The hills were high and almost enclosed the small bay, with colourful buildings perched on the side. The town was literally at the end of the pier so it wasn't far to walk to get into the action. Action is what we got as we were set upon once again by hungry Mexican's who thought it was pay day now that a big cruise ship had pulled into town. We fought them off with a stick again until we got clear then decided what we wanted to do, or more to the point, who we wanted to do it with as we had already discussed we wanted to go over the hill to another small town called La Crucesita (means small cross).
We chose our taxi guide who would be able to take all 5 of us and give us an hours tour at the end, all for $10 each. The same sort of tour from the ship would cost around $50 each. He also gave us a running commentary on the economic state as well as a bit of history on the area. He thought is was a safe area with very low crime rate. Driving around it was very clean and well maintained & green. He took us to the rich area with the gated estates & palatial homes, then on request he took us to the end of town with the poorest of the poor living in shanty shacks & exisiting on the streets but all seemed to have big smiles & they looked happy.
Over the hill at La Crucesita was a quiet town with the main shopping built around a large green square with a 19th centuary church on one of the sides. Inside it had a magnificently painted ceiling which looked amazing. Taxi driver said it took 9 months to paint as it was a special paint & they could only paint at night.
We wandered around the shops for a bit, not much to buy but we did come across a market which had a few trinkets worthwhile. We did see the most exquisite hand embroidered clothes & these little carved wooden animals they are famous for, just in this area, called alebrijes. Good luck pronouncing that one. They are also well known for their black pottery. I saw & bought a peice that took my eye but much to the regret of Malcolm, he didn't, thinking there would be some more at the next stop (there wasn't).
Almost the best part was waiting for the taxi driver at the designated spot which was at a bar that sold Coronas, 2 for $3 plus you get a large bowl of tortilla chips & salsa to go with it.
Back to Huatulco, he dropped us off to wander at will. By now the touters had settled down a bit so we could walk relativley unimpeded. We did sit down at a beach front (really beach front as the chairs sunk into the sand) resturant to have lunch but Shirene got a migraine so didn't eat what she ordered, I think Mum didn't like hers, Jon just went back to the ship leaving just Malcolm & I to have a rather unremarkable lunch but in a very pretty place.
Huatulco was once a haven for pirates & saliors traveling from the Far East & now is a small port town for very few cruise boats, they would only get approx 9 in a season which is why their eyes must light up when one pulls into town. It is on the western side of Mexico, on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca (O - ha-car) & with its jagged coastline, 9 bays of pristine beaches & 30 deg crystal clear sea it was a perfect little port to set down for the day.
That night, back onboard ship, the captain warned us to get everything off the balcony as we would be passing a bay that was notorious for high winds. We gaily went off for dinner then decided to watch the show we weren't going to watch & thought we had plenty of time to take the washing off the balcony before going to bed. When inside the depths of the ship you don't notice what is happening outside, apart from the occasional roll you would think you were on land. It wasn't until we left the theatre & saw all the doors to the outside deck were roped off, the flash of lightening & the howl of the wind did we think there may be a bit of a storm brewing. By the time we got back to the cabin the wind was really howling through the outside doors and in our cabin it was so loud we could hardly hear the other talk. Jon had gone back earlier so had rescued what washing was left on the line & it seemed the only casualty was a sock, the rest was strewen over the balcony or wrapped tight around our little makeshift line we had rigged up. Shirene wasn't so lucky & lost a couple of pairs of knickers & some hankies, never to be seen again. It was an incredible storm with frequent lightening strikes but it was the howling of the wind that really made it seem severe. Apparently it was 50 knots.
The next morning all was quiet & the missing sock was found lying in the gutter surrounded by water. Yay, all was well.
Tuesday 8th October
Another early start, another early room service breakfast & general quizz to see what they had forgotten this time (the orders were never right, they would forget at least one thing & sometimes double up on others). We cruised into the narrow bay of Puerto Chiapas (Chee - app - ers), spun the huge boat on her axis so nose & tail narrowly missed each side, well at least thats what it looked like, and was docked by 7.45am. Our plan today was similar to the day before which was to find a taxi for the day to take us on a 5-6 hr tour. There is not much at this port, no town or restaurants, just a couple of buildings & a car park. The nearest main town was Tapachula, approx a 40 min drive away. The main building was shaped like a big pyramid made with a thatched roof. We were greated by musician & dancers on the large docking pier & inside were more dancers in the sunken square floor in the middle of building which had a high ceiling & shops all around which looked very tempting.
This port was more organised than we had thought it would be as the Americans seem to have taken over & had tour vans & taxis at the ready, all with regulated pricing so you know you weren't going to get ripped off. We chose one company that seemed ok & Jon negotiated from $45 to $40 p/h since there was 5 of us which filled up half the bus. The rest was made up of 4 Norwegians, a couple of Germans & an endogenous character, think she was female but very manly & as it turned out a complete pain in the arse. She seemed to get in the way of everyone and was completly oblivious to it. Like she/it would stand right in front of the attraction the guide was talking about with her big umbrella over her short shoulders, blocking the entire view from anyone else.
Anyway, we had a nice guide, he was a young Mexican student named Alan, studing Tourism at the local uni and spoke great English. He was a ball of knowledge, covering subjects from political history, ecomony and ancient history going back beyond the Maya's as well as covering their rule.
The countryside was very lush, overgrown & green, lots of rain one would assume, with crops of Cocoa & mango trees & some fields of corn as well as bananas & soy. Further away were two large volcanos that dominated the skyline. It was at the foot hills of these volcanos that the coffee was grown. The country is prone to earthquakes, some really major like an 8.2 in recent times but there are small shakes most days according to him.
The first and most important stop, was to see the process of chocolate making, since this was the birth place of the worlds most important commodity. We drove up a driveway surrounded by Cocoa trees just dripping with pods. Lucky we were the first ones there so had the place to ourselves for awhile. We were hearded under a thatched roof which had a row of seats, a table with archaic chocolate making implements & a big tabletop open BBQ with beans roasting on the top. We had a little welcoming song from the old chocolate maker woman who looked about 100 in the shade. She also looked a bit like a Maori & the traditions were simaler including flax basket weaving. She sung the song first in Aztec then Spanish. Alan translated it for us, it was some sort of religious welcome.
Then our guide chose a chocolate King & Queen by asking questions & the first person to get it right won! Well who else would win but Shirene & Malcolm?! And a lovely couple they were too. I'm not sure what other honour this came with except Jon volunteering the 'Queen' to step in when a volunteer was asked from the audience to pound some cocoa beans. Our guide translated what the demonstrator was telling us about the process.
First he belted a pod, opened it up to revel lots of beans, about the size of a broad bean, covered in a milky white substance. We were each given a bean to suck but not to bite or chew. It was an interesting flavour, not unpleasant neither was it strong. These are then washed (sometimes they aren't washed, to give a different flavour), dried then roasted over this big BBQ for 10 -15 mins, stirring all the time.
Next it's taken to a large, flat morter & pestle, the pestle being more like a rolling pin. The husks are crushed off the bean then blown away with a couple of puffs to reveal the inside bean. At this point we were invited to eat the bean which had a bitter, raw chocolate taste to it. Then it was crushed with the morter & pestle, (this is where the drama Queen.......oops sorry, meant Chocolate Queen, came into her own). This made a thick paste to which the different flavours can then be added such as, cinnamon, peanuts, almonds or whatever. We then had a taste of the end product. It was not like cadburys and wouldn't be to everyones taste but I quite like that raw, bitter flavour of the purest chocolate you can get, no additives or preservatives here. They also put a chunk in a jug with hot water, mixed it with a claw footed stick and poured it into these little painted pottery cups & handed it around. It was the most delicious hot chocolate I have tried. We of course consequently bought some chocolate & little cups to experience this at home & to help the local economy.
Next stop was at the ancient Mayan Archaeological Izapa ruins site (E-zappa) which was just down the road. This attraction is on private land although the Government pay for it's maintenance. I can't remember how old these ruins are but the figure of 10,000 BC comes to mind and there is some dispute from the archaeological world what the purpose of it was. One side thinks it was to do with religion & the other side thinks it was for studying astronomy. Whatever it was for, they are not doing any more excavations to find out more, just keeping it maintained for now. They were interesting ruins and you can climb all over them to your delight, none of this roped off stuff you get in Europe.
There are several mounds, built from stones & shaped in a square & terraced upwards, bit like a pyramid, with stairs leading up from two sides. Artefacts were scattered around, some stones had little roofs over them to protect the glyphs from the weather. Just down the road, but we didn't see it, were more stone carvings, one depicting the Mayan Tree of life. This shows the circle of life & was responsible for the world thinking it was going to end on 12/12/12. Now what they are saying was it was just the end of one of the cycles and we are now in the 5th & last cycle, due to end in 60 odd years. What happens then is any domesday guesser.
Our guide spent quite some time explaining the life & rituals of the Mayans & the significance of this site, almost none of it was retained by me except the odd bits & peices. One being how they used the cocoa beans as a currency and it cost 500 cocoa beans to buy a prostitue for the night. I can't see the sense of using something that is grown in your back yard for currency. Talk about money growing on trees! The value would surely only be to the people who couldn't grow them & they were growing as far as the eye could see. Admittedly I had heard the Aztecs used chocolate as currency & I always wondered how that would work. The other bit I remembered is how they were very advanced astronomers and to save their neck getting a crick in it while star gazing, they carved stone baths, filled it with water and studied the reflection. Seems tedious to me, there would have to be no wind or clouds. How they got to be so advanced is a mystery.
On another note, it is still very hot but the heat is more like the Gold Coast in January/February, very humid & sticky but if you can stand out of the sun it is bearable. The persperation still trickles down your back & face & arms & it's around 30 - 32 deg but we are more use to this kinda heat.
Our last stop of the day was in Tapachula city. It was very brief, one of our stick in the mud Germans just wanted to go back to the boat so we just got a taste of it. He showed us an old whitewashed church then we were given 40 minutes of free time so M & J & I took off down the street to see what we could. The streets were crowded, a protest was going on at city hall, something about teachers not being paid enough (seems this happens all over the world) and there was a market in the big square. Apparently it's this chaotic every day of the week. There were lots of street vendors selling things from coconut juice which they gave you in a plastic bag, tied a knot & stuck a straw thru (it was very yummy & ice cold) to tacos, cakes, cream horns, fried & honeyed coconut balls, pastries, corn cobs & bags of sweet things. There are only so many hands to hold things & we did the best we could with what we had to work with & the small amount of time to work in but it was only a taste of the city, we would have liked to have spent more time in it.
The roads around the city were so bad. There were big & I mean BIG potholes in the main streets, one was so large they piled up old tyres in it so nobody or vehicle would fall in! I kid you not. Some men were working on a patch of road & hard labour it was, breaking up the road with a pick axe & shovel in the searing heat. So we bumped & jumped our way, through the heavy traffic back to the boat. After another hour of purusing the little shops there, we were ready to sail away for the next port.
Another full day at sea today after yet another lightening storm last night before we pull into Costa Rica bright & early tomorrow. We are splitting into two and going on different tours so that will be interesting to compare at the end of the day.
Another great blog. Hardly need the photos as your descriptions are so vivid.
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