Videos of chenapans

Hello laydies and gentlemen,

we're now in the beautiful city of San Cristobal de las Casas.

We've put some new vidéos online that are quite nice:

one about the crazy carnival of VeraCruz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXmDduIH80A

one that shows our friend Yuri, who, I have to say, have an incredible voice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHg16UkSCe8

And more videos on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/chenapansvagabonds

If you want to see some few pictures from the last days of our trip,
you can go on the french blog:
http://chenapansvagabonds.blogspot.com

We're going to head towards Yucatan in a few.

Mexico is a wonderful country,
Mexicans are marvelous.

Come travel with us whenever you want.

Seb

Up in the sky

Man have always searched for its beliefs in the sky.


Bonjour,
how is everything doing for you?

On this beautiful monday we're close to the highest peak of Mexico,
the Citlaltépetl, or Pico de Orizaba, third highest peak in north America,
with its 5,636 meters (18,490 feet) high.
This volcano emerge as a castle, with it surrounding white crown of snow.

We're in the city of Xalapa,
capital of the state of Vera Cruz, city of 400,000 inhabitants, at an altitude of 4,500 ft,
home of the university of Vera Cruz.

The travel is still wonderful,
we've kept on going with our same goals,
meeting people,
not going in any hotel,
being hosted as much as possible,
hitch-hiking, every way of travel that makes us being close of our brothers human beings.

Our road have followed the coast of the Pacific ocean,
we got a sail boat ride with Scott and Linda, a couple from California,
from the city of Mazatlan, to San Blas,
a nice little village of fisherman, not invaded by the tourist because of the abundance of the noseeem flies, that bite quite strong.
During the cruise, we got to see some whales jumping, and were welcomed by dolphins when we arrived in San Blas,
we put a video online of the dolphins’ dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7S_QumUh54

From there we hitch-hiked to Nuevo Vallarta,
a city very close to Puerto Vallarta,
this big zoo of tourist, where it's easy to forget that we're traveling,
why should we want to recreate our home environment when we go traveling?
Then we kept on hitch-hiking to Guadalajara, going through the field of agave, the plant that’s used to make tequila.
From Guadalajara, we hitch-hiked to the city of Guanajuato, maybe one of the most beautiful city I’ve seen, surrounded by the mountains, every house has it own color, like a rainbow on earth.

From Guanajuato we hitch-hiked to Morelia, then went to the winter home of the monarch butterflies. These butterflies migrate from Mexico to the Usa or even Canada every year, the males die in Mexico, and the female come back to their northern refuge to give birth.
They’re wonderful, milions of butterflies, seeming like grapes on the logs.
We put a video of the butterflies on youtube :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asWXQTkc6Sw

Then we hitch-hiked to Mexico city, the huge, the enormous Mexico city, with its 20 milions of inhabitants, city covered by a cloud of pollution, megapole, city of extreme.

We stayed a bit more than two weeks in Mexico city, in two different homes, with people that we met through the website couchsurfing.com
We got to meet lots of people, see few of the different parts of the city, but we never felt endengered, as everybody seemed to say that this city was so dangerous.

We got to attend a class of sociology in the huge university UNAM, with its 250,000 students. This university, recognized as one of the best of latin America, cost only 1 symbolic peso per year.

The city of Mexico have been constructed over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. Most of what is now Mexico city was a lake, on the center of the lake was an island where the Aztecs people erected the city of Tenochtitlan.
The Spanish destructed all of the Aztec city, killed most of the people, created a new city, and erected a huge cathedral where was an Aztec temple, what a proof of love for their brothers human being !

The temple of Cuicuilco, on the south of the city is really impressive, erected about a 1000 years BC, it’s on a space point very important, exactly on the center of many sacred places for the people of this time.

The knowledge of geometry through observing the stars have a very important part in many culture…
From the capital of Mexico, we hitch-hike east, stopping in Cholula, where the suppositely biggest pyramide in the world have been erected, most of it though is still under the ground.

From there, we hitch-hiked to Vera Cruz, right on time to celebrate the carnaval, crazy time in the city, people come from all around, the purpose isn’t as much for costuming, but much more to have fun and dance,…, one day we’ll know how to dance.
Lots of colour, lots of energy, the sea, the perfect climate, nice people.

Then we went back north a bit, to discover the ruins of the Tajin, on the traditional of the Totonac people, constructed around 0 AC, there’s an impressively beautiful pyramide.

We’ll leave going south to the state of Oaxaca, then we’ll go to Chiapas, and Yucatan.


Mexico is an incredible country, people have been so welcoming, so helping, so hospitable.
We’ve been knocking on a few doors, asking for hospitality, and it didn’t seem to be anything crazy for the people ; we’ve been received very easily.

We’ve heard so much about the dangerousness of Mexico, there is a big tradition of fear in our culture, and for sure, fear attracts problems.

We try to travel out of any fear, just with a huge faith in this power that gives a reason to everything.

Then there are practical facts that play a big role, we more or less speak spanish, that makes of us a different kind of traveler.
We’ve met so many people who come to Mexico, only speak english, and expect everybody to be able to answer in english to them, mexico is not an english nor a french speaking colony, the least when we go to another country is to learn a few words, at least making an effort.

It’s so important not to just listen to what people say, but go, open our ears, our eyes and our heart, and go to make our own opinion.

The culture of a country isn’t only its museum, the entire world is a anthropology museum, the entire world is an open book, it’s just asking for us to turn its pages.


If you want to see a few pictures of our travel, go check our blog :
http://inspiredwanders.blogspot.com

To see directly some of the picture from Mexico :
http://picasaweb.google.com/chenapansvagabonds/Mexico#

And to watch the video we put online :
http://www.youtube.com/user/chenapansvagabonds


Have a wonderful day.

Sébastien Roevens