¡México, aquí yo vengo!

Hey!

I’m now back in Norway, and I know my entire trip hasn’t been blogged. Question is: Are you still reading this? Should I blog more?

If NO: Fine.
If YES: Which language? I’d really love writing in Norwegian, since many of my readers are struggling a bit the English version.

(E det nån som enda læs bloggen? Skal eg fortsætte å klodre på den? I såfall, ska det være på Norsk eiller Ængelsk?)

Answer as a comment, and I’ll consider that a vote.
(Svar som kommentar, så tæll det åsså som èn stæmme)

-Jåddi

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

Sunday 07.

I decided it was time for the young bird to leave the nest, so I started packing immediately when I woke up.
After breakfast I went online to check when the busses were leaving. The time was then 9:57, and I discovered that the bus for Merida left at 10:30. In other words, I was all of a sudden in a hurry!
Carlos had given me a route to follow down to San Cristobal, the city where I planned to have my next “long” stay. It was like this: Cancun – Merida – Ciudad del Carmen – Palenque – San Cristobal, and then I would have to figure out the way back later somehow.

After throwing my things into the back of the car, saying hasta luego to the family, and driven like maniacs to the bus-station, I was now standing next to the ticketbooth.
You would think at least some of the people working with tickets spoke English, but no. Fair enough. After a brief moment of throwing my arms around, counting on fingers and pointing at the lady’s monitor, she finally found the right tickets for me. When she asked for my name, and I told her, she just squeezed the keyboard out of the booth, and made me write it in myself. Heh…
As I handed her the money for the ticket, I noticed that she only had 1 arm. The other was just a stump, but when she was counting up the change to pay me back, she held them with it! I was so amazed with the stump-action that I almost forgot to accept the money!

Well underway on the bus trip to Merida, I noticed military guard posts everywhere. Armed and everything, with pictures of wanted people and cars on a board inside the post. I would not like to have my face on that wall!. However, I learned from the locals that there’s no need to worry about the military, because they are the loyal, proud, friendly guys. The police, however, are NOT. Nice to know!
I was interrupted in my thinking by one of the in-trip-entertainment-videos on the bus. It was mexican “Animal Planet”, and this episode was about a Norwegian penguin(!). I grinned by myself in my seat, and wanted to shout out “that’s where I’m from! I’m Norwegian!”, but didn’t. It’s the thought that counts, right?

I had arranged to meet a CS’er in Merida, but I couldn’t get in touch with him. I had, however, written down his adress, and the adress for a Hostel in case I didn’t find him.
The streets in Merida are calle (street) numbers, and house numbers on each street. I found the street, and headed in the direction of the house numbers, and started counting.
By the time I had about 110 houses left on the street, I met a wall. Literally! There was no more calle 57!
Now what? I had been walking around in the melting heat for about 45 minutes, and with Merida being the hottest city in Mexico, that was no easy task!
This being on a Sunday, there were no one around to ask. The entire area was like a ghost-town. Suddenly a taxi came around the corner. He stopped, I asked him how much to drive me to the address I was looking for. 150 pesos, he said. I thought it was a bit much, so I told him I’d rather walk back to find the hostel, and stay there. When he heard that, he said “Ok! 30 pesos, I’ll take you to the hostel”. Opportunist people, the
Mexicans

5 Minutes later, I was at the hostel. It is located just off the city square with a really good view from the second floor. I payed the manager 100 pesos (en fæmtilapp) for 1 night, including a fresh towel every day, a lock to borrow for a metal-closet-thing to store your things, breakfast with fresh fruit and as much other things as you could eat. (Gjedd førr pængan!)

Every sunday in Merida, there is a “festival” on the city square, and there was a big stage with a band playing, and hundreds of people dancing everywhere in a closed-off street next to it. Just next to the street, on the square, there were all sorts of stands and artists doing their thing with lots of people standing around. Everything from eight breakdancers battling eachother to spray-paint-artists and clown acts. Amazing! And, besides, watching shows in Mexico is easy if you’re one head taller than everyone else!
In the hostel, i met Phil, and we had a few really rewarding conversations about life (the universe and everything).

I fell asleep that night after listening to two other guys on my room speaking french to eachother…

-Jåddi

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

Friday 05

Carlos had dissapeared early with the car, so me and Sandra were more or less stranded at home, which I didn’t mind, because I wanted some time to write my blog anyway. When he got back, the three of us and their mother went to this little local restaurant. They had no menu, but the waitress carefully explained the dishes to us. In Spanish… Luckily, Sandras English is more than good enough to translate!

We ordered chicken soup, which didn’t contain a single piece of chicken, only the essence… Kind of how Gin tastes like christmas-tree-extract, and is easier to drink than a tree. Smart… Who needs solid food anyway, right? Melon-juice is greatly underestimated! It has all the flavour and ingredients of a honey melon, but you can put ice in it, and it’s f*****g amazing! Then there was this giant chili, filled with meat and then fried. It was ok…

After dinner, they dropped me an Sandra off at some shopping mall, and we went to Starbucks. I had never been in a Starbucks before, since that place doesn’t exist in Norway, as far as I know.
Then my belly thought it would be great to stop doing it’s job for a while, and give me a hard time for the rest of the day, then I bought a camera and then I bought a T-shirt. Cool.

Later that night it started raining for a little more than an hour. Actually, rain is a very kind word… (Det regna smaasei, for aa sei det mildt!) We ended up more swimming than walking from the sidewalk to the car. No need telling how bad the drainage in that city is :S

Saturday 06

When I woke up, me and Sandra went for water and some fresh orange juice, which you buy in plastic bags directly after being pressed! In other words: Tine Premium, ta deg en bolle! I was in a good mood until I was getting out of the car and I accidentally dropped the camera I bought the night before on a stone in the garden outside their house. It still works, but now there’s a little piece of camera missing.
That’s what you get for beeing jolly around here :/

Later, Carlos and his friend Miguel took me to a beach called El Mirador, which is where a bunch of turtles come to hatch their eggs, and is also where their youg meet the ocean for the first time. Cool.
We hung out there for a while, and took some pictures, before we got hungry and decided to go for food.

Where I work, we sometimes watch this show on TV during lunch about some old geezer eating his way through Italy. He is stuffing the hole under his majestic mustache with all kinds of cheese and ham in every episode, and then moves on to some new place. Slowly it accurs to me that this is exactly what I’m doing in Mexico, more or less! In the hotel zone of Cancun, there is a chinese restaurant that has an all-you-can-eat-for-10-bucks-buffet. Lovely! The food was delicious, and they had all kinds of weird stuff you could try.

Fat and happy, we went to play some pool with a bunch of Carlos’ friends, and when we went to a pub afterwards, we witnessed Mexico in tears when they lost an, apparently, very important footballmatch. (Soccer, for those who wonder. Soccer is like religion here, and you can see soccer fields everywhere with all kinds of people playing almost at any hour of the day).

Daniel left with one of the girls, and told me and Carlos that he would be back for us later. We had parked the car somewhere else, and he was going to drive us back to it.
This, however, didn’t happen. We tried contacting Daniel, but with no luck. After waiting for a little longer, we decided to take a taxi. Cheap: Check! Squeeky sounds: Check! Wobbling rear wheel: Check! In other words, a perfectly normal taxi-ride in this country.

At least they all have more or less the same colors!

-Jaaddi

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

Thursday 4th.

I never stop being amazed by the food these people eat, and of course I have to try everything…
When I joined the family for breakfast, they served me papaya with honey, topped with some unorthodox type of cottage cheese on top. When I got used to the taste, it was great! Really fresh and juicy. Marisol, Sandras friend, showed up by the end of the meal, and she handed out beer-logo-caps and keyrings for me and Nate, which we immediately put on and strolled around in the house, making sure that anyone around would HAVE to buy either of the two brands.

Later we went to the beach, and splattered around for a while before me and Carlos decided to go for a run along the beach. He wanted to show me a mayan ruin a bit away from the area we were sitting.
The ruin, however, was more or less just a pile of rocks on a sandy hill, but I was happy as a clam, because I hadn’t seen one before! We then ran back to join the others, and decided to go for some food. And I didn’t get burned! (knock on wood)

After the swimming and running, we got hungry, and the siblings wanted to show us one of the good local places. It was a little restaurant that served fish-tacos! I bought one with shrimp and another with fish. All fried in oil. Amazing food! Probably not good for any part of my body, but it tasted damn good!

Nate had an afternoon plane, so he had to split. Me and Carlos drove him to the airport, and said goodbye, and decided to go to the park, since we had nothing particular to do.
The vendors around the park sold all kinds of local delicasees, like ices and corndogs etc, but I didn’t buy anything. All of a sudden, a remarkably slow old man  with a helmet on his head showed up. He was selling overpriced little caramels. On top of that, Carlos said, he never gives back change if you overpay, so you run the risk of paying 500 pesos (250kr) or more for a caramel! And what if that happens? You just don’t run after the poor old fart to fight for your money back… right?

Later that night I had just dozed off in one of the beds there when Sandra woke me up.
She told me that we had to go to a CS-meeting in a local pub. Now!
If you ever saw the movie “Yes Man” that was exactly how I felt. Every cell in my body wanted to sleep, and I wanted to say no, but there I was. Dressed and ready for beer. Just say YES!

It all turned into a nice evening. We stayed at that pub with everyone for a couple of hours. They serve strange beer-drinks in this country. Like the Michelada with mango, which is basically beer, chili, mango and some salty chili-powder on the rim of the glass. Not bad, actually! When we left, Sandra informed me that half of all the guys on our table were gay, and asked if I didn’t notice that. Let’s just say that I have no radar for those guys what so ever…
Afterwards we went for a 3-for-1 beer-thing in another pub, and there was this kickass coverband playing with a female singer! OH MY GOD @ her voice! I caught myself just sitting on my chair with my mouth open at several times.

The pinnacle of the night was, however, the “taco de carne con queso” that I had afterwards.
It backfired the next day. Violently…

I guess it can’t hurt to keep my guard up when it comes to food from now on…

-Jaaddi

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

Wednesday June 3rd.
I was still dealing with jetlag-recovery when Nate, the other CS’er, tried to wake me up to go to the Chichen Itza around 6:30am. It’s good to be ambitious, but one should know his limitations! In other words, he failed, and I got to sleep another hour. Suddenly, the phone rang. “Unknown caller” it said. I thought it might be the guys I have arranged to meet here to travel with later, so I picked up the phone. The voice on the other end was female: “Hallo? Joern Inge Henriksen? Jeg ringer fra ett-eller-annet-telefonselger-firma og jeg vil gjerne selge deg noe drit som du ikke trenger!” It was a phone-saleswoman. From Norway! The nerve of those guys…! I shared some discomforting words with her, knowing I had already paid a bunch just by picking up the phone, and I hung up while she was constantly jabbering about how sorry she was.
And now I couldn’t sleep any more. Might as well just get up. Seize the day, like they all talk about!

The day soon lived up to it’s potential! I joined Sandra by the living room table, and she asked if I was hungry. Before I had time to answer, she had already entered the kitchen, come back out and put a plate with lemon cake, a cup of espresso and freshly pressed orange juice in front of me! Now THAT’s what I call hospitality! There is a Norwegian word that pretty much sums all of that up: Plommen!
After eating and thanking her, we went to pick up Carlos from the gym. He was angry! They were arguing amongst themselves in the car, and I could only laugh. It’s hysterically funny to listen to angry mexicans! As long as they’re not angry with YOU, that is…

Later, I went to buy a little notebook to put all my impressions in, and then we went for sushi. Carlos, his sister Sandra and their mother. Daniel also joined us. This was actually my first encounter with sushi. (If you don’t count the disaster of the Rema 1000 make-your-own-sushi-crap I tried one Sunday as hangover-food in Bodoe.) I ordered K-rolls and Hawaiian Rolls, which was enough for me, but the others kept making me try all of their rolls as well, so I ended up bringing almost half of my food back to Nate in a doggy bag.

Next on the list was getting my hair cut. I went with Carlos and Daniel, but they got tired of waiting, and went to pick up a couple of señoritas instead. When I was done, I suddenly had something similar to a mohawk with purple ends and a white stripe going from front to back on one side of my head. I am alpha now! The others picked me up, and we went to see Angels and Demons in the cinema. Great movie! However, some of the scenes in the movie are with Italian voices, and with Spanish subtitles it didn’t really do me much good, but I got the point.

After the movie we met up with Nate and Sandra, and we went to buy some groceries to make a salad for the family, as a token of appreciation since they are kind enough to let us stay here. I should mention that Sandra and Carlos live with their mother and father, and they are all in on the CS-concept. I should also mention that there probably is no other family like this in the world! They opened their doors to me, a total stranger, gave me a bed to sleep in, a shower to use and last, but not least, opened their hearts! I wish I could speak more spanish, so that I could really tell them how much I appreciate this, but me and Nate decided to put it into action instead, and we made a meal for the family.
Pasta salad with bread, red wine and Sandras guacamole with nachos. Perfect! We spent a long time by the table, talking and laughing before we all went to bed.

If only more people in the world were like this family…

- Jaaddi

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

Que onda, lectores?

This is just a quick update, since I’m just using my friends sisters computer for a moment.
I’m currently in Cancun, so It goes without saying that I survived the flight. Barely…
15 hours of combines flight-time for a poor untravelled Norwegian is hard! I survived by completing an audiobook, laughing loudly at the in-flight Tom & Jerry cartoon, reading the flight-shop-list forward, backwards and upside down. 5 times… Oh, and extensively studying the info-monitor in the ceiling. It allowed me to keep constant track of just how long the trip was, and when I was flying over something cool, that I couldn’t see anyway because of the clouds. I managed to sleep AT LEAST 25 minutes on the plane, though!

However, like I said, I’m now currently in Cancun. I arrived here around 18:00 (a little past midnight in Norway), and took a shuttlebus to the city centre where I had agreed to meet Carlos, the guy I’m couchsurfing with right now. He came with his friend Daniel, and they greeted me heartily. We talked and laughed for a few minutes before we got in the car and left. We went to pick up Carlos’ sister and her friend Alejandro (no, not Fuentes). Nate, another couchsurfer also joined us there. Sandra, the sister, took my hand and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, which is somewhat unusual in Norway. It turned out that’s how girls greet you in this country! I can’t believe the warmth of these people! Everyone smiles, welcomes you and truly wishes you well. (Norway, you have something to learn from this country!)

We gathered again later, 7 of us, and went for PROPER tacos. I decided to pay for Carlos’ and Daniel’s meal, since they picked me up. It totalled to 200 pesos for 3 people, with drink and tips! (ca 100 kr)
We finished the evening at a bar with a drink called Chelada, which is basically beer with lemonade and salt on the rim of the glass. Really refreshing!
I went to bed around midnight (ca 07:00 norwegian time).
Jet lag is a bitch :/

More later,
Jaaddi

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

After the first post, a lot of my International friends requested that I write in English, but I’m not patient enough to do both. At least not yet…
From here on out, everything will be English. Happy now?
To those of you who simply does not understand this; ikke les mer nå. Det blir ikke lettere å forstå!
For the rest of you, enjoy!

-Jåddi

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

Ja, folkens. No brake det laus!
I årevis har eg tænkt at det e på tide å slite navelstrængen og kave meg hjælpeslaust ut i det store Utland. Aleina. Det e kanskje en klisjè, men dettan bli ailtså starten på den store finne-seg-sjøl-her-i-værdn-reisa som så mange begjer seg ut på.

I lys av denna idèen bestæmte eg meg førr at eg ville fære tell en plass så ulik, og ikkje minst langt vækk fra Norge, som muli. Valget falt på Mexico. Deinna gangen…
Eg har længe vært fascinert over ritualan, språket, naturn, de gamle sivilisasjonan og ikkje minst señoritas’an dær borte, så då va frøet planta.
Målan mine dær borte e rætt og slætt å lære seg litt språk, oppleve mexicansk kultur, natur og ikkje minst bli litt værdnsvant. Eg har ingen spesifikke plana, ainna så at eg ska ner og at eg ska heim ijæn.

Ætter det har eg stort sett lagt av litt pænga, og gjort unna litt research på Mexico, samt brukt en umasse tid på nætt førr å finne meg plassa å fære, og eillers gode råd og tips. (Sjækk ut www.couchsurfing.com. Et hærli genialt samfunn førr folk som reise overailt og telbyr kværandre plass å bo eller bære nån å træffe førr en kaffe etc.) Eg har åsså heve meg i gang med pakkinga, og akkorat no ser plan sånn her ut:

Mandag:
Pakke siste ræst, hive seg på et fly t Oslo på kvellinga og vente dær tell Tirsdagen kjæm. Kanskje sove i terminaln, kanskje på ett eller anna hotæll. Kanskje hos nån eg kjenne i Oslo, men det bi bære styr sia flye går så tili på tirsdagsmårraen.

Tirsdag:
Hive seg i fly tell Cancun via Amsterdam.
Eg lætte fra Amsterdam kl 12:45 og e framme i Cancun kl 16:50, nåkka som i mett hau sku bi rundt rægna ca 4 tima, men papiret begs to differ! “Reisetid 11 tima og 5 minutt” ska det ha meg tell å tru. Det har seg sånn at eg reise “med klokka” nerover, så eg må nok bære pent belage meg på at klokka kjæm tell å være 15:00 i minst tre tima på rad før den bekke seg mot 16:50 og adkomst.

Pakkelista:
- Yderst lite klea (skaffe det eg træng når eg kjæm nerover)
- Toalættsaker
- Anti-sjetta-tabelætta
- Febernersættanes tabelætta (jada, eg veit dæm ikkje funke mot svineinflænsa, men den ska ikkje eg ha. Men takk som byr…)
- Flybilætta
- Pass
- Førrsekringsbevis
- Nån sie med nødspansk eg printa ut fra ei sia på nætt. (Jæfft vess man må rope “stopp” på spansk tell en bil når du ser han hold på å kjøre deg ner, så kan man bære finne fram hæfte og leite fram ordet på no time!)
- Vaksine førr ailt muli svineri

Nåkka eg har glømt…?

Eg kjæm tell å klodre jævnli her vess eg får knota meg på nætt dær nere. Trur ikkje det ska bi nåkka problem, så det e bære å følle me!
Kjenne dåkker nån som kjenne meg, eller som bære e generellt interessert i Mexico, så må dåkker bære linke tell dåkker bi grønn i auan!

Buenas noches, amigos!

-Jåddi

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende