This is a little time lapse clip I took at Mahon Falls, its taken over a five minute period but only runs for 5 seconds. It was a really windy day so it looks quite good with the clouds whizzing over head. Enjoy it all, lots more to come.

This photo was taken while i was out witnessing with Gavin and Gemma.

We stopped by a little park and walked up the gorge, it was so tropical that i thought for a moment i was in North Queensland.

Taken as a long exposure on a tripod, i was quite happy with the result.

The ruins of Monte Alban are not very far from the centre of Oaxaca city, maybe only 10 kilometers drive. However they are completely hidden from view due to the fact that they are situated on the top of a mountain 1948 metres above sea level out of site from lower ground, this is probably the reason why they were not discovered by Mexican archeologist Alfons Caso untill 1932.

… not discovered by Mexican archeologist Alfons Caso untill 1932 …

A very recent archeological find which has been compared to Howard Carterâs discovery of Tutankamun’s tomb in Egypt. Monte Alban the ancient capital of the Zapotecs, was believed to have been built by the Zapotecs as early as 500 B.C., and was one of the first cities in Mesoamerica. At its peak of civilization Monte Alban had approximately 40,000 people living on the site.

We arrived around 9:30am and purchased our tickets at the entry gate. We were greeted by an old man named Victor who spoke good english offering to be our guide for the morning. It sounded like the best idea and besides I wasn’t in the mood to spend the time deciphering the signage in spanish back into english. Old Victor certainly looked like the genuine article himself “an ancient Zapotec” relic. He explained alot of detail by drawing in the dirt with his walking stick.

Apparantly the Zapotec people (the main inhabitants of Monte Alban) were not a war like nation and lived peacefully not offering up human sacrifice’s at any of the temples at Monte Alban. There is however conflicting theories (as always), Monte Alban was believed to be inhabited by the Mixtec, Olmec, and Aztec cultures as well as the Zapotecs. The Aztec culture of course is well known for its depraved acts of violent human sacrifice and it’s war like warriors.

You can’t begin to describe the feeling of enormity that you get when you first trudge over the crest of the mountain and stare headlong down into inner workings of the white mountain. The ancient Zapotecs carved the mountain top flat with no instruments of metal doing so only with tools of wood and stone, also of course a huge labour force of raw human power. To make matters more difficult the Zapotecs considered the geometric circle shape to be sacred and representative of the sun. So henceforth it wasn’t used as a wheel in transportation. Did they even know about the wheel? Yes they did because little toys have been found with wheels on them.

The Zapotecs were very smart with numbers having a calender more accurate than any of its day. It had thirteen months and each month had twenty days in it. The written number systen was also quite ingenious using dots and lines to represent numerical combinations and values. In fact you can read about it on the second last page of one of the latest Awakes.

El Tule – The largest Living Biomass

Our next stop was El Tule to see the singular biggest living biomass of the planet. A tree estimated to be between 2000-3000 years old with a circumference of 58 metres and a height of 48 metres. It truly is one of the wonders of the natural world.

While in Tule we stopped at a Mezcal shop to sample the selection of flavors. All tasted great, flavors included were Coco, Coffee and Piña (Pineapple).

The circuit overseer gave his final public talk this afternoon at 6pm. The talk was entitled “Act Wisley in a Senseless World”. The information was fantastic with an enthusiastic delivery . He continued after the Watchtower study with the talk entitled “Jehovah Empowers the Tired Ones” a talk well recieved and especially needed for the times we live in.

… if you could survive on laughter and good association alone …

Afterward we went out to get some takeaway at the infamous “Gregorios”, a little road side taco stand run by brothers and sisters. We had to wait a while to get food because there already was a mass of brothers including the CO and his wife in the line up ahead of us. We went back to forrests house for dinner and ate our taco takeaways. If you could survive on laughter and good association alone I’d say I would have had a life times supply, because tonight was one of those nights.

The guys were all going to play basketball with other brothers in the congregation at 4pm. I decided to have a rest because I felt like I hadn’t stopped since leaving Puerto Escondido. So I walked into town (the central part of Oaxaca city) to go to the internet shop and also have a look around the city square. Its such a maze of streets that all look the same from almost every angle, I managed to get lost several times walking back to forrest place… having to back track down streets and try another in hope of finding one more familiar. Its a beautiful city and I love the old architecture of the buildings and streets. It has the feeling of history mixed with third world modern age Mexican civilization fermenting beneath its outward skin of stone blocks and busy streets.

I chilled in the afternoon watching DVD’s on forrests laptop computer. The guys got home from the basketball game late in the afternoon. By which time we were ready to eat the rear quarter off the nearest stray Oaxacan dog… and believe me there is plenty of those to be had. So we felt obliged to dine in at a traditional taco restaurant in down town Oaxaca. The food is so cheap and really tastes so good, the quality also is excelent and I haven’t had a bad meal yet.

Anyway on the way there we pass by the entrance to the Chez Ines hotel… and Taj Burrows walks out!! I wasn’t sure at first so I give Ashley a whisper…

Justin : “Is that him?”

Ashley : “What?”

Justin : “Taj Burrows” I say in an urgent whisper.

Ashley : “Yeah that’s him” as he walks on trying to look like he doesn’t care.

We sat down in the bakery side of Carmen’s Cafecito while Taj Burrows with some of his mates had a table over in the restuarant side (It’s two places joined, Carmens Bakery and Carmen’s Restuarant… the whole places makes the Cafecito).

I whipped out my camera to have it at the ready, Ashley mutters something about the “Paparazzi” and I pretended I didn’t really hear that comment. I couldn’t summon up the courage to go over to the table and ask for a photo, I was thinking “poor guy he must get hassled all the time“. Ashley left for the internet joint to catch up on his emails while I stayed behind to see if I could get an opportunity to take a photo with him.

I walked out the front passed the restuarant and stood waiting half way between his hotel and the cafe. He came out of the cafe by himself… and I say…

Justin : “Hey Taj. How you doing?”

Taj Burrows : “Yeah good!” in a big friendly smile.

Justin : “My name is Justin. (as i reach out and shake his hand) I’m from Australia, would you mind if I get a photo? My friends back home arn’t going to believe this”

Taj Burrows : “Yeah sure man, where do you want to take one?”

Justin : “Oh anywhere… here is fine” so I snap a couple of shots and ask as I take a photo.

Justin : “Is this your first time to Puerto”

Taj Burrows : “This is my first time to Mexico”

Justin : “Really… yeah me too… it’s a great place isn’t it?”

Taj Burrows : “Yeah it sure is.”

His mates come on out of the cafe and Taj Burrows says to one of them to snap a photo of us. We the walk backtoward the hotel.

Taj Burrows : “So do you Surf?”

Justin : “Yeah… but my board is out of action. I broke two fins out in the surf the other day. It didn’t damage the board but the fins are RedX and are abit hard to get here”

Taj Burrows : “arghh… that’s a shame.”

Justin : “Yeah… there’s a surf factory that apparently shapes with that system here so I’m going to go and get some there hopefully.”

We chatted a bit more about how cheap board repairs are here and what a good job they do in fixing them up. We reached the hotel…

Taj Burrows : “See ya later Justin”

Justin : “Yeah see ya Taj… and thanks for the photos”

Taj Burrows : “No problem”

So I’m glad I made the effort to say G’Day, he’s a super nice dude. And that ends my story of my brush with Australia’s surfing elite.

… Que? Usted es Loco! …

I gathered it had been a long time since Brother Filemon had been to the falls because the road we had taken seemed to be getting worse and worse, it got to a point when the car would go no further due to the steep hills and half a foot of bull dust on the road. So we got out the truck and abandoned vechicle to walk the rest of the distance. “It’s just only a few more kilometres” was the word that was being spoken. So with blind faith we headed off into the Mexican Dessert in search of water… roughly after walking three hundred metres or more up a hill we chanced upon a farmer (farming what? – Dust Cookies?) who looked us up and down as if to say “Que? Usted es Loco!” translated is “What? You is Crazy!” and you can guess the rest of the story. The farmer pointed us back down the road we had just come and said it was a few kilometres back in the opposite direction… we couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Have you ever seen the Chevy Chase movies where he stars as the father of a family called “the Griswalds“? Well I’ve decided that this family is the Mexican equivalent because we are having some great “Gonzales Family” adventures with them.

We made it to the falls, admittedly it wasn’t easy to find, no signage of any sort as I’ve come to expect. It was about a 1.5Km walk into the base of the falls. By which time I was ready to walk in to the water fully clothed. The falls are magnificent, the water is cold and revitalizing. At a guess the falls were about 25-30 metres high and the waters cascaded from from the main pool (a massive area at about 100Mtrs across and 30Mtrs from the shore to the base of the falls) into several smaller pools further down stream. Funny enough the surrounding land is devoid of much vegetation despite the fact that there is a water fall right near by. The ground though is not conducive to retaining much moisture.

… i lost count of of many swims i had …

The Gonzales family cooked up some fish and tomatoes with onions over a wood fire beside the stream. Hmmm it was so good, fish and mole with chilli sauce on tortillas is not a taste I’ll forget any time soon. The whole of the San Pedro congregation were there at the falls. So it was a great atmosphere of fun and relaxation. I lost count of of many swims I had, the best bit was you could swim right up to the base of the water falls and under it to the other side of the falling curtain of water. The el nino’s were good fun too, they had a ball that we tossed and played chassies with for abit. I snapped some great photo’s of the falls using my camera on manual mode to get a time exposure… it took me a few shots to get the effect just right.

I had my quota of sun for the day and was feeling the burn on my back (interestingly the sun is definitely better here because you don’t burn as near as quick). So I retired to a shady over hang of rocks to escape the heat and to think about nada (no that is not a girls name, it means nothing in Spanish). On the drive back we stopped in San Pedro at a brother and sisters place for a chat, They own a road side stall and were super nice, sharing with us some cranberry flavored ice blocks. They must have been in the truth for a number of years because the brother showed us a pile of Atalaya’s dating back to 1985.

I was glad of a shower that night, I was sat up against the rear tailgate for the ride home and consequently was covered in dust. I looked like I had a great tan going but felt crustier than a bread roll. Another memorable day in Mexico, the people and place is like no where I’ve been to before… not to mention the surf. It’s a must see country that is suited to anyone’s budget.

Update: I’ve made a correction to the name of the falls, it is not “Toro” (Spanish for Bull) as I had thought but rather it’s “Chorro” meaning “to gush out” in Spanish. This of course makes more sense… but the pronunciation is very very similar.

Oh by the way if your wondering where the other photo’s got to of our journey so far… well there was a slight technical hitch and I some how managed to delete that entire gallery of photos… oops. I’ll try and restore them at a later time.

Enjoy the latest photo of both San Agustinillo and of Puerto Angel, you may remember the article “Tacos de Iguana” described in words the details of that day trip with Eduardo and his family. And here are those photos… enjoy!

Thank you all for your comments on our articles, please keep them coming it makes us feel connected back to home. Adios Amigos

Michael & Sasha were married 26th of February 2005. The ceremony was held at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Murwillumbah at 2:00pm. The reception followed at 6:00pm at the Murwillumbah Golf Club. It was a beautiful wedding, Michael & Sasha looked great together and really happy, so the best wishes to them for the many wonderful years ahead.

Lastnight was spent cruising the Port Macquarie river, it was a beautiful calm summers evening just perfect for taking sunset pictures of the marina area. View more photos

About 60-70 people gathered onboard the Port Venture for an engagement party. The music was loud and everyone on the dance floor was hyped, for those that couldn’t cope with the noise stayed on the lower deck and talked.

On the return journey back to port ten dolphins surfed the bow of the ship, they truly are a graceful creature. I think they get as much enjoyment from entertaining us as we do watching them play.