Author Archives: hocktales

Day 12 – Indiana Jo’s Jungle Adventure Part 2: the World of Locanda

No cars or Tones and I – marked safe from Dance Monkey one day – just a fantastic sleep, despite the thin mattress that let the rungs dig into me every time I rolled over. Must have been tired. My expectations for the jungle shower were, like many of the Mayan doorways, not high. (IContinue reading “Day 12 – Indiana Jo’s Jungle Adventure Part 2: the World of Locanda”

Day 11 – Indiana Jo’s Jungle Adventure Part 1: Chilling in Yaxchilan and Bonampak Unpacked

5:30 pickup from the hotel but let’s be honest, I hadn’t slept a wink. (I never seem to sleep or get tired. I may have been vampirized on Day 1. Totally using up my 100 sick days when I get home if that’s the case.) I was like a kid on Christmas morning looking forContinue reading “Day 11 – Indiana Jo’s Jungle Adventure Part 1: Chilling in Yaxchilan and Bonampak Unpacked”

Day 10 – All the Way to Palenque

I realise this picture looks weird because I am not in it. Mea culpa. Desculpe. Apologies. Sorry. Not sorry. Today I ditched the tour group for a planned Indiana Jo independent side adventure to Palenque, a town in Chiapas that still retains its gritty frontier edge. It’s not like the other towns with the niceContinue reading “Day 10 – All the Way to Palenque”

Day 9 – The Full Monte Alban and Oaxaca Cram Balam

I was rudely awoken at 4.40 to my bed vibrating like an old Sandman in the dunes in the 70s. A siren wailed in the distance as I opened a bleary eyelid. WTF??? Was I in a love motel in a vibrating coin operated bed like in the Leisure Suit Larry computer game Mum confiscatedContinue reading “Day 9 – The Full Monte Alban and Oaxaca Cram Balam”

Day 8 – Trippin’ Falls Around Oaxaca

First, let me thank you for your patience, dear reader. Sporadic Internet access and WordPress reliability – two mutually exclusive concepts sometimes – mean it’s a few drinks between posts sometimes. Like an ancient scroll of Maya wisdom on par with the Dresden Codex, Tanya has passed some knowledge onto me. The Mayan ancients hadContinue reading “Day 8 – Trippin’ Falls Around Oaxaca”

Day 7 – Driving in the Oaxacar (Actually it was a Bus)

My loyal followers my have noticed I am quite prolific today – three posts in one day! I am on a 9 hour bus to Palenque and finally have time to catch up on my blog posts. It gets quite difficult to pack them in. You may be getting the idea that I don’t sitContinue reading “Day 7 – Driving in the Oaxacar (Actually it was a Bus)”

Day 6 – Hocking and Cholula in Ruins, Puebla Explorations and the Night of the Infamous Platter

I’d woken up worse but certainly woken up better. Mezcal and tequila tend to agree with me, but perhaps not mixed in a cauldron of a belly already containing a cheesy herb shot and a beer. No time for hair washing or cat-like self-preening. I barely made it downstairs to breakfast, grabbing lids off theContinue reading “Day 6 – Hocking and Cholula in Ruins, Puebla Explorations and the Night of the Infamous Platter”

Day 4 – Mexico City: How Much More Can I Cram Down my Gob and Through my Eyeballs?

Today marked the beginning of the Intrepid part of the tour. Turns out that I am the only one travelling my route all the way through to Cuba – I join another group when I get to Havana. The rest of this group are going through to Costa Rica, Guatemala or Panama. But it appearsContinue reading “Day 4 – Mexico City: How Much More Can I Cram Down my Gob and Through my Eyeballs?”