Nope, she’s not from a Star Wars casting. It’s a cow. There are others with even bigger ears, but they are really shy, so it’s impossible to take pictures of them.
by FERENC IVANICS
Nope, she’s not from a Star Wars casting. It’s a cow. There are others with even bigger ears, but they are really shy, so it’s impossible to take pictures of them.
Nope, she’s not from a Star Wars casting. It’s a cow. There are others with even bigger ears, but they are really shy, so it’s impossible to take pictures of them.
by FERENC IVANICS
We left Tampico crossing an enormous bridge. The sight was fascinating, we were able to look over the whole city.
On the left bank of the river there are serious industrial zones. On the other bank, scarcely inhabited woodlands. The bridge was like a sick link between technology and nature. Man cannot settle down in either of them. Two extremities: the lack of harmony. When we left the bridge we had a rest there. Far away we saw something, it looked like there was a huge fire somewhere. But it was only the hellfire of the oil refinery.
by FERENC IVANICS
We were in Miramar on the beach, looking for a safe spot to put up our tents. We wanted to stay in the wild, it’s not recommended to walk into a town, with a permanent diarrhea. There is a dense forest-belt next to the beach, we spent two nights there. A good and safe shelter, nobody was there at night. Why? Because there were billions of mosquitoes. In shady places they attacked during the day as well.
That’s why we had to wear trousers and shirts, we had to cover our whole body to protect ourselves from the mosquitoes. We had the astronaut look. :) Poo and pee meant another serious problem: we had to spray anti-mosquito liquid all over our potentially affected skin surfaces. You might be thinking: what are the potentially affected skin surfaces when taking a dump in the wild? Well, yes, you must include some of the parts that are normally covered with clothes.
by FERENC IVANICS
Hurray! A beach. We haven’t had a bath or shower in a week. The water of the Mexican Gulf looked pretty dirty in the USA. So, again, we haven’t expected much. And to our pleasant surprise, just before Tampico the sea is nice and clean; and even better: it’s warm.
You can just run into the water without any preparation. We had some great fun between the waves, but it wasn’t just fun... The dirt of the last week’s walk was slowly dissolving in the saltwater. We haven’t met any foreign tourists, just some peddlers who sell colorful thingies.
Hurray! A beach. We haven’t had a bath or shower in a week. The water of the Mexican Gulf looked pretty dirty in the USA. So, again, we haven’t expected much. And to our pleasant surprise, just before Tampico the sea is nice and clean; and even better: it’s warm.
You can just run into the water without any preparation. We had some great fun between the waves, but it wasn’t just fun... The dirt of the last week’s walk was slowly dissolving in the saltwater. We haven’t met any foreign tourists, just some peddlers who sell colorful thingies.
by FERENC IVANICS
This is what we see at breakfast, dinner and lunch: taco. It’s a flatbread—the so called tortilla—made of cornflour; it is filled with heavily spiced cooked or fried meat, but you can find tacos with fried eggs and beans, too.
Commonly it contains onion, parsley cilantro and the mandatory hot sauce. The price is varied in a wide range, in trendy places it’s 5-6 pesos, but in a poor region it costs only 3 or 4 (a buck is approximately 13 pesos). There are really clean shops and really dirty ones, of course. Well, our decision isn’t based on hygiene but on the price. It’s not the best strategy, but we are poor.
So it’s a reasonable side effect to have diarrhea once in a while. In this case: a permanent diarrhea during the last two days. It’s terrifying because we had similar symptoms in the Sahara, and that diarrhea lasted for two miserable weeks. Anyhow, we bought some medicine and we consume a lot of bananas, then we’ll see...
This is what we see at breakfast, dinner and lunch: taco. It’s a flatbread—the so called tortilla—made of cornflour; it is filled with heavily spiced cooked or fried meat, but you can find tacos with fried eggs and beans, too.
Commonly it contains onion, parsley cilantro and the mandatory hot sauce. The price is varied in a wide range, in trendy places it’s 5-6 pesos, but in a poor region it costs only 3 or 4 (a buck is approximately 13 pesos). There are really clean shops and really dirty ones, of course. Well, our decision isn’t based on hygiene but on the price. It’s not the best strategy, but we are poor.
So it’s a reasonable side effect to have diarrhea once in a while. In this case: a permanent diarrhea during the last two days. It’s terrifying because we had similar symptoms in the Sahara, and that diarrhea lasted for two miserable weeks. Anyhow, we bought some medicine and we consume a lot of bananas, then we’ll see...
by FERENC IVANICS
There’s few wild fruits around here. We’ve seen wild papaya, bananas, and some citrus fruits, but only a small amount, and locals usually know where to collect wild fruits better than us, so they are quicker then us... There’s not much left.
The only fruit in greater quantities is guava. It’s mainly used to create squash and juices, even though it’s a fine fruit to eat raw as well. It’s smelly, seriously smelly, if you put it in your backpack everyone around you will notice you’re carrying guava.
Its external coating is like pears’, but on the inside it’s creamy and contains many small and extremely hard seeds, which easily stick between teeth. This might be the reason why it’s considered a lesser fruit, but its juice is definitely first class.
by FERENC IVANICS
Churches are good opportunities to spend a night in their yards. If there is a garden or backyard and we can find an authorized person, we can put up our tents there, almost surely.
We’ve found our good old friend again, the scorpion. Earlier we had seen a bigger one, but it was dead. This specimen was about two inches long, and fell onto my brother’s tent, almost onto his neck. My brother’s tent again... Dangerous animals seem to prefer it. Generally we have no idea, if this scorpion is a poisonous one or not. But anyways, it’s a persona non grata.
by FERENC IVANICS
This plant is not a wild plant. It can be seen around the roads, since the trucks that carry the cotton fruits scatter their seeds. This is cotton, most of the clothes we wear are made of this plant. Just to let you know...
This plant is not a wild plant. It can be seen around the roads, since the trucks that carry the cotton fruits scatter their seeds. This is cotton, most of the clothes we wear are made of this plant. Just to let you know...
by FERENC IVANICS
There are many-many ants here, and for the moment we like them. We really hated the ants in the USA, particularly the fire ants. Damn aggressive, violent scum; a thief gang. That’s the fire ant. But these ants here are bigger and red, they are calm and focused on their job; if they can, they avoid human contacts. They commonly eat corn, buds, berries and similar pure vegetarian food. It’s really interesting to watch them as they carry the food into their home.
The land around the anthill is clean and tidy, sometimes it’s a circle with a 10 to 15 feet diameter. They remove everything to the bare soil. There is a cone in the middle of the circle, a small volcano, that is the highest spot of the living place of many thousands, a look-out tower, I could say... The entrance and the exit is a small hole on the top of the cone. Maybe it’s pretty rainproof like that.
by FERENC IVANICS
We were walking through the small town of González. After finishing up the worse taco we have had so far (dry, tough, with a scarce amount of meat) we started to look for a camp spot. When walking past the Police Station we noticed that they have a huge backyard. They took out data then let us stay.
In the past few days we have seen pretty strange and unknown plants, but in most cases at least I suspected their family. But this plant on the photos... I haven’t seen it before, I have no clue what it is. If you know it, please leave a comment.
The next morning we found a hole under István’s tent. We knew what these holes were, and we tried to tempt its resident, a nice, big, hairy spider. But with no success. A few days before a local had told us that during downpours there are legions of these spiders wondering around, so we tried the water trick. And here you have a photo of some kind of a tarantula. It’s not poisonous, but its bite can be real nasty. After the photo shoot we let him/her alone.
by FERENC IVANICS
It’s not common but sometimes local people don’t help us. Our guess is that they are afraid of us. I repeat, it’s not common. Generally local people are friendly and helpful. Like this guy on the picture.
We were just walking on the road when he invited us waving two bottles of Coke. We thankfully accepted the invitation, we could have used a rest. Although we didn’t really feel tired we weren’t sure if the storm clouds were closing on us or not. After half an hour we decided to stay in the village. The guy allowed us to set up our tents in his garden, next to a small river in the middle of a banana grove; it was really exotic. The only flaw was mosquitoes... We met the smallest bloodsucker ever, it was less than a millimeter long, so we weren’t able to take a picture. That black, butterfly-like insect went through the mosquito net flying. :) The bastard.
by FERENC IVANICS
I guess most of you know what Aloe vera is, and what it is good for. As a gardener I haven’t met her, but I know it’s a succulent plant and I know it’s used in lotions and soft drinks, but that’s quite about it. But I thought it would be a good idea to present it here: well, this is how it looks like and this is how it’s grown.
by FERENC IVANICS
Cattle breeding and orange cultivation are the most important agricultural branches here. Oranges are grown to produce orange-juice concentrate, so the species we can find here are not for direct consumption. Quantity is the main goal instead of quality. It’s safe to say there are many thousands of hectares of plantations.
As we leave behind the tropic of cancer, orange trees become greener, and they produce more fruits. Of course we can see other tropical fruits—such as coconut, papaya and bananas—but in smaller scale.
Up to this point we haven’t really seen decorative trees by the roads but now they are here, and we can spot (and hug) giant trees, too, mostly cypresses.
by FERENC IVANICS
Our luck has followed us from the USA, it turns out that in Southern Mexico rainy season starts in September and ends in November. In tropical areas there are two seasons: dry and wet. And now we’re getting deeper into the rainy one. Our tents haven’t really been tested in serious rain, and the reason is: quite frequently locals find us covered places to spend the night.
Apart from ranches and private houses we have another option: the school building. If we can make a “deal” with the guards, or the director lives near the school, we can usually arrange something. This time it was our lucky night, heavy rain was predicted. But the security guard called the director and we got a permission to stay. We hadn’t seen other semi-open places so it was indeed, lucky for us. Since it was a Saturday, we didn’t have to worry about a swarm of kids gathering around our tents the next morning. :)
Nothing in the morning, the clouds start to build up during the afternoon and late afternoon, early evening it rains, scheduled, you can count on it. Sometimes the rain misses us, but you can see flashes every single night.
by FERENC IVANICS
Finally we reached the Tropic of Cancer. We’ve already crossed it once in Africa. Now we’ve learned another name of it, so we know the Hungarian, English and Spanish version. The biggest difference between Tropic of Cancer in Africa and in America is the color palette. The Sahara was yellow and gray, here it’s living green.
We entered the the tropical area, and the environment has changed radically, the weather as well, there’s a lot more rain. The tropical area greeted us very politely, and the king of the land, this amazing mountain with a crown said hi.
As you can see on the photos, the vegetation is more vivid and rich, and usually there’s clouds on the sky. We have definitely left the semi-desert.
by FERENC IVANICS
Mountains and hills, with pretty dense bushes on them. On the side of the road there’s barbed wire, it’s hard to find a spot to camp on. On lucky days we can find a hole on the fence and find paths tread by cattle, wide enough for us. We put up our tents and settled down in mine to have dinner.
On the skin of the tent we saw the silhouettes of small arthropods. Ticks. After all it’s not surprising, when there’s cattle, there’s ticks. We finished our dinner: a cream made of powdered milk with dry biscuits. Then my brother, in a “good night” sort of fashion cut the cheese in my tent and left. And I just told him, joking: I wish you find some ticks in your butt! :)
In the middle of the night I woke up hearing the voice of my brother. He asked me if I knew how to remove a tick. He had found one in his bottom. Really. It was quite fat, probably it had been there for a while. He managed to remove it, his first tick in his life.
by FERENC IVANICS
Cranky roads in the mountains. The scenery is wonderful but we do not dare to muse on the gifts of nature too much, or else we can easily become victims of a truck. But seriously, this small road was really narrow, we had to jump into the brushes to avoid coaches and trucks sometimes. As we walk further and further to the south, the cars are always worse, older and more unreliable. We have run into cars broken down on the side of the road, mostly with puncture troubles. To sum it up: unreliable cars, narrow roads and—mostly on weekends—drunk drivers. We have to pay attention on the roads.
by FERENC IVANICS
We had to choose between two paths. One of them is a new road that runs near the coastline. The other one is an older road, it’s somewhat longer and passes through the nearby hills. We chose the second one, it promised more green vegetation and denser human population. So, from this point forward we have gone through some hill climbing, indeed.
As it turned out, the “denser” population doesn’t mean “dense”..., this area is quite uninhabited and the villages are pretty poor here. Some people told us that in southern Mexico we would have to look out for our stuff, it might get stolen if we run into drunk locals. Fortunately, so far we haven’t experienced any atrocities. Though, we have seen drunk Mexicans. :)
by FERENC IVANICS
Suddenly, approximately from this point, insects are showing up. Many butterflies, much more dragonflies and loads of some-other-thing with many legs. Butterflies are really beautiful, and they are the proof we have left the desert. Dragonflies are old friends because they eat tons of pesky insects, such as flies, mosquitoes, etc. We saw many dragonflies in Africa, but in Mexico we’ve witnessed dragonfly-legions with thousands of soldiers flying in the same direction. This is a really amazing experience and it’s perfectly safe.
We didn’t feel in danger, but didn’t feel like waving either, when a huge and dense wild-bee cloud passed above us. It was at least 50-60 feet long and some 15 feet in diameter—haven’t seen anything like it before, well, maybe in cartoons.
by FERENC IVANICS
We’ve been walking through alternating wet and dry areas. Villages are pretty green already. Where water gathers up you can find huge tropical trees, palms, and many blooming plants. In the semi-desert we didn’t really sweat, or at least the sweat dried up very quickly. Now we are soaking in our sweat. On the next picture you can see a tree with red-orange flowers, this is one of the the favorite meals of the hummingbirds—called chuparosa by local people.
We’ve already seen a couple of coconut palm trees, and we know they are definite forerunners of the tropical region. We’re getting closer to the jungle.
by FERENC IVANICS
As we preomised, we cut our hair, in fact, we cropped it. The beards remained, and will remain in the near future. Thanks to this look, locals call us—kidding—jews or terrorists. But this is perfectly fine, at least they don’t think we’re from the USA. For some reason “gringos” are not sincerely welcome here.
As we preomised, we cut our hair, in fact, we cropped it. The beards remained, and will remain in the near future. Thanks to this look, locals call us—kidding—jews or terrorists. But this is perfectly fine, at least they don’t think we’re from the USA. For some reason “gringos” are not sincerely welcome here.
by FERENC IVANICS
Mexico offers more than chilies. There’s tequila, for example. This is a spirit made of the blue agave plant; an indispensable ingredient of Mexican fiestas.
This is a small private distillery, one of the many thousands. Thanks to the owner of a ranch we had the chance to try some tequila once, a brand that’s considered good. It was fine and silky but fierce.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
