From the Coast to the Jungle to the Highlands

(lindsey writing!)

The last few days have been spent busily sightseeing, trying to tackle as much of southern Mexico as possible before we are due in Guatemala for our first volunteer gig. They have been full of ruins, just saying no to the Rainbow guys, delicious local coffee cortadas, tortillas, men in cowboy hats, kids selling candy/keychains/"donations to their school," colorful markets, tortillas, Dia de Guadalupe fireworks all day (making me jump out of my skin every five minutes), Zapatista revolutionary graffiti and more tortillas. We seriously get tortillas at every meal. Not that we're complaining or anything - they're how we get to split a one-person menu dish between two people and be completely satisfied. 

The temple where Pakal's tomb was found, as seen from the Palace (Palenque).

Anyway, after quite the luxurious overnight bus ride from Tulum (as Matt previously described), we arrived in the  ancient town of Palenque, one of the former Mayan capitals in the Yucatan jungle. The town itself is standard small-town Mexico with not much in the way of tourism, so we headed to a campground/hostel a few km outside of town and walking distance to the ruins. We quickly set up our tent (economically scored from San Fran's Craigslist) and headed out to the ruins. Now, we've both done Machu Picchu and a few other Incan ruins. We figured an ancient latin american ruin is an ancient latin american ruin, right? Wrong. 

These ruins - now I won't get into much detail because I know, ruins not seen in person can be yawn-inducing, so if you are interested, check out the Wiki article here - had a completely different feeling to them. They were bigger, higher, and in our opinion, more impressive. They were surprisingly still in 

tact, considering the jungle pretty much devoured them when the Mayans escaped/died out around 1123 AD and they weren't excavated until the mid 1950's. The excavation continues today and we were treated to some amazing jungle-covered temples and plazas. I had some very Indiana Jones, heart-being-ripped-out-while-still-alive kind of visions. We spent most of the day at the ruins and then wandered over to El Panchan for dinner, the bohemian compound/ hotel/ campgrounds/ restaurant/temple/hangout for hippies who have run away from home and decided to live in the Mayan jungle. At least that was my perception of it. A lot of ex-pats and Mexicans doing spiritual and arty things in a beautiful environment. 

Swinging from Palenque's vines.

Oh, and we also kept running into more "family" who asked us if we were attending the Rainbow* festival. I swear, they were coming out of the woodwork. The poor town of Palenque, when we were waiting for our bus to leave (of course, another 45 minute delay), was completely overrun by gringo (and latin american) hippies. These are the hula-hoop or guitar carrying, patchworked to the bone, everyone's dreadlocked, bonafide festival hippies. I asked Matt once again if he was sure he didn't want to go to Rainbow, and he once again was 100% happy not to. I'm sure it would have been a once in a lifetime experience, but it just wasn't on our (non-existant) agenda.

*From what I gather, Rainbow is organized on a random basis, in a hidden locale by tried and true hippies from the '60s, dedicated to creating a space away from society where creativity, happiness, spiritualism, music and partying are let out to play.

From Palenque it was a five hour bus to San Cristobal, leaving the Yucatan and entering the Chiapas department. Set 2,200m in the highlands, San Cristobal de las Casas is a charming Colonial city full of wallet-friendly street food, feet-unfriendly slippery cobblestones, colorful row houses/churches and fireworks, fireworks, fireworks. The Dia del Guadalupe is coming up, and this town adores old Guadalupe. Flags in the street, processions at random times of day, and of course ear-exploding fireworks that make me curse more than a lady should.

A church in San Cristobol, ready for Guadalupe

Aside from the requisite market hawking, gallery perusing and cafe hopping, we went horseback riding to the nearby town of Chamula, trotting through pine forest and along roads that ran parallel to local indigenous farms, full of cabbage, cauliflower and some corn well past harvest time. We had an hour to explore Chamula, spent checking out the plaza's colorful church and then refusing to pay to enter, getting our first Mexican churros (and giving some to the five year old girl selling her mom's handmade keychains who wouldn't leave us alone), and paying 3 pesos to use the bathroom in the market, after asking the young local girl restroom attendant why she kept laughing at me (she couldn't say).

The Plaza in Chamula

Overall we enjoyed our time spent in San Cristobal, mostly because of the food. We finally had elote on the street (corn on the cob covered in mayo, cheese, chili, hot sauce and lime), tacos al pastor (pork that's been rotating on a pineapple-topped spit all day, freshly sliced with some of the pineapple), a chile relleno, and some of the best caldero (soup) yet (rich chicken broth with black beans, bacon, chicharrones, cubes of Chihuahua cheese, avocado, cilantro, lime and the requisite tortillas). Again, we were able to split one portion for dinner. So good we went back two nights in a row.

Typical Zapatista Graffiti - without corn there is no country - rhymes better in Spanish!

In a few hours we're on another overnight bus (this one not as luxurious) to Oaxaca, where we'll REALLY get into the food, because, you know, we haven't already.

Hasta luego mis amigos.

Recently killed chicken, anyone?