And so we set off on our long coach journey. We were travelling in style - executive class!! Which basically meant that on our coach we had seats that could recline (into the lap of the person sat behind) and we had the choice of a bottle of water or can of soda.
TC and I luckily managed to get seats two rows from the front, I popped my travel sickness tablets (Since India I find I get travel sick quite easily) and we watched the first episode of Broadchurch that I had downloaded on my iPad, as a distraction whilst the pills kicked in.
If you've never seen Broadchurch I would highly recommend it. We were completely hooked from the start and forty five minutes later totally frustrated I hadn't downloaded the next episode, so we settled back in the coach to sleep.
All was quiet and whilst I didn't feel sick I did feel wide awake - the sophomoric effect of the pills hadn't kicked in yet and my safety belt was pressing on my full bladder, so I decided to carefully make my way to the toilet at the back of the coach.
It was quite a difficult manoeuvre bearing in mind everyone was asleep, some half hanging out of their chairs into the aisle as the coach made its way along a very, very windy motorway. But I managed to make it to the tiny little cubicle at the back, (over the rear tyres), and I closed the door behind me, only to face my biggest challenge yet: I was finally able to get my trousers down without knocking myself unconscious on the sink as I was being thrown from side to side while the coach picked up speed along the very, very windy road! I then had to draw on what little strength I had in my core stability muscles as I sat down and was flung from left to right with each lurch as the coach avoided the pot holes on it's way along the very, very windy road and all the while trying to hold down the sickness that was now desperately starting to rise up from deep within my belly!
Luckily I passed the challenge and returned to my seat safe (and dry). I sat down next to TC munching away on her sandwich and hoped the nausea would pass and I'd be able to fall asleep.
Drowsiness finally overtook me and after a long sleep broken by moments of waking up panicked that the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and we were heading for the edge of the cliff, we arrived ten hours later at our final destination.
It was 7:30am and we were in San Christobal in the state of Chiapas.
We were allowed an hour to recover from the rather harrowing road trip before gathering in the hotel lobby where Neil took us out for our orientation walk. First stop - the laundry!!
The town we were in was lovely but for the most part very cold ( we were still in high altitude) and extremely geared up for tourists, resulting plenty of cafés, bars, restaurants and shops! And most important of all, a huge market, perfect for my holiday shopping addiction.
However, TC and I were in agreement, shopping would have to wait and we hurried back to the hotel room to watch episode two of Broadchurch! (We have expressed concern that this new addiction may get in the way of our trip!!)
After a group dinner at one of the local restaurants we were taken to the local theatre to watch a 'dance performance' with 'amazing light and sound effects' about one of the ancient Mayan Kings. His name was Pakal and he came to the throne at the age of 12 around 650 BC.
The play funnily enough, was called Pakal. The performance quite amateur with the actors often not standing in their lights, the lights often came on late anyway and as for the dancing, well Craig Reval Horwood would have had a field day followed by a heart attack! The story, as I understand, kind of goes as follows:
Pakal was king of Palenque, he had a few sons, he was an arrogant King, he thought he was the sun, the moon and the stars - oh and the heavens and the earth etc... He pissed off a neighbouring tribe, they argued over the Jaguar God, (the jaguar is highly revered over here), there was a ball game between the sons and the other tribe, Pakal's team won, Pakal castrated himself by way of a sacrifice to the gods, he died telling everyone yet again that he was the sun, the moon and the stars oh and the heaven and the earth etc... The end.
My verdict: great costumes.
Friday was a day off from seeing the sights ... TC and I shopped, then watched another episode of Broadchurch (it really is addictive) both of us now completely hooked and having deep conversations about it with others in the group whether they've seen it themselves or not - or for that matter even heard of it.
Later on that eve, after an early dinner we all assembled at the Salsa bar, geared up and ready to 'Rock and Roll'!!
It doesn't matter how many hundreds of temple steps one may have climbed in a week, it still doesn't make you any fitter for a salsa class led by a Mexican with skinny legs, malleable hips, excellent footwork and a sense of rhythm that would make Craig Revel Horwood look like a complete amateur. Within ten minutes I was ready to pass out! That was the best Salsa lesson I have ever had!!
An hour and a half later, feeling completely parched we made our way to the revolution bar, where I devoured a plate of Nachos and drank plenty of beer - to rehydrate of course!?
Whilst standing at the bar and waiting and waiting for the drinks (the saying out here is, "It'll be two minutes - a Mexican two minutes".) I got chatting to a guy from Wales and he joined us at our table. Turns out he is a Neuro scientist from Cardiff University doing research into Huntington's Disease. His work is really quite fascinating - even though I may not have understood half of it - but when a couple of us asked him if he did dissections and experiments, the blood drained from his face and he looked at us with open eyes, "oh my god" (Welsh accent) "You're not a group of animal rights activists are you? I'm not really supposed to talk about my work like this you know, seriously are you?" We smiled at him and shook our heads. "Oh god." He said. "You are aren't you?" I looked at him teary eyed and told him that I really wasn't, but that I was a vegetarian!
No comments:
Post a Comment