The English are embarrassing

What the title said, really. I am now back in Mexico city and yesterday I did something I never thought I would do. A TOUR! God no! Whatever for?! I hear you cry! Surely you would rather gauge out your own eyeballs and eat them for dinner?! I know, I know... What could I expect? Of course it would be hideous and awful and cringey and tedious and exasperating... Well, turns out the tour itself was not so bad. Checked out the awesomely impressive Teotihuacan Pyramids, built before Christ himself was born. The largest city built in Meso-America. So ridiculously massive and permanent and the site struck me with an even greater sense of my own mortality and unimportance in the scheme of universe. Obviously even more so than the cathedral in Morelia. Sitting atop the Pyramide de la Sol was (excuse the cliche) breathtaking. I marvelled at the view of D.F. and the ruins beneath me and realised there and then that the UK should build such a construction and send all the miserable, depressing inhabitants of England to the top and make them realise life really aint that bad. Although i dont know if it would work on some of the monstrosity of human beings I encountered on the trip...

A British couple with an awful regional accent harped on all day, insisting on talking to me as I was one of the only other English-speaking on the tour. They apparently came to mexico at the wrong time of year (winter) as they ALWAYS do whenever they go on holiday... (Yeah it has been 27degrees on average each day, seriously hot hot sun. And winter has just meant a cool breeze for the evenings. It is SNOWING in England you disgusting excuses for people.) And the food is too spicy, not like back home. (Urrgh kindly REMOVE yourselves from mexicos presence.) Oh and the best was that there is too much construction in the city. (And yeh I am pretty certain that the Mexico government would appreciate less construction too should they not be RESTORING ancient buildings. Effing vile vile cretins. And just SO EMBARRASSING for England. Im just saying...) Awful company aside, yesterday was amazing. We also checked out the revered image of the Virgin of Guadelupe which apparently appeared on a little old Indians poncho way way back.

Today I visited the Xochimilco canals with a really great English traveller, Alex an ex-TV-production-coordinator-turned-traveller-fo-life and a Singaporean photographer from NY, Alvin. We spent a glorious day outdoing the Lonely Planets advice for chilling in the gondolas and beating the cheapest of local prices. Then strolled through a super colourful artisans market. A truly lovely day. Tomorrow Alex and I head to Puebla as a stop over for Oaxaca city... South baby, south!

A xxx

Morelians love dubstep

Morelia cathedral at night

Dubstepping with Fausto

So it´s been a good few days since I left the eco village behind and now I am in to the next chapter of my travels and it has been such a different, challenging but rewarding experience. I am writing from Morelia, the ¨coolest city you´ve never been¨according to the trustworthy (?!) Lonely Planet. I have definitely been staying with the coolest Morelian you´ve never met, Fausto Inarte. On our first night he threw a big party for his friend at his awesome pad located on Callejon de Romance, the most gorgeous little avenue I have ever walked up. For this reason, it is SIEMPRE packed full of young and old couples locked in sweet embraces. I´m a big fan of the place. His party was PUMPING from the get-go through to 8am! The best place to be on Saturday night, it had bouncers at the door and heavy dub step resounding all over his party terrace. Needless to say, after my fiesta-less month in the forest, I was ALL OVER the party.

Titiane

The last few days here in Morelia have been awesome. Me and the ferociously French Titiane wake up, explore Morelia and then typically return to the casa for 2pm to prepare lunch and Fausto will come back and join us during his lunchbreak. He returns to work at 4pm (yes, a 2 hour break! But he works until 8pm!) and we will explore the quaint streets of the city some more. When he returns we have dinner together and usually go out for drinks later. I am SO COMFORTABLE here! It worries me greatly and before I settle in any more, I think it is time for me to leave tomorrow or Friday!

Coolest busker ever

The best thing about being here is that everyone is refusing to speak English with me, which I have found incredibly challenging (as no hablo espagnol) pero es muy bueno para me por que necessito apprender rapidito! So I have found that in the 5 days I have been here I have improved my Spanish 900% more than when I was in the English-speaking Bosque! In fact, last night I was chatting to a local Philosophy student who spoke no word of English (except ¨cheers!¨ - very useful when socialising with a Brit) however we were SOMEHOW still able to converse on such varied topics as Euthanasia, Aristotle, the environment and the concept of Synchronicity in life. HA! Also, when I told him that usually I am a big talker but now I am quiet as I don´t have the vocabulary to express myself he laughed like hell and refuted this claim asserting that I am still somehow able to talk non-stop. How rude!

So having had a wonderful time here in Morelia, the question is: when do I go back to Mexico city?! This question is likely to be answered in my next update.

Chido!
Anetta x

times they are a-changing

I repeat myself when I say that I don´t know what it is about Cathedrals but they strike me so deeply with their enormity and overwhelming sense of harmony that I always feel so insignifant and humbled and silenced (which takes a lot.) The cathedral in Morelia had no less an effect upon me. I was there on Monday and the meaning of the cathedrals really grabbed every breathing particle that makes up ´Anetta´ and inspired my very core, even rendering me emotional. It was intense. I was so awe-struck and deeply contemplative when sitting in there that I even got caught up in midday mass without even realising, until the Priest was standing at the front speaking in low biblical Spanish tones and I realised that every Mexican around me had stood in respect. I snuck out swiftly.

But the Cathedral´s impact, to me, is representative of how I wish to try and live my life. Aware of my contextualisation within lifetimes of history, culture, conflict, religion, philosophy and not taking it for granted.

Jacky & Yvonne

Today is my last full day in the Bosque. I will miss it dearly but having lived in this peaceful eco village for a month, I know that it is definitely time for me to move on... I am embarking on the next chapter of my latin american travels. Exceedingly nervous and exceedingly excited! I will begin tomorrow in Morelia, a colonial city about an hour away from Patzcuaro (journey time from the Bosque of course is 4hours!) Here I spent last weekend with the wonderful Brothers Woodward (Steven and Charles) from Denver, Colorado. They finished their 2-week stint in the Bosque and were continuing on with their adventures - cycling through Mexico - so I followed them to enjoy my days off and had a thoroughly entertaining ¨weekend.´´ We walked around the stunning Centro Historico and I introduced the brothers to my meditative habit of contextualising myself within every new experience to ensure I adequately live in each moment and savour every bit of my life. They called me a New Age Hippie which is laughable but I must admit that I am finding myself increasingly spiritual these days. I am just realising more and more how much incredible beauty there is to our very existence and it means a lot to me to attempt to appreciate that as much as possible.

Goodbye Bosque!

Filming in the Bosque has been fun and liberating. I have had deadlines but not the same money/ permissions/ crew restrictions as I do in London so it has never felt tedious or overly limited. Three short films/¨vlogs¨ later and I am very proud to have been able to document my first month in Mexico and have an enduring record of my time spent in the Bosque. I have conducted several interviews with volunteers here and one of my favourite questions is ´´Have you learnt anything from this experience?¨ I enjoy asking this question as answers are always extremely varied as there is just a multitude of personalities that make up the volunteer team. It is such an open question that it is interpreted to mean social, personal, environmental lessons. For me it means all as I feel the experience has enrichened me in all the above ways.

I have become more conscious of my impact on the planet. I have learned to ´listen to the land´ and my newfound mantra ´the forest is my friend.´ I have become more self sufficient and independent. I have learned how good it feels to eat healthily three times a day for a month. I have learned how good it feels to constantly be among the trees and to live in nature. I have learned many things about myself - that I am a bit more of an attention seeker than I would previously admit. That I LOVE getting to really know people and can grow attachments easily and quickly. That I still continue to judge people too fast, despite me thinking that I had grown out of this. That quiet people DOES NOT MEAN boring people! That I like to always be involved but it is probably better for me to not always be! That I enjoy working alone. That I do not enjoy playing alone. That I need my time to sit aside and reflect in my own calm. That I don´t need to party to have fun. That sitting around a fire with a book on Sufism can be just as pleasurable. That I actually love talking to people who are completely different from me and am keenly interested in other ways of living. That I enjoy being me without makeup! I am finally used to my own face :)

I am so excited about the next chapter of my travels... It is going to be very different without my safety blanket of the Bosque to go back to after a weekend´s trip away and the familiar faces all around me and a bedroom. I´ll miss the composting toilets - there´s no feeling like crapping in the great outdoors. I´ll miss the amazing food, hopefully I´ll continue these eating habits and not succumb to the quesadillas and tacos! But most importantly, hopefully I´ll keep up my newfound kinship with nature and continue to appreciate its importance in my life, for my strength of mind and body and for feeding my soul.

Peace out,
Anetta x

ps - I ain´t a hippie

feckkkkkkkkkkkk!!!

UTTER ELATION. Seven PM got in to the EAST END FILM FESTIVAL!!!! Have never felt so proud!

mighty mighty torros

Janitzio island, Patzcuaro

So Friday the sun came out and changed the face of everything... the forest AND my mood! So after work on Sunday, I went with a bunch of other volunteers to the nearby magical town of Patzcuaro where we ate a shitload of cheese-based food, drank tequilas and squished 6 of us into a hostel room. On Monday we visited the teeny tiny adorable island of Janitzio in the middle of the stunningly massive Lake Patzcuaro. Growing out of the top of the island stands a proud imitation of the statue of liberty, the Jose Maria Morelos - a great hero of Mexico´s independence. We visited all the tiny little craft shops ascending the island and then ascended the statue ourselves. This gave Yvonne and myself the strangest cramp ever to be experienced. A sign of unfitness? I certainly hope not. That evening we said a sad goodbye to Genevieve, one of my favourite people I´ve met so far. A strong, fierce and fiery chica from California but with Native American blood in her, Gen lives and breathes eco systems. Initially the two of us seemed incompatible as friends - she was shocked that I didn´t know you could get callouses on your hands (from using tools apparently) and I was similarly shocked that someone would choose to NOT shave their armpits. However, once we were able to laugh at our striking lifestyle differences we were able to laugh about nearly everything else and now I dearly miss her already. We also shared a mutual appreciation for booze and occasionally obnoxious behaviour which helped.

The next two days were two of my favourite spent in Mexico yet and another Bosque-r named Yvonne played a large part in that. Yvonne is a 32yr-old investment banker from London but has a severe case of hippie-at-heart syndrome. On Tuesday the two of us went to the charming town with the wholly satisfying name of Tzintzuntzan, dragging Jacky the Canadian in tow. Tzintzuntzan had a fiesta going on all day that apparently began at 4am! It was just like a summer fete back in England with the bunting and families and craft stalls and food. Except somehow 900% more colourful! It was so much fun and we left giggly and smug... Although not as smug as the next day, whereby we went to an authentic Mexican Bull Riding competition! This was at a bull ring, again in Tzintzuntzan (a town made of hours of fun), teeming with Mexican families and smelling of Macho men and of course, tequila. It was JUST LIKE something you´d see in the movies. Big muscly Mexican men jumping on raging torros which fling them wildly around the ring until they eventually get thrown (rather violently) off to the song of the ´bandas´ playing excitable music and the delight of the thrilled audience.

Yvonne and I could not stop beaming our English smugness at having found out about this exclusively Mexican event and having witnessed such a cultural delicacy of local entertainment. Truly brilliant! However, after this fun we had to part ways with Yvonne as she boarded a bus to Morelia to continue with her own travels to Belize. I really miss Yvonne too - an inspiring, intelligent, energetic and really fun girl with a big heart. She was like another big sister! I look forward to dinners at hers in Balham when I´m back in London and visiting her at her dress stall at the Upmarket in Brick Lane.

And so now I feel lost once more! I seriously do not like saying goodbye and Jacky keeps making fun of me for taking it personally when people leave the Bosque and for feeling like they´re leaving me! But i can´t help it! Also, the rain is supposed to make a lasting appearance from tomorrow and we all know how i feel about that. An amazing last few days though to keep me smiling for a while...

Muchos love xxx

Rain

SO rainy, so wet, so cold, so grey. Is this England??!!! I don´t feel like I´m in Mexico right now!! May have to move to the coast sharpish... I miss central heating. Is that bad? Possibly the antithesis of the attitude one is supposed to take when staying in an eco village! Ah well, i never claimed to be a perfect little hippie. Must make a short out here. Filmmaking makes me happy!

The Forest is my Friend

View over Patzcuaro lake from the Bosque

Living out here in the forest is good for a person in general and I'm gradually discovering the ways, day by day... Firstly it has made me feel so much more CAPABLE. One of my best friends back home, Charl, always sees me getting out of stuff I don't like doing by pretending I'm not good at it and therefore someone will do it for me, this includes but is definitely not limited to: washing up, carrying stuff, turning on an oven (!)... She is the only one who doesn't let me get away with it by insisting that I NEED TO LEARN. She is so right and nothing like this experience out here in the Bosque has made me realise that more. As you are forced to do all this stuff, not just for yourself but for other people, you grow more confident in your own abilities and instincts and therefore feel more capable. I've realised that I actually prefer this feeling to feeling dependent on others...

Another way this forest has been good for me is in terms of my FEARS. Out here, I have realised that I am pretty much scared of everything!!! Ghosts, murderers, fire, falling down, dropping things, injuring myself, getting dirty... Basically, anything that anyone could possibly be scared of I have somehow thought of first and am already worrying about! I always thought I was a little fearless viking but being out here has definitely shown me otherwise! My biggest issue here has been the forest at night. It is VERY dark (especially on a cloudy night when there is no moonlight) as there are no lights here and so we use torches to make our ways back to our cabanas from either dinner or hanging out at the Casita. This involves walking through the pitch-black forest, more often than not - ALONE. My first night I was PETRIFIED by the thought of this and insisted my room mates walked back with me. My second night I conquered my fear to some extent by repeating over and over to myself the comforting mantra , 'The Forest is my Friend', as advised by Shaya. Gradually I felt more and more confident being out here in the forest and recognising that there was definitely NOTHING (human or otherwise) lurking behind any of the trees at night... However, for the past 2 nights I've been sleeping in the cabana alone and so Judith and Miriam have kindly walked me back both nights so I wouldn't have to face both the walk and the empty cabana as a double-scary-whammy. I'm confident that my childish fears will soon subside, I'm twenty-frickin-three so they better!

Brian left on Saturday whilst Shaya, Alejandra and Aaron left on Sunday. Some of the other volunteers went away for their days off but I decided I wanted to stay here at the Bosque and enjoy my time off without rushing about. Judith and Miriam, two super friendly and sweet German girls, have been here so it's been nice getting to spend some time with them. We hung out on Sunday night by the fire of the lodge, playing guitar and making animal balloons. Another thing I like about this place! I feel like my life here is so much more innocent and simple! No need for raves and debauchery for entertainment... Simple pleasures. Sunday night is when the rain started... It was so stormy and there was even occasional bouts of hail! The rain hasn't really stopped since...

Yesterday we were going to go to Tzintzuntzuan, another town in Michoacan to see some ruins but the weather was so horribly cold and rainy! So for most of the day we chilled by the fire and read instead... And then when we got hungry we hitchhiked in to Patzcuaro (with some policemen hahaha) to go to a German restaurant (the girls were food homesick) and ate enough meat for a week's supply! Last night we hung out by the fire again and the girls introduced me to a delicious Bolivian drink which is hot, spiced milk and vodka! Absolutely perfect end to my day!

Although today is also my day off, I am working on the vlog a bit more because I want to post it by the end of tomorrow!

Hasta luego!
A xx

make-up wake-up

SO i've discovered something immensely sad about myself and probably about most city girls, or at least most girls from London. Right now is the LONGEST length of time I've ever been without make-up. Depressing, much?! I've been trying to explain it to the other girls here... It's like, back home, when I first wake up and right before I go to sleep (i.e. when I'm not in make up), I don't consider that to be my face. Whoever it is looking back at me in the mirror is me-without-makeup and how i look the rest of the day I consider to be actually ME. SO being here, OBVIOUSLY i will not wear any as there's just no need... And it feels so weirdly and embarrassingly liberating! I can't believe that something as pathetic and unimportant as MAKE-UP which is just bullshit chemicals and crap that we layer on our face daily because it is SOMEHOW considered NORMAL could have such a hold on me! For my first week here I found it strange to look in to the mirror and always see my bare face. My own face kept shocking me. That is MESSED UP! I don't even wear that much make-up usually but I wear stuff to cover imperfections - I'm used to seeing darker eyebrows, having lighter skin around my eyes, bronzer cheeks and more defined eyes. Small differences but put together, give me a whole other impression of what my face looks like.

I'm getting used to the mirror thing but I'm still extremely uncomfortable with photos. I do NOT want to have any taken or to see any of myself right now whatsoever! Yesterday Miriam and Judith kept wanting to take photos of our jaunt to Patzcuaro but I couldn't do it. My conclusion is that country living is good for your self-image. How can you not feel comfortable with your own reflection unless it is covered by a mask? And I have a feeling that my experience is similar to that of how many of my girlfriends back home would react. And even more other women of Britain. We all need to spend some time in the forest and get back to extreme basics and TRULY realise that none of this shit matters whatsoever. We need to feel comfortable with or faces AS THEY ARE.