San Cristobal
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2008
1
17
23
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
San Cristobal de las Casas,
Central Mexico and Gulf Coast,
Mexico
Saturday, August 16, 2008
After ages walking around in search of a restaurant in the guide, we gave up hope of finding it and instead just asked people where we could find a good pizzeria. It was at this point we discovered that Mexicans wonīt tell you if they donīt know where something is and will instead just direct you any old way. An hour, and four or five peopleīs directions later, we asked one final person, a street seller, who eventually gave us the correct directions to īPepeīs Pizzaī. The pizza at Pepeīs was okay but not worth the massive treck.
We decided that we would make the most of Wednesday because we had lost the previous day to travelling so we got up early and headed to the market in town. There were lots of stalls and plenty of indigenous goods but I only bought a new belt. After we had seen all of the stalls we headed for a minibus to a Mayan village, stopping at a store where I bought a fake Mexico shirt and a Real Madrid shirt on the way. We got a little lost again and encountered the same problem as when we had been searching for the pizzeria - Mexican directions. This time we didnīt waste too long and found the minibus, already holding some Mexicans and the chickens that someone had bought at the market!
A short ride later and we were in San Juan de Chamula . It is an old Mayan town where people still dress traditionally and live according to old customs and their own religion which states that if you take a photo of a Mayan then you steal their spirit! We went in the church for a while and paid a little boy to explain the significance of everything (the pine needles on the floor, the statues of saints wearing mirrors and people drinking coke whilst praying!).
Because we have tried to pack a lot of travelling into this week our schedule is pretty tight and we had booked a bus to Palenque on Thursday afternoon but which arrived there at 11:00pm. After a few hours hassle where we couldnīt phone any hostels in Palenque because the phone numbers in the guidebook were wrong, we changed to an early bus to increase our chance of finding somewhere to sleep in Palenque and to allow us to go on a canyon tour in the morning before we left. The rest of the evening was spent in a little bar near the hostel drinking Sol and eating tapas before we went to the bar nextdoor to the hostel where there was a drumming show.
The canyon tour on Thursday was really good. We got a minibus from near the hostel to Sumidero Canyon where we boarded a boat for the tour. The walls of the canyon went as high as 600m and there were monkeys climbing along the rocks. After we had seen a couple of waterfalls and a shrine halfway along the canyon (where you could see Jesusī body in the rocks), the boat turned round and headed back. It was on the way back that we saw howler monkeys and several crocodiles (one was about 8ft) about 10 feet away from us on the banks of the canyon. After a short stop in the town centre, the tour bus dropped us off at the bus station in San Cristobal in plenty of time for our bus to Palenque but also in time for some of the worst torrential rain I have ever seen. Luckily we didnīt get too soaked and could board our bus dry.
