Fish Tanks... Only Bigger

Fish Tank
October 5th, 5:20 PM
North: 19.623110
West: 96.400791

by FERENC IVANICS
We passed by a huge lake. Suddenly I spotted some strange pools. They were bubbling. We figured out that they probably breed fish here. Freshwater fish, Moharra Tilapia, to be exact, as we were told by the workers. This is one of the most exquisite comestible fish around here.


They keep the water sparkling to prevent fish from asphyxiation. Indeed, there are some 1200 pieces in one pool. Water-pumps keep the water flowing constantly to keep fish in motions; the animals have less fat this way and their flavor is better.

A Night in Palmasola

Hotel Palmasola
October 5th, 10:00 AM

by FERENC IVANICS
We arrived to Palma Sola after dark. We tried to find a spot to camp for an hour with no luck. The recommended places were too public, or the folks rambling around looked too suspicious or too drunk.


Finally a woman told us to check the Hotel Palmasola, they have a huge garden and the owner might let us stay there. We don’t usually like to stay in motels or hotels, they are out of our price range, and we know that guests without a dime aren’t always welcome... But we asked.


The owner, Prof. Sergio Arrazola turned out to be a nice man, he wanted to find a good camping spot in the yard, but after a while he just said that it would be better for everyone if we stayed in a room. So we had a room, a shower, washed some clothes. For free. Thank you! Everything was fine, except that small black and white dog who barked and yowled all night long, until my brother put him in his place. :) But no harm was done, we were able to appreciate all this luxury.

Waves and Turtles

Turtle Kindergarten
October 4th, 1:00 PM
North: 19.902471
West: 96.504598

by FERENC IVANICS
On hot days we sweat a lot. Trucks and coaches pass us on the dusty road, so in two or three days we get pretty filthy. That’s when seawater comes handy. We were walking through the little town of Santander when we saw the sign pointing towards a beach. We wanted to take a bath and to take it easy, so we took the path that turned out to be quite long and cranky. But it was worth it, we walked by some nice swamps.


When we arrived at the beach we realized that there will be no taking it easy... The waves were intense. We got more tired after taking a ten minutes bath then we were before. But it was fun. Right beside our swimming spot there was a roped off square area, a sea-turtle incubator. They collect the turtle eggs from nearby beaches and place them here to help the little turtles hatch their eggs safely.

Mangrove Lakes

Mangrove Lake
October 4th 11:00 AM
North: 19.919574
West: 96.530406

by FERENC IVANICS
There are more and more lakes and rivers on our path. Quite often we cannot tell if a lake is freshwater or saltwater. Most of these lakes contain mixed water, probably.


Their shores are covered by dense vegetation, mangroves are pretty common plants around here. When it’s low-tide their root system becomes visible. These long, carrot-like stilt roots offer shelter and habitat for hundreds of species. It’s interesting that their seeds germinate while still attached to the plant and drop into the water like little spears.

A Day Off at the Sea

by FERENC IVANICS
We’ve been walking for days without a rest. We promised each other that when we reached the sea, we would take one day off. Tourist season is over, or it hasn’t started yet, so we found some nice, calm places to stay. We put up our tents on a private land that looked deserted.

István, my brother tried his luck again with sea-fishing. He hasn’t managed to catch anything this far. Now he tried with a crab-flesh bait, and in minutes he has caught his first prey, a fish called ronco around here.


We got some baits from local fishermen and with that bait István caught half a dozen bagrems, which are fluvial fish, but with the strong rains they often end up in coastal waters.


Fluvial or sea fish, didn’t matter for us, we ate four of them. Killed, cleaned, skewered, roasted and ingested with chili, lime and tortilla. That was their destiny. Later we took a dip in the brownish sea water. At the end of the day we were dog tired. It was a nice, relaxing day off... :)

Coconut Zone

Coconut Grove
September 29th 1:45 PM
North: 20.381953
West: 96.934175

by FERENC IVANICS
Up until now we haven’t seen coconut palms but in gardens, mostly cultivated for its beauty, not for its nutritional merits. As we reached the sea nea Barra de Nautla, we reached the northern limit of the Coconut Cultivation Zone. There are acres of coconut palms here.


At the side of the roads there are coconut stands everywhere. They are sold as refreshment or candy. As for coconut products, the range is lesser...


Everyone has the same product: a flavored sweet made of coconut and sugar. The best we have tried was green coconut, you can drink its refreshing juice then eat its jelly-like flesh. But of course, not without some chili and lemons.

Bananas, Part 1

by FERENC IVANICS
Bananas, they are well known around the globe so I don’t have to introduce them as I did with other strange fruits. But while—at least in Hungary—you won’t find but only one type of bananas in grocery stores, here it’s a different story. As we approach the real Central America, we stumble upon more and more banana-specialties. Bananas are cheap, they sell two kilos for a buck, so we can afford to try every single kind of it.


We always name them. That one is a “teat” variety, three peaces of this giant banana weight almost two pounds. Its flesh is yellowish-orange and it tastes sour-fruity but sweet at the same time.


On the next picture you can see the Mexican Puff Daddy. These bananas are shorter and fatter. This is one of the most exquisite bananas. When ripen, its skin often splits by itself.


And finally, that is the red banana. We haven’t tried it yet.

The City of Thunder

The City of Thunder
September 27th, 09:00 AM
North: 20.447773
West: 97.377598

by FERENC IVANICS
This is the misterious ancient city: El Tajín. It kept most of its secrets from us: there was only a few English descriptions around the site.


The city was built by the Totonacs around the first century. Its most famous building is the temple of columns, with 365 windows. It has survived the past centuries in relatively good conditions. But you have to know that most of the city has been restored.


It was a nice experience, this is one of the most preserved archeological sites in Mexico, and the entry is free of charge. It’s a huge site, we needed quite some time to visit every building, but it was worth it. The city has a strange, powerful feel around it, and the buildings almost talk to you... that’s difficult to understand today.


There’s a ball court as well. We know only a few things for sure about the game, but it’s said that the loser team met their gods at the very same night they had lost the match. Speaking of gods, the city was named after the god of thunder, not sure why, maybe due to the frequent hurricanes around here. So, it was worth it, we reconnected with the ancient traditions.

The Streets of Papantla

Papantla Statue
September 26th, 06:00 PM
North: 20.449693
West: 97.324104

by FERENC IVANICS
At first look we thought Papantla was definitely a tourist destination, due to the proximity of El Tajín, a pre-Columbian city. The town has some extremely steep streets, one false step and you slide dozens of meters down. The streets are full of tokens alluding to the archaeological site. It made us curious and we decided to make a trip to El Tajín...

Camping with Fortuna and with Kids

Covered Shelter
September 23rd, 10:00 AM
North: 21.0400
West: 97.4373

by FERENC IVANICS
Fortuna seems to like us, she haven’t given a chance to test our tents in serious rains. Although it rains often, we’ve spent our nights under a roof. But as we walk to the south there will be more rain, so the load test is inevitable.


Lately we’ve been trying to avoid putting up our tents in or close to villages. Due to the kids. It’s very upsetting when a dozen children form a circle around you and stare at you. Standing, staring, whispering, their only action is to invite other children. But last morning they threw rocks at us, the little devils. Our revenge was immense and immediate: we didn’t share our chocolate with them...


Chocolate, it’s something of real Mexican origins. This one was made of cocoa and sugar, it can’t get any simpler than that. Yes, that’s why it isn’t really tasty. But oddly enough, chocolate in the USA was far worse. Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria cannot be beaten when it comes to high quality chocolates.

Giant Bananas at the Bay

Cattle Encounter
September 21st, 06:50 PM
North: 21.2783
West: 97.4452

by FERENC IVANICS
Tamiahua bay, Tamiahua village. The major part of the locals fish for a living. It wasn’t on our route, wasn’t “a port of call”, we could have passed it, but we didn’t have anything to eat. So, we walked a two miles detour.


Since it’s a fishing village, we went for the typical food here: a beef steak. And we bought some giant bananas. These puffy bananas are locally cultivated and they taste pretty great.

Beat Your Greens

by FERENC IVANICS
Like I was mentioning in my previous post, roadside weeds grow tall and dense. Usually they are cut by machete-workers, but it seems that they cannot cope with this challenge in the rainy season.


The signposts are slowly swallowed by the green vegetation. Safety comes first...

Cows and Breaks

Cattle Encounter
September 21st
North: 21.3147
West: 97.6124

by FERENC IVANICS
It’s hard to find a place to have a rest at the side of these narrow roads. Vegetation grows almost at the edge of the paved surface. But when you walk some 20 miles a day, you need to stop sometimes. We don’t want to lay in the weed that grows along the roads, sometimes it’s two meters high. We don’t really feel like probing what lives in there (though I suspect millions of mosquitoes)... So, we have breaks on the tarmac hoping that drivers pay attention.


Sometimes it’s not cars but cattle. These simple animals avoid us and would never step on a human. But there’s a chance they get scared, and we don’t want to make extra tasks to the “cowboys”. From Naranjos to Tamiahua the terrain is hilly again, so we’ve had to pay more attention to the trucks when passing curves.

A Roof above Your Head

Night Shelter
September 20th 8:00 PM and 21st 09:00 AM
North: 21.4039
West: 97.6592

by FERENC IVANICS
Yesterday we managed to walk into the night. Considering that it’s a lot harder to find a camping spot after dark, that’s not good... Fortunately we ran into Jorge Hernández and he helped us find a shelter for the night. Thanks, Jorge, for the help and for the coffee with milk-bread as well.


It’s strange that when we are looking for a place to spend the night, many times we get a spot with at least a roof above. Sometimes we wonder why locals don’t think about spending a night under the sky. I mean we have tents, but anyway, they usually find some covered spot. Which is good, I won’t complain... Yesterday night it rained again, but we didn’t need to test how waterproof our tents are, and this morning we were able to fold them up dry.

Shades and Wasp Nests

Wasp Nest
September 17th, 4:45 PM
North: 21.8984
West: 97.7332

by FERENC IVANICS
Between Tampico and Naranjos tarmac disappeared sometimes and we walked on dirt roads, dusty and muddy dirt roads, but fine, we’ve seen worse. The weather is still hot, and it will get hotter soon, we really appreciate the shades. The best shade comes from trees, which form a tunnel above the road. There is only one problem, in these areas the mosquitoes are active in daytime as well.


The fauna is getting more and more interesting. We see new birds, iguanas, strange insects all the time. One of the most interesting sights was a wasp hive. These wasps always build their nest on palm leafs.

The Land Belongs to Those Who Work It

Emiliano Zapata Statue
September 17th 11:30 AM
North: 22.0036
West: 97.7612

by FERENC IVANICS
We were hungry. Passing by various small villages in hope of finding a buffet or some place to get something to eat. Finally we gave up and stopped at the—probable—center of a village that was tiny as well. Near a—how to put it—statue of low qualities. It commemorated Emiliano Zapata a leader of the Mexican Revolution.


We began to peel coconuts on the main square while some of the local folks started to approach us. We told them who we were and that we were looking for a comedor, a place to eat. There was no comedor but a guy suggested that we bought some meat, eggs and bread in the store and her wife would make some sandwiches for us. It was a deal, though they didn’t accept anything for the help. We were happy with our bellies stuffed. There are good folks around here...

Roadside Laundry

WorldWalk were [Washing] Here
September 17th, 10:45 AM
North: 22.0293
West: 97.7668

by FERENC IVANICS
It’s really hot, sweltering, humid hot. Our backpacks are heavy. We sweat like pigs. The dirt and the dust stick to our clothes, we have to wash. OK, we bought some pink washing soap, collected a few gallons of clean water in our plastic bottles and found a good place to wash... on the side of a road. In this situation that was the best we could get.


We put on a really good show for locals, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Coaches stopped by to give enough time for passengers to catch a glimpse of our activity: white men with beards washing white socks...

Welcome to the Jungle again via Destination Finder at Tripbase.com

You're right, it’s a re-edited old post for the Creative Writing Competition on Tripbase.com. Yes, it’s pure marketing: a marketing action of our blog, and a marketing action of Tripbase’s Destination Finder. And yes, again, I’m writing this intro just to fulfill the terms and conditions of the competition.

First of all some words about Destination Finder. I have to admit: I had never heard about this tool before I received the mail promoting the creative writing competition, so I’m a total beginner. I assume, usually you find a nice destination, visit it and then post a description. In our case it was a backwards process: my first step was finding our best post, and only my second step was finding the location on Destination Finder. And it wasn’t really easy. The motivation of our WorldWalk tour is beyond the usual spare-time actions: we don’t look for nightlife, dining and shopping related experiences. And though we do enjoy attractions and wonders of nature, we are not directly after them. So, our best written post—this one that your are reading right now—is not about typical tourist attractions. Nature was my only choice. Thanks God (and thanks to Tripbase.com) the search results can be filtered by continent, so I searched in North-America only. And I was really lucky. I set budget to minimum and I checked the budget trip option. It’s true, we are really poor now. Then I set the leisure sliders to minimum, only nature was left in the positive range. I didn’t set any actions: casinos are not our thing, and there wasn’t anything else in that box. My preferred weather was mild, and I didn’t bother about tourist season. Then, I was really surprised to see that my first attempt was successful, the first result was Bonita Springs, FL and the second one was Orlando. I think, it couldn’t have been closer to our destination. Maybe it was pure coincidence, but I think the database and the search algorithm are just fine.

And now about the second term: 500 words minimum. It’s OK, it’s much more, even without the G’n’R lyrics.

by FERENC IVANICS
Jungle, guns and blood? We’re definitely going to cite some lyrics of the LA band, Guns'n'Roses here: Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
In the jungle where we play

Sometimes we recall our previous camping spots, for example in France, where we camped in freezing temperatures, or Germany’s green meadows, the Sahara desert...




Well, these days it is something completely different. Somewhere after Tavares we found a camping spot. By the side of a creek there were some deserted old houses. We looked around to see if there was anyone there, found a fisherman, who said that no, no one had been here for a while. The place was beautiful, if someone had kidnapped me and dropped me here, saying that this was Costa Rica, I would have believed him. A small river, crocodiles, large fish and real mossy jungle on the shores. We’ve seen some huge wading birds, larger than a crane, and some eagles. And we’ve seen ants. So small they march through the mosquito screen of the tents. Fortunately they were after the dead matter of the blisters, stuck in our socks.

Welcome to the jungle
We got fun 'n' games
We got everything you want
Honey we know the names

The local color is not about the plants and animals only. We haven’t seen so many gun stores in our life. Even the smallest place has at least one of them. And it’s curious that they often sell guns and jewelry at the same place. “I’d like to have a gun and some ammo. Thank you. And now I’d like to take that necklace, too.” :) I guess, it’s too cliché.

Welcome to the jungle
We take it day by day
If you want it you're gonna bleed
But it's the price you pay

They’re not as dangerous as guns, but they’re of larger caliber than we’re used to: damn mosquitoes. Sometimes we think that a mad fly attacked us. If you’re not quick enough smashing it blood splutters everywhere.

Coconut Refreshment

Dos Hermanos Diner
September 17th 8:50 AM
North: 22.0473
West: 97.7717

by FERENC IVANICS
The whole thing began when I started to see coconut palm trees all around us. I wanted to buy coconuts somewhere. But they had only green coconuts on sale: too much liquid, too little flesh. But I wanted to have a ripe coconut, to have something crispy and crunchy. But no luck.


One night we stopped at a diner called “Dos Hermanos”, and I spotted a coconut palm right there, full of fresh, ripe fruits. I asked the owner if he could let me have some of those coconuts. He said I could take as many as I wanted. I took three. Prokoro, a local guy peeled the first one for me. It’s a really tough job to peel a coconut, even with a machete. (By the way, everyone here has a machete...)


Next morning I peeled the other two nuts, it cost me half an hour and half a gallon of sweat. We had our coconut-candy, it was sweet and refreshing.


There was a parrot living in a small cage on the yard of the diner. It’s been living there for five years. Birds are symbols of freedom, free mind and soul, we think that it’s a cruel thing to keep one in a small cage. And alone... when its fellow parrots fly around, free. It was a sad sight.