The next day we left the Caribbean coast for the last time and headed west to the ruins of Chichen Itza.
These are probably the most famous Mayan ruins and were recently voted as one of the seven new wonders of the world. The main attraction at the site is El Castillo, the Castle, a four sided pyramid that is perfectly aligned with the sun. Every spring and fall equinox the sun is aligned with a face of the pyramid and the shadows form a serpent slithering down the side. Directly north of the pyramid is a cenote, or water hole, and this is where the Mayans believed was the home of the rain god and sacrifices to the rain god were performed to prevent droughts. They have recovered over 30,000 remains at the bottom of the cenote and many more were destroyed beyond recovery. There are many other temples, buildings and carving throughout the site, including a huge ball court and an astronomical observatory that was used to calculate the position of El Castillo. After Chichen Itza we continued west to the city of Mérida, the largest city on the Yucatan. It was Sunday evening and the central park was alive
with live music and people dancing in the streets. The city has a very colonial Spanish feel and is home to the oldest cathedral in North America. We checked out the government building for the state which was full of huge beautiful murals which told the history of the Yucatan in a compelling way. We also found a theater near the center park that was providing a free concert. We watched several members of the Mérida orchestra perform popular older Mexican music. After the concert we caught an overnight bus south and out of the Yucatan.
The bus arrived in the town of Palenque the next morning and I had managed to get some sleep, despite the frigid temperatures on the over air-conditioned bus. We checked into hostel that was situated in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by trees and streams chock full of rain water. We headed to the nearby ruins of Palenque which is known as the most beautiful of the Mexican Mayan ruins. The ruins were situated atop a group of hills in the lush jungle and were mostly built by a king who reigned for 69 years and his son. Most of the temples were actually burial locations for rulers and important members of Palenque and one of them contained an empty sarcophagus that was open to the public. The main attraction was a large Palace that contained a tower unlike any other Mayan ruin. There was also a stream diverted by the Mayans through the city that flowed off the hill in a beautiful waterfall.
The next day we went to a couple of waterfalls outside of Palenque. The rain that continued to come down had turned them into huge torrents of water. The first was a single impressive drop and you could walk behind the waterfall if you didn't mind getting completely soaked by the spray. The second was known as Agua Azul, Blue Waters, but the rain had turned it into Agua Chocolate. It was a series of powerful cascades that were almost overflowing. I walked the path that followed along the river and the cascades and rapids continued for 2 or 3 kilometers. There was a Mayan village along the path on the other side of the river and I watched as a group of kids used a little tram hooked up to a cable to pull themselves across the fast moving river, the only way to access this village. The end of the path came to a beach with a view of the river bursting out of a narrow canyon. I tried to follow a faint path through the jungle to find a better view of the canyon but it disappeared after about 15 minutes. We finished the day by arriving in the mountain town of San Cristobal de las Casas where we got soaked in the cold mountain air trying to find our hostel.
The next morning was still cloudy but no rain and I walked around the city. It was a very pretty colonial town and every time I turned a corner I ran into another church or park. This was the city that the Zapatistas took control of in 1994 and there are still signs of Zapatista support. I took a minivan to the nearby Mayan village of San Juan Chamul. This village was originally
Catholic but the traditional Mayan religious views transformed the church until it barred priests from coming and stopped holding Mass. The town is very serious about preserving its religion and will expel any villager that changes religion. There are local religious police and they dress in thick white wool coats for ceremonies. The wool coat is popular there because the sheep is one of the most common farm animals. I had to pay a fee to enter the church and was forbidden from taking any pictures. The church had no seats of pews and instead had a layer of pine needles on the floor. There were sculptures of many different saints throughout the room and most of them had rows of candles burning in front of them with villagers praying in front of them. Some of the interesting beliefs of the village include the belief that Christ never rose again and they have an image of him buried in a coffin. They also believe that the bubbles in Coke carry away sins and they use Coke in their religious ceremonies.
The next day I took a tour to the nearby Canyons de Sumidero. This was a river that ran through some incredibly high cliffs. Some of the cliffs towered a kilometre directly over the river. It was my first experience of cliffs this massive and it was awe-inspiring to say the least. My sense of perspective had trouble dealing with the massive distances and a soaring vulture that appeared to be high above the cliffs ended up being barely halfway up the side of the cliff. In addition to the canyons the river itself was also full of wildlife. We saw a number of crocodiles including a nest of about 50 baby crocodiles. We also saw a bunch of spider monkeys hanging out on the trees sticking out of the cliffs. At the end of the river is a huge 300 meter high hydroelectric dam that keeps the river deep and calm in the canyon rather than the rapids it used to be. The four dams on the river provide Mexico with 30% of its total electricity.
That night we took a night bus to the Pacific Coast and the town of Puerto Escondido. The first day we arrived we just relaxed and hung out on the beach enjoying the first little bit of sun that we had seen for a while. The next day we rented surfboards and tried our luck with the waves. The town is famous for it's big waves and we were not quite ready for them and were crushed pretty hard. Even so, it was probably the last time surfing for me for a while and I'll miss it.
We took another night bus to the city of Oaxaca. This city is famous for its chocolate, mezcal and revolutionary politics. In 2006 there were a number of violent protests and the police cracked down pretty hard on them. Now, however, things are much more peaceful but there are still protests going on. When we were there some teachers were holding a three day sit-in in the center plaza and were set up with tents and shelters. There were a lot of communist booths set up as well with the soviet sickle and pictures of Marx, Lenin and Stalin urging revolution. Other than this simmering tension the town was rather peaceful and there were plenty of parks, cathedrals and cafes. The chocolate making section of the city contains a number of chocolate factories and people handing out free samples.
The next day we headed to the city of Puebla, a large city with another pretty center plaza area and a church with an unbelievably brilliant gold altar. We then took a bus to the neighbouring city of Cholula to spend the night. We found a mountaineering hostel in the town because we were interested in climbing one of the three massive peaks in the area. Unfortunately the constant rain eliminating any possibly of making a trek, however it was interesting to talk to the guides at the hostel and I definitely want to come back and climb one of them. In the morning we took a tour of the city and visited a few of the 37 churches. One church is located directly on top of what appeared to be a large hill in the center of town but is actually a huge buried pyramid. The pyramid is the largest in the world by volume and is full of excavation tunnels that indicate a number of different groups have added to the temple. Some of the tunnels are open to the public and we spent a claustrophic half hour exploring them. The church at the top of the pyramid gave a great view of the city and the surrounding mountains.
would let us and we were slightly confused. Eventually a guard escorted us out and we noticed a whole bunch of police around the zócalo. About ten more vans full of police drove up and then 5 to 10 buses pulled up and a whole bunch of protesting miners poured out. They marched up to the government building and started chanting. They handed pamphlets out which showed their demands that the government recover buried miner's bodies and end the miner strikes. After we took the metro to the huge Chapultepec Park, home to a number of interesting museums. We went to the Mexican Zoo, which was free, and saw a bunch of cool animals such as panda bears, giraffes and my first jaguar in Latin America. We returned to the zócalo just in time for another protest, this one by the Zapatistas. They were draping signs on the government building demanding that the army leave Chiapas and the police came through in full riot gear and pushed the protesters away from the building. It was a tense situation but things didn't escalate.
The next day another group of us from the hostel returned to the park with the museums and went to the huge Archeology Museum. It is full of amazing artifacts from across Mexico including from the Mayan, Aztec and many other cultures. It is impossible to see the entire thing in one day but I was still amazed by some of the tombs of kings and stones statues. After we walked up one of the main streets in the city through the business section and saw the highest building in Latin America and a number of impressive statues, including the signature Angel of Independence. We then took the subway to Tlatelolco square. This used to be the second of the Aztec's twin cities and there are a number of ancient Aztec ruins here as well as a church that dates back to the time of Cortéz. But nowadays it is more well known as the site of one of Mexico's more recent massacres. In 1968 the Mexican government was trying to put on a good face for the '68 Olympics and were cracking down on protests. At Tlatelolco square the police started firing into the crowd and many people were killed. The news was supressed by the entire media and to this day nobody really knows why the police started firing or how many were killed but most people think it was 200-400 people.
The next day I had come down with Montezuma's Revenge, or in other words, diarrhea. It was the first time I got it since my travels began but I would have preferred to avoid it altogether. I spent the day just hanging around the hostel. Luckily there was a huge rock concert being held in the zócalo so I watched that for a while. There was also a huge protest where thousands and thousands of people marched miles long through the streets around the zócalo. It appears that there is never a quiet moment in the center of Mexico. Later in the evening I felt a bit better and went to the Lucha Libra. This is Mexican wrestling made famous by the movie Nacho Libre, where all the wrestlers have colorful masks and are highly acrobatic. It was a big night for the wrestling and the stadium was packed with fans. When everyone started chanting for a wrestler, you knew they were popular and when they booed they were unpopular. The show ended with a cage being set up and 10 wrestlers locked inside until all had climbed out but one. The entire show was entertaining and obviously extremely popular in Mexico.
The next morning we left Mexico City. I could have spent many weeks there and not have gotten bored because there was so much to see and do. It was much cleaner than I expected and I can definitely see myself returning again. The next city we headed to was Guanajuato, about 4 hours northwest of Mexico City. This was an old mining town and, even though it is now the capital of the state, the town still feels that way. The buildings go right up the side of the mountains and the streets are very crooked and narrow. The town is riddled with tunnels under and through the mountains were most of the vehicular traffic passes through. These arching tunnels look like they used to be mine shafts dug out of the stone. Above the tunnels, the city is full of gorgeous colonial buildings and the houses on the mountain sides are painted every colour of the rainbow. In the morning I was exploring the city and bumped into a parade going through the streets. There was bands playing and many different types of dancers including Aztec dancers, machete dancers and people with huge paper mache masks. After the parade I went to the Don Quixote museum. The town is famous for its annual Don Quixote festival and has statues of Don Quixote, Sancho Panchez and Miguel Cervantes. The museum holds a large collection of Don Quixote themed art from around the world including art from Dali and Ocampo. I also climbed one side of the city, through the twisting streets, to a huge statue which gave a great view of the city.
We continued west, passing by a huge statue of Christ on top of a mountain marking the geographical center of Mexico, and arrived at the city of Guadalajara. With four million people it is the second biggest city in Mexico. The cathedral in the zocalo was very impressive, with an interesting mix of neo-classical and gothic architecture. The government building was also interesting with a huge, very dark and disturbing mural that recounted the history of Mexico and another mural on the ceiling of the government congress. The next day we headed north along the Pacific Coast, first passing through the blue-green fields of agave in the town of Tequila, and finally arriving in Mazatlan, a beach town. We only spent a few hours in Mazatlan but saw the endless beaches and the numerous resorts. It was extremely popular resort for Americans in the 80's but now there are mostly Mexican tourists.
After Mazatlan we took a night bus to Los Mochis and immediately got on the morning CHEPE train. This train travels through the Copper Canyon and it's the only access to some parts of the canyon. The Copper Canyon is actually a group of different canyons formed by different rivers and in many places it rivals the Grand Canyon in size. The train moved very slowly and the first couple of hours it was only flat desert that we were crossing. Eventually we came to a long tunnel and emerged into the canyon. The vast canyon was amazing and there was brilliant blue water in the river. The train continued up the canyon, hugging the cliffs and passing through tunnel after tunnel. There were more than 100 in total. The scenery constantly changed from small tributary canyons with no sign of human habitation, to the bigger canyons where you could see for miles. The views were great but the train was very slow, so slow in fact that a baby was born on the train before we could make it to the nearest hospital! We got out at the small town of Divisadero. There is an amazing lookout from this town where three massive canyons meet. We were approached by a friendly local who invited us to stay in his cabanas. The cabanas were extremely comfortable and we were served dinner in his family's beautiful wood house. The next morning we set out early to go hiking in the canyon. We hiked along the rim of the canyon and were amazed at the views. 
Every corner opened up entirely new vistas and we often ended up on the top of massive cliffs overlooking the canyon. We went down the sides of the canyon when we could but we didn't have time to descend to the bottom of the canyon, thousands of feet below. We ran into a number of wood huts in the canyon but never any people. The only person I saw on the hike was an older Tarahumara Indian woman walking up a steep path. The Tarahumaras still live traditionally in the canyons and she had on an extremely colorful traditional dress on. All in all, it was the most impressive hike of my life.
We returned to Divisadero to catch the last bus to the town of Creel. Creel is the base most people use to explore the Copper Canyon. We stayed at a backpacker's hostel called Margarita's that offered an incredible deal. For only 8 bucks you had a place to stay, breakfast and dinner and they were good traditional meals as well. The next day we rented mountain bikes and headed out to see the sights around Creel. There are no massive canyons near Creel but there are plenty of valleys being farmed by the Tarahumara's and lots of rocks and pine trees that made biking easy and fun. The bikes were in excellent shape with great tires and shocks and it was endless fun jumping off rocks, sliding down hills and slaloming through the pine trees. We saw the Valleys of the Mushroom, Frog and Monk and each valley had rocks shaped like it name. We finally arrived at Lake Arareko which, with the rocks and pine trees, looked exactly like a lake in Northern Ontario. We returned to Creel down the highway and were exhausted when we got back.
The next day we decided to go camping at the bottom of one of the canyons and invited another guy from the hostel to come with us. We took a bus to the Urique River and were dropped off on the bridge. We made our way down to the bottom of the canyon and made good progress at the start. Then we ran into a narrow section of the canyons and the steep walls falling directly into the deep river stopped our progress. I managed to scale the rock walls with my stuff and get to the other side but the other two got stuck and had to retrace their steps and find a way up and over the canyon. While they were gone I found a great sandy camping spot with shade from pine trees and some small cascading waterfalls on the river. When they arrived we decided to set up camp for the night there and headed off down the river leaving our packs back at the campsite. We walked for about 3 hours up the canyon with towering cliff walls and not a single person or building to be seen. The only sign of civilization were the ample quantities of cow patties along the river. We did run across one lonely group of 3 cows getting a drink from the river. It was very hot but the river was refreshing to dip in. We returned to the campsite and I set up my hammock and the other two made a fire in the sand. The next morning we hiked back to the bridge and hitchhiked back to Creel.
We caught a bus directly to the city of Chihuahua in the afternoon. As we left the canyon we entered into the Chihuahuan desert, very flat with a few rocky mountains poking up. The flat areas were brought to life with irrigation and farmland stretched on and on. Many of the farmers in the area are Mennonites who came down from the US and Canada to escape military service. Chihuahua was very hot and dry but it was a pleasant city with many parks, beautiful buildings and museums. There was a rich sense of history as the city was the site of an exile government and the base for Pancho Villa during the Revolution in the early 1900's. We left Chihuahua the next day to head to the border city, Cuidad Juarez. It has far more than a million people and is one of the biggest cities in Mexico and combined with its companion city in the US, El Paso, it makes up one of the biggest border towns in the world. We decided to walk across to the US and headed across one of the bridges over the Rio Grande. The river was bone dry because so many people need the water for drinking and irrigation. The fence along the river was intimidating and there was a bunch of graffiti under the fence noting how many people have died trying to sneak across the border and other cries for an open border. Since we were Canadian we had no trouble crossing, they didn't even check our bags and we arrived in the United States of America.
