New pictures

Mexico in pictures.
First part.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chenapansvagabonds/Mexico#

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

The beautifull Pacific ocean in Mazatlan.












The colors are juste so nice all over.
















Fisherboat with a pelican on top.

















Mazatlan, the sunset under the tropic of cancer.














The Patricia Belle boat we are living on for a couple of days.
They make charter for the tourist here in Mazatlan.
www.patriciabelle.com

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

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

High in altitude

Buenos dias,

first of all, we wish you a merry Christmas,
hope you had a joyful celebration,
full of love and share.

We are now in Creel, southwest of Chihuahua, a nice little town,
in the high sierra, in the traditionnal land of the Tarahumara people.

Yesterday we left Chihuahua, our host from there drove us to a gas station out of town, and we asked for a ride to the people who were filling up their tanks.
Three different cars later, we arrived to our destination: Creel.
In Creel we walked a bit and knocked on the door of a house that gave us a good impression,
and asked for hospitality.
An older woman and her family welcomed us, she seemed very happy to have us.

It's the first time that we hitch-hike and ask for hospitality in Mexico,
and that first impression is wonderful, our way of traveling seems to be in the mentality.

As you know, we travel this way because what we want is to understand the way people live wherever we go,
we try to share a moment of their life,
we speak about how it is where we come from,
and they speak to us about how life is for them.
And we deeply believe in the goodness of human soul.

Life is beatiful

Seb and Aubin

Hola Mexicoooo!

Hello you all!

It's really good to feel the sun shining and heating your skin.
It feels good to be back to summer in december.

Aubin got across the border on the 15th of december,
he took a bus from El Paso to Chihuahua, a bit more than 200 mile south.
He had contacted somebody through the website www.couchsurfing.com
who was able to give him a place to stay.

I left Durango, CO, past sunday, the 14th of december,
the very inspirative Dr Reyes Garcia gave me a ride from there to Albuquerque,
and his daughters gave me a place to stay for the night.
The next morning I began hitch-hiking from Albuquerque to El Paso,
the snow was there to tell me: "Man, that's your time to go south"
Got the message.

After 2 cars and 1 truck, I got to El Paso.
The truck driver was very interesting, he had a assiociation that is helping people who have autism.
And want everybody to be aware of the fact that the vaccin that we receive contain mercury,
which is recognize as being very toxic.
Since the vaccin have been obligated, the rate of children getting autism have dropped from
1 for 10'000 to 1 for 150.
If you want you can have a look at the website:
putchildrenfirst.org

In El Paso I was welcomed by Steven and his family,
that Aubin has also met through the website couchsurfing.com

The next day, tuesday, I took the bus from El Paso to Chihuahua,
30$, it's not bad.

In Chihuahua, I joined Aubin, and got also welcomed by the 3 couchsurfer who were welcoming Aubin.
Jorge, Ulises and Polo.
They're serial hosters,
they've been welcoming 96 travelers before us.

Chihuahua is a nice town,
about 800'000 people,
a quite desertic climate,
a beautiful cathedral,
and of course, a lot of people to meet.

Our plan now is to go west to the Pacific, go to see copper canyon, which is certain parts deeper and larger than the Grand Canyon.
Then, going south along the Pacific coast, and get back inland to the capital Mexico city.

We'll see what the path is going to give us.

Hope you have fun in this time of festivity.
And that you give a lot of love to your family, your friends, and your brothers and sisters human being.

Peace

Seb