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
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
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
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The way to the second biggest city in the world.
Buenas tardes,
It is quite a while since we wrote some news about our beautiful travels.
We left Mazatlan aboard the sailboat Samantha.
Scott the captain and his wife Linda a couple of San Francisco were looking for crew members to go south.
We took the opportunity to go offshore and maybe realize our dream to see whales.
Lucky us we saw the splendid spectacle of a whale jumping complietely out of the water.
After a 22 hours boat ride, welcomed by the dolphins, we arrived in the early morning in the bay of Matenchen surrounded by a beautiful tropical landscape.
We stayed for a couple of days in the small city of San Blas.
The place is not very touristic because of the abundance of the noseethem flies that bite as bad as the mosquito.
From there we hitch hike south to Nuevo Vallarta were we only spend a night before continuing in the next morning to Guadalajara.
Along the way we stop in San Sebastian Del Oeste, a village high in the mountains from the time of the colonisation.
The road are made of paving stone, and the house have all a 1 meter high red stripe from the ground.
We arrived late in Guadalajara the second biggest town in Mexico.
Fortunately Lorena a friend of a friend was waiting of us.
With her family we went to the lake Chapala the biggest lake in Mexico.
Every Sundays the piers of the lake are filled by the people of Guadalajara coming to spend time with the family or friends.
Our next stage was the city of Guanajuato in the very center of Mexico.
The city is simply full of colors.
Guanajuato is also know to be the capital of the kiss.Most of the big traffic road are underground and many small streets are not even accessible for the cars.
In the city of Morelia we were living right in the mitle of downtown.
Together with our host from Couchsurfing.com we went to the night of the stars.
For the event they installed some telescope and we were able to see some moon crater and to learn about different constellation.
On the way to Mexico city we stopped in near Angangueo in the state of Michoacan.
The winter home of million Monarch butterflies.
The Monarch butterflies make the biggest migration of their species.
They fly from southern Canada and northern Texas all the way down to Mexico.
For some of them more, then 4500km to spend the winter in a warmer place.
The males are dying in Mexico as the females are flying back to give birth in Canada or the USA.
The spectacle is impressive, thousand and thousand of butterflies flying around or hanging in bunch in the trees.
Im remembering of this amazing moment I let you go back to your activity.
Hasta luego.
Aubin
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
New pictures
Hello my brothers human beings,
we've put new picture of our trip from Vancouver to New Mexico,
hope you'll find you on the picture,
we stop putting diaporama,
it slows down too much the downloading of the blog,
so this time if you want to see the picture, go on this adress:
http://picasaweb.google.com/chenapansvagabonds/VancouverNewMexico#
Wish you a wonderful day
Seb
we've put new picture of our trip from Vancouver to New Mexico,
hope you'll find you on the picture,
we stop putting diaporama,
it slows down too much the downloading of the blog,
so this time if you want to see the picture, go on this adress:
http://picasaweb.google.com/chenapansvagabonds/VancouverNewMexico#
Wish you a wonderful day
Seb
Friday, January 2, 2009
Happy new year
Happy new year to all of you.
I wish you a wonderful, inspirating, full of love new year 2009.
We're now in Los Mochis, in the state of Sinaloa, in Mexico,
it seems strange to get in january and at the same time being able to wear short,
with temperature around the 80's.
How could we complain?
From Chihuahua, we hitch-hike to Creel,
a village at more than 8000 feet high, in the sierra,
where it was freezing at night,
but still warm during the day.
In Creel, we knocked on the door of a house that seemed nice,
and asked for hospitality, an woman opened the door and let us in.
We got to explore a bit the sierra, and it's just incredible,
there are canyons deeper than the grand canyon,
and changement of vegetation, from pine trees, to oak trees,
to cactus, and then close to the river, orange trees, tropical fuit trees.
The rocks are full of color, yellow, orange, pink, black.
The sierra is the land of the native Tarahumara people,
they still live very close to what their ancestors where.
Two days ago we took the train called : "El Chepe"
a train that joins Chihuahua, in the desert, to Los Mochis, on the other side of the sierra, on the Pacific coast.
The route is supposed to be one of the most beautiful train route in the world.
I have to say that it really is pretty amazing.
There are a lot to say about Mexico, even if it's been only two weeks we are here,
but first of all, we've been told so much that Mexico is so dangerous,
it may be true, but as every place in the world has the possibility to be dangerous,
it's important to know that mainly if you don't have any relation with narco trafficant you'll be ok.
We try to be aware, to feel the people we speak with, the people that give us rides, the people who host us.
For the moment we've only met very good people.
Every place in the world can be dangerous, but fear attracts trouble, trustfullness, or faith is all we need to be safe and to enjoy the gift of life.
That's what my travel teach me.
Now we may be going south, along the Pacific coast,
to the city of Guadalajara, and to the capital, Mexico city.
We're now in Los Mochis hosted by a family through the website www.couchsurfing.com
We've put a lot of new videos on youtube
this is our channel:
http://fr.youtube.com/user/chenapansvagabonds
Life is beautiful
Seb
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