Tag Archives: sunscreen

Mexico, North America

Is my forehead red?

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At the airport waiting for the flight home. Should be back in Vancouver in 11 hours and home in about 15 or 16. Today we took the metro to the historic center of Mexico City. (ps: the Mexican Metro is set up the same as the French Metro. Easy peasy!). We visited an archaeological site that basically shows 7 different evolutions of the buildings and the people that lived in them.

It is kinda crazy when you can see what the modern day buildings are built on top of. Yesterday we ended up taking a bus to Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan is an interesting place but most of it is scorched earth with no shade. (kind of like The Kumsheen Resort in the pre-pool/pre-air conditioning days) Not a good day to forget the sunscreen! Oops!

I would have enjoyed the site a lot more if there weren’t so many touts and chatzski sellers trying to sell their crappy crap to me every second step.  So annoying!

The bus ride on the way there should have been a good indication of what to expect. For the hour long drive there the driver kept picking up people selling ice cream, candy, cold drinks etc. And then he picked up Mexican Stevie Wonder who serenaded us for about 20 minutes. Jon took some good video. (NB: Video to be added after we get home. I’m not that technologically advanced when we’re on the road!)

The bus ride home was 2/3 the price of the one there and I’m guessing there was some sort of deal for standing room only.  We are still alive, so no worries. Maybe Greyhound should look into new pricing policies?

More on the bus system later friends, must go find Squatzi some more clothes.
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Update

Coconutty Goodness

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sunscreenYou might know that during the summer months, I’m in love with coconut scented stuff–shampoo, sunscreen, lotion, hair goo etc. (Just don’t try to make me eat coconut, that’s sick!) We had to go shopping for a few travel supplies tonight, and sunscreen was on the list. (Along with 92 dollars of other crap!)

You’d think that the higher you get the colder it is, so there would be less sun, but temperature doesn’t always relate to sunlight, but really the higher you are, the closer you are to the sun, so that’s all confusing. Apparently, it is all about the altitude when it comes to sun burn. It is easier to get sunburned at altitude as there is less of the earth’s atmosphere to block the sunlight. For every 305m (1000 feet) UV exposure increases 4%. I’m no mathematician, but that’s about 40% higher chance of burning for where we’re going.

Most of the pictures I’ve seen of little Peruvian kids show badly sunburned cheeks. Some captions say their cheeks are perpetually sunburned or even stained from sun damage. I usually scorch in the sun, so I’ll be wearing sun screen. Unfortunately, the coconut is out, don’t want to attract bugs, so we opted for some SPF 60 Ombrelle.

NB: The only time I strayed away from the coconut smell was the Body Shop sunscreen stick. That thing smelled like watermelon, and would probably make me gag now, but it was hot at the time!