OR, FLYING FREE AGAIN JUST FOR THE DAY. MAKING DECISIONS AWAY FROM TULUM.
Been very unsure what to do next. Return to UK where my new house is finally ready, or go to Oaxaca or Veracruz. Both are far and really need to been part flight from either Merida or Chetumal. So I went for the second time yesterday to the french patisserie to work. It was a stroke of luck. Not only is Giles, who works there a like minded (we had a long political chat), but he came up with a site for me to visit that I’d never heard of, Ek Balam. The site of the pyramid of the angels. Thank god, a decent bit of nearby archaeology.
OR THE OLD BIRD GETS PUSHED TO HER LIMITS BY GOING UP AND DOWN SHEER MOUNTAIN TRACKS .
Returning from that hellish winding mountain track I could afford to fool around
I arrived in Tehuacán exhausted and burnt out and had done nothing for days once I found the museums and site which I specifically travelled here for were all closed. I had allowed myself a meltdown, a collapse if you will. I had stayed in my room just sneaking out for food and drinks. I was absolutely broken. Then as usual, I shook myself down and got myself a sort of improvised tour.
Armando Pacheco and his shelter for writing at night and entertaining tourists staying for the stars.
ZAPOTITLAN SALINAS
Reception told me that the guide knew the area well and just because the gardens were closed there were plenty of other paths with exactly the same types of flora. The botanical gardens were just a more tarted up area of the same old, same old. As it transpired they were right so I got myself a bus and headed out of town to Zapotitlan. As soon as I got on that bus I was straight back into adventure mode, my agoraphobia melted and I was ready for action. The bus driver dumped me at the edge of the road and I walked back to the Zapotitlan letters in a mist of fine powder and exhaust smoke.
I’d spent three days in Peubla and had the luck of one museum open and had gone to Cholula and found and excellent museum there. I had walked my tootsies off there and in Oaxaca at Monte Alban, and at Mitla getting to the prehistoric cave paintings on the tops of the mountains there. I had walked climbed and bussed everywhere. I had eaten rather poorly with food that didn’t really agree with me and had been generally burning the candle at both ends. I had stressed a lot and so slept badly. It was bound to end in tears and those tears would be mine.
View from hotel window
Alert: Now I suffer from epilepsy. I take tablets for it each day but have long since run out of medication, so when I feel off colour now I have been jittery. Although this has happened before while travelling, I weaned myself off them when I saw that I was running low, I had never really got a handle on whether I really needed them. I’m happy to try to be as little interfered with by the pharmaceuticals nowadays but with stress and fatigue comes the mals. Or so I thought. So far I have been without warning symptoms but I am trying to keep an eye on not getting too tired and freaked. (Of course I never listen to my own advice). However the odd thing about it is that when in lockdown in Soho I suffered many petit mals in a row over the course of a few days when I felt fearful and terribly depressed. I was scared to go upstairs in case I crashed coming down and killed myself. This was while I was taken my tablets like a good girl but the HUGE mountain of stress that was of a more frightening kind made me sweep back into epilepsy days again. I have had travelling stress but it must be very different, as I am without any medication for over two weeks now and have had none of the dramas that I had in London. (There surely is a study on this somewhere? Different types of stress and effects on the body and brain). Hopefully now I can stop depending on any medications now only my daily mineral supplements and vitamins. This would be great, and an achievement. I hasten to add this was by accident and I’m not suggesting you do this. Be as safe as you can but I do want to say that maybe travelling, investigating the world and being generally free can be better for your health than anything.
First, they spray a sheet of positively charged ‘nano-glass’ called electrostatic spraying (sometimes with chemicals and sometimes without), then they aerosol the entire plane with the active nano-particle chemicals (as shown on the websites above), which are said to self-replicate for up to 10 days after application, only they are using the chemicals between every single flight, and in some cases all night long for 8 hours straight. Traveler’s then board the plane just 60 minutes after application.
OR, LITERALLY WERE CUT OFF. THE ROAD WAS CLOSED AND I OFFICIALLY WAS ON A DESERT ISLAND
The last farewell.
You know it’s been raining here more or less non stop? Well now, the day I was supposed to leave, there is a massive storm. I was woken in the night by explosive bangs and flashes and the sound of torrential rain. I went to my door and the display was awe inspiring. I managed a video but really wasn’t concerned about leaving in the morning, surely this Biblical deluge would be spent by eight when my collectivo would pick me up. As I sit here still in my Punta Allen hotel room, with explosives bangs every five seconds or so, I realised that, as usual, I was overly optimistic.
Flooded road.
The wind has also picked up now as well as rumbling. Hurricane coming?
OR A NICE HOTEL AND A BIT OF A CALM DOWN AFTER POXY PALENQUE. Alert: Posting this hurriedly, had a dramatic fall, bash and crash in my studio on Sunday so have been busy with […]
Although I had had a great time in the museums with the magnificent jade masks the day before, I had also had a drama at the bank after, and a miserable, bad dinner in the evening. I had drank the last of my six pack in my fluorescently lit room and felt glum and anxious about the following day. I was to be pleasantly surprised however.
An hour up the road with the collectivo is Edzna. Without Lariza at my hotel, I wouldn’t have known anything. She was excellent for the proper local information and knew exactly where to get what, and what was open. The other shitheads were full of false info. Despite the hotel being eccentric, she was my rock.
OR MY FABULOUS JOURNEY TO COBA JUST AN HOUR AND A HALF FROM TULUM.
Ball court with ring clearly still intact.
Well what a surprise. Just an hour an a half up the road is Coba and a site that takes your breath away. As usual I had a total fiasco going there but I’ll get to that later. Coba is a jewel and as always it’s best to get there relatively early. I saw about fifty people around this very stretched out monumental site until I was leaving and then coach loads were coming in.
Old Bird Travels Solo! 