inspiration..

Maybe it's autumn turning to winter, maybe just general need to move on and change something again, but those last weeks were quite low on inspiration.

Recently it started comming back - like everything in life, ebbs and flows.It comes when least expected in form of colorful visions in a van on the way to the jungle; as a local nomad circus, whos participants are willing to teach you every(or almost every) little trick they know; as a lifeguard on the beach, who sees your desperation when the surf rental is closed and offers his buggy board; as a group of fisherman who decide  to give you a ride putting  you at the front and squizing alltogether at the backseat of the truck. Even waiting for the flight from DF at 2 a.m. with 8 russian tourists on board can be exciting when you have a good book and a contact ball :)

Those little moments - good to have you back. Or you were always here and it's me who stopped noticing it for a while?

Some travel sketches

Oh, all those posts about places to visit before you die...

Figured if I am in Mexico now, the most logical route would be heading to South America after exploring this country a bit further out of the boundaries of massive tourism destinations.

Chiapas, Oaxaca, rainbow trees, Acapulco, whale sharks... still way to go till the Latin America quest.

Maybe it is too early to plan, but it  good to rememeber sometimes that there are some really amazing places out there and it is only the metter of time..

The Great Blue Hole in Belize

Mount Roraima in Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana

Salar De Uyuni in the Potosí and Oruro departments of southwest Bolivia

The Inca Trail in Peru

The swing at the “End of the World” in Baños, Ecuador

Marble Caves at General Carrera Lake in Patagonia (Argentina and Chile) and Mount Fitz Roy

to be continued...

all the world for those waves

I guess I am still learning a great deal here..It's 10 p.m.,  night sky is full of starts and lonely trucks are passing by the road. We are parked and waiting till 11 to start picking up tourists from hotel for the airport transfer. We enter to the second hotel and it feels that we ran into the gang of football hoolingas who've accidentally noticed the opposite team fans. Only five minutes of smiling, "yes, i understand you, sir", and  tons of verbal shit pouring at you and everyone calm and greatful is on the way to the airpot.

Yes, i am still learning a great deal here, and the biggest lesson of all NOT TO TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY is a treasure that I am taking with me and really want to share with all the lucky ones who´ve happened to work in service industry.

It is just so funny to see how some tourists are comming here with this "you know who are you dealing with?" attitude, how some of them seriously think you can control the weather, mexican mentality or solve all their psycological traumas from childhood. Probably at  every job dealing with people it is similar, but what surprises me here is that it looks like 12 hours distance away from  the motherland  makes people take of their masks and you can see them the way they really are with all the emotions on the surface.
And i can only picture how those who were the bravest here will come to their offices and wait quietly for the next vacation to express themselves.

Afterall, it was worth it. A deserved day off after all those night adventures started with a rainy morning and wispered gently that the waves were waiting. And they were, and they were perfect  - crystal clear, not too strong, smooth, breaking really fine near the shore. It was like being a child  - already supertired and red eyed after one hour still getting in over and over again, non stop. A thrilling orange-pink-violet sunset was like a little hint that it was a time to stop. But those two waves, taken all by myself...couldnt be more happy :)

Some beer with new friends and a first dreadlock in my hair... i love those kind of unexpected weekends... they are like a little travels without really travelling...

Starry starry night...

It's lovely on the roof, you feel like you can almost touch those thick white clouds that are slowly crowling through the night sky and just a distant sound of ambulance reminds that you are still in the city.

It's been a turbulent month, the last one. Going from fluffy pink-i-love-it-all state to wtf-is-going-on and i-dont-care mode was pretty challenging but the inner peace is getting back so i am able to write again.

A lot of questions were passing by through this head recently, a lot of dilemmas to solve, a lot of things to consider.

Would I ever be able to stop or will I always want to go somewhere new after 3 months of being in one place? How can i wait longer if after some calculations it turned out that to live in each country of the world for at least 3 months would take about 30 years? Is it right to sell your time for money to be able to afford the things or experiences you want to or is it equal to prostitution that is considered to be so wrong?

Four months have passed from 12 planned to spend here and I hope those 8 that are left will bring the answers my way.
And if not I hope by the time my immigration card expires I will have enough courage to say: Hello, world, I am a traveller, let's get to know each other better ;)

2 per day

Strange enough, but lately the interesting thoughts come with the frequency of 2 per day. The most valuable for me end up here with the intention to share and not to lose them in this slightly disorganized flow of people and places that i am experiencing at the moment.

Thought number one:

With the work in tourism i came to notice that we usually have our answers prepared to the most number of questions we get from other people. Questions like:

- How long have you been living here?

- What is the salary?

- Are you staying here forever?

- So, how does the profession of shaman work?

- Woow, those sea turtles are so huuuge! how long do they live?

And this list includes about a 100 questions more and about a 100 more standard answers. And not only at work, but in the real life it keeps repeating. You meet new people and very rare the conversation starts from something different. Don´t you sometimes wish to say something strange instead of the standard answer just to see the face of the person and to make it a bit more fum? I think i am gonna do this experiment in the next few days :)

Though number two.

This is not entirely my own thought, but i keep thinking on this aspect more and more with time. All the people we meet in life work as our mirrors. Like magnifying mirrors. Destiny will put us together with those who have certain traits of character similar to yours but 10 times more developed so that you can observe them from the outside and decide if you want to keep this trait for yourself or not really. For some reason it happens even more in the male-female relationships which always provokes the intention from one side to change the other. In the reality it´s always yourself that need to be changed or worked upon.

P.S. and the little tradition that i´ve created for myself a couple of years ago goes on.. Macedonia, Dominican  Republic, India.. now i´ll celebrate a Bday in Mexico.. which one would be next? ;)

Observations

For some reason i've started paying a lot of attention to the signs recently. The unviverse always sends something our way, we can ignore it, or we can be a bit more careful and thanks to those little signs make our way on this planet a bit more consious. I bet that the image of St George that was under my right foot during the 3 floors elevator ride must definitely mean something.

He is on the hourse defeating a snake. What would that be? My roommate is convinced that we interpret the signs the way we want and depending on our way of thinking we give them one meaning or another. Well, makes sense, and the interpretation that i've found on the internet and that made sense to me was that snake means the Ego, and the whole picture is about defeating your Ego.

Apparently Mexico is a very good place for practicing that. A lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretations come from the fact that our ego is so boosted that even a small thing is able to offend us. Even at work it's easily noticeable. No, they don't do those things to insult you, or to make you feel bad. It's just how this culture is and the people of this culture are used to work in their own way. And comming from Russia the first reaction on the poor excursion plan or on making you wait for 2 hours would be: omg, it's so disrespectful! Of course there shoud be some effort from both sides, but personally for me it's a very good lesson on patience and resilience.

It's been about two months since i'm here and another thing that i've noticed is that all this time i was in the state of waiting. Waiting till i get my documents, till i move to the new appartment, till i learn something about Mexico so that I can share it with tourists, till this till that.What i've realised yesterday and what i've felt from the inside is that recently i've unconciously changed the mode from Waiting to Inspired and being in Now and taking things as they are feels way much better. It's always like this in life - we are waiting for something and with that internal feeling we can't truly enjoy the present moment. We can, but not a 100 % because on the back of our mind we always have this nagging "and after that i will do..".
I love this current state of being in present - yes, some plans and dreams here and there don't hurt and it's necessary to have them to assure that you are going where you want to be going. What is not healthy is getting too much into planning because living the moment is what makes life so great.

A day on the island

Its great to travel with friends, with family, with someone you love, but there is something about solo travelling that makes me not wanna change it for anything else..

This moment when you just come to the place and let the feelings guide you around is precious. You dont need to plan in advance, you dont need a lot of money, not even a map, just a bit of knowledge of the local language and some courage that will take you to the places you would not have seen otherwise.

I couldn't dream of a better day off then the one this week turning out to be a 14 kilometer return trip on an old bike to Punta Sur, the edge of the Isla Mujeres island.

Wow, its getting quite windy here and looks like the dark blue that is over Cancun now is moving this way. The wind is so strong that if you put you body against it and lean forward a bit, it's able to hold you and you feel like you are flying. And what can be more precious then standing at the edge of the island with the salty wind blowing in your face and enormous waves breaking down there? Well, maybe a  ride back in the pouring rain and a sea view with perfect for my stupid-beginner-surfer level waves.. Or a little stop at the beach on the way and getting in the warm ocean with pelicans flying around.. Or playing with the cuttest black dog that came over to see what this crazy girl on the bike is doing here?

And soaking wet entering the awesome Pita Amore place..

"hey.."

"did you get wet?"- the guys from the table next to me..

"oh, really, did i?"

"if you want i can bring you a t shirt, and i dont care if you give it back :)"

wow, appreciate it..

"would you like to order?"

"yes, one veggie pita please"

"oh, are you Sasha? Ricardo told that he met you couple of hours ago.. The wine is on the house"

The life is full of little surprises and awesome people, you just need to believe that those are the ones that will come your way.

Couldnt expect the better ending of the day then the ride to the plastic bottle island that i've read about in WIKI a couple of months ago and was so impressed with. 

It is real! and Richart lives there! very artistic, very sustainable, worth seing and mabe making one like that :)

Thank you world for this.