Blazing New Trails

(Sorry about earlier, the internet cafe we were in was closing and I couldn't add all of the pictures. They are included now.)

So I´m convinced no one in Mexico ever drives anywhere. After being told that it only takes 4.5 hours to drive from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido (a trip that took over 6 hours) we were then told that it would take 13 hours to get from Puerto Escondido to San Cristobal de las Casas. Therefore we got up at 5:00 AM to ensure that we would make it to San Cristobal before it got dark and the Zapatistas come out. So after a long day of driving we rolled into San Cristobal at 2:30 PM, just a little under 9 hours of driving. Not that I am complaining, it gave us the opportunity to enjoy San Cristobal and accelerate the schedule by a day. It just makes me appreciate how few people have probably ever driven the length of Mexico and makes the adventure all that more exciting. The drive was exciting enough on its own though. It started with a wonderful sunrise (been a long time since I´ve seen one of those, unless it counts when you leave the bar as the sun is rising) and ended with an unbelievable drive on the highway to San Cristobal literally driving through the clouds (see pictures below). Muchos graicas, Presidente Fox.



Now onto San Cristobal. As I already mentioned we arrived in the afternoon and settled into our rooms in the Backpackers Hostel. I´m not a huge hostel fan, but the place is actually fairly nice with a cool courtyard and pretty cheap prices (70 pesos/person). The only problem with hostels is everyone tends to be a lot younger and usually lounder so it can be hard to settle down after a long day of driving. Typing that last sentence made me feel old, but all I need to do is look at my shoddy beard to feel childish yet again. Plus at hostels you always need to worry about the snoring factor. In Luxembourg Jose and I stayed in the same room as a few people whom we were shocked were still breathing in the morning. I´m pretty sure you could hear this one little Japanese kid in Germany, Belgium and France, but then again Luxembourg is quite small. Even worse than when my brother Jared used to grind his teeth while he was sleeping when he was younger. Hey bro, thanks for the comment. I knew you would feel the love. In fact thanks to everyone who has been posting comments, it has made checking out the blog for ourselves an enjoyable part of the day as well. Special big shout outs to my buddy Jeff whose comments may tend to be spiteful, but they usually make me laugh pretty hard. Also recognition to my dear sweet mother who can´t quite figure out how to post a comment and instead clicks on the e-mail link and sends me an e-mail message in what she thinks is a comment. I love you mom and bought you a little early birthday present today. Skip the next two paragraphs if you want it to be a surprise.



San Cristobal ended up being a very nice city. One of our favorites in Mexico so far. It was a charming Spanish colonial city with an interesting colored church built in the 16th century (see picture above). Jose thought it looked really cool, although Greg thought it resembled something he would have designed in 8th grade. We also walked around the city streets with many other cool looking buildings. We finally made our way to the market area to do our first real shopping of the trip. The market was pretty cool and was full of the indigenous people who are native to the Chiapas region of Mexico and are actually descendants of the Mayans. They were interesting people and quite short. They even made Jose look tall and as you can see in the picture in front of the church, he isn´t. Of course maybe I´m just a giant, in fact as the pictures below show there were quite a few things in San Cristobal besides the people that made me feel like a giant.



The wooden squirrel in the picture on the left is the gift for my mom. The Mayan salespeople use this really dirty tactic to hawk their wears by sending their children to try to do the selling. Greg and I both agree that these are the cutest kids in the world. They have these puppy dog eyes and the quietest voices. "Bracelet, señor?" It nearly melts your heart to tell them no, but so far I´ve been able to avoid picking up a bunch of useless crap. My mom on the other hand is one of the sweetest women in the world and always goes out of her way to help others. If she was confronted by these kids she would need to buy a new suitcase and open a Cinco de Maya type of store when she got back because she would be unable to tell them no. So her normally stoic son cracked under the sales pressure from a particularly adorable little girl of about four years old and bought a wooden squirrel. He hopes his mother will enjoy it as a little thank you present for not making me work when I was four. She let me stay unemployed until I was nine.




While in the market we also tried another culinary treat of Jose´s. It turns out he is quite the insect connosieur. This time it was ants instead of crickets. Jose claims to enjoy them immensely, whereas Greg and I ate are obligatory one each. As you can see in the pictures below, we received them with mixed results. After the insects we headed back to the hotel to drop off our new purchases before going to a restaurant for some real food. We ordered this huge dish called parrillada. It was supposed to feed two people, but the three of use couldn´t even finish it. Of course Jose was full of ants, Greg pigged out on fresh market made potato chips, and I ate too many churros.

After dinner we headed back to the hostel and met a couple of chicks, one each from Israel and England. The one is named Michal and the other is named Amy. I´ll let you figure out which is which. They were again quite young (19 and 22), but at least we´re moving in the right direction and they aren´t the jail bait that tryed to pick up Greg before. This time I was actually the lead contact and wowed Michal with my butchering of the Hebrew language which is only slightly worse than my non-existant Spanish which in turn is only slightly worse than my incomprehensible French. But hey I can understand rap lyrics so I think that should count as bilingual. Either way the chicks were pretty cool and the whole group went out for a few drinks and then to a dance club. The chicks had far more energy than us old men though (also I doubt they got up at 5:00 AM), and so we left them to continue dancing and headed back to the hostel for some much deserved sleep. Which I got very little of since there were people talking and roommates (not Jose or Greg) making "strange" noises most of the night. I guess I need to take a lesson from Greg and Jose and buy a pair of earplugs. Hopefully I can get some sleep on the way up to Palenque tomorrow.