Sticky Rice and Sweet Cakes – Chapter 2, Philippines

Booyah!

Sorry about my super-slow update speed.. I know.

I forgot to upload one very describing picture from our time at Krabi with Joonas:

I’ll continue our journey “throughout” the Asia with this second chapter. I´ll write from now onwards a bit more about the country itself and also add our experiences within the text.

Philippines and the island of Palawan functioned kind of like our traveling methods: Even though everything isn´t neither necessarily logical nor really planned out, is done with a big smile and a positive attitude. Compared to Thailand, everything seemed to go out in a less stressful way, where time isn’t absolute and tourists weren’t always treated as cash cows like for example in Thailand. And we sure did love it, in exception of the traveling/waiting times and the absence of ATMs.

We arrived to Puerto Princessa, the only bigger city of the island, on 21.12. After spending one night in a decent hostel, we decided to head to El Nido, a small and reputedly beautiful place in north of the island. And no, it didn't have any ATMs.

What the hell is Sulu Sea

After 6 hours of grueling time in a minibus of a local Juha Kankkunen in one of the worst roads in my life, we finally arrived to the town of El Nido. We loved the place right away with its all-relaxed atmosphere and astonishing nature, which – for our sake – wasn’t yet spoilt with mass-tourism. The place El Nido actually consists of 61 little paradise islands around the peak of Palawan, while the town of El Nido is located in the mainland. The city itself is really tiny and basically has only two “main” streets. These were more full of restaurants of different taste (our favourites: Fish and veggies at the alternative, Talk of the Town –burger at Blue Azul). One remarkable point, that we both really liked, was that when the town of el Nido ended, so did the tourism and every white people you could see. We actually took a little walk from the city to another beach, where we bought some palawan-style fried bananas for 10 euro cents.

Locals in/on/around a bus from Puerto Princesa to Palawan. 8 hours of bumby roads with magnificent views for only 5 usd!

Street view from El Nido, Philippines

Fried bananas with "butter" and sugar

On the first day we rested our asses by falling asleep on the beach for two hours. In the night we eat some delicious food in The Alternative and went to enjoy a few beers in the nearby Shisha café. Hotel room with fan and locked door (!!) costed 7 euros for both of us for the night.

In the next morning 23.12 we rented a kayak for the day and went off to see a few of those beautiful islands of El Nido with our snorkel kits. Besides that we didnt only have our own perfect private beaches, we saw many beautiful fish and corals underwater. The only fallback was that in the seasurface there was these littly ameba/medusa/littlefucker -like things that really pissed you off in some areas. And they were impossible to see beforehand and the only way to get out was to ignore the itch and splash forward as fast as you could. Well, seeing two whale sharks in a kayak at 5 meter distance when rowing back in the sunset, we can}t really talk about bad luck during that trip.. In the night we had the first and by far the best grouper for the dinner in a local restaurant and fell asleep at 9pm.

We waited eagerly for the next morning. It was, after all, christmas eve! This time the presents weren't wrapped in colourful packages in the light of a christmas candle with the scent of cinnamon flouting in the air. But when enjoying freshly grilled fish and meat with locally prepared gourmet vegetable- and fruitdishes on this perfect little beach while hearing the never-ending concert presented by mother nature from the waves gently bouncing to the sand and corals, we realised that that whole day was going to be our unique christmas present of this year.

On our way to Star Beach

Christmas lunch at Nat Nat Beach

Nat Nat Beach

Which I declared as being mine like all self-aware white people should

Local animals from Nat Nat Beach (1) - THE BUTTERFLY!!!

Local animals from Nat Nat Beach (2) - THE FEARLESS MINICRAB!!!

The trip, lead by our awesome travel guid Lari, lasted basically the whole day from 9am to 5pm. We visited four beaches: Star Beach, Nat Nat Beach (and had a lunch there), Secret Beach and Helicopter Island. We saw plenty of sea turtles, fish, a lobster, and snorkeled in the best corals (snorkle depth) that I've ever been to.

Found dozens of SUPERNEMOS (Clown Fish) during the day

The islands consisted of these sharp limestone rocks

This day was the day that I officially started my new hobby: Free Diving. The definition of free diving is really broad: Freediving is any of various aquatic activities that share the practice of breath-hold underwater diving (Source: Wikipedia - Free Diving). I understand free diving as a developed form of snorkeling , where a diving-like experience can be had without the diving gear. The sport is newly formed and it isn't really clear what can be understood as free diving. Some people have already done some really impressive stunts (like this) and there is also a competitive freediving form with competitions around the world, but my freediving basically consists of having the same snorkeling experience with spending a bit more time periods underwater. I.e. im a total newbie in this crazy sport and have free-dived to around 15-18 meters for a period of 1-2 minutes. It's a good sport to challenge yourself and great fun, but can be really dangerous if done wrong. I've only done some hyperventilating training and practised to keep my breath for a bit (could do 4 minutes). I have to train more the aerobic breath-holding side if I really want to start doing the sport. Time will tell..

Back to the story. We reserved two places for the Christmas buffet in The Alternative for the night. The buffet consisted of a whole philippinean pig, mongolian-style prepared teppanyaki, fish in every form you can imagine and flambered ice-cream among other things. We got a seat in the "bird's nest"; a round-shape overhang above the ocean. The restaurant and the food was simpy perfect. Here's a few pics of that:

Bird's nest

a GIRL!!!

And then came the DELICIOUS PIG!!!!. Before..

It surely was a DELICIOUS PIG!!! ..and after.

We kind of missed the normal christmas morning feeling back home when waking up to the banging sounds of builders at 8 o'clock in the morning. You got to earn your payday, right? Christmas day was a day-off for us and we didn't do anything special. In the afternoon we reserved some diving for the next day. On the next morning at 9 o'clock we left for our 3-dive again to the nearby islands and saw many breathtaking views down under. When coming back at around 5pm again we saw again the big whaleshark bouncing of the water, but our driver couldn't care less and drove straight to the peer.. In the night we had some pizzas at Artcafe and reserved a hiking tour for the next day.

We left to our hiking tour at 6:30 am. First we thought that it could be doable without a guide, but as we found out, there was absolutely no traces available and we were basically jumping above those really sharp limestone cliffs inside the jungle all the way to the top. Some parts with over 70 degree angle with no ropes or other equipment available were actually quite frightening and challenging to do, but eventually we made it all the way up to the top.

Our guide Saldy climbing some of the steepest parts

The view from the top was simply amazing.

Skyline of El Nido from 170 meters

We made it!

When coming back the only people that we saw were bird nest collectors, who went up there every day to collect valuable bird nests that were sold to the Asian countries. This leads us to the origin of El Nido.

The brief history of El Nido

El Nido was originally a fisherman town that was famous of its bird's nests. Although the place was inhabitated already over 20,000 years ago, the latest era goes back to 1950-60s, when the grandfathers of the current locals found the rich population of swiftlet birds. Their nests are valued over 2000 euros per kilo. However, the population has gone down dramatically because the collectors broke the eggs while stealing the nests and the government has tried to change the manouver that the nests are collected. Although tourism is nowadays the biggest income of the area, collecting is still done among the locals. Here's a few pics that I took when meeting those collectors.

Tough guys

10 euros worth of birds spit

In the night we decided to try again that delicious grouper, this time in a different place. We could choose one of the catches of the day and everything seemed superb. After just 15 minutes from the order the fish came. I just couldn't believe my eyes. The fish looked like it had gone through multiple forest fires to say the least. It was pitch-black outside, while the inside was still raw. I tried to rip some meat of it without managing to get anything but ash and a bunch of fishbones. It was time to make my first official compliance for a restaurant food. The owner came to see my fish and after some negotiations he saw that he didn't have too much to say and decided to prepare us a new fish himself.

I thought everything would end good. Oh boy. It went 20 minutes and they gave us a new fish. This time it was only 50% black outside, and 25% of the fish meat actually could actually be pulled away from the ashy corpse. However, 100% of the meat tasted like shit, again. HOW CAN THIS BE POSSIBLE? These guys just ruined two beautiful fishes by flambering them in an open fire all the time. Neither I didn't feel bad for myself for me, but also for the fish. Poor that. We complained again to the staff, this time the negotiations didn't go as smoothly.The owner was literally boiling when he came again to our table to hear what we had to say. First he refused to give any discount for the fish since we already complained about one before (understandably) and I on my half wasn't going to pay the full price. First he wanted to take the case to the police, but when I saw a big group of tourists coming to the same restaurant, I pretty ruthlessy said that I could make them turn back if u act to me like this. He didn't have a choice and gave us the fish for 1/2 price, which was ok. I felt I did it right, because he was acting like such an asshole, even though he saw that the product was a total failure. After that we went to a 10 times cheaper (and better) place to fill our stomachs.

The next day we had to already leave this beautiful town and took the shuttle van back to Puerto Princesa. We had a flight to Manila in the same evening, but we still decided to hit a local beach in Puerto Princesa. The road to the beach was pretty amazing, here's a pic of it (and a bonus pic of a GOAT!).

Hollowed ground In Puerto Princesa

The Amazing STARING GOAT!!!!

We made it to Manila at around 8pm. In the night we hit the casino (yeah I know, I was such good company for Jette) and I managed to win around 300 euros from the local mean, cigarette-smoking gamblers. That was fun.

The Luzon island that Manila is located has also many activities, but Philippines happen to be famous for its ultra-slow roads and just traveling 300 kilometres will take the whole day. For example, our trip to El Nido from Puerto Princesa was around 150 kilometres and it lasted 6 hours. We decided to head to Tagaytay to see the volcano lake nearby. It rained the whole day in Tagaytay. We slept in a nearby little town called Talisay to get to the volcano easily. The hardest in Talisay was that there were exactly 1 food place in the whole town (that wasn't really a restaurant but a boat renting place). Well, we got a really good and big meal there from a local lady and it all ended up good. After that we went to see a movie and drank brandy with the staff our hotel. I also bought a fired a big firework bazooka that night that i found in the local store! Wish we would have had something to leave for them from Finland, they were great people!!

This picture really captures the awesome nightlife of Talisay, Philippines

Me with the biggest bazooka I could find in the markets

Next day we climbed the mountain with the one tourist that we saw in Talisay (who was also eating in the same place that we did). It took a boat ride and 1-hour-hike to get to the top. The views were pretty good, but it sure smellt like rotten eggs. Here's a pic from the top.

Volcano-lake Taal in Talisay, Philippines

We decided to head back to Manila alreadyon the same day, since there was not too much to see. We spent the night in the night markets of Manila, which was of course a fun and crazy experience as always in the asian countries.

On New Year's Eve 31st of December we woke up at 3:45am and headed to the airport for getting to SINGAPORE. WUHUU!! Our departure got a bit delayed since the pilot decided to make turn back after 40 minutes of flying and we had to wait for another plane. Presumably it was some kind of a engine problem, who knows.

Anyways, this is the end of the Philippines - chapter of our legendary journey in Asia. Hope you guys liked it, feel free to drop comments or berate me for updating this slowly. Now I'm really gonna try and finish our trip blogwise during the coming days!

Peace out!

-Kalle

Sweet cakes and sticky rice - Around the world in 30 days, Chapter 1

"Juoksen kaikki matkalaukut selässä Kuala Lumpurin läkähdyttävän kuumalla lentokentällä auringon porottaessa pilvettömältä taivaalta suoraan sieluni sisään. Sain tietää kaksi minuuttia sitten paikalliselta lentokenttävirkailijalta, että lentoni Los Angelesiin lähtee alle puolentoista tunnin kulutta kaupungin toiselta, noin viidentoista kilometrin päässä sijaitsevalta KLIA -lentokentältä. Runnon itseni väkipaljouden läpi ja löydän viimein taksijonon. Taksiin päästyäni huomaan, etten kuitenkaan voi maksaa millään korteistani enkä tietenkään omista paikallista rahaa ollessani vain läpikulkumatkalla matkalla takaisin Meksikoon. Juoksen takaisin sisälle nostamaan rahaa. Juoksen takaisin, mutta nyt käteinen ei kelpaakaan, vaan mittariautot toimivatkin ääliömäisesti vain niille tarkoitetuilla lipuilla. Matkavaatteet hiestä märkänä juoksen takaisin lentokenttähalliin - Lipunostoluukkua ei näy missään. Juoksen takaisin taksipojan luokse taksijonoon ja nyt muistaa mainita että lippuja saa ostettua ainoastaan hallista ennen saapuvien lentojen turvatarkastuspistettä. Juoksen kolmatta kertaa takaisin sisälle ja selitän erittäin teokkaan elekielen avulla englantia puhumattomille sotilaille syyn palata takaisin aulaan ja saan vihdoin taksilipun ostettua. Saavun valtavalle KLIA -lentokentälle, kun bordaukseen on aikaa 15 minuuttia. Juoksen vastaanottotiskille, missä kylmät väreet ilmastointilaitteiden ja hikisen vartalon väliseen efektiin kuulumattomista syistä valtaavat kehoni: Varausnumeroani tai nimeäni ei löydy varausluettelosta. Kun bordaus on jo alkanut ja koneen lähtöön aikaa 25 minuuttia, minut saadaan vihdoin matkustuslistalle takaisin. Edessä on enää passintarkastus, turvatarkastus sekä shuttle bus toiseen terminaaliin. Kilpajuoksu voi alkaa."

During the last two months I have been kayaking with whalesharks, standing on the the biggest Mayan ruin ever build in the midst of the screaming wild animals and foggy jungle, swimming and diving with sharks, turtles, rays and manatees, hunting lobsters and eating pretty much everything that it is possible to get from the ocean. In addition, I was shot up in the sky with a big slingshot, got lost canoeing in the middle of the night in the biggest lake of Guatemala , relaxed in a nature spa with a big waterfall and - of course - spent countless hours in various means of transport. Everything hasn't always went as planned. Nevertheless, these past memories - with all the great people I met and the experiences I had - made this journey truly remarkable that I definetly will remember all my life.

My journey consisted of two different trips. The first one took place in South-East Asia with my by the time girlfriend (current best friend). The second trip was my first trip alone and it took place in Central America. Both of these trips not only gave me the most experiences, but also were the best trips that I've ever made. I'll separate the text in two different chapters, the first one will be about my trip around the world. I'll keep the text in English to make it more readable for all.

We are living the beginning of December and my first semester in Guadalajara in soon to be in its end. Most of my best friends here are going home which explains the mixed feelings that I have at the moment. On the other hand, my first and so far my best 4 months ever here in Guadalajara with all my good friends has come to an end and I have to say goodbye to so many good friends. On the other hand, I know that I'm going to have an awesome time for the upcoming weeks, because first I'm going home in Finland to see my family for some days and afterward see my girlfriend Jette in Singapore for another 3.5 weeks.

My last days in Mexico before heading towards my world around trip consisted of packing, preparing my internship for the next semester, partying with friends and once again proving the unfairness of a monopoly; this time with the government owned telephone company, Telcel.

I bought the world around ticket from Finland, because my flight ticket back to Finland from Mexico was already bought. So there I was, in the middle of Helsinki-Vantaa airport in the freezing finland, carrying only a sweater and jeans while my luggage was still in Paris, France. Luckily my father was there with a good winter jacket. We headed straight to see my granparents nearby as a surprise and oh boy how happy they were! Afterwards we headed home and had a nice family-gathering dinner.

In Finland I had time to see my friends in Tampere and pretty much be sick for the rest of the time. This was the first time of this trip that I caught a cold in an airplane. Thank god I didn't have to see snow more than 5 days this year. On my departure date to Bangkok, Thailand, I was already feeling much better, not the least because my flight schedule was changed and I was arranged to the business class. On the night that my plane was supposed to leave, I encountered another pleasant surprise: I had the opportunity to make easy money! This time it was not about gambling, but the flight company overbooked the flight and I was offered 600 euros for not flying in this flight but the second, which left in the next afternoon. I took the deal and got a free night at the hilton hotel nearby.

I met with Jette at Bangkok airport at 13.12.2010 at 9.30 in the morning as I arrived to Thailand. Time to plan our vacation! After dinner we decided to head south to Krabi and further to Ko Phi Phi island, which was supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in Thailand and superb place to do our open water diving licence. And it sure didn't betray us. The island itself was purely beautiful itself, not talking about all the surrounding - smaller islands that just made the perfect seascene. Here is a few pics of the island and Bangkok.

Off we go! - Walking in Bangkok

Sea skyline around Ko Phi Phi

Beautiful island of Ko Phi Phi

Fishing boat at the beach of Ko Phi Phi

At the city of Bangkok - a surprisingly tidy city!

The island was packed with tourists, mostly from scandinavia, at the time we stayed there. That didn't bother us though, because we spent the most time underwater anyway with black-tip sharks, squids, turtles, rays and all kind of weird animals. We did our licence with Blue View Divers, which I can truly recommend for everybody else too. Here's some more pics from Phi Phi.

Going diving

Midday siesta

After my first dive!

We spent 4 days in Phi Phi and had another three days in thailand bofer days to spend before heading back to Bangkok and further to Philippines. We decided to go to Ko Lanta, a bit bigger and more relaxed place also near Krabi. Ko Lanta was more like a swedish colony than a island in Thailand and the Swedish flags and meatballs overcome the local options. We decided to rent a scooter and had a good time going around the island. During the ride we also attended a privat snake show!




Efter den härligen Ko Lanta we saw my schoolfriend Joonas and we went to hang out in another little beach close by Krabi. It was cloudy.


Afterwards the sky opened up a bit and we decided to make a tour there. The place was famous for its rockclimbing possibilities and also we decided to climb up a steep walk up to a viewpoint and again down to a lagun. The road wasn´t exactly the easiest thing to walk, but eventually we made it with all our clothes totally muddy and wet.

We headed back to Bangkok in the same day to wait our airplane to leave to Philippines. We were flying first to Manila and continuing to Puerto Princesa in the Island of Palawan. I'll tell about our time in one of the coolest places I've been so far in the next chapter hopefully really soon.

Saludos,
Kalle

Chapter 10. No to beer in Veracruz / Yes to beer in Guadalajara

Hi!

Hahahaha, our big houseparty of today was cancelled. The police heard about it and ceiled the house so that no one could get in or out. I bet that it was due to mordidas from the neighbours.. Well one day break doesn't do bad, I've slept an average of 5 hours in the last four days anyway.. In addition I can now write my last blog update until my trip to Asia!

But first about our trip to Veracruz! I enrolled into the capoeira group that the school arranges here at Tec. I found it really fun and decided to leave with them to a big capoeira event that was arranged by the Atitude Brazil Verazruz. I went with our capoeira teacher at Tec, el Bigode, and two other students. They all are super-cool guys and it was them that made the trip especially good! Capoeira has still a traditional ranking system of the teachers and there were various masters (mestres) and pre-masters (contra-mestres) of capoeira coming to the event and I was really eager to see them in action!

On the first day of arrival on Friday we already had one capoeira lesson of three hours. It went really good and the teachers really knew their thing. On the negative side, I could immediatly see the different atmosphere of the event compared to the capoeira classes in our school: The teachers spoke almost only portuguese, you weren't allowed to speak during the lessons and you couldn't go and drink water in the middle or in between classes. That was again some traditional thing of capoeira but to be honest I found it stupid, especially the drinking part. It resulted that I was so tired in the end and couldn't do too much dancing in the rueda, which is the traditional "fighting" circle where two people dance with each others.

Another thing that caught my eye was that the ranking system doesn't necessarily correspond with your skills. It is more about respect and knowing the right people, because only the people with higher rank can put your ranking higher and you have to build good relationships between many people just to maintain your status. For example, the wife of a master was pre-master and she couldn't honestly do too much more than I. Well, she was more of a dancer-capoeirista but still, you get the picture. I wasn't a huge fan of this traditional ranking system and would prefer more a skill-based system, but it's a traditional sport so I guess there is not too much to be changed.

Well anyway, we reserved a hotel for the first and second night in the centre of Xalapa. It turned out to be pretty good for the price (6e/person/night). On Saturday we had another 5 hour lesson of capoeira and on Sunday we had a little a performance for some audience in the same arena. The whole experience was really really good and I learned a lot of new capoeira moves. The only thing that I regret was that I was a bit of a wimp and didn't enter the rueda too often. It was partly because most people that entered had done it for years and the mestres wanted of course to show to the youngers who's the boss in the ring. But still, I should have showed them more!

I ran out of cash in Saturday evening because my trustful and generous (:D) moneylender, Paulina, forgot to withdraw me money on the previous night. This was a bit of a problem because my mexican buddies had about 500 pesos in their bank account so I had to actually spare money for the first time in Mexico so far. On Sunday evening we left to the city of Veracruz and slept in the house of a friend that I just met in the Capoeira event. He was a friend of my tricking friend in Guadalajara, but still... I love the Mexican hospitality! The staying in the house was a really fun experience, there was 4 dogs, a few birds and 3 chimpanzees living in the same house and as soon as I walked outside the room of my buddy, hell broke loose and they started to shout and bark as loud as they could.

On Monday morning Carlos had to go to school and we rest decided to go to a beach for the day. We even did some tricking there, here's a few pics of that!

Group foto at the rocks

My and Bigode doing some aerials

Pose!

Btwist close-up

Backflip to water :)

The others left on Monday afternoon, my flight back to Guadalajara wasn't until Tuesday evening. After many hours of continous begging (yes I know, embarrasing, but what can I do?), I could lend 500 pesos from my buddies, which would have to do it for the rest of the trip. This wasn't actually the easiest thing to do, because I had to reserver 350 pesos only for the taxi rides to the airport in Veracruz and in Guadalajara to my house. That left me 150 pesos money to spend (9 euros). The first day we went to a gimnastic hall which costed 60 pesos already. After breakfast on the next I had about 20 pesos left to spend for the whole day. Although we only went to a big shopping centre to hang out and tried to do some tricking in the blistering wind that was in Veracruz that day, the 20 pesos wasn't of course enough, t. I had to arrange a bit my taxi drive home, but eventually it all went good and I got home safely! Here's a few pics still from Veracruz.

Carlos in front of his house

Street view in the city

There were a lot of funny-looking tourist busses in the centre of the city

Another street view

Cafe Barroquia - really big and famous cafeteria in the centre of Veracruz

I just put a little list of things that I hadn't done before the trip. 1. I haven't done sports for four straight days without hurting or straing my muscles 2. I have never slept with monkeys. 3. I haven't spoken only spanish for five days. 4. I have "never" traveled without having a single beer during the trip. Most of the points are of course pretty easily achievable, but especially the last makes me feel really proud of myself.

Alltogether the trip was simply AWESOME and I was one of my best experiences so far here in Mexico. I didn't learn that much during the event much I got to know a lot of new people and the capoeira culture and also saw some really beautiful places. Totally worth it!

After Veracruz it has been basically just that one Spanish exam. The rest of the time there has been a farewell party every single day (excluding today) and I can really feel it now when writing this blog update at 2am. The parties have been really fun and I already start to miss all the good friends that I made here in Guadalajara!!! Some of them have already left to their trips (mostly to Central America) and some will after this weekend or so. Luckily some will return for another semester to study here so I'll get to see them again! Although this time it will be a bit different, because I'll be only doing the internship and will come to school only for sports. But I don't want to think about those things just yet, now I'm concentrated on preparing and packing my stuff for traveling around the world.

That's basically all that has happened so far here in Guadalajara. I don't have the time or will to write about more things, but just in short: Diego had his birthday on the first of Dec and we are going to celebrate it tomorrow. We were paintballing yesterday with 10 people. It was awesome. I passed all my courses.

So, this is what has happened to Kalle in the first part of his journey. Let's pray for the ancient gods that his trip stays as successful also in the future and that his money doesn't run out before the end of the trip. The future episodes include a massive 3-day stay in Finland, almost a month in Thailand/Filippines/Singapore, returning on January to Mexico and traveling here for 3 more weeks and doing an internship in yet-not-decided company in Guadalajara. He is hoping to put the next blog update somewhere in South-east-asia, let us see.

But until that..

..Last greetings from Mexico!

Peace!

Avautumista

Joo

Tänään hajosi pää pariin asiaan ja päätän raapustaa tänne ennen kun unohdan ne.

1. No tengo cambio

Meksikossa ostoksilla - tai ylipäätään missä tahansa jossa valuutan kanssa on tekemisissä - joutuu kohtaamaan yleisen ja ERITTÄIN ärsyttävän ongelman. Mikään pienempi katukauppa ei nimittäin lähes poikkeuksetta omista yli 200 (12 euroa) vaihtorahaa ja suuremmissakin kaupoissa, kuten Oxxo, 7-eleven tai Bodega Aurrera (suomen K-market ja valintatalo - vastaavat tai hieman isommat) on ongelma älyttömän yleinen. Tänään esimerkiksi yritin tuloksetta maksaa 20 peson tacolautastani 100 peson setelillä. Tilanteen tekee erittäin tuskalliseksi se, että nostomaateista ei saa kuin 500 peson seteleitä (32 euroa joka on samalla meksikon suurin seteli), joilla maksaminen on joko a) käytännössä mahdotonta tai ainakin b) aiheuttaa paheksuvia katseita myyjäosapuolessa. Ja KAIKKEIN ärsyttävintä on se, että usein paikoissa on vaihtorahaa isollekin setelille, mutta siitä huolimatta seteli ei jostain syystä kelpaa. Ja kun tästä mainitsee myyjälle, niin vuorossa on tuijotuleikkiä hetken aikaa, jossa myyjät ovat alansa ammattilaisia.

On yksi selkeä syy siihen, miksi kaupat haluaa pitää niukkaa käsivarastoa: Ryöstöt. Kauppoja ryöstetään verrattain useasti ja koska kiinnijäämisprosentti on muutaman prosentin (!!!) luokkaa niin kaupat varautuvat mieluummin haitan minimointiin kun turvallisuuden parantamiseen. Pikkukaupoilla tilanne on tietenkin toinen, kun vaihdanta ei päivää kohden ole järin suuri. Homma on kyllä lähtenyt vähän näpeistä, jos K-marketin tasoisessa kaupassa pidetään alle 10 euroa vastaava määrä vaihtorahaa ja suurempien setelien ostosten tullessa joudutaan myymään ei-oota. Miten se mun mun vika jos automaatit ei anna pienempiä seteleitä? Helevetti.

2. Mañana

Oon sopeutunut jo verrattain hyvin meksikolaisten aikarytmiin, eli tapaamiseen ei haittaa tulla 30 minuuttia tai vaikka tunnin myöhässä ja peruutuksia ei aina tarvitse ilmoittaa. Nyt on kuitenkin kärsivällisyys hieman koetuksella. Autoani on huoltanut perheen luottomekaanikko, Antonio eli "El otoño". Kutsuttaneen häntä syksyksi tästä lähtien siis. Vein autoni herran syksyn hoiviin kolme ja puoli viikkoa sitten ja siitä asti autoni on pitänyt olla valmis noin viisi kertaa. Neljännen kerran jälkeen sanoin syksylle että voi unohtaa muiden osien korjauksen, kunhan vain saisin käsijarrun toimimaan, jonka tämä itse oli viime korjauksen yhteydessä hajottanut. Homman piti olla valmis seuraavan päivänä eli kuusi päivää sitten, ja kun tänään tepastelin liikkeeseen hakemaan autoani, niin eiköhän jarrusta puuttunut vielä yksi pala, jota mies oli "etsimässä" para-aikaa. Siis mitä helvettiä? Miten voi korjauksen ammattilainen etsiä Meksikon yleisimmän auton jarrun osaa KOLME JA PUOLI VIIKKOA???? Edellisen osan, jonka korjausken piti kuulua samaan hommaan, etsimisessa meni myös pari viikkoa ja kun menin ihmetyksissäni kysymään toisesta mekaanikosta samaa osaa, niin osasivat sanoa samoin tein mistä kyseisen osan löytää. Liike sijaitsi 200 metriä herra syksyn korjauspajasta.

Aika siis mekaanikon vaihdolle. Tämä on jo pitänyt tehdä jo jokunen aika sitten, mutta on reissua ja muuta kiirettä pukannut päälle sillä vauhdilla, että ei autoasiaa ole jaksanut kummemmin miettiä. Nyt on allekirjoittaneella lisäksi enää muutama päivä Meksikossa, joten odotan että syksy pitää lupauksensa ja tuo auton omin päin talon eteen huomenna iltapäivällä. Saakon seistä siinä sitten pari kuukautta. Helevetti.

Chapter 9. Sobre el abuelo y Sayulita

Hiiiii!

The end of the first is approaching lightspeed and I felt the need to keep u guys updated of the things happened during the last weeks. I'll tell about our trip to Sayulita and talk a little about the life in the host family because of the recent occasions. I'll start with the latter one.

About three weeks ago the 85 year old grandfather of the family had a brain stroke. He was taken to the hospital immediatly and spent the first week there - accompanied all day and night long with many family members. It really showed my the power of the family once again, for exampe Susana was staying almost every night in the hospital nearby the granpa. Our schools stupid falta rules obliged her to do her normal work still and she was basically going without a rest all day long with a couple of hours of sleep. I felt a bit guilty to go partying and to a vacation to Puerto Vallarta when they spend all their time in the hospital, but then again, what could I have done..

After the first week the stroke had also an effect of my life. He moved to our house and they wanted him to have my room downstairs. I had to move upstairs to a guest room, which I shared the first week with diego because some of their cousins came to the house and took Diego's room. So my space practically reduced from 15 sqmeters to about 3 sqmeteres for some time, which wasn't of course the best thing but of course I understood the situation. The granpa's having some mental problems and depression so the home life has become a big more stressful.

I can't remember if I've told it already, but I'm moving to another place to stay in after my winter vacations. This was my plan all year long and this incident kind of only strengthened my plans. Well anyway, so far I've had an awesome time here with the family and I feel like owing them A LOT.

Hahahaha, I remember a funny thing that has happened a few times both when being in Diego's car. They happened during the evening or night and I've both times felt asleep in the car, just to find myself waking up to the noise of people laughing and having 3 pair of eyes staring at me with an oddly grin. The thing was that I was having a sleep without noticing. In the dreams I was in the same car but in the dream the people were talking to me and asking some questions to which I of course responded. However, my responses didn't go unheard and my buddies could here everything that I was talking in the dream which of course didn't make any sense. One time for example I found myself talking about the prices of tacos, telling how much I have money and advising the route to a taco place, which later on blurred into reality when I found that my friends clearly weren't understanding a crap that I was saying.

Sayulita 12.-16.11.2010

Finally after many weeks of planning we got the chance to go Surfing in Sayulita, a small city nearby Puerto Vallarta in the west coast of Mexico.

Sayulita on a map

I was traveling with Niklas, a Finnish guy from Helsinki who is also studying at TEC. We left on Friday evening at 6pm and headed first in the centre bus station with 1 hour taxi ride. Later on we found out that the same bus stopped after an hour of driving to another bus station that was 10 minutes away from my house, wippieeeeee.

We arrived to Puerto Vallarta after some 4,5 hours of driving and didn't do too much anything but just have evening dinner and a couple of well deserved beers. We slept the first night in a place called Hotel Rosita, which was ok but still not that good so the next morning we decided to find another place to stay. We weren't sure about the hostel possibilities in Sayulita, so we decided to find a place in PV not to have to carry our bags the whole day there if we couldn't find a place to stay in. We found a much better place with the same price (12 euros per person) with 2 jacussis, king size bed, kitchen and a living room with about 45 square meters. We were really satisfied (in everything else than the super-slow breakfast) and would definetly go there again. Too bad I can't remember the name of it.. Here's a few pics of PV!

Typical street view in Puerto Vallarta

Icecream-time - all year long!

From the hotel window

Ready to go!

On our way to Sayulita

We left to Sayulita at about 1pm after the hotel episode and arrived there in an hour or so. There was a big flood katastrophe two months ago with various parts of the city destroyed and still there was a big river in the centre of the city that was created during the storm and was still quite big.

Somebody must've had a pleasant toilet experience

First we had a really good marico-tostada mix for 60 pesos (a bit less than 4 euros)! Afterwards we headed to the beach, which we heard was good for not that experienced surfers like ourselves. Here's a few pics of it.

Sayulita beach

Our surf-gear renting place!

As soon as we arrived to the beach we found out that we weren't the only ones from the in Sayulita in that weekend. We met at least ten more people in the first afternoon and another dozen more during the next few day. But what the hell, we were here to SURF and not socialize, so we grabbed two longboards for us and headed for the waves. The first moments went of course a bit scetchy finding the right technic, but pretty soon enough we got the hang of it and I successfully succeeded to ride a few waves to the end which was of course nice. I liked the beach a lot and the waves were certainly not too big for us. The only negative thing worth mentioning was the rock bottom in a pretty shallow water that was located of course where the better waves were. It wasn't a big problem and u just had to avoid avoided to crash head first in the shallow water.

The next day we headed again to Sayulita in the morning from Puerto Vallarta and this time decided to take our backpacks with us when informed that there would be room to stay in Sayulita. The hostel that we took in Sayulita had the same price than our Junior Suite room in Puerto Vallarta, but that's about the only thing that the rooms shared. It located 20 meters from the beach so once again we proved the fact of 3 of the most important things of a property: Location, location and location. This time we rented hard boards, because the 2 hour long surfing yesterday without shirts on soft board resulted that even taking a shower hurted like hell and our stomach and chest were full of red remarks. We went together with some other people from Guadalajara in that night and the next day consisted again of some surfing action and taking it easy in the beach. We headed home in monday night, but the memories of the trip were still strong on Tuesday, when I had to stay in the bed for basically whole day because my stomach was hurting. I think the reason for it was something that I ate in Sayulita in the last evening. Wednesday was still not 100%, but Thursday I was feeling normal again and could go back to the school and sport routines, wippiee!

I'll end my update here because my laptop battery is running out and I'm going to do some sports in the kampus area. I'll write one more update about my trip to Veracruz and Xalapa in the east coast of mexico and also add some stories about the last days of the first semester here in Guadalajara.

Hasta luego!