Nico's Nonsense

  These past few days I've been having this reoccurring dream, this reoccurring nightmare. I'm still unsure which. In the dream, I wake up one morning in San Cristobal and out of nostalgia and stupidity, I book the soonest flight back home. In the dream there is no time frame, I do not take a 15 hour bus ride back to Cancun or spend the day on a flight back to Ontario. I simply decide I want to go home, and at home I am! Of course everyone is happy to see me and I reminisce on the people and places I've met and seen. The dream never seems to drag on. Like most dreams it starts just as quick as it ends. In this dream, I can never remember too much of anything, except for one feeling. A  heavy feeling of heartbreak of regret. Of anxiousness. Is that a word? Ehh, anyhow. I awake to a world unknown. With the covers pulled over my head, for a second, I am unsure of whether reality was really a dream, or dream a reality. I peel back the covers slowly each time and see the oak w...

Palenque, Chiapas                     It's been almost a week since I’ve returned to San Cristobal from Palenque. Who knows, maybe even less, I've always been terrible with estimation. Regardless of the actual time, it's felt like years. I've gotten to know the place and the people so quickly and can hardly imagine leaving.   New faces and stories are seen and heard each day by travelers from all around the globe, and each time they head off to further destinations, we are forced to say goodbye and go forward. As hard as one can try to detach themselves you simply cannot help it, you fall in love. Recently I'd celebrated a 22 nd birthday, and being amongst people I hadn't even known a month ago, I expected nothing more than a “Feliz Cumpleaños” if even that, to me it had simply been another day.   Though come nightfall I had been surprised by the entire hostel with an enormous cake, and off key singing of Feliz Cumplea...

    The ride over to Palenque was a cold and nauseating one. A five hour trip that felt more like fifteen. Half way into the trip I felt the need to violently vomit all the floor of the bus, or wherever convenient. I looked around for something to throw up in, or on if needed. As I came to the conclusion that my purse was the best and least embarrassing option, my stomach had settled. "Oh thank you God!" I'd announced a little too loudly. As the grueling bus ride came to an end and I'd gotten off I’d met an Argentinian couple, and split a taxi with them to El Mono Blanco del Panchan (something about a white monkey) a grungy little Hostel conveniently placed in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Literally. We had been dropped off in the middle of the rain forest.   This was definitely not how Ontario Mills Mall had depicted it at Rainforest Café, there were no singing alligators or friendly little monkeys. In fact, the monkeys sounded more like hungry tigers.  On...

  I've spent six days in Chiapas so far. Yet it feels more like a lifetime.  I've fallen in love with the people, the sites and the place as a whole. There have been many times this week that I have thought of leaving and going off to Palenque, Guatemala or even back to Cancun, and I simply can't bear the thought of leaving San Cristobal, Chiapas. It's taken all of my heart. I am like a hopeless teenager in love. A lump begins to form in my throat even thinking of leaving. The past few days I've spent seeing the city of San Cristobal de las Casas and all it has to offer, dancing terribly to Salsa music with friends, broiling up new things in the kitchen each day, walking through endless miles of markets and just simply seizing the day. Each day seems to linger on longer than the next, and I am simply "conteno" as they put it.  Palenque, Chiapas Yet, I have booked a one way once again. Tomorrow I will be on my way to Palenque. A five hour bus ride aw...

Oventik,Chiapas   As I write now, I see the city lights beneath me, and hear songs of love strumming on the guitar beside me. I've fallen in love. And so quickly, I'm almost ashamed.  Mornings are spent walking through markets that go on for days and days, afternoons are spent lounging in the kitchen, sharing stories and laughing with the locals and foreigners alike and our nights, our nights are ours to dance away. To laugh, to sing, and fall in love.     An innocent kind of love. A “can I hold your hand?” kind of love. A love you can't comprehend until you've lived it.  In leaving Cancun, I'd thought I was leaving paradise, but in coming to Chiapas, I've realized I hadn't experienced paradise until just then. True paradise is not; beaches, snorkeling, and beautiful faces. True paradise is finding beauty in a place. Seeing prosperity and poverty, the indigenous and the tourist both dwelling as one. I can hardly put to words why I've fallen so har...

I officially landed in Cancun on the 1st. With a major migraine and a bit of nausea to go along with it, in arriving, I simply wanted to fall asleep and die. Instead, I spent the night by the beach with some fellow travelers from the hostel I stayed at. A convenient little hostel right in the middle of everything you need, called Hostel Quetzal.The next morning I was unsure of exactly where I wanted to go, so I'd packed everything up and gone off to   the bus station...ready to take the world, booked a one way to San Cristobal de las Casas and didn't look back. So, here I am at a quiet little café   in San Cristibal de las Casas; the café is comparable to those seen in French films, the chairs are curly and fancy and every few minutes a boy looking to shine shoes walks in. Luckily I'm wearing sandals, or I'd give in. Though the 15 hour bus ride out here was no penny pincher, the town is absolutely dirt cheap and I love it. Hostels are no more than 5 dollars a night...