Mexico – Holland – Mexico

Hola queridos todos,

Por fin, un mensaje de Mexico!
Life has been beautiful, crazy, sad, surreal, very real, interesting, energizing, tiring and full of love and adventures since the last time I wrote to you all. Especially the past few weeks have been a rollercoaster more than ever… I’ll tell you about it ‘ahorita’.

But first: with the fantastic donations I received for the Caras Alegres project, I was already able to do some great things for the children and a few families living in Las Rosas, Xela (see previous blog and pictures). I’m intending to return to the project when traveling through Guatemala again, to see how the project and all the people are doing. With the rest of the donations I intend to find some children whom we can support financially to go to school. Also, the project might need our support too… I’ll keep you updated!

After about 3 months in Xela, I felt it was time to move on and explore more of this continent. With two friends, Seth (USA) and Laura (Ger), I left for Mexico. Chiapas to be precise; the most southern state of Mexico and considered to be the most beautiful too. Seth, Laura and I met 3 months earlier at the language school (Juan Sisay, in Xela) and it was awesome to hit the road together! After a weekend at the beautiful, colonial town San Cristobal de las Casas, we decided to slow it down even more and took a bus to Lagunas de Montebello. Besides visiting this National Park with about 59 lakes (from tiny to pretty large), there’s not much to do here, and that’s exactly what we were intending to do… not much :) We spent a week here relaxing, recuperating from our time in Xela ;) Because you must understand, that learning Spanish is very rough business… it involves not only daily 1-on-1 classes for 5 hours and homework afterwards, but also many parties, trips to surrounding villages, potlucks, hikes, more parties and for me working at the project.

After Seth left to head back to Guatemala and further south, Laura and I decided to travel up north to visit Palenque. The town itself is not interesting at all, but the enormous Mayan ruins just outside the village all the more so. They date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD. The ancient name was then Lakan Ha, which translates as “Big Water”. The oldest structure that is discovered up to now (from about 600 AD) dates from the Classic Period (200-600 AD) in which Palenque was the capital of a big and important Maya state. It’s located in the middle of the jungle, and estimates are that about 90% of the city is still buried under it! Thanks to my enthusiastic guide at the archeological site, I learned more about the intriguing Mayan traditions, constructions, ways of living, glyphs etc.

Even though it is very hot and humid in this jungle area, we found ourselves very content and relaxing a lot at El Panchan, a little ‘settlement’ with some ‘hostels’, two restaurants and a bar, halfway the town Palenque and the ruin site. When being out of a town, ‘hostel’ normally means a bunch of cabañas and palapa's: little wooden, palm or bamboo huts with a roof made of wood, palm- or fernleafs.
We ended up staying 9 days and made friends with Daniel, a Mexican guy who was working at ‘our’ hostel El Jaguar. He took us for a mountain bike ride through the jungle, to visit a tiny ‘normal’ village and a Zapatista village. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) started as a Indian uprising and formed into a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas. Since 1994, the group has been in a declared war "against the Mexican state," though this war has been primarily nonviolent and defensive against military and paramilitary invasions into Chiapas. The EZLN exists mainly of rural indigenous people, their main spokesperson is Subcomandante Marcos.
Daniel used to work for, and therefore be part of the Zapatistas, so he knew some villages and could tell us quite a bit about the movement. Also, instead of going to the very touristy waterfalls of Agua Azul, he took us to another Zapatista village where we seemed to be in paradise: incredibly beautiful waterfalls, natural pools to swim in, jungle surrounding us and not a chicken around (as we would say in Dutch… though, there were many chickens around but hardly any people ;) ).

When it was time for Laura catch her flight back to Germany, I decided to return to San Cristobal de las Casas. As I was still working out my next step (since I try to plan as less as possible), it was awesome to do so while being surrounded by fun young people at a ‘normal’ hostel called La Iguana. Besides the beauty of the town itself, San Cristobal has many many cute and cozy places to go for coffee, lunch, drinks and dancing. So… I went :) many times haha!

While making new friends, the next step of my trip became clear: after a day or 10, I headed off to do a Vipassana silent retreat (www.dhamma.org, this one was in Valle de Bravo, close to Mexico City). Yes, dear friends, this does include NOT speaking, no writing, reading and listening to music for 10 days (Vipassana is pretty strict in comparison to other retreats). Ha, didn’t think I could do that right?! ;)
To be honest, I never thought I would find it thát pleasant to not speak for such a time. Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was taught in India more than 2500 years ago as a universal remedy for universal ills, i.e., an Art of Living. This specific way of meditating that is taught and practiced during the retreat. It focuses on observing all the sensations that are happening in your body. Not judging them (i.e. creating cravings if you like a pleasant sensation, or creating aversion when not liking a sensation e.g. pain), but just observing them. Hereby you really experience (instead of just telling yourself) that everything is impermanent. The only thing that never changes, is change itself.

Every evening there was a very motivating, stimulating and fun lecture about Vipassana, whereby I also learned more about Buddhism. It was great to find that many things are very similar to the philosophy of Option (see my blog “Loving Life and Living Love”). With all my new experiences, I find myself expanding certain views, creating new beliefs, dropping old ones, integrating new perspectives. So far, nothing conflicts with one another, it only makes it more complete, more comprehensive.

When we were allowed to start talking again on day 10, I immediately got invited by two people to come stay with them in Mexico City. I decided to first take a few days for myself at the beautiful town of Valle de Bravo (located at a lake), before heading back to the capital of Mexico with about 24 million inhabitants. Staying with Virginia and later with the crazy ex-roommates of Susana, I had a great week in this massive city! Virginia showed me around and told me a lot about the city and its people. Her parents, who live at Texcoco (about 2,5h from Mexico City) invited us to come over and visit the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan together. Of course I said "Claro que si!" That weekend, Virginia, her dad and her brother came to pick me up from the busstation in the evening, telling me we'd visit a party that saturday night and going to the ruins on sunday. All of the sudden I found myself at a traditional Mexican wedding in that little town! Every one is invited when you have the slightest connection with the bride, groom and their family... everyone get's dinner, drinks, gifts to take home (to remember the party). It was awesome to witness and participate (!) all the traditional dances and other weird traditions, e.g. throwing the bruide and groom in the air, trying to knock over the bride and groom while others hold them, a 'blessing' dance for the new couple with the father of the bride dancing up front with a living turkey in a basket on his head (?!), the rest doing a conga/polonaise after him while carrying all kinds of things (7up, coca cola, whiskey, food, presents) symbolic for wishing health and success to the couple. Interesting stuff!
The ruins of Teotihuacan were impressive, but mainly for it's size of the ancient city. The buildings are very much restored and there was not many Aztec art to be seen at the sight.

Back in Mexico City we spend one night at plaza Garibaldi, where Mariachi bands are ‘selling themselves’ –well, there songs, “50 pesos for one, special deals for more!” ;) – every day and night. Mariachi is the name used for the Mexican street orchestra’s and the genre of music that they play, which is found in Mexico. The video is not mine, but for an impression of Mariachi music at Plaza Garibaldi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nodmTEpNSzc&feature=fvsr
I also met up with two friends I met earlier on my travels, and together we made new friends :)

Time to leave the city behind and buss-it to Villahermosa, a city close to the Caribbean coast in the southern state Tabasco. Thursday the 1^st of September I arrived there, at what was to be my new home for a while: the family of Patricia (Dutch), her husband Rafael (Mexican) and their daughter Alexandra (4 y.o.).
I met Patricia in the museum of Palenque, where she was in the roll of tour guide with a buss full of Dutchies. We got talking and she told me her husband is giving horse therapy to children and adolescents. When I told her about my background, she immediately invited me to come stay with them for a while, to work and learn together! As you can imagine, I was very enthusiastic straight away and decided that this opportunity would become the next step in my travels after the silent retreat.

After the first interesting, warm (Tabasco is the hottest state of Mexico, temperatures going up to 40 C –right now about 30 C– and VERY humid), busy and fun days I received very terrible and sad news from home on Monday morning 5^th of September…
Sunday the 4^th, my best friend Anouk past away. She was on holidays in Morocco with another best friend. During a mountain hike she slipped and fell down 23 meters. She didn’t survive the fall.
As soon as I overcame the first moments, I knew I wanted to go home. There was no other option than to be with our friends, Anouk’s family, my own family. However, at the same time it didn’t feel right to end my travels so abruptly. Going back home ‘for good’ (‘for now’ ;)) would also mean start looking for a full-time job, a new house etc. Some things I don’t feel ready for just yet. I still have to many things I want to explore on this trip. So, I booked a return ticket to go for a month, and got back to the Netherlands on Thursday night the 8^th after a very long journey.

Being back all of the sudden was very surreal and full of mixed feelings. It was fantastic to see my family and friends again, but at the same time we all would rather have not met for some months more, than to meet now for this reason.
The first two weeks were pretty much taken up by being together with friends and ex-roommates in Utrecht. This is the town where I lived and studied the past 5 years. Anouk and I lived in the same student house for 4 years, together with many others. Together we were preparing things for the cremation, visiting Anouk and her family and making a wreath (een krans, see pictures) full with party gadgets for the ‘afterparty’ (as Anouk LOVED parties and bringing gadgets -specially with glitters and lights-, the more the better). The cremation itself was very special, intense, colorful and beautiful. There were tons of people (they didn’t fit into the hall!), many beautiful speeches, lots of tears, laughs, wonderful memories and moments of realization and disbelief.

The last two weeks of my stay in Holland were completely filled with spending time with friends and family. I was super lucky to unexpectedly be present at our family-weekend (held once a years) and my sisters’ bachelor graduation. The day before I had to leave again (Sunday October the 9^th) we also had a big get-together with friends to ‘celebrate’ Anouk’s 26^th birthday, which would’ve been the 11^th.
I cannot even tell you how valuable and great it was to see, hug, listen to and talk with all my beloved friends and family!

I want to thank all of them from the bottom of my heart, for all their love, support, smiles, shared tears, comforting words, interesting talks, great memories, messages, calls, visits, hugs, kisses, patience, listening ears, energy, shoulders to cry on, rugkriebels, dinners, ice-cream, places to stay and more love. (L)
Thank you for understanding that I have to go back to my travels again, and know that I’m here for each and every one of you!

For the people I didn’t reach by email yet, but that would like to contact me:
My Mexican cell phone nr. is +52 – 1 – 967 679 83 84
Or you can add me on Skype: riannesportel (Please write a little message when you add me, cause I don’t always know who’s adding me by just reading the skypename, thanks! Also, you can buy ‘credits’ on Skype and call from your computer to ‘normal’ phones for less money than it would cost you otherwise).

This Tuesday morning the 11^th I got back to the family in Villahermosa after a very VERY long journey (1h delay to Madrid, then another 16h (!) delay to fly to Mexico, a 4-star hotel thanks to Iberia to spent a short night, but including breakfast and lunch :D, and an 11h night bus to Villahermosa).
Just as coming back to Holland, landing in Mexico was a quite surreal and disorientating experience once again. It’s weird and sad to be so far from all the people I love and that know what I’m going through, but at the same time it’s ‘right’ to continue what wasn’t finished yet. The family where I’m staying is sweet and I’m glad to notice I didn’t lose my Spanish ;)

I will be here for the coming weeks, learning how to ride a horse, learning about equino terapia (Spanish for horse therapy), about children with different disorders and handicaps, about Mexican culture, speaking Spanish (and a bit of Dutch), exchanging knowledge, especially about Son-Rise, working with the kids and.. who knows.. even learning a bit about cooking Mexican food ;)

All my love to you!