Jungle Hike

This weekend I joined some friends on a hike, about 2 hours north of Yangon. The city has a small reputation for not having lots of options for day trip getaways, particularly in the rainy season. A short jungle hike certainly is an option if spending time outdoors is your thing. 

Not necessarily a challenging hike but the monsoon, the changing weather conditions and the (at times surprisingly pleasant) weight of constantly being wet add a flavour to the walk. In an odd way, the mud and humidity reminded me of hiking in the rainforests of British Columbia. Except for fewer bears and more machete wielding to make way. 

Flooded in San Antonio Yaxché

It’s been a while since my last post. Not for the lack of photos but rather time and limited access to internet. These days I’m travelling for work around southern Mexico. Culturally it has so far been a great experience. On a professional front things have been less than great for various reasons I won’t bore you with. But as it is often the case during such travels the key is an open mind and patience.

This photo is from a small rural village of San Antonio Yaxché in Campeche. It’s primarily inhabited by the descendants of Maya. Nearly everyone speaks spanish but the primary language of communication still remains maya. If I’m correct yaxché refers to a certain tree in the mayan language. We were supposed to run an experiment in a local school. Sadly for us (and the kids who usually attend the class) the room had an aluminium roof filled with holes. So, of course, during our experiment the rain came down like it’s the end of the world. Besides the people and the material getting wet, it was impossible to shout over the noise from the rain drops hitting the aluminium roof. Unfortunately, we had the cancel the sessions.

Here’s a photo of one of the few streets in the village. I haven’t seen it rain this hard for quite a while. The rain “laguna” on the photo went quite deep in certain parts, but some people didn’t seem bothered at all.

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San Antonio Yaxché is an ex Hacienda. You can still find some ruins around the village, one of them is this arc that stands at the entrance to the village.

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