PUMPING IN PUERTO ESCONDIDO

Pumping In Puerto Escondido - X Games Summer isn't over until you say it is. For Greg Long and a fortunate crew in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, the warm water and south swells just keep coming. xgames.espn.go.com/gallery/9858167/null

http://xgames.espn.go.com/surfing/gallery/9858167/pumping-puerto-escondido

PUERTO ESCONDIDO OAXACA MEXICO

Zipolite Beach Billies, Come celebrate original ZBB member, Don Karp's 70th with us!!! — with Brian Legg.

Zipolite Beach Billies

Come celebrate original ZBB member, Don Karp's 70th with us!!! —


 with Brian Legg.

Tere muy buza - Buceo realizado en Bahías de Huatulco, Oax. México. Octubre del 2013

Get Deported From Spain And Go To Mexico Instead Tuesday October 15, 2013

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Ted Campbell

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Get Deported From Spain And Go To Mexico Instead

Tuesday October 15, 2013 (12:47:54)   (335 Reads)

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Ted Campbell

After years of working at UPS and, more recently, studying evenings at the local community college, Sam finally took a vacation. He got two weeks off. He bought round-trip tickets to Spain, with an arrival in Madrid and departure in Barcelona. He planned to backpack around, maybe even visit Paris or Morocco.

He was detained at the Madrid airport, kept in a holding cell overnight and then shipped back to the U.S.

Now, four days later, he sat with me in the wide, airy second-floor hotel lobby in Tulum town, Mexico. Loud party music blasted from clubs and restaurants on the street below. We ate mangoes and shared caguamas of Victoria, big 40-ounce Mexican beers. It had been a long day in the hot sun of the Mayan Riviera, Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

Two hours south of Cancun, Tulum is famous for seaside Mayan ruins and a bigger, less developed beach, both also called Tulum. Cheap hotels, fish restaurants and travel agencies line Tulum Avenue, the main drag in town.

Earlier that day at the ruins, big iguanas lounged on green grass while we peered at strange inscriptions on the blocky fortress. Thousands of years ago Tulum was a seaside stronghold built of white limestone on rocky cliffs and beaches of powdery white sand over turquoise water.

Sam had taken a passenger van from Cancun that morning. A day before he’d flown in from Atlanta. Sam was chicano – a Mexican American, born in Mexico but raised in LA. His accent was more California than Mexico. He was dark but not tan, short and stocky with a shaved head and big black sunglasses, wearing flip-flops and a black sweat-soaked t-shirt. He was 34 years old. He had a good story.

Spanish immigration at the Madrid airport

Four days earlier he got off the plane at 8:30 a.m. in Madrid. Like everyone else, he waited in line for immigration, U.S. passport in hand. Then it was his turn.

“How long will you be staying in Madrid?” the officer asked.

“Just a day or two.”

The officer looked up from the computer, expressionless. “Why?”

“I’m going to travel around for two weeks.”

More questions – travel plans, job, family, financial resources, and finally, “What’s the name of your hotel?”

“I don’t have one yet.”

Fast typing on the computer. Fast scribbling on the immigration form. A stern look at Sam. Another look at the passport. 

The officer handed him his passport and immigration form. “Please follow this officer upstairs.”

The holding cell, aka immigration jail

They kept Sam in a holding cell overnight and then flew him back to the U.S. 

“What was immigration jail like?” I asked.

“First they had me in an interrogation room for hours. It was like the movies – big mirror on the wall, metal desk, good-cop bad-cop. One of them yelled at me, and the other said, ‘Everything’s gonna be alright.’ I thought I was doing well, but then they took me to the holding cell.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t have hotel reservations. I showed them my return ticket from Barcelona, told them I was going to backpack around. I said I was going to find a hotel on foot.”

“Right. Everyone does that.”

“It was weird. They kept calling me Mexican. I told them, look at my U.S. passport! You have it right there!”

The holding cell was down a labyrinth of white-tile hallways. The immigration officers took his belt away and put him in the room, a sad, sterile grey room with leaded-glass windows. Young and old, male and female sat on the bottom bunks of stiff bunk beds and at metal tables in metal chairs, playing dominoes, checkers and chess. A 20-something Brazilian with a long beard drew crayon portraits of everyone.

“Why did they take off your belt?” I asked.

He laughed. “So I couldn’t hang myself!”

Most detainees were Latin Americans, with a family of five from Michoacan (Mexico), five Brazilians, a few Venezuelans and one Guatemalan. The rest were Turks who didn’t speak English or Spanish but knew the Spanish word for Turkey.

“Were they guilty?” I asked.

“Of what? None of them had enough money or a letter of invitation. Those were the reasons for not letting them into the country.”

“Except you.”

“Yeah, no hotel.”

Whenever the Brazilian finished a crayon portrait, he asked the subject whether they wanted to take it. Everyone said no except the children from the Michoacan family.

“Did you take yours?” I asked.

“No, he never got to me.”

They ate at 3:30 p.m. By 4 they were all let out, escorted to airplanes for the trip back home, all except Sam and one Turk. The Turk didn’t talk and didn’t play games. The lights went out at 11:30, but the TV stayed on at full volume all night.

A homecoming of sorts

They released Sam at 10:30 the next morning. They didn’t fly him back to L.A., but to Atlanta, the world’s busiest airport and mostly likely the cheapest flight from Madrid. He simmered down on the long flight and thought about what to do next.

“You must have been mad,” I said.

“Yeah, but what could I do? I didn’t want to ruin my vacation.”

At the ticket counter in the Atlanta airport, he figured out that a flight to Cancun was cheaper than to L.A. “So here I am. My girlfriend will come in a few days. We’re going to Chichen Itza.”

Chichen Itza is the most famous pyramid complex in Mexico and one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. It’s about 3 hours from Cancun.

“Cool. I haven’t been there yet myself,” I said.

Now in Tulum, we ate mangos and drank beer on the balcony of our cheap hotel. He hadn’t been to Mexico for years, and never down here in the Mayan Riviera.

Sam looked forward to seeing his girlfriend. She didn’t have enough time go to Spain with him, but she could take a long weekend off from work to see him in Cancun. She was the first person he had called from Atlanta.

“You know, Spain would have been awesome, but here I am! Those ruins were amazing.”

The sun began to set over Tulum town. A breeze picked up and music from the bars got louder. We went out for fish and beer.

“I guess Americans get deported too,” he said. “But I wasn’t running away. I was running ahead.”


Ted Campbell writes about travel, music, culture, food, and mountain biking. He lives in Mexico and writes a blog called No Hay Bronca. 

Read Ted's other Expat Focus articles here

Learning Spanish Through Music

My Spanish Notes

---

Learning Spanish Through Music Posted: 19 Oct 2013 11:37 PM PDT Today I have something special for you all.  My friend Ted who writes the blog No Hay Bronca,  has written a great post for us.   No Hay Bronca is where Ted writes about his experiences living and traveling in Mexico and Central America, Mexican music, culture and a whole lot more.  I clearly remember being instantly hooked on his blog after reading just one entry, so be sure to check out his blog, No Hay Bronca.    And if you plan on traveling to Cancun be sure to check out his post Having a great time (and cheap) in Cancun without doing the all-inclusive thing.  It's got some great travel tips.  I plan on traveling to Cancun myself this year and I've already gotten some great ideas and advice from him. Anyway, I've rambled on enough.  Ted's going to take it from here.  Enjoy! Learning Spanish Through Music by Ted Campbell I joke that when I first moved to Mexico three years ago, I only knew three words of Spanish: cerveza, bonita, andgracias. All those boring years of high school and university Spanish were totally wasted. But the truth is I’d already done some traveling in Latin America before and was quite confident when ordering food, getting a hotel or having some light chitchat on the bus. But Mexico – especially Mexico City – is another story. At times Mexican Spanish seems like another language. It’s full of slang, and much like American slang, the meaning can change depending on the situation. Imagine yourself at a party where everyone speaks gibberish. The music is just loud enough that you have to lean in close to hear what people say. And when the words come through, you can hear but you still don’t really understand. You experience a strange mixture of boredom, frustration and odd contentment. And what makes it worse is that the people keep coming because you speak just enough gibberish to encourage them to talk more. And it goes on until 5 a.m. And when you wake up it starts all over again. I had this experience countless times during years of parties and weekend trips with friends before I became reasonably fluent in Spanish. Once on a 5-day trip in Puerto Vallarta, after days of barely understanding nonstop conversations in Spanish, I sat next to my buddy on the beach and pulled out my notebook, asking him to explain some of the words I kept hearing. I jotted down about 20 words and their many meanings. From then on those words jumped out at me as the trip went on. I like this blog and asked to write a guest post on it because it teaches Spanish the way I learned it – straight from the street. I suffered through a lot of parties but picked up something from every one of them. I hit the books and worked my way through Spanish grammar. And I learned a lot from listening to music in Spanish, as well as discovering really good bands that few English-speaking folks north of the border have heard of. If you want to learn Mexican Spanish the natural way, but don’t have a Mexican friend to sit down with and explain it to you, then listen to music. Listen to Panteon Rococo, Molotov, Celso Piña, Los Tigres del Norte, or one of the many other great groups from Mexico. Café Tacuba plays in many styles, but can best be described as alternative rock. Chilanga Banda is their take on rap/hip hop. It’s chock-full of Mexican slang, many starting with ch-. I can’t claim to understand everything he’s saying, so I won’t explain the whole song. Instead I listed some common Mexican slang that appears in it. Please add to my list in the comments! Chilango: Someone from Mexico City, known as D.F. in Spanish. Chilanga Banda means Mexico City Band. Chamba: A job, and not a fun one. The verb is chambear Chava: gal, kid, or a child. Chava is for a girl and chavo is for a boy. Chafa: something cheap or low quality Chela: beer Ñero: A low class person, aka naco From the chorus: Pacheco: stoned; high on marijuana Cholo: Mexican hip-hop kids, who wear baggy pants and flat-brimmed hats Churro: Mexican donuts, a long tube of fried dough covered in sugar. Or it’s the word for a blunt, an above-average sized joint. It’s easy to find the complete lyrics on Google, for this or any song. Search for Chilanga Banda letras – letras is the word for lyrics in Spanish. Do this for any song you like. Better yet, sometimes kind souls make videos on YouTube that have the lyrics: Ted Campbell nohaybroncablog@gmail.com http://nohaybronca.wordpress.com/ I write a blog about living in Mexico called No Hay Bronca. Most posts are travel stories, but one of my most popular is called TopTen Mexican Slang. Thanks to Rodney for letting me contribute this guest post.

Buenos Dias . . .

Bryan Adams - Heaven (David Archuleta Acoustic Cover)

zipolite

Van Halen - Right Here Right Now Concert (HD)

Van Halen - Hot For Teacher (HQ music video)

This IS Nice. I will MAS Van Weezy here .. . . . :)

Playa Zipolite. Welcome To The Beach Of The Dead!: VanWeezy chris vanorman waterford mi, United Stat...: VanWeezy chris vanorman waterford mi, United States   152 followers

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

VanWeezy chris vanorman waterford mi, United States

VanWeezy

chris vanorman
waterford mi, United States

•  152 followers

Some of my friends were here ... I worked that night at the worlds second largest concrete structure on this small world of ours ...

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image by last.fm

ArtistBon Jovi Artist statistics Add setlist

VenueSpokane Arena, Spokane, WA, USA

TourBecause We Can - The Tour Tour statistics Add setlist

• Edit venue & date  

Very cool.

They had a great time.

I did too . . .

20 Days Until My Next 2 Week Adventure Begins! ivan

Cusco (Cuzco) Peru Adventure Travel | Budget Travel Adventure

larkycanuck / 2 days ago

TOP 5 REASONS WHY NOT TO VISIT CUSCO (CUZCO), PERU

Cusco (or Cuzco) is the second largest city in Peru, and once upon a time, the largest city in South America during the era of the Inca Empire. Cusco was the central capital of the Incas. While most budget adventure travelers spend much time in Cusco (it is after all the base point for all Machu Picchu travels), the Larkycanuck does not recommend spending more than 2 days in Cusco. Here are the top 5 reasons for not doing so.

View of Cusco City from the airplane

1. Altitude

At 3,400 m (11,200 ft), Cusco is higher in elevation than Machu Picchu ruins, which stands at only 2,430 m (7,972 ft). Unless you are accustomed to such altitudes, or have acclimatized to it by spending 2 days, you are likely to feel symptoms of altitude sickness ranging from anything mild like dizziness, nausea to extreme like faint spells, cramps, severe breathing problems. Consult your doctor at home before undertaking a trip up here.

2. Tourist Trap

With over 1.5 million tourists visiting Cusco any given year, if the UNESCO had an official list of World Tourist Traps like it does for its Heritage Sites, Cusco would be in the global top 10. Which is good. But also bad. As one can only expect of tourist traps, the place is bustling with mostly overpriced hotels, restaurants, clubs, and souvenir shops. If you are likely to be ripped off anywhere in the world simply for being touristy, this place is it. While you may convince yourself that any purchase made serves the local economy and handicrafts, think twice! Make that thrice! Most souvenirs and handicrafts are not actually made in Peru, let alone by the Andean handicraft workers. Although official tourist staff will “recommend” authentic locations, beware. Recommendations don’t mean much from any stranger, official or not. It helps to know aninsider, like an international tourist guide, to suggest where the bargain stops are. And most genuine guides will be upfront in not recommending Cusco.

Saksaywaman

3. Not much to see

Besides a few notable exceptions, the city downtown itself does not have much to offer in terms of things to see in Cusco. There are some ruins outside the city centre, but once you have done Machu Picchu and Pisac, these local ruins are tiring at best to visit. Extremely boring at worst. So I recommend touring these local spots (Saksaywaman, Qorikancha, Tambomachay, Kenko) and others before departing for Machu Picchu trek. There are some notable tours to take within Cusco, but most local operators do not offer it, which is sad. It is a behind the scenes Cusco tour offered by select companies.

4. Dining options are blah!

I will admit that I did not spend enough time in Cuzco to be the authoritative source on dining options. But two meals and several walks along the plazas to find Starbucks, McDonald’s, and other fast food delicacies of North America is enough to hint at what to expect. Don’t waste your money on fine dining or expect authentic experience unless you go with a local. There are many other places in Peru to indulge.

Tambomachay

5. The crowd

See point #2 above. The visitors are not just foreign tourist. A good part includes Peruvians from other regions and other Latin Americans. The crowds can get bothersome at certain times, especially if you take a local tour that caters to mostly Peruvian crowd. We took such a bi-lingual tour in Cuzco. While the guide was really good and gave a different (local) perspective of the sites than a tour guide catering exclusively to foreigners, we were delayed extensively by locals who were on the tour bus (one did not show up for 30 minutes and was finally left behind by the group).

My fans familiar with my budget adventure travel stories will of course find my top 5 reasons to not visit Cusco as facetious.  It is partially true. Cusco does have some spectacles worth visiting. Check out some of these photos below, and I will let you decide.

 

Disclaimer: A portion of this tour was sponsored by Gate1 Travel. Check out their other incredible tours in Peru.

http://larkycanuck.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/089.jpg?w=660

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Moderate earthquake – Oaxaca, Mexico on October 18, 2013

Moderate earthquake – Oaxaca, Mexico on October 18, 2013 Click on the “I Felt It” button behind the corresponding earthquake. Your earthquake experience is not only important for science, but also for people in the area ... earthquake-report.com/.../moderate-earthquake-oaxaca-mexic...
Earthquake - Magnitude 4.1 - OAXACA, MEXICO - 2013 October 18 ... Earthquake - Magnitude 4.1 - OAXACA, MEXICO - 2013 October 18, 02:43:45 UTC earthquakestoday - recent and latest earthquakes, earthquake map and ... www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=339668
4.1 magnitude earthquake near Miahuatlán, Oaxaca, Mexico and ... 10km NE of San Cristobal Amatlan, Mexico - 4.1 EARTHQUAKE - Oaxaca, Tehuacán, Minatitlán, Coatzacoalcos, Córdoba, Orizaba, Veracruz, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, ... earthquaketrack.com/quakes/2013-10-18-02-43-45-utc-4-1-68 You felt this earthquake. Tell us! Magnitude mb 4.1 Region OAXACA, MEXICO Date time 2013-10-18 02:43:45.0 UTC Location 16.39 N ; 96.34 W Depth 69 km Distances 448 km SE of Mexico City, Mexico / pop: 12,294,193 / local time: 21:43:45.0 2013-10-17 83 km SE of Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico / pop: 262,566 / local time: 21:43:45.0 2013-10-17 10 km NE of San Cristóbal Amatlán, Mexico / pop: 3,539 / local time: 21:43:45.0 2013-10-17  Source parameters provided by:  National Earthquake Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey -- Golden, USA (NEIR) More information at:  USGS/NEIC Denver, USA  GeoForschungsZentrum (GEOFON) Potsdam, Germany