Thursday night for students and anyone who is anyone is always something of a big night. Thursday night in Cholula on the other hand is THE night of all nights which usually lasts until inappropriately early hours in the morning and involves a write off of the following day. Having recently paid my yoga membership, I was determined that Friday morning was to be a yoga morning (the first in a longg time thanks to Lazy Lilly being a distraction). But of course, being my sister's first night out in Mexico, Thursday was to be a big night full of cocktails, drinking on the street, the usual and predictable Voodoo Mama/Barfly pub crawl combination and a night on drunkening. And of course it happened, without fail. A few too many mixed drinks were consumed and a combination of a rowdy night and a fun bunch of people ensured that all were drunk as skunks. The night raged on until 3am when the urchin in my foot decided to release its poison, paralysing my leg and forcing me to call it quits and catch a taxi home (did I mention I live a mere 6 blocks from the club? ... walking was off the cards at that stage).
The following morning I rose at the bright and early hour of 10:30am, just in time to get myself ready and off to my 11am yoga class. And what a class it was! There were push ups and fast poses and sweat dripping from every pore of my body, sticking my fringe to my head and making me look like a demented paedophile as I forced my hips to the sky in downward dog pose. And the class continued, for almost 2 hours! Meanwhile, all of this holding in my beer gut and maintaining my core tight swelled up the alcohol that was still in my stomach like a ferocious ocean. Gradually the class got more and more painful until I was forced to lie down while the saggy grandmother next to me stood on her head and stuck her legs out at angles unnatural to man. By the end of the class I was in so much pain I regretted both my decision to drink the night before as well as my decision to go to yoga immensely.
Having been told by many yoga-types that being healthy, going to yoga and being square could not be sustained whilst pursuing a life of partying, drinking and dancing all night I scoffed in disbelief, maintaining that I could do it. Turns out they were right and I was wrong, it seems that yoga and partying are just completely incompatible with one another and headstands (even at 12pm the next day) are horribly unpleasant with a belly full of night old alcohol, a greasy taco and less than a full 8 hours of sleep.
And so the question is raised, which do I choose? While nothing beats sharing a cold beer/cocktail/glass of wine/$10 peso bottle of licor de agave with friends (and acquaintances) and dancing the night away, the nice clean, invincible feeling of doing yoga and drinking a juice afterwards is pretty fucking spectactular. I don't want to give up on either but it seems I will have to share my time between these two foes. Could I go one week on- one week off on the drinking/yoga front? Or perhaps on full moons, or when venus is in taurus, or when the sun casts certain shadows on my window I could detox and do yoga briefly before falling back into my decadent and sinful university, traveller, young person lifestyle. Maybe I'll have to have 2 sets of clothes for when I am enormous thanks to litres of beer and greasy tacos and one for when I am normal sized and yoga-esque (ha!) but it seems the only real way to balance the two.
But being the end of the semester, I feel as it is time to hang up my yoga mat (at least for a week or 2) and indulge myself in despedidas, fiestas and enjoying my final days... except for all of those yoga classes I've already paid for... Although maybe true zen is emptying the undigested content of ones stomach after an intense headstand... hmmm.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The hippy beach town that was
From the age of 3 until I was 17, the beach has been something easily accessible, where I spent a lot of time and didn't think all that much of. 20 minutes from my house and 5 from my school, I was easily able to dip my toes in the water and frolic in the (50cm high) waves whenever I pleased as I grew up. Moving away from home though, where the beach is no longer an afternoon adventure, I find myself missing finding sand in every crack and crevice and mad chafing that comes only from a trip to the beach. And although Brisbane is only an hour away from a (real) beach (sorry southbank), the ocean in itself has become somewhat of a novelty. Brisbane isn't the furthest from the beach I have ever lived however, living in the central mountains of Mexico where the air is thin and the climate is definitely not even remotely beachy and tropical, a trip to the Pacific is a BIG novelty.
And it wasn't without its sacrifices, after almost 12 hours of bus travel (fresa-ing it up and taking the nice direct bus) I arrived with my very last minute travel buddy to an EXPENSIVE but delicious gringo breakfast favourite. And with the stress, annoyance and cold melted away the money too, with costs being substantially higher than I imagined. 15 years ago Sayulita was a small fishing village with a population of surfing hippies who camped on the beach and did hippie things when they weren't out in the ocean. Fast forward to now and the secret is out, English speaking drug dealers, bagels and insane prices roam the beach and the streets and just a simple camp site is equal to a dorm room in any other part of Mexico. A combination of opportunistic locals and entrepreneurial foreigners looking for a sea change have turned this into a slice of Mexico costlier than Cabo, Cancun or even its close neighbour: Puerto Vallarta.
Before anyone denounces this for being a bitch blog or a long winded whinge, hear me out. Despite its touristiness, not all week long, gringo vacationers are bad. Sayulita, despite a burgeoning tourist trade, is not a location with its own airport, package tours or revolting high rise buildings. It is not flogged mercilessly by American tourism conglomerates, nor is it flashy trashy or over the top. Hippie surfers, old rich fogies and Mexicans alike ride the public transport for $1 to arrive and thatched rooves adorn the houses. Yeah prices are higher than they should be but at least for the most part it hasn't sold it's soul to crass developers or retirees.
In fact, despite having only a week in the country, not giving a shit about the culture nor speaking a word of the local language, for the most part the tourists there were incredibly cool. There were burners, travelling artisans and writers with generally just a wonderful feeling of karma floating around. Even amongst the surfer crowd there was substantially less localism as one would find in other surf spots and people seemed happy to talk to one another like it was one big hostel. Oh, and how many squares do you know who would bring their own Northern California weed on holiday with them?
All in all, despite having an urchin stuck in my foot, mild sunburn and substantially less money in my wallet, a weekend on the coast was just what I needed to revitalise, relax and inspire me. 2 days in Sayulita felt like a week and my skin is now happy and glowing because of it. Apparently I arrived 2 or 3 years too late for the low key, chilled out, hippie surf camp on the beach that I was promised, but by all means I walked away satisfied, happy and yearning for some more beach time. Next weekend anyone?
And it wasn't without its sacrifices, after almost 12 hours of bus travel (fresa-ing it up and taking the nice direct bus) I arrived with my very last minute travel buddy to an EXPENSIVE but delicious gringo breakfast favourite. And with the stress, annoyance and cold melted away the money too, with costs being substantially higher than I imagined. 15 years ago Sayulita was a small fishing village with a population of surfing hippies who camped on the beach and did hippie things when they weren't out in the ocean. Fast forward to now and the secret is out, English speaking drug dealers, bagels and insane prices roam the beach and the streets and just a simple camp site is equal to a dorm room in any other part of Mexico. A combination of opportunistic locals and entrepreneurial foreigners looking for a sea change have turned this into a slice of Mexico costlier than Cabo, Cancun or even its close neighbour: Puerto Vallarta.
Before anyone denounces this for being a bitch blog or a long winded whinge, hear me out. Despite its touristiness, not all week long, gringo vacationers are bad. Sayulita, despite a burgeoning tourist trade, is not a location with its own airport, package tours or revolting high rise buildings. It is not flogged mercilessly by American tourism conglomerates, nor is it flashy trashy or over the top. Hippie surfers, old rich fogies and Mexicans alike ride the public transport for $1 to arrive and thatched rooves adorn the houses. Yeah prices are higher than they should be but at least for the most part it hasn't sold it's soul to crass developers or retirees.
In fact, despite having only a week in the country, not giving a shit about the culture nor speaking a word of the local language, for the most part the tourists there were incredibly cool. There were burners, travelling artisans and writers with generally just a wonderful feeling of karma floating around. Even amongst the surfer crowd there was substantially less localism as one would find in other surf spots and people seemed happy to talk to one another like it was one big hostel. Oh, and how many squares do you know who would bring their own Northern California weed on holiday with them?
All in all, despite having an urchin stuck in my foot, mild sunburn and substantially less money in my wallet, a weekend on the coast was just what I needed to revitalise, relax and inspire me. 2 days in Sayulita felt like a week and my skin is now happy and glowing because of it. Apparently I arrived 2 or 3 years too late for the low key, chilled out, hippie surf camp on the beach that I was promised, but by all means I walked away satisfied, happy and yearning for some more beach time. Next weekend anyone?
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Job? Work? What ARE these strange ideas you speak of?
Ok, so before I commence what may sound like somewhat of a whingey rant, let me just note that this is not an emo out, I am currently very content and at ease with with stuff and I am not sad in the slightest, rather just pensive. Only in the past day did 3 wonderful friends of mine get accepted for amazing internships/jobs in which they will be doing exactly what they want to do with their lives and making a serious difference. On top of that, watching friends go off to work to earn money (even if it does seem like for fuck all recompensation) while I sit on my ass whilst being a vagrant in the homes of various friends and waiting for the latest season of Glee to stream on Cuevana sometimes makes me feel like a bit of a... bum. There was once a time where I was a hard working, money earning, productive person who had more trouble finding free time than anything. Thanks to Centrelink, a low cost of living in Mexico and contentness to live the lifestyle of a poor person, I am not scraping to survive in any way at all and the money just does not matter to me at this point in time.
However, it is not just a shit kicker, money spinning, survival job that I necessarily find myself desirous of. With another 2 and a half years of university goodness (hell?), I find my head buried in the sand with respect to any lifelong ambition or career plan, or even something that I am passionate about. While I do have a general vague idea about the direction I would somewhat like to go in, the specifics are very fuzzy and there is nothing REALLY there. What's more, as a result of not having any direction, I don't find myself really working towards a non existent goal. Of course with 2.5 years remaining, I am not in a super hurry, although I am aware that if I leave things too long, nobody will want to hire a derelict with no experience since she was 19, mediocre grades and knowledge of firespinning and Cuevana. Volunteer work, internships and maybe even a job somewhere in the direction of what I want to be doing would be ideal, but of course then all of the above require some form of commitment, which is the opposite (in my mind) of freedom, and at this point in time freedom the concept of giving up my freedom is something terrifying. However, freedom at the expense of any form of career, direction or of my doing anything with my life is even more worrying and I hope to god/jesus/satan/ganesh that I don't end up doing what I'm doing now my entire life.
It seems to me that there are several roadblocks in my way to doing something productive with my life (right now): the fact that I don't know what I want to be doing makes it hard to motivate myself to give up my freedom in order to work towards what I want to to. While I am absolutely aware that if there is no perfect job for me then I just have to make it, what I lack is the passion to even know if that is the case.
While I have one month left in Mexico of school and then 2 months of travelling before having something of stability in my life with which to work hard, establish something and make my resume (and transcript?) not look like crap, maybe I just have to push these feelings of laziness and unmotivation to the side for the time being. While I may not be in any position to commit myself to anything in the short term (pretty sure this is a bullshit excuse now), all I can do is enjoy and experience all that I can in my final days of what has been a year long adventure, and maybe something will inspire me along the way, after all, I'm only 21! Do I really need to know everything already?
However, it is not just a shit kicker, money spinning, survival job that I necessarily find myself desirous of. With another 2 and a half years of university goodness (hell?), I find my head buried in the sand with respect to any lifelong ambition or career plan, or even something that I am passionate about. While I do have a general vague idea about the direction I would somewhat like to go in, the specifics are very fuzzy and there is nothing REALLY there. What's more, as a result of not having any direction, I don't find myself really working towards a non existent goal. Of course with 2.5 years remaining, I am not in a super hurry, although I am aware that if I leave things too long, nobody will want to hire a derelict with no experience since she was 19, mediocre grades and knowledge of firespinning and Cuevana. Volunteer work, internships and maybe even a job somewhere in the direction of what I want to be doing would be ideal, but of course then all of the above require some form of commitment, which is the opposite (in my mind) of freedom, and at this point in time freedom the concept of giving up my freedom is something terrifying. However, freedom at the expense of any form of career, direction or of my doing anything with my life is even more worrying and I hope to god/jesus/satan/ganesh that I don't end up doing what I'm doing now my entire life.
It seems to me that there are several roadblocks in my way to doing something productive with my life (right now): the fact that I don't know what I want to be doing makes it hard to motivate myself to give up my freedom in order to work towards what I want to to. While I am absolutely aware that if there is no perfect job for me then I just have to make it, what I lack is the passion to even know if that is the case.
While I have one month left in Mexico of school and then 2 months of travelling before having something of stability in my life with which to work hard, establish something and make my resume (and transcript?) not look like crap, maybe I just have to push these feelings of laziness and unmotivation to the side for the time being. While I may not be in any position to commit myself to anything in the short term (pretty sure this is a bullshit excuse now), all I can do is enjoy and experience all that I can in my final days of what has been a year long adventure, and maybe something will inspire me along the way, after all, I'm only 21! Do I really need to know everything already?
Thursday, November 3, 2011
A couple of megabytes, 2 months, 20 photos, many a story and a life time of memories
As some people may well be aware, my past couple of blog posts have been markedly pictureless, with big chunks of text and nothing but a paragraph break or sub heading to break up my long rants. As it turns out, it seems the majority (like a LOT) of blog views are coming from weirdos or pervs who are directed to this lovely site for some less than savoury internet browsing. And of course because Google images (just like Google Map directions in Mexico) is CRAP, it seems that select words are picked up from my rants and serve as image seach keywords. Although there is nothing (ok... very little) to do with mullets, porn, sex, cholula narcos or mullet porn it turns out that the sickos searching for all of that find themselves here. In the past month, the top google image search keywords linking to this blog were:
And a crafty fox...
- Filthy mullets
- www.super sex.com
- Aussie porn
- Bacteria
The people:
The places
Experiencias Mexicanas
And a crafty fox...
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The sobriety experiment
Saturday night the 29th of October 2011 was a momentous, historical and substantial night in the life of yours truly. Since the age of 16, I have moved back and forth along the scale of moderate drinker to raging alcoholic and something of a complete and utter trash bag. Anyone who has had the pleasure (if you could call it that) of meeting me whilst completely drunk or even on any other occasion will know that I am somewhat of an idiot with a fondness (okay... all out love) for the drink. So to even consider that I could take a break from drinking (that wasn't ordered by the doctor) would be almost inconceivable. However, one morning during a particularly deep and moving session of yoga my stomach began to rumble. I realised as I felt the acid rising from my stomach that the culprit was the alcohol consumed the previous night (alcohol, unlike tacos, e-coli and candy has a distinct taste as any drunken vomitter will attest) and I felt TERRIBLE!! Functioning the day after a big drinking session is hard, let alone pulling off some insane acrobatic acts of flexibility. Finally, when my body was shaken up to the max, when I was pale as a ghost (more so than usual) and when the shavasana pose FINALLY came around, the idea struck... Why not go for a fixed amount of time sans drink to see how it feels, be able to do a headstand without tasting last night's sin and purely for shits and giggles.
At the time, a complete and permanent moratorium on drinking was out of the question, but to give it a good shot I figured I should dedicate at least a month to sobriety, and since my favourite drinking buddy in Cholula was going to be away for 5 weeks I figured what better time to resume my alcoholic tendencies. So for 5 weeks I partied like a rock star, stayed out until the morning, danced like a maniac, met (and remembered) many many cool people and had a great time. And just because I wasn't downing the devil's drink like it were going out of fashion as I normally would, I didn't deprive myself of anything: music festivals, clubbing, a soft drink in a bar or even a raucous casa roja party. Far short of sitting in the corner being antisocial, not drinking made me overcompensate in outgoingness and cheerfulness, so as I result I had probably even more fun than I would have stumbling around like a clown, sexually harassing anyone and everyone and just plain being a pest. My non drinking campaign, however, was anything but a health kick, in fact I found that I replaced one bad vice with 2 others and I still found myself swimming in greasy tacos several times a day and smoking weed like it was a cigarette.
And so came that fateful night, it was a Saturday, my drinking companions were out and roaring and a bottle of tequila sat next to the blender just WAITING to be consumed. And so we did! There were poi, beyonce dance offs, sing alongs, good company and the like. It was a great night, fantastic pre drinking and a lovely party, however after not drinking for a few hours, dragging our feet and trying to find a bar to go that wasn't shit, the alcohol and good energy wore off and I felt drunk, tired, bored and irritable. Nothing like the fun of a sober night of dancing like crazy at all! So we trudged home early and slept like babies, a pleasant sleep, but more of a heavy pass out than a gentle float into the land of nod. Although it was far from a hangover, the feeling the next morning was akin to a night without sleep and a boring as hell class, not cringe worthily painful, but unpleasant and definitely not as nice as waking up like a spring daisy after a sober night.
So the past 5 weeks have been somewhat of a learning curve and the night of all nights that was to be my first drunkening was somewhat of a flop (not bad... just not remarkable). My attitude to drinking has drastically changed and I find myself at a substantial point in my life. Gone are the days of hangovers, Gabby the drunken idiot (it's just Gabby the idiot now) and always drinking because everyone else is or because the social situation calls for it. I don't intend to be as restrictive as I was during my experiment, but I will be drinking substantially less, wondering if I REALLY do want a drink and waking up feeling great. Drinking is slightly overrated as I have realised over the past month and a half, but it is still a lot of fun! So if dinner and drinks turns into several bottles of wine/caguamas of beer, table top dancing and stumbling home barefoot at 8am then so be it! Life is to enjoy and alcohol is just there for the ride.
At the time, a complete and permanent moratorium on drinking was out of the question, but to give it a good shot I figured I should dedicate at least a month to sobriety, and since my favourite drinking buddy in Cholula was going to be away for 5 weeks I figured what better time to resume my alcoholic tendencies. So for 5 weeks I partied like a rock star, stayed out until the morning, danced like a maniac, met (and remembered) many many cool people and had a great time. And just because I wasn't downing the devil's drink like it were going out of fashion as I normally would, I didn't deprive myself of anything: music festivals, clubbing, a soft drink in a bar or even a raucous casa roja party. Far short of sitting in the corner being antisocial, not drinking made me overcompensate in outgoingness and cheerfulness, so as I result I had probably even more fun than I would have stumbling around like a clown, sexually harassing anyone and everyone and just plain being a pest. My non drinking campaign, however, was anything but a health kick, in fact I found that I replaced one bad vice with 2 others and I still found myself swimming in greasy tacos several times a day and smoking weed like it was a cigarette.
And so came that fateful night, it was a Saturday, my drinking companions were out and roaring and a bottle of tequila sat next to the blender just WAITING to be consumed. And so we did! There were poi, beyonce dance offs, sing alongs, good company and the like. It was a great night, fantastic pre drinking and a lovely party, however after not drinking for a few hours, dragging our feet and trying to find a bar to go that wasn't shit, the alcohol and good energy wore off and I felt drunk, tired, bored and irritable. Nothing like the fun of a sober night of dancing like crazy at all! So we trudged home early and slept like babies, a pleasant sleep, but more of a heavy pass out than a gentle float into the land of nod. Although it was far from a hangover, the feeling the next morning was akin to a night without sleep and a boring as hell class, not cringe worthily painful, but unpleasant and definitely not as nice as waking up like a spring daisy after a sober night.
So the past 5 weeks have been somewhat of a learning curve and the night of all nights that was to be my first drunkening was somewhat of a flop (not bad... just not remarkable). My attitude to drinking has drastically changed and I find myself at a substantial point in my life. Gone are the days of hangovers, Gabby the drunken idiot (it's just Gabby the idiot now) and always drinking because everyone else is or because the social situation calls for it. I don't intend to be as restrictive as I was during my experiment, but I will be drinking substantially less, wondering if I REALLY do want a drink and waking up feeling great. Drinking is slightly overrated as I have realised over the past month and a half, but it is still a lot of fun! So if dinner and drinks turns into several bottles of wine/caguamas of beer, table top dancing and stumbling home barefoot at 8am then so be it! Life is to enjoy and alcohol is just there for the ride.
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