Posted at 6:57 pm by Gelene Celis, on September 12, 2019
Philippines – “Benguet Houses turned into Colorful Mural”
Houses in Barangay Balili in La Trinidad, Benguet, Philippines were turned into a colorful mural, reminiscent of Brazil’s favelas. Photo courtesy of Department of Tourism – Cordillera Administrative Region.
Posted at 3:55 pm by Gelene Celis, on May 30, 2019
I was on vacation in Mexico some months ago. While I was in Puebla I met someone who stayed in the same hostel as we did.
It turns out he was from Toronto too (Mississauga). He told me about his trip to Vancouver last year, which got him started climbing. While I was there with intentions of diving, he was there to climb (La Malinche)
Despite heading towards, literally, opposite ends of the earth, evidently, he and I have found common ground. I guess people ask him a lot about why he climbs and he answered with a quote from a book that I loved…
“On ne peut pas toujours rester sur les sommets. Il faut redescendre… Aquoi bon alors ? Voici : le haut connaît le bas, le bas ne connaît pas le haut. En montant, note bien toutes les difficultés de ton chemin ; tant que tu montes, tu peux les voir. A la descente, tu ne les verras plus, mais tu sauras qu’elles sont là, si tu les as bien observées. Il y a un art de se diriger dans les basses régions, par le souvenir de ce qu’on a vu lorsqu’on était plus haut. Quand on ne peut plus voir, on peut du moins encore savoir.”
“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees, one descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.” – René Daumal
Posted at 1:00 pm by Gelene Celis, on August 1, 2016
…is a flooded cave system located north of Tulum, on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The exploration of Dos Ojos began in 1987 and still continues.
– Wikipedia
Playa del Carmen is only a few hours ride away from several Cenotes in Tulum, Mexico.
img courtesy of Every Steph
We went diving in it and there was a rope line to guide divers around. There was sunlight in many parts but there were also plenty that was so dark, we needed our flashlights.
It made me feel… irrelevant. It reminded me that I’m just another speck of dust in this world: a state of being that I am constantly on the lookout for, which is one of the reasons why I do these things.
Anyway, there’s also this thing called the halocline effect (density of saltwater changing or, in this case, saltwater and freshwater meet but don’t mix), which was happening at many points in the cave. Some parts were blurry like looking through a translucent, textured glass, whereas some parts look like a different body of water in itself. The divemaster warned us about the latter because of the illusion of “coming out from the water” and apparently some people had taken off their masks. We kept ours… but it was pretty unreal.
The Yucatan peninsula doesn’t have any lakes or anything for freshwater so this is where the Mayans got their supply 500 years ago. It’s insane. There are apparently spots where you can squeeze (when you push yourself through narrow gaps in between rocks); we didn’t do that but I think there’s that option for technical divers, which is a different route from the recreational one.
(If you’re interested in seeing more: Planet Earth, Ep. 4.)
DO NOT dive here if you have claustrophobic tendencies. The divemaster compared the large openings to the size of the gas truck. I’d say it was bigger and those bits were easy enough to navigate but there were spaces that were really narrow.
My buoyancy is not bad for ocean diving but for this, you have to be really steady.
I kept hitting the stalactites & stalagmites. It was a hassle, not mention a hazard (to the cave, your equipment – your life support – and therefore, yourself).
The divemaster held on to me during those parts to minimize the damage.
img courtesy of Cold Water Kitty
Either way, this is still most definitely worth checking out. You can go swimming, snorkeling… the view alone from its shallow waters are well worth the several hours’ ride.
We stayed in an all-in hotel thing so it was good to get out of the resort too. I like staying in bamboo-things and hippie stuff places when I’m in tropical areas but all-ins are great if you’re pressed for time and/or you’re literally just there to dive and care about nothing else.
Posted at 4:06 pm by Gelene Celis, on November 29, 2015
…is dubbed the “underwater river” in Mexico. It goes straight down around 200 ft, you can dive until about 30m/100ish feet.
It’s about an hour ride away from Playa del Carmen.
Cenote Angelita
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This site was about a 15-minute walk from where you park. So, you have to walk there with all your gear, including your tank(s), in your damp, neoprene wetsuit.
It’s nothing glamorous at all but if you like the movie, Sleepy Hollow, you will like this site. Sleepy Hollow = 1% All the hassle + hydrogen sulfide, which will shave years off your life = 99%