#BEDM - 5th: Cinco de Mayo

According to my very quick research, Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in Mexico and the US, as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.

After I finished my undergraduate degree I spent five months travelling round Central and South America with two of my childhood friends, and my then-boyfriend.  We all thought this would be a great time to go travelling, before we joined the real world of employment (except for me, I went back to the same university to do another two degrees!).

We started our travelling off in Mexico City, from there I insisted we do a day trip to Cuernavaca, where I could visit Our Cabana, one of the WAGGGS World Centres.  I bought a badge and a tshirt.  We then carried on our travels in a south-easterly direction, aiming for Guatemala, and from Guatemala we went to Belize, back into Mexico, and then headed west back to Mexico City before we flew down to Ecuador.  I think we spent about 3 weeks in Mexico in total.  We visited lots of archaeological sites, saw waterfalls, went to a mezcal distillery, drank tequila, spent a long time in hammock shops deciding which to buy, enjoyed various 'menu del dia' which are lunchtime menus of a set menu for not too many pesos, and generally settled down to the backpacking lifestyle.  Due to the huge distances we were travelling between places, we often had to get night buses.  Not a problem for me, I can sleep anywhere, and so on all these journeys I'd fall asleep soon after departure, wrapped up in my sleeping bag (Mexican buses know how to use their air conditioning!) and arrive as fresh as a daisy in the morning.  Not so my travelling companions, and I soon learned that often when we arrived at our destination I'd have to amuse myself for a few hours whilst they caught up on sleep!

Looking back through the photos has been great fun - we all look so young!  Well, it was almost seven years ago, but still.  So young!  It was also odd seeing 'couple-y' photos of me with my ex boyfriend.  Not bad odd, we had a great relationship, just odd.  Ah, the memories!  We all shared our photos when we got back, I'm only posting ones here which don't have my friends in as I haven't asked their permission to do so.

 This was taken when we went to visit some famous waterfalls - the name completely escapes me now, but there were lots of tourists there.  I love 'lost in translation' signs such as this one which was down near the bottom of the falls.

This was Tulum, the remains of a Mayan city on the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.  I'm not the world's biggest fan of archaeological sites, I like them as much as the next person, but we saw so many whilst travelling that they all sort of rolled into one.  Tulum, however, I really did appreciate.  It's right on the coast, very well maintained, and is beautiful to walk around.  There were not many people when we visited, which made it all the more special.

This photo is of one of the pyramids in Teotihuacan, a Mesoamerican city close to Mexico City, the place of the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon.  It's one of the first places we visited when we were staying there.  I'm with a friend in the bottom right hand corner.  We climbed the pyramid, it was a very very hot day and it was a steep climb up to the top!  Very much worth it though, the views were stunning.  It's amazing something like this is so close to the massive capital city.

I thoroughly enjoyed our time in Mexico. Not sure I'd go back in a hurry, as with many of the other countries we visited, I felt we saw so much, and did so much, there isn't anything left to see!  (I'm quite sure there are other things to do, I don't wish to be rude, but there are other countries I'd rather visit first, before I come back to these ones.)

Although, having said that, I would like to visit Our Cabana properly, rather than just popping in for a quick tour, so who knows?  I might one day find myself back in Mexico on a Girlguiding trip...