Goodbye mosquitos, hello Zapitistas
Trip Start
Jun 14, 2008
1
6
93
Trip End
Jun 20, 2009
San Cristobal de la casas,
Mexico
Saturday, July 5, 2008
After menu panic to the power of a million I finally decided on a small aztec symbol of a flower, tucked away neatly on the small of my back where prospective employers can't see it.
How did it go? Well there's nothing quite like sitting waiting for someone to inflict pain on you, having no idea how bad it will be. I sat upright on a stool for 45 mins my hands clenching the sides so tight my knuckles were white, whilst my lovely Mexican tattoo artist violated my spine with a huge stabbing buzzing needle. (No one warned me about the noise the thing makes. Dear God.) I forgot to breathe properly for the whole thing the pain was so bad
Entrace to the canyon
. The whole adventure ended with a massive whitey and me nearly fainting on top of Emmet. They made me lie down for 10 mins and got some sugar into me. All I could think was, I don't care if it's not finished. I can't take any more of that. Thankfully it was. When I recovered they told me I was very brave. Ha! Ya right Chris! No regrets. So far. Pictures to follow.Anyway as much fun as Puerto Escondio was we were ready to leave the sticky humidity, voracious mosquitos and sand in every orifice for the cooler climes of San Cristobal de las Casas. We arrived via a horrific 12 hour journey in an air conditioned bus. (Total hours on buses so far this trip 35.5 and counting.) Fine if you didn't make the complete and utter rookie mistake of dressing for the jounrney like a day down at the beach. It was very, very cold. The movies were all in Spanish, including our 2nd time seeing Premonition starring Sandra Bullock en espanol. I don't know what it's like in english, but if the spanish version is anything to go by I'm guessing bad. Very bad. If I have to see it again I might just pull my eyeballs out. Mental note to self. Next bus journey bring warm clothes, ear plugs and sleeping mask.
On the positive side, San Cristobal is great. It's fairly elevated and the smell and sight of the place instantly reminded me of parts of Peru from my last trip
From the other angle
. It's liberal, arty and of course thanks to the Zapitistas, revolutionary. Himself of course has taken to the place like a duck to water. I might have to abandon him here. So far we've been wandering around the markets and taking in a few of the pubs. We found a great English book store (I've already read everything I brought over from Ireland and all of Emmet's books) so I bought my body weight in second hand stuff with scant regard for how I was going to carry any of it. (Did I mention Emmet is carrying my big bag at the moment as well as his cos my tattoo is healing? Convenient that.)We've planned a couple of day trips for the next few days to a nearby canyon and then to Chamula: itīs a strange little place where their religion branched off from the more conventional catholic kind of take in worship of coca cola and pepsi. Much to the two companies delight. Not much to my delight we will be travelling there by horseback. All I can say is it better not be the Czech Republic all over again.
I'll get commodante Echmet to update you all again before we blow this joint. Our last week in Mexico, I can't believe we are nearly a month into our trip! It's been brilliant so far, although I have to admit to having periodic panic attacks about being unemployed. They usually occur when I log onto irishtimes.com and am greeted with a headline like "OUR ECONOMY IS TOTALLY FUCKED!" and "YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO GET ANOTHER JOB LYDIA." Uh oh.
Ah well. At least it's not raining over here :)
