Advanced Diver!!

So a few days on Utila turned into two weeks!! Vita and I liked diving so much that we took a second advanced couse, which means that were are now certified to dive up to 100ft under water! I have 12 dives under my belt uncluding 3 or 4 deep dives (past 70ft). We made good friends with our dive instuctor and got into lots of trouble! Imagine the two of us under water doing flip, summer-saults, up-side-down mischeif etc... We love to observe the under water coral, fish etc. but our real love is the weightless experience and try to take advantage of that as much as we can. Thus with all of our dive masters we were refered to as ¨circus divers¨... I consider that a complement!!!

Carlee Ann surprised us a few days before were were going to meet up on the main land and we got to take her out on the boat and snorket with her. We went looking for whale sharks but didn´t see any that day, we did get to play with a beautiful dolphin family though. On our first day of Advanced diving Vita and I did get the oppurtunity to see a whale shark though! We were chaseing boils, where fish freak out above a whale shark and just flip around at the surface of the water. It is how we identify where the whale sharks are. We jumped in a few times on top of the boils but didn´t see anything, finally i jumped in a looked straight down with my snorkel mask. RIGHT BELOW ME was a huge whale shark!! I don´t know how deep it was but later my friends told me that he dove down and looked straight into his eye!! I freaked out, a little, and started swimming away becasue all I could think about was if this guy comes up even a little I´ll be riding him!! It was really amazing. Not to mention later that day while diving I got to swim with a turtle!!!

Ok so, to catch up to now- we are now on the main land near Lago Yojoa. Tomorrow we are taking a bunch of busses to cross the border into Nicaragua. From there we are going to seach around for another language school, maybe starting Monday. Then play around in Nicaragua till Anna comes in late May where we will have two weeks to travel to Costa Rica!! Sorry still no pictures but I´ll try to borrow my friends camera and put some of hers later!

Honduras

Since Mexico and my two full days of sitting on my ass driving or boating out of the country I have passed through Belize and am now in Honduras. I was in Belize from last Sunday until Friday, when we took a boat into Honduras. Belize was a really funky place. The difference from Mexico hits you as soon as you cross the border. There is a lot of diversity in Belize, traditional Mayans, Garifuna peoples descended from slaves, pirate descendants, Spanish and British Colonizer's descendants and of course all the the people in between. Technically they speak English in Belize as it used to be British Honduras but really the people grow up speaking Creole which comes from English but is like listening to a completely different language. Examples of creole:
"Beta noh lita"- don't litter
"pik ney"- children
"lef"- leave
"wanna go so o so?" -want to go this way, or that way

Its like English in a blender! It was almost uncomfortable for me to hear a language that I knew but in a way I didn't know, like my brain couldn't process why it couldn't understand!! The culture can be described in one phrase, "everything is everything," which from what I understand means something like everything is just how it is, so.... I saw a lot of negative effects from that cultural mindset. There is so much poverty. Also there is an interesting part of their romantic culture. It seemed like they just trade lovers, one couple has a few kids and the whole time they cheat on each other and then they break up and then they repeat that cycle again and again- endlessly. I don't really say that as an outsider, these are words taken out of locals mouths. We were there with Jalima's family and really got sucked into the life there and experienced it as family would rather then as tourists. I was really kind of bothered with that mindset. It is so different than the experience I had in India where the mentality was "everything is possible," or "sab cuch malega." Rather than embracing the limits they embrace the potential of life. I guess here is where we realize the lessons in discovering the differences in cultures...

On a last note, like I said, I am in Honduras now. On a island called Utila. The reef is supposed to be some of the best in the world here and there is a big diving culture. On a whim Vita and I decided to get certified. We start today and will be done in four days. In the end we will have like 3 or 4 open water dives under our belts!! Anna should meet up with us in like six weeks, and I think Carlee Ann will meet up with us as well. All is wonderful and still very "sab cuch malega" with me!!

San Miguel Allende

Well first of all I lost my camera so I won't be putting pictures up until I can use my friends camera. Sorry for those of you who are only into the picture brows. Second I have had chronic strep throat for about a week, just so you can all feel bad for me. Third, stop feeling bad for me because this past week has been great. My dad and I met up in Mexico city, spent the night in a bus station, to a 5 hour bus here and have been having a blast the whole time. I am really learning what it is like to discover your parent has a human being before they were your parent. We have met all his old friends, teachers, etc. and I can see why living here was such a momentus experience for him. I have been touched by those same people though I have only known them for a week. Tomorrow We are both taking a bus to the airport where I will fly to cancun (2 hours) then bus to a border town(6 hours) catch another bus to belize city (a few more hours) then take a chicken bus to Independence then a water taxi to the small town my friends are in...... i think that is like two days of traveling. Oh well such is the nature of this experience. After my camera was stolen I decided it happend for a reason and am going to do without a camera, but promise to borrow friends to post pictures when I can. Here is something that I started working on, in progress but an idea of my work:

"Upon leaving Mexico April 2, 2010"

I take Frida as my mother

-braid her into my hair

the Spainards as a bastard father

the arch nosed Aztecas as abuelo

the full skirted dark eyed Myans as abuela

bougie, high heel clacking

mujeres de La Ciudad de Mexico, as tias

sombrero wearing hombres,

with hard callused hands, as tios.

I take in these ancestors

till the breath ferments in my blood

I take them in, with their children

their sun bleached ruins

their murials woven of heros and villans

their savory taco stands

-the certain way the greese falls into the web of my fingers

-the relief as watermelon agua fresca chills me from the belly button up

and I wrap them up into a page

I present them to you

here, in the shape of a flower

may you wear in above your ear

so that the colors of these souls

are fragrent for all.

Breathe deeply

playa del carmen, tulum, valladolid

so...
i have been scolded for not keeping up with my blog on this trip and although i am not inspired to write i have the time so here i go...
hightlights...
-vitas mom has been staying with us so she has been treating us to sweet hotels and adventures! we went on a private fishing trip in puerto morelos and caught a bunch of trigger fish. we also has some cool cervescas on the boat and then got to fry up the fish for dinner. guess what, i caught the first one!
-after that we went to tulum , which has myan ruins on the beautiful coast!
-then we took a bus to valladolid where where we stayed in another nice hotel and went to a beautiful cenote (look them up online) and chichinetsa(not sure of spelling) another great ruin site.
-today we went to a cool place that i can{t remember the name of but we got another private tour. This consisted of taking a private boat through a park and then going to the home of hundreds of flamingos, we got to see the red water that is filled with the little cril things they eat to make them pink . We floated in water so salty we were like blow up toys and then COVERED ourselves in mineral mud. Then we got to rinse of in the beautiful ocean, visit yet another freakin ruin site and see a tradition myan village.
It has been a privilage to participate in all of these things, most of which i would not have done without Bonnie. She and I go to cancun tomorrow what she will fly out and I will spend one more day on my favorite island Isla Mujeres before flying to Mexico city to meet my dad for ten days. I have AMAZING pictues to come and will post them soon
much love, em

More of mexico

Goodbye Isla Mujeres

Me and my granola, Vita and her Ukulele life is never boreing!

Pelenque

That is is big leaf

Parque de Venta, Villahermosa

Her name is Abuela

Mexico has swollowed me up and I run on mexican time which means I have no idea what the date, day or time is- ever! That is my excuse for not having written is so long! Now it feels like there is too much to write down but I have had some of the most amazing adventures and I want to share them all.

I left off in a small jungle settlement outside of Pelenque. Our room there was a few plywood boards tacked together covered in screens, diveded into four rooms. We were the only girls surround by bg groups of Australian and French Canadians- you can imagine we all got to playing practical jokes on eachother as we could hear everything in everyone's room- the best part was that we practically never saw eathother's faces!

We took a day trip to Aqua Azul *look it up on line* it was absolutley breathtaking. Miles of limestone pools, clear water, stunning. Then a we spent a day inside the ruins of Pelanque. That was really something, we wandered through abandoned palaces, death chambers halls etc. and we allowed amazing access. Vita and I took an afternoon break and sat a top one of the hightest ruins and just sketched out the beauty below. Exploring the city and walking through the halls I could really imagine the way of life there those thousands of years ago.

Then we took a 14 hour bus ride to the coast and passed through Cancun to get to the small island, Isla Mujeres. For five days we really just chilled out and relaxed. I didn't even take my camera anywhere, just imagine the typical white sandy beaches... We made tons of friends staying at our hostel including travalers on the same type of trip as us and the typical travlaers who have been doing this type of thing for 5 years. We also had a great day with some boat captains from South Carolina. Shout out to Bobbie, Ford, Eddie, and Ron! They are awesome and fixed us fresh sashime that they caught that day! I hope you guys arn't disapointed by the blog... its kinds of boreing but you might just become famouse now...

You can imagine the life of lounging in hammoks all day, and partying all night gets a little exausing so we headed just a little south to Puerto Morelos to meet Vita's sister.

Here we stayed with Vita's family friend, Oma, and her friend Megan for three or four days. These women are absolutely hilarious. Free spirits and tons of fun we've been to beaches, centones and around town laughing the whole time trying to keep our eyes on the keys that are perpetually getting lost. Vita's mom met up with us yesterday and now we are in a nice hotel by the beach *thank you mom!*

That is about it. I'm flying to meet my dad in Mexico city and we are going to San Miguel de Allende on the 25th. My spanish is getting better, my writing is chugging a long, time means nothing to me and all is well. Until next time...

cross country

In the last few days we traveled to Cueranavava (probably misspelled) which is the capitol of the state of Morela and stayed with a friends family for three days. The city was beautrful and in the same colonial style as the other big cities we had seen. From there we knew we wanted to head East and hit the more jungle area. So we took a three hour bus ride to Puebla, and then an 8hour busride to Villahermosa arriving at five in the morning. Villahermosa was not the beautiful city that its name promised to to be but we did get to go the Parque Venta and see some great (I mean amazing) giant pre Myan statues. I took a million pictures and will post them later. Despite the fresh coco milk drinks, and the delicouse fresh shrimp tacos I wasn´t feeling very satisfied with Mexico. I realize now that I just needed to get out of those big cities!!!! So we took an early bus this morning to Palenque, the town near the famouse Myan ruins. We are staying in a very secluded area outside the town located just before the gates in to the park. We have a tiny cabana with only half walls and the rest screens (hopefully enough to seal out mosquitos!!) and took a walking tour of the whole area through jungle paths. I realize suddenly that it is not mexico that I was not connecting with but the big cities. Vita and I being very good practicing our spanish and intend to be very creative while in this amazing space. Most of the other people are drop dead gorgeous Argentinians (a little intimidating) and cute Europeans. Tonight we are planning to go the one bar and hear music from South America. If I dont drink too much tonight I am going to wake up and do yoga... but we will see because to save money Vita and I bought our own bottle of Mezcal as well as bread, avocados, and a can of beans. We might just be drunk fattys who eat and drink enough for two days in one night.
Dad, I can´t wait to go to Palenque tomorrow. I heard so much about it growing up! I promis to take a lot of pictures and post them for you. Everyone else, I feel guilty posting a blog without pictures but you´ll have to wait in suspense...

Morelia

my favorite plaza



,


me and my girls in morelia
view of patzcuero from our roof
lunch in the market
Our party!
Preparing dinner in our little kitchen before the party!

Our house!
The Study room...

We finished Spanish school last friday and are now in the town of Morelia, the capital of Michoacan. This city is so beautiful and has a very romantic European feel to it, plus the traditional churro, chips and Salsa Valentina twist to it!!
The last week of school was my favorite. We moved out of the expensive family house we were staying in and rented a small apartment for the week. We were just a 20min walk from school and lived up a small hill in something like a compound filled with artists! We had a fireplace and a small kitchen and twice had big dinners for our neighbors and friends from school. We went to the market everyday for fresh verduras and frutas and had 2 tacos for ten pasos for lunch. It was a great experience. I feel like I learned so much in school and need a little time to process it all (four hours a day for two weeks!) I am going to do my best to continue learning and practicing.
Tomorrow we are taking a bus to Cuernovaca where we will drop Carlee Ann off with her midwife for about 6 weeks. From there Vita and I are going to continue to explore Mexico and more.
As for now, in Morelia we are completly enamored. We are staying in the historic district and love walking through the beautiful plazas. I am writing and it feels wonderful! Enjoy the pictures and I love you all!