Our last days in Guanajuato

Our days in Guanajuato are numbered!

As I am writing this, it's our last day in Guanajuato, and we are packing our bags and trying to throw away as much as possible! It's incredible how much stuff we managed to collect in those 3,5 months we have been here..

We tried sending some of the movies we bought here with Heidi, but she got stopped in the customs in Amsterdam, and the took away about 40 movies! :( Pinche Customs!
The rest of the stuff we are dragging with us, hope we don't have to pay anything extra for overweight!

Anyway.. We are leaving with a cab around 3 at night, going to Leon, and taking the plane from there early in the morning! It's a 30-45 min car ride to Leon, then we fly to Mexico City, change planes, and then fly to Cancun! Woohoow!
As long as we get our stuff to Isla Mujeres everything will be allright, then we can send the stuff home with our friends from Norway that are visiting us this Christmas!

We had a wonderful time in Guanajuato, met tons of great people, got to travel the areas around Guanajuato, Leon, Maruata and lots more, learned some Español, concerts during Cervantino, BarFly, Cuba Mia, Los Lobos, Bar Ocho, La Kech, and ofcourse our favorite, Cafè Santo!

Thanks everybody for being friends, partying, studying, and travelling with us!

Sarah & Luis

Maggie & Erin
Maggie & Sara (freaky nails!)
Sarah (nordlendinga) & Merethe
Crazy times in Guanajuato during the Cervantino!
Decorations in Botellita
More decorations.
Drinking tequila with Erin
Oooh! I forgot to tell you guys I had a 25 pesos haircut!
That's about 12.50 NOK and around 2 USD!
Cheap stuff, he was done cutting my hair in about 5 minutes, and gave me a "choirboy" look when he was done! And to think we pay around 800 Pesos (400,- NOK /80 USD) in Norway for a haircut! It is truly insane!
Damn! I'm handsome! :P (Bob says Hi!)

Pamela & Mark
Hallgeir (El Pirato) We'll be seeing you on Isla Mujeres this xmas!

Heidi :) She will be joining on Isla Mujeres!
Chris Arenz (Shaggy)

Nadine

Enrique (Kike)

Pino & Mike
Michelle & Enrique (Kike)

Gene

Margareth and Mike

Suzan & Margareth and her kids :)

I probably forgot to post a picture of YOU here, but if you feel you should be here to, send me a mail! :)

I am guessing that I am not going to be online that much when I arrive at Isla Mujeres, but we'll see what happens! :) We have a lot of things we want to do there, including diving with sharks, swimming with dolphins, go see the sea turtles, enjoy the sun, enjoy our hammock, and just relax and put our feet up!
I will be posting pictures here as soon as I have any! :)

Oh, and for christmas, money is fine! :) No need to stress with gifts, as money is the only gift I need nowadays! :p

Life's GREAT!

I am "famous"! :)

Not long ago I was contacted by Carmen Bolanos from NuNomad, she was very interested in what I had done lately and what I was going to do, as she had read my blog.
She wanted to interview me so she could tell other "nomads" how it is to be in a different country, travel tips and so on.. :)

Well.. Today the interview was posted and is now available at http://bluesuitnomads.typepad.com/blue_suit_nomads/2007/11/meet-the-noma-1.html

Woohoow! I hope this will bring me a little more people on my blog, or at least inspire people to get out of their couches, and do something creative with their lives!

Take a look, why don'tcha? :)

-D-

A wonderful trip to the beach!

Maruata is beautiful!
There! I said it!
I'll even say it again! MARUATA IS BEAUTIFUL!


We were getting a bit ready for the beach, and when we heard some friends from school were going, we were allowed to tag along with them.. :)

Check out the slideshow i made from the trip!
(thanks to Heidi for downloading the Zumba music)



We started at 21:00 and left for the Central de Autobus in Guanajuato, there we took the PrimeraPlus express to Leon, which takes about 45 min.In Leon we had to wait for the other guys/girls to show up.. They had bought the tickets for us. :)
They show up around 22.00 and we have to wait some more, because our bus to Colima was not leaving until 23:30.
Luckily for us, the bus we were taking was 1.class, airconditioned and had comforable seats.. :) We wake up around 06:00 and quickly get on the next bus leaving for Maruata.. That took around 2-3 hours, also it was more comfortable than you would think..
And when we first arrived it was a warm, pleasant beach we layed our eyes upon!

This place doubles as a beach/turtle reservation.. :p In the daytime there are a few people enjoying the beach, but it's not too crowded. And in the night, the seaturtles crawl up on the beaches to digg big holes to lay their eggs in.

This was the only turtle we saw on the beach.. :( (a rare and endangered animalcrackerturtle)

We were told that some of these eggs usually got stolen by thieves trying to make a quick buck, but we did'nt even get to see any turtles, or egg-thieves for that matter... :(


The first day, we just had to buy a hammock, and instead of buying one each, we opted for the double one.. :D Fits 2 people easily! Comfy too!
It was actually too comfy, because I hardly got out of it after we bought it! :D
We got the other two couples to buy as well, probably because we were having such a nice time in ours.. :D

Anyways... The first night was great, we were a bit tired after the trip so we took a early night, around 20:00 (!!)


The next morning, I woke up early to catch the sunrise, listen to the waves and all inn all just enjoy the beach, but quickly found out that 2 backpacks had been stolen from one of the tents of our travelfriends.. They had gone to the toilet for 5 minutes, and when they came back, both their backpacks were missing from the tent.. :( SUCKS!
They had their money, phones, mp3players and all their clothes.. :/
Luckily, we had enough money so we could share, and they had everything they needed.
Even though they drank mostly mescal, cheapcheap booze, (20 pesos / 10 Nok)
they were happy! :D

The beach was lovely, but now we always had to have someone guarding the tents so we knew our valuables were safe.. And we suddenly got more suspicious of the people passing by all the time..


As I was writing, the beach was lovely, and it had these huge kickass waves coming in all the time, with some crazy undercurrents, so we had to be a bit careful..
But the water was lovely, there were lots of different fish in the water, but they weren't that easy to spot because of the waves.. Merethe found a Blowfish dead on the beach, and I found what looks like a Barracuda head.. :p Maybe it was eaten by a shark? hehe.. who knows?

They had bathrooms and showers close to where we camped, and we had to pay 5 pesos for every time we used it.. a little expensive, but not to bad..

We drank and ate good fish at the "restaurant" on the beach, they had good fish there, even though it was a little expensive.. (70 pesos for a plate of fish, chips, salsa, lime, and some more salsa)
But it was good enough to return there, and I even got Merethe to eat fish!! (WOW!)

This night was a little more comfortable than the night before(it was hot as hell in the tent!)
but we still went to bed early.. hehe.. It must be the sea air or something.. Lazy days.. ;)

The next morning the unlucky couple found out that their sandals were now stolen, and had nothing to wear on their feet.. :( Really unlucky!
We got more suspicious, but got the others to watch our tent while we took a little walk to a nearby hill.. After walking some steps, and through some bushes we came to the top, and WHAT a view! It was really beautiful!
And next to our beach was another nice area where we found a little cave through a rock, a huge cove with some scary waves and some more huts.

We also found out that the local "shops" weren't what you call too tourist friendly, they need some more stuff in their shops.. a little more choices would be nice.. But we survived! They had tostadas, salsa, and donuts, and of course Beer! :D

The day went by quickly, and the next morning nothing was stolen from the camp and we all felt better! :D
We enjoyed yet another lazy day in the hammock, doing nothing but swimming, eating, drinking and relaxing :D Oooh.. life is tough!
I bet a lot of people back in Norway are a bit envious right now! :p hah!

In your face for not joining us over here! :D

Anyway... we ended the night with playing Pantalones, the dice game (rules can be found in an earlier post) and all got drunk and merry! Pantalones is a dangerous game to play! Everybody gets drunk, and gets to know the "Pinche Sombrero" (which in our case was a Tuk from Canada)
"Pinche Tuk" :p






We got to bed, and were drunk and sleepy, but something was weird when we suddenly woke up and heard voices and saw shadows..
Merethe heard something touch the tent and she screamed for them to get away, I woke up, screamed as well, got my devilstick and kept looking out, but saw nobody..
We slept with one eye open and didn't get the best sleep in the world..

The next day when I was laying in my hammock, I noticed something with the tent, it was cut at the front corner...

The bastards actually tried stealing something through the hole that hey cut!
Luckily for us, we had no valuables close to where the hole was. (Note to self: Keep valuables in the middle when sleeping in tents)
I had some tape and taped it so the ants and mosquitoes didn't come in through it..

But now we tought it was maybe time to get going before we lost anything else... Not to fun to leave such a beatiful beach, but a real shower would not hurt to much either.. hehe

We left around 15.30 and took the bus to Colima, but were stopped on the way, there was a army checkpoint and they were checking "everyones" bags and suitcases for drugs, weapons and other scary stuff.. They were very eager to find something illegal (probably so they could get some bribe money, and scare the tourists a little) But they had nothing on us and had to let us go! :D hah! In your faces!

After this little pause in our bustravels, we finally got to Colima a couple of hours later.. Only to find out that the last bus left 1,5 hours before, but the next one was only 9 hours away and as we already felt as real backpackers, we took a trip to Colima to the giant market they have there! It doubles as a market for cows, horses and other farmanimals.. They even had a quad bike circuit if you wanted to go driving.. :D
There was also a huge fare there, with lots of different rides and horror houses and whatnot..
After eating and looking around for a few hours we took the bus to the center of town to get some cash and eat some icecream.. :D Colima was a nice town, but very quiet at nighttime.. a bit boring actually... I prefer Guanajuato over Colima anyday.. :D

Anyway.. as we had to wait until 04.00 we went back to the Central de autobus, bought some beers and got comfy by some benches.. :)

The time went by fast, and before we knew it we were on the bus to Leòn.. Yet another comfy busride.. not much to complain about on the buses here..
Arrived in Leòn around 0900 and quickly took our last bus to Guanajuato..

Guanajuato is a bit cold now in the evenings, and we could really feel the cold after sleeping on a hot beach for the last few days! Brrr!

I miss Maruata... *sob*

Oh well.. In December it's Isla Mujeres! (the Island of the Ladies)

Check out miss stretchy!

Louis and his best friend, Mr.Tequila

Playing Pantalones

Louis (one of the guys who got robbed) was hungry as hell, and we had just bought him some fries, he was happy as hell, he put on a lot of mayo and salsa and ketchup, and was just about to sit on his chair, when his friend moved the chair, and he fell on his ass, losing his fries, and being covered in salsamayoketchupfries.. Boy was he pissed..
So his friend bought him another plate of fries and Merethe and Sara gave him everything he needed. He smiled a lot after this! :)

Sunrise in Maruata, with one of the local ladies cleaning the beach.

More of the sunrise...

Merethe showing off!

Nice, eh?

Nice, eh?

Far down here, and nothing but big waves to land on!

Omg, teh Crabz0rz!

Some kind of vulture looking birds, there were a lot of these!

More pictures in my facebook gallery, will be coming back soon with a little Spanish update, so pay attention, and visit once in a while! :D Maybe you'll learn something?

Rotary Club gone insane!

Wow!
I never thought I was going to have any trouble at school here, but this is just a ridiculous story..
Every monday at school we tell of something that has happened in the weekend or that we read about in the papers.

Our class consists of 2 Norwegians, a German, two or three Japanese (they are not there so often) , an American and a girl from Turkey.

So as we tell our different stories, and a story pops up from one of us about how the borders between Turkey and Irak has a major dispute right now, and that there are 50 000 soldiers and thousand tanks from Turkey just by the border to Irak, and that Turkey claims that they are being invaded. And that this is a silly thing to do of the Turks as they may be attacking American Allies if they decide to enter Irak.
The Turkish from class then says that this is probably just a lie from the media, and that the Turkish are so kind to it's people and "all other countries, and never wants to join the EU" etc.

We then discuss this a little while, and move on to the next story, something about how another nuclear test has taken place, and how sad this is both for other countries, the environment and so on... We carry on with class as normal, and don't think any more about the stuff..

Then the next day after the first class we see a bunch of people speaking with our teacher, the look our way a lot, and seem mad for some reason.. They speak with the teacher a long time, and when the German is passing them, they stop him ask him if he speaks Spanish, when he says yes, they start to accuse him of being a racist, and bashing Turkey, and being hatefull against the Turkish student.
He is so shocked by this that he says he doesn't want to speak with them anymore, since they are accusing him of being a racist, which I know for a fact the he isn't.

Later that day the teacher wanted to speak with both me and the German about this, and she says that 4 people from the Rotary Club in Guanajuato came to school because the Turkish student told the family she lived with about what we discussed in class.
We are guessing her version of the story was a little different, because they were threatening our teacher that they had "contacts" in the University we attend, and that they could get us thrown out of school for talking about this.

The teacher told us that whatever happened that we discuss in class, is not going to affect us in any way, and that we should not worry about this, but who the hell do those Rotary people think they are?! Are the people there so brainwashed that they can't have other opinions ?
What the hell?

Is the world really this crazy nowadays that we can't discuss subjects that happen in the world, and point out other countries differences and errors without it boiling down to people being racist?!

For me, this is just a incredible story to tell, and I was somewhat hoping that they would try to get us kicked out, just so I could have an excuse to really tell them off! This is truly incredible!

Oh well..

To hell with the Rotary Club if this is how they treat people that are not in their sacred "union"

A trip to the Zoologico in Leon

Sunday we decided to go to Leòn and visit the Zoo there.
It's only a little hour bussride from Guanajuato, and compared to being in cold Guanajuato, Leòn is much warmer, as it's not so high in the mountains.
We met Mark and his friend Pamela there, she had a car, so we drove for 10-15 minutes and were there.! Not far from the Central de Autobus!
The entrance fee was only 30 pesos! Cheapcheap.
But we soon figured out why the price was so cheap.. It was not so much to see there other than the animals, the park looked like it was old, and most of the "entertainment" was worn out, or being fixed at the moment.
The animals were placed in very small areas, not like at home where the animals have huge areas where they can run around and have a "natural" area to live in. Here most of them were placed in small cages, and looked like they were suffering.
It was a bit sad to see, I would have preferred to pay extra in the park so the animals could have better conditions.
They have a large variety of animals, but we were mostly stoked about seeing the polar bear! As I am from Norway and still haven't seen a polar bear for real, it's kinda funny to go to Mexico to see one for the first time! :p
And we got to see two! They had one of the better areas to be in, I think.. At least compared to many of the other animals.
Some of the bears we saw looked like they were full of shit everywhere, and did not look like they were happy..
It's sad to see such a thing in 2007.. There should be some more rules about how animals are supposed to be treated in a park!

Anyways.. Here are some of the pictures we took.. :) More pictures on the facebook gallery!

Daniel, Merethe, Pamela and Mark

Aaaaw!

Mr.Giraffe

Gots to get some tan! :D

Cactus.. Had to go to the zoo to find them! hehe Thought they would be everywhere in Mexico! All those movies have been lying to me!

Lazy polar bear in Mexico! :D

There was supposed to be white tigers here, but we could not find it. :( to bad! I've never seen a white one before! I think it was sleeping in the bushes somewhere...

Chilling in the sun

This was a happy chap!

Here's the other one! Maybe a female? It was smaller than the other one anyway.. :p
Black bear.. Scary! :p
Dramallama!
Begging monkey!

Unclear picture, but this cat looked like it was really comfortable, resting his paws like that.

All in all, a ok trip, just a bit sad to see that not all the animals were treated so well..