A Bit of the Day Before - Mar 31
Once we (we being me, Dini, and Fiona the two Australian girls headed to Guatemala) arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas, we headed straight to the market, a fairly famous reason to visit the city. The market was cool, as most markets are and it’s also quite a walk even though we didn’t see it all. One thing that I hadn’t seen before though it did not surprise me was seeing a bunch of elderly woman walking around with live chickens, holding them by their feet so they’re upside. They were completely calm, at least it seemed. After the market we got some coffee because apparently this city is also famous for its coffee. I got a cappuccino as it was recommended from the waiter. It was good, but I’m not one who likes coffee so my opinion is most likely worthless. We got the coffee at Cafe Bar Revolucion, again, a famous place in the city. We got some pan elote which we discovered is basically sweetcorn bread. Tasty.
We relaxed at the hostel for quite a while and then decided to go out to the towns mirador or viewpoint to catch the sunset. We arrived at Don Lauro’s house and were greeted by Juan who seemed to be a man who maintained the Don’s land. This had a bit of a weird vibe to it as Juan told us he would accompany us up the mountain (it was a hill) to meet with Don Lauro. After about 25 minutes of walking upwards we arrived, though Juan got distracted by someone else who was coming up the mountain as well so we went on without him. Here’s a photo:
Unfortunately Google didn’t stitch the panorama together for me so I did a
quick early morning stitch job in GIMP. Sorry not sorry.
It was a little disappointing to be honest, but only because the sunset was blocked by another hill peek. Oh well, you win some you lose some. After descending down the hill I had a successful phone conversation with the taxi driver that brought us to the hill. He told me he would be five minutes. Liar. We walked down to a panaderia for some treats and hailed a cab from the main street. We eventually found some two peso tacos in the now almost abandoned market which were basically worth two pesos. The portions were small but there’s something about getting a two peso taco that makes you want more. That pretty much concluded our night.
The Canyon, or is it The River? - Apr 01
I woke up at 6:20am to say goodbye to the girls who were off to Guatemala. I woke up again at 8:40am in a panic because I was suppose to get a bus to the canyon tour at 9:00am. Little did I forget that this is Mexico. My bus arrived at 9:42am and we went off.
The canyon was pretty cool, though I was almost too concerned with my lack of sunscreen that I may have missed some things that I shouldn’t have. It’s alright though because I didn’t miss them, don’t worry. Here are some of the more important/interesting photos:
We spent one hour in the town square where I sat back and relaxed, proud of the fact that I managed to avoid the sun enough to not be in pain. Once back in town I sat down in one of the leather couches in the hostel and began doing as little as possible as I could. I spent a good five hours in that seat looking at things, studying a bit of Spanish. The usual. It was a nice relaxing time. I managed to figure out my schedule for the next month which includes a visit to Campeche (maybe Isla Mujeres) and three revisits to Merida, Cozumel, Mexico City (third time in this town), and Sayulita. I’ll stay in Mexico until after Cinco de Mayo, of course, because that is going to be amazing. After that I’ll fly over to St. John’s, Newfoundland or somewhere close to the east coast. That part of the trip has almost zero plans at this point.
OK, if I get the time on Saturday night I promised that I would write a blog post in Spanish without using the internet or any dictionaries to see where my written Spanish is at. That should be fun.
Relaxing and Taking Photos - Apr 02
My original plan for this day was to relax and take photos, as you may have thought. Things did not go exactly as I had planned them. Yeah. That. I met a group of people that had been travelling together for the last little while and we all decided that, after breakfast, we would go watch the Barcelona vs Madrid soccer game over lunch and a some drinks. Sounds good. The problem with this plan, however, is that I began hanging out with some people that had just told me that all they had been doing in San Cristobal was drink, party, and repeat. So what actually happened was a nice lunch waiting various poor quality soccer streams with some beer followed by a larger amount of time spent just having more beer.
Afteward we went back to the hostel to relax and play some pool. That part went fine because we were all ready to listen to my Latin music playlist which includes such hits as Volverte a Ver by Juanes and other countless reggaeton tunes that get your hips moving. As we played we met a few Canadian girls that said they were going to the wine place that I had suggested as a place to spend the end of the night after a pizza place I had found in the Mexico book. Cool. Turned out that the rest of the crew went somewhere, I don’t remember where. So it was just me and the Danish dude, Hjatle, that went to the wine place. Turns out there were four Canadian girls who were all teaching English in Monterray, a place I neglected to visit. We had a great time chatting about, take a guess. Gone on. Go ahead.
LANGUAGES!!!! Yes!!!
Here’s a picture of the Dane and one of the Canadians, Kim.
And a poor attempt someone took at capturing my likeness. Let’s call this a wine filter.
It must have been Hjalte because he took a few selfies too.
Later on, after paying I realized I didn’t have the pesos to pay my share of the wine between Hjalte and I. The two of us went to the ATM as the girls went back to the hostel. Long story short, the ATMs didn’t work for me and I owe a Danish man some money. Back at the hostel there was some live music and a party. I called it in early as I had been sipping alcoholic beverages for almost 13 hours straight. Blah.
Recovery - Apr 03
Oh. God. Wine. Why? Just why?
I spent my morning hanging with the same crew of people as the day before though this time around we were all in a bit more of a chilled out mood if you get my meaning. We grabbed some goat meat and soup at a place a long walk away from the hostel which was good but I don’t think goat is my favourite meat. As the crew filed out of the hostel I decided to take a nap, I was so out of it. Three hours later and I woke up with a slightly bigger headache and a crink in my neck. Honestly, so great. Sometimes I wonder if this is the reason I went travelling, whether or not this information should be in a blog or more of a private diary, and how I even managed to drink that amount. These are the bigs questions that I’m contemplating these days.
With the rest of my day I staggered around, got some food, and ended the night with some computer time and a movie. Meh.
Waterfalls, Lakes, and Unfavourable Weather - Apr 04
I had booked myself a tour through the Montebello Lakes and the Chiflon Waterfalls so I got up nice and early even though, again, I’m working on Mexican time which means you basically have about 20-30 minutes of time to spare when you’re doing something. Anyway, the two German dudes in my room were up even early which made me think they were doing the same thing as me.
The trip to the Chiflon Waterfalls took a little over two hours. It was a quiet car ride. Not that I would break the silence were it Canada, but I still don’t break silence in Spanish. Dang. The waterfalls were pretty cool and once you get to the big one at the end it is quite impressive. At least by my standards. Here are a few snaps.
What? It was sunny and I had some bed-head. OK?
At the end of the waterfall I met up with the Germans that are in my room. It turns out that they did wake up for the same reason, just through a different company. We had a quick chat for a bit. Then I had a quick chat with a guy in my group that is from Guanajuato which is cool because I liked that city quite a lot. But more importantly, Spanish!
We stopped for lunch at the same spot as the Germans’ tour group and neither I nor the Germans wanted to have lunch there so chatted for the entire lunch outside the restaurant. They’re both 19 but you were never guess by looking at them because they’re both pretty big dudes. One of them gave me the name of this university that is going to attend that has some weird hat and a long list of rules on how to wear and use this hat. I think it was bull shit but I haven’t done the research yet. In case you’re curious the name of the university is Fachhochschule Rosenheim holztechnik. Good luck.
Later we arrived at the first lake that is actually called Cinco Lagos. I’ll leave the translation out of that one for you. Out of respect for your intellect. The group was given the run down of the raft tour prices and me and the Guanajuatan, along with an older lady decided to opt out because the weather was getting worse and the price wasn’t appealing enough. While we waited for the rest of our group to go out, we chatted together and also with a tour guide about this and that. Good stuff.
We then went to the remaining lakes that are famous for the fact that they are so close together but none of them has the same colour. Me and the Guanajuatan decided the colours were blue, green, and cafe. Sure. We visited one more lake but there wasn’t much to be seen. We spent ten minutes at that one.
Here are the best shots of the lakes and such.
The tour got back to town at just past 9pm so I grabbed my pizza from the day before. Shared a game of pool with Sam, the Honduran hostel worker, ate some of the potatoes he offered me after I gave him a slice of pizza, and went to bed. Despite my physical state it was a pretty good day.
What’d I Miss, Get It! - Apr 05
Since I hadn’t spent a lot of time actually exploring the city itself I decided to give it the old walk about. I didn’t take many photos of this stuff but you could easily Google any of this stuff. I’m assuming it’s fairly standard issue San Cristobal. Places I visited included Museo de Medicina Maya, Museo del Ambar, Arco Torre del Carmen, and a church up a hill. I spent the rest of my day chilling in the hostel until my bus for Campeche.
Yet another night bus, here we go. The bus took four hours longer than scheduled. I don’t remember why exactly. I just remember hearing that we needed to make a return for some reason at some point. This was probably one of the worst ones so far. My neck was still sore for whatever reason, I couldn’t managed to get to sleep for quite a long time, we stopped in Palenque which seems fine but they made everyone get out of the bus so it could be cleaned for around 20 minutes. The only up side of the extra time was that it meant we would get to Campeche at the reasonable hour of 8:30am instead of 4:30am.