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Trip Start Jun 21, 2008 Previous
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  San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico
Monday, July 21, 2008

Our first full day in San Cristobal was a Sunday which meant a lot of stores and services were closed but the zocalo and the neighboring  cafés and restaurants were just bustling  with people. Much like Oaxaca, there is a good mix of Mexican, American and European tourists however, here there are many more language school students. San Cristobal is like Oaxaca in many ways but seems smaller and a more relaxed. It has a very strong indigenous Maya presence; most of  the women you see out are wearing their traditional "trajes" and selling beautiful handmade crafts such as blankets and scarves.  There are also many young children who have to work here and that is difficult to watch at times.  While having dinner our fist night in San Cristobal, Jess and I were probably approached 15 times by different kids  5-10 years old selling their trinkets or just begging. They are working late too, it's  not unusual for them to still be out after 10 or 11pm.
 
It took us a few days to get situated but we managed to get enrolled in the Spanish school we wanted and we are studying from 3-7pm everyday

Our spanish school (yellow/white building)

.  My teacher is awesome... her name is Minerva and although most of what we do together is  grammar, she forces me to speak a lot as well since we have 4 hours together everyday, it's been great! It's harder than I thought it would be and I realize that we will have to continue studying almost on a daily basis for the rest of this trip if we want to make real progress with the language... She's also really in to social justice and works for the indigenes people on the side, which is very much like social work so we had lots to talk about!
 
After 4 days we were able to move into the apartment and by then we felt completely settled. Although I do enjoy our riding days immensely (they are usually our most fun days) it's just great to feel "at home" somewhere. We had scoped out a few favorite restaurants, gone to the theater, two museums  and now we had this crazy beautiful two story apartment all to ourselves! I decided I was going to cook for Jess since we had a fully equipped kitchen... but that turned out to be more difficult than I expected. I went to the supermarket after school to get groceries, but they really didn't have much in the stores at all.  In general  they have a lot of just a few things for example there is a whole aisle of different pasta but no pasta sauce or anything else you can use with pasta per se.   I ended up with pasta, one onion, 4 small cans of salsa, some bread and Mexican Manchego cheese ( which tastes exactly the same as American Jack cheese) Jess also brought home a can of marinated smoked peppers which we added to the mix and we ended up with our gourmet meal!!

Beautiful colonial streets

!  We also splurged and bought a bottle of red wine (wine is really expensive here, even by American standards) It turned out to be a great night with "OK" food, really tasty wine as well as  leftovers for the next day...
 
On a more random note, one of my favorite things to do is to "fika" ...my Swedish friends and family know this about me. In Sweden,  people drink a lot of coffee and we do this either at home with friends or at really cozy coffee houses. This verb in Swedish is " fika"; you hang out, talk, smoke,  (if you're a smoker), read or study. I have now discovered that the people of these colonial towns high up in the clouds love to fika as well!! I was so excited...there are really cool and funky coffee houses everywhere and the cappuccino here is to die for! Chiapas is known to grow and export their own coffee, there is even a coffee museum in San Cristobal. One of the coffee houses here which is also a restaurant serve their own whole grain bread with butter and marmalade...the bread comes out warm and is delicious!
 
It's difficult to sum up all of our experiences of San Cristobal since we were lucky enough to stay here for so long. Overall it's a great town with lots of culture and political underpinnings which makes for good conversations! I would definitely recommend all of you to visit one day; it's worth it!!
 
Hey it's Jess...and yes our apartment is super-cool!  It's definitely the nicest place in town - two stories, balconies, awesome views...secure parking....and yes, it's a whoppin' 40 bucks a night!  Spanish school for 4 hours a day has been an abrupt change!  I actually have to wear a watch and be somewhere at 3pm every day???  After a month of being masters of our destiny...that seems like a lot to ask

The Cathedral

! 
 
Anyhow, we've been here for almost a week, and it's great to have a home away from home -- the housekeeper is doing our laundry - we can blast the IPod player and grab a freshy out of the fridge whenever we want...it's just a little too comfortable...too easy...and I'm missing the open road, the next new experience that's hidden atop some tropical cloud forest...plus I think it's high time that the Zapatista Zapper (the bike...a bit newer than Che's) needs to be saddled up and ridden hard!  This is after all, a road trip! Not a holiday in the sun! (I've been listening to a lot of Sex Pistols)...although our little Chiapas vacation has been a welcome respite.
 
I know it sounds weird, but after being in Mexico for a month, it kind of feels like home! - we've gotten to know the roads, the people, many of the diverse customs from region to region - and crossing into Guatemala is going to feel like we're going to the foreign country that it is! 
 
Guatemala, here we come!

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The Zocalo and church	Waiting to move into our apartment!	My spanish teacher Minerva	Cheating with the stickers
Our living room	Jess blogging on our patio	Kitchen (including cat)	Malin with our house cat
One side of bedroom	Other side	Staircase up to the bedroom	View from patio

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