Mexico Easter 2003 - Part 3: Meeting the group in Piste

6th April 2003 - Piste

I woke up very early, having slept early due to no fault of my own - it was simply because of time difference. I walked around for a while, talking to people like shop-owners and newspaper ladies about where I could get descucher/desayuno (breakfast) at this early hour. The out-of-hotel breakfast sounds interesting, so I’ll do that but San Francisco doesn’t open until 8, so I’ll wait until then. I’m beginning to realise that I must get to learning Spanish quickly, or else it’s going to be very hard out of the cities to gossip with people. The bus stops and “zebra crossings” here are elevated bumps on the road. You just sit there and watch the world go by, it’s easy like Sunday morning. The air is fragrant with different vegetation and birds are making sleepy sounds outside my window in room 207, where I am looking out over whitewashed low buildings, with climbing plants on them, and trees and flowering shrubs in between the buildings.

Now I have finished the day, I can write about my first day with my Suntrek group. Our trek leader, Sybren, came late, a Dutch guy who looks patient enough to take care of us! My group:

Sybren - Dutch, our trek leader, always capable, always cheerful, all round good guy.
Vanessa - German, Sybren’s girlfriend, lovely, slow and chilled. A calming force for me.
Anna-Katrine - German, sometimes random, always suprising and seems really crazy and funny.
Toshimuri - Japanese, only other guy in the trekkies. Did degree at Leeds uni, now off to Germany to study German. Top notch man, always hilarious in more ways than one.
Bonnie Owens - Tasmanian, a bubbly, lively sort from Hobart. Really fun lass.
Helen - Swedish, working as aupair in US. Astonishing - she’d laugh to herself at something for aeons, usually making us all giggle with her. She has her 21st birthday on the last day of this trip!
Marion - German. Alias Agnes (for no reason). Works at German bank, easy going and very friendly. I enjoy her company.
Florence - Swiss, lawyer. Only one who spoke a good ounce of Spanish amongst the trekkies. Sybren was of course, fluent. Sharp and normally easy going.
Ria - Dutch, very nice and caring lady. She used to break into speaking Dutch quite often with Sybren! She has her birthday during this trip.

We drove out through lush forests to reach a bunch of little Mexican villages en route to Piste, where we were camping. We stopped at Valladolid, where in the market square there were many stall owners selling souvenirs and sweets. After visiting a charming church at Valladolid’s zocolo (central square), I bought some lollipops to support the local economy! Sybren gave an explanation about how it was bad to support the beggars and not to give in to the guilt of not giving to them. Mexico is poor despite the size of it’s economy and population. We stopped at a supermarket where me and Tosh stuck our hands into the pie to cook dinner that night. The whole shopping trip was a chaos, and we all also bought Pepto-Bismol, the most useful awesome anti-quesiness tablets known to our mainman Sybren. I have to say I’ve not encountered anything that works better, that guy’s damn right. I know this because I took 2 right away as soon as I bought them.

We set up tents at Piste in sweltering heat in a hotel garden. It was really sticky! So I just jumped in the pool and everyone else did too before we started a really slow dinner of pasta and chicken, cooking under the thatched palapa (like an open hut). I slept like a pig and the sleep wasn’t that good because insects were everywhere. I remember seeing a huge beetle, the size of my thumb, walking around the sink. It’s a hotel tomorrow in Merida!