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After a month of traveling I finally settled in…only to be rudely interrupted with a plane back to Sydney. I will be honest – I’m not happy to be back. Not happy. The travel bug has well wormed its way into my heart and it pains me that I have had to return.
This trip was superb. Extraordinarily different to the last and extraordinarily different in itself. Let’s look at the places I covered: Waikiki and North Shore of Hawaii, Los Angeles, San Diego, Ensenada, La Pas, Acapulco, Puerto Escondido (plus Zipolite and Mazunte), Oaxaca, Puebla (plus Cholula), Mexico City and back to LA. Each stop greatly varying from the last. Particularly Mexico which is an amazing country of contradictions, summarised by the stupefying Mexico City (30 million people, each section of the city is so different, there’s a saying “if it happens in Mexico, it happens in Mexico City”, the locals call Mexico City “Mexico”).
I was going to give a detailed description about my trip, things I saw, did, people I met…but I can’t be arsed. Ask me in person ;o)
My last backpacking trip (last summer, on my own from Singapore to Bangkok) was truly about “discovering” myself, my capabilities and confidence in my own skin. It hasn’t been about that, so much this time. This time it was about truly immersing myself in different culture(s) (its very hard to do that in Southern Thailand – you tend to get served a nice sanitised tourist version of their culture, and fair enough, why should we be privy to the real deal? The difference in Mexico is that their life doesn’t revolve around us, so we are living in THEIR world), rediscovering certain aspects of myself (realising its still there is lovely, and realising that I’m now much more equipped to handle these aspects) as well as rediscovering my love for travel (I can hear all the travelers rejoice! But I will say I still hold a certain disdain for certain types of travel – and I am including types of backpacking here. The type where you spend majority of your time in the hostel, chatting on the internet and getting pissed at the local. That’s not traveling…).
Thank you to Brooke and Aaron for sharing this with me. Thank you to all those lovely people I met. Thank you Hawaii, US, Mexico, and until next time I hit the road, which will hopefully be after I graduate in which time is my largest luxury, Adios Amigos! xoxo Monica
(meanwhile, I’ll being seeing the rest of you in some dark alley in Sydney’s underground on a Thursday night… ;o) Stay tuned)
Photos fo yo ass Visual accompaniment. Click on da number.
1:: Me sitting on Waikiki beach, Hawaii. Beautiful enough but tourist-ville.
2:: Mexico sure is colourful. A street in Spanish styled Oaxaca, a beautiful little city.
3:: Princess Monica being sacrificed to the pagan gods…
4:: Lotsa beautiful churches in Mexico, where majority of people are Catholic. Virgin Mary incarnate style.
5:: The ruins north of Mexico City at Teotihucan are wicked. Bit of a hike up those pyramids!
6:: Ever seen a bullfight? No? Well I have! heehee
