Blogs from Chiapas, Mexico, North America - page 59

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North America » Mexico » Chiapas » Palenque July 25th 2006

San Cristóbal de las Casas San Cristóbal sits high up in the mountains in the southerly state of Chiapas, just a few hours from the Guatamalan border and it´s cool climate so different from other ´nearby´towns in Mexico that it´s like a different country. The overnight bus - 12 hours from Puerto Esconidido - was no where near as traumatic as it had threatened to be, although I am glad it was too dark to see the cause of the winding roads. Actually, despite the near-arctic conditions on board, I slept a lot better than I did the last 2 nights in the horrible, sweaty, busy youth hostel. The town is full of little low colourful, cobbled streets and being in a gentle valley means that there a quite a lot of nice views without any ... read more
StreView from Cerro San Cristòbal
The waterfall whose name I cant remember - something like Miso-Ha
Oh the fear!


11hrs and some puke later, I arrive in San Cristobal as sick as a dog. Vomiting all over myself half way through the longest bus ride I've taken yet was only the beginning. Not much fun trying to stop yourself from puking for 6hrs whilst still covered in the 1st lot of puke, but I managed. Had to catch up with myself for an hour before I could cross the road from the bus station to the nearest hotel, where I lay all day and puked some more. The next day was similar, I don't know if it's a good thing that I enjoyed the meal so much that did this to me. Even in my deepest darkest illest moments (they were to come), I still had to say, 'damn that was a tasty meal', perhaps ... read more
Break out 2
Break out 3
Break out 4


Arrived in San Cristobal on 7th July.. stepped off the bus after 14 hours at 6am into clean, fresh mountain air (quite chilly though as at 2300m altitude - but great after the sticky heat of the coast). The 1st class buses are comfortable and air conditioned (freezing!) but the windy mountain roads do make you feel sick, and they all seem to show random kung foo movies in Spanish! San Cristobal is beautiful.. Lots of low rise, colourful houses set around a central zocolo and market.. quiet and laid back atmosphere.. Signed up for 2 weeks of Spanish lessons at Instituto de Languas Jovel, and moved in with a Mexican family for a week.. We lived with separate families, to make sure we DID practice our Spanish.. and they were really friendly and welcoming, but ... read more
San Cristobal
Girl
Buying our daily ration of toms!

North America » Mexico » Chiapas » El Panchan July 17th 2006

El Panchan is a hippy jungle commune type place on the outskirts of Palenque town in the jungle near the Mayan ruins. It had a very chilled out vibe and we secured ourselves a nice little cabaña to hang out in complete with noisy geckos! After getting settled at Magarita and Ed's cabanas we tripped back into town to try and post home our textile and vase purchases which we had been lugging around for quite a few days. It is surprising difficult to get packaging materials anywhere, we ended up scrounging a used box from a shop, then amused the local shoe shine boys trying to resize to fit our goods with our handy gaffa tape! The first night there we went to one of only two places to eat in the little village ... read more
Arriving in the jungle
Palenque ruins
Palenque ruins 2


Ok so only a month behind with our blog!! After our bad bus trip to the beach we opted for the 1st class option for the 12 hour trip to San Cristobal, which was so comfortable we slept pretty much all the way there! We stayed in a nice little hostel, with a good mix of friendly people from all over the world; the hostel had a nice leafy courtyard that was good for socialising and for sitting round a camp fire in the evening. A couple of American guys had bought a guitar and were trying to find some songs that everyone in the international crowd would know to sing along: the only one that everyone seemed to really know was Leaving On A Jet Plane, funny eh!! The Americans had also bought a Djembe ... read more


On our last day in Mazunte The Tijuana trio turned up..unfortunatly we had to embark on a 12hr bus ride to San Cristobal de las casas..but we said farewell with a couple of beers and a sandy sunset. Due to the heat on the beach we were in shorts and t shirts for the night bus...another schoolboy error..they have arctic air con in these buses = very cold and tired brace of Henry´s. After arriving in San Cristobal in Chiapas we headed to Casa Bablyon. It turned out to be more of a hang-out for Mexican hippies intent on sitting around on mushroom comedowns watching dvds all day...not what we were here for and its not the most welcoming when the only conversation was a glare from a face full of hair and metal...we were gringos ... read more
El Canyon 2
El Croc
El Parque Nacional

North America » Mexico » Chiapas » Tapachula June 29th 2006

North America » Mexico » Chiapas » Sumidero Canyon June 27th 2006

After a disappointing trip to Lake Aititlan in Guatemala, we decided to head back to Mexico and San Cristobal for the Sumidero Canyon (as we had planned earlier in the trip). Unfortunately, the weather at the lake had been really wet and miserable so we were unable to get any really decent photos of the volcanic surroundings. We took a boat to San Pedro and saw Panajachel but due to the torrential rain, we only really saw a few hours of each. Both places we found to be very touristy and we heard from other travellers that sadly, these lakeside villages have deteriorated hugely in the last ten years. The Sumidero Canyon is 1-kilometer-deep and was the stage for an epic battle between the Spanish and the Chiapanecan Indians. It is said that these Chiapanecan Indians ... read more
More hot wheels at Lake Aititlan...
Christmas Tree
Sumidero Canyon




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