take photos of the finished product, so there's nothing but a terrible photo from my phone, which apparently had a very smudgy lens. AWESOME.

Anyway, here's the book:

Here's what you'll need:
3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2.5 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 egg yolks
Oil, for frying
Icing sugar, to dust

And here's what you do:
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and set aside. Put the water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Then add the salt and brown sugar, and stir until dissolved. Remove from the heat, and tip the flour into the saucepan. Beat continuously until smooth.

Beat in the egg yolks one at a time until the mixture is smooth and glossy (or, if you're me, forget to do this step for a good 10 minutes and end up with a dough that's rather stickier than it should be...). Set the batter aside to cool. Once it's cool, get a piping bag and fit it with a large star nozzle. If you're me, this is the point where you realise that the only star nozzle you have is approximately 5mm across, and is intended for piping decorative icing. Decide that you don't want to make the skinniest churros of all time, so break the dough into blobs, and roll them into sausage shapes like you're a 6 year old with playdough.

Pour oil into a saucepan until it's about 5cm deep. Heat the oil to 190 degrees C if you're going by the book or "Who the fuck knows?" if you're using my method. If you're using the piping bag, pipe lengths of dough into hot oil, using a knife to cut them off cleanly. If you're using my method, just plop your playdough sausages into the oil and try not to burn yourself.

Fry the churros for 3-4 minutes, or until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper, then put them in a warm oven while you cook the remaining batches. When they're all cooked, arrange them on a plate and dust with icing sugar. Or, if you're using my method, discover that you can't find your small sifter and so just dump a spoonful of icing sugar over the top, hoping for the best.

Serve with an entire block of melted chocolate if you're using my method, or lime wedges if you're doing things by the book.

With any luck, yours will look somewhat more presentable than mine:

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XXXI

Previously, Cancun is the tackiest place on earth. Even worse than Vegas.

The next day, we were up bright and early and heading to the bus station. On foot. Let me tell you, walking for 20 minutes at break neck speed across a Mexican city in PEAK HOUR TRAFFIC carrying a 20kg pack? Not even remotely fun.

Eventually, we made it to the bus station and got our luggage checked in. While waiting for the bus, Sara and I decided that what we desperately needed was snacks, which is how we discovered Pinguinos.

Source

I'm pretty sure these have a different name in the US, and they're not available in Australia, but I can vouch for the fact that the Mexican version is DELICIOUS. Anyway, we finally boarded the bus and got underway. And let me tell you - bus rides in the Yucatan are REALLY FREAKING BORING. We're talking nothing-to-look-at-but-hedgerow-for-four-hours kind of boring.

We finally arrived at Chichen Itza at around lunchtime. We had plenty of time to get lunch before we met our guide for the day, but due to the amounts of junk we'd eaten on the bus, Sara and I decided that what we didn't need proper lunch, and so had Magnums for lunch instead. Responsible adulthood FTW!!

Eventually, we headed into Chichen Itza (or It's A Chicken as I still can't help but call it) and Archaeology Nerd Kirsti almost exploded with excitement. Our guide for the day, Julian, gave us a background of the site and the people who lived there, and asked us a few questions to see if we knew anything about the site. I got them all right and was promptly appointed Queen of the Nerds became super smug got bonus points from Julian.We started out at the Pyramid of Kukulkan and OH MY GOD I JUST REMEMBERED THAT I USED TO HAVE AN X-FILES NOVEL THAT INVOLVED KUKULKAN. It was freaking terrible. See????

ANYWAY. Pyramid of Kukulkan, otherwise known as El Castillo. It's awesome. And it has this weird prehistoric megaphone thing built into it so that the priests could be all "HEY, Y'ALL. THIS IS KUKULKAN SPEAKING . YOU WILL WORSHIP ME." and con everyone into belief. Sneaky, no?

From there, we headed over to the ballcourt and got the lowdown on the infamous ballgame. It's not the losers who got sacrificed to the gods - it was the WINNERS. And the losers had to do the sacrificing. a) EW, b) that is one hell of a lose-lose sport.

Then it was over to the Wall of Skulls:

To some of the smaller temples:

To the Temple of the Warriors and Chac Mool:

And to the Warrior's Baths, and the Thousand Columns:

Then it was over to the Observatory, which is pretty unique in a Mesoamerican site, because it's rounded. Archaeologists think it was to observe the stars and their movements. Uh, AWESOME. (Before I realised it involved learning physics as well as archaeology, I had a huge secret desire to be an archaeoastronomer. Because ZOMG FASCINATING)

After that, we had free time to wander around some of the other buildings. Sara and I took a quick look around, and then decided we were going to go and look at the cenote. Let me tell you, the cenote at Chichen Itza is GROSS. Being sacrificed to the gods in there? Would not be enjoyable. If it had been me, I would have taken great delight if the people who sacrificed me ended up dying of some horrible disease thanks to bits of my rotting corpse getting into the water supply.

Ew.

I'm sorry I said 'rotting corpse'.

From there, it was back to the bus station for another delightful four hours trapped in a metal box on wheels with nothing to look at but 3m high hedges on both sides. But eventually, we arrived in the lovely town of Merida, where Sara and I discovered that the bathroom in our hotel room was so small that you had to lift the toilet seat to be able to open or close the door - apparently they'd worked out what could fit in there based on a seatless toilet! - which made every trip to the bathroom a little adventure.

We ended up having dinner that night on the roof of the hotel to say goodbye to Suit Pants, who was leaving us the next day to head back to Guatemala and lead his very own tour group. And then I went crazy and decided that what I really needed to do - when in Mexico, and all that - was drink Corona. And it was gross.

Please ignore my residual sunburn from Belize.

Next up, my best and worst days ever. Plot twist: IT'S THE SAME DAY.

K xx