So we took turns a starin' out the window at the darkness...

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Oaxaca had been a very nice place to spend a bit of time in, but it was time to make like Kurt Cobain and head off, so we strode off into the day to find the bus station. As it happened, the bus station was further than we anticipated, so, bit by bit, strode became walk became trudge.
In any event, there was no hurry, as this was to be the first of the night buses we caught. Leaving at 8pm and arriving in San Cristobal de las Casas early the next morning it promised to be an...shall we say, interesting... journey.

We'd had a big lunch, and took a punt that we might score at least a packet of chips on the bus, so we didn't bother with dinner. We were mistaken. No food forthcoming we boarded the bus with empty stomachs; in hindsight perhaps not the brightest plan at the beginning of 12 hrs of winding dark roads.

Now, anyone that's done a bit of travelling will know that night buses are a blessing and a curse. On the plus side you save a nights accommodation, and get a chunk of travelling out of the way while asleep. On the negative side, well, it sucks.

You get broken sleep, so arrive wrecked. You miss any scenery, save for the occasional fuel station or lonely roadside tienda (although, that does carry it's own romance). And the darkness amplifies any feelings of motion sickness by about a billion as you lack a steady point of reference. This last was particularly important on the incredibly windy road leading out of Oaxaca. Ever travelled home in a taxi from a big night out with far too much to drink? Deep breaths, absolute focus, very nervous looking cabbie driving as fast as possible next to you? Well, for me, this was a 5 hour version of one of these cab rides. I stared fixedly at various external points – stars, tops of mountains faintly visible against the moonless night sky. - and managed to save myself the ignominy of a desperate rush to the foul chemical toilet up the back. Others had clearly not been so well trained by drunken cab rides, and there was a constant stream of backpackers towards the back of the bus.

And they were mostly backpackers. We were now on the backpacker trail – Aussies, French, Yanks, Canadians everywhere, all getting very little sleep on the long drive to San Cristobal. Mum also got very little sleep, though not from being sick, mind. She spent the whole night playing Nintendo.

We pulled into San Cristobal at 8 in the morning, wrecked and starving. I, though, had reached that point you get to after you lose track of time on a good night out and the sun comes up. You stopped drinking a while ago and now sort of feel strangely sober, even though you know you're not. There's a weird sense of pride, disappointment and detachment, all mixed together. Well, sort of. Mostly, I was hungry.

We had booked a place on the net, so we wandered off to find it. Inconveniently, someone had moved the whole planet about 50 metres west while we had been asleep. Either that or moved the relevant satellites to play a trick on travel tired gringos, causing the GPS in my phone to send us one street over from our destination. There was some suggestion that perhaps the GPS itself, or even the operator, was at fault, but that was unlikely.

After checking in we decided to find something to eat before having a rest, so walked downtown. San Cristobal is a very pretty town, justifiably popular with tourists, and this was enhanced by the feel an early morning gives even the worst place. People were just starting to move about, cups of coffee in their hands, a tired “buenos dias”. The streets were mostly quiet, the previous days litter cleaned and the new day's still to come, and the air was refreshingly cool with the faint smell of newly evaporated dew.

As always happens, the sleep following breakfast confused the senses somewhat, and a reasonable part of the rest of the day was spent just relaxing. When we did venture out it was to hunt for a place to spend Christmas day, and to stock up on Christmas day alcohol. Our mission was Rompope, and we found some eventually. We had a quick look around the town centre, busy now that the late-sleeping Mexican populace was out and about. The square in front of the cathedral was by now a large open air market place, full of local people selling all manner of things – weavings, strange instruments and Zapatista paraphernalia. We found a reasonable place to have dinner, and found our way home, lulled to sleep by the gentle sound of thousands of firecrackers on Christmas eve.

Christmas Day dawned cold and grey. Happily - and a little surprising for people coming from Queensland where people shut the shops at the drop of a hat and drop it themselves – the town was still busy, all the shops and restaurants were still open. It may be a Catholic country, but capitalism is the real power.
Also on duty was the scary looking bloke in period Nahautl costume, so Klaire obligingly posed for a photo. I, myself, was unconvinced that the Aztecs, for all their technological prowess, had developed scary coloured novelty contact lenses in 800AD. However, the bloke had a big vicious looking knife, so I stayed quiet.

We kept wandering, and happened on a smaller church, complete with a beautifully decorated square. We watched the elaborate Nativity parade and re-enactment, then beat a hasty retreat as bunches of local kids descended, pelting firecrackers at everything that moved – donkeys, other children, frightened tourists.

Skins and dignity barely intact we retired to the hostel, where we got down to the serious Australian Christmas business of sitting on our arses and drinking and eating. It occurs to me now that the Mexican tradition of staying up until midnight and throwing firecrackers at people fits in quite well with sitting on your arse the next day. Something to remember for next year, perhaps.
The hostel had an interesting design feature which encouraged sitting on the terrace – the rooms were at least 5 degrees colder than outside, which wasn't all that warm to begin with. So we spent the rest of the day sitting on the terrace, reading books, eating, drinking, and chasing the sun around with cold bodies and newly washed clothes.

Christmas in Mexico ended with a 45 minute search through the backstreets of San Cristobal for a soup place mentioned in the Lonely Planet. Tired, cold and cranky, after much swearing and back tracking, we gave up and went to the next place we could find. It turned out to also be a soup place, and a pretty good one.

Boxing day was spent in a similar fashion, and ended in a similar way when we located the soup place – El Caldero. It was, of course, right next door to the place we had ended up at the night before.

As nice as San Cristobal de las Casas was, it had another side. The soups we got were huge, and fantastic, so there was no way I could finish the side of a massive plate of tostadas. So when a young kid called Luciano walked in out of the night and asked politely if he might have one, I was at a loss. I'm pretty prepared to say no to requests for money, but a simple request for something to eat is something else entirely. I gave him a few, and he walked back outside and sat down with his brother in the cold, where they shared our tostadas.

San Cristobal was surrounded by an area called Cinturon de Miseria – an area of poverty, which rich Mexicans and tourists like us drive through on their way to better places. The graffiti here was much better than elsewhere, and more political. The population was more indigenous than most of Mexico, and poorer. This was Zapatista heartland, and you could see why they were a bit pissed off with their lot.

We descended out of the mountains through the forest, on our way to Palenque, the road as windy and rough as the night before. Daytime however, and a lengthy break to repair a broken radiator, meant that the incidence of nausea was greatly reduced. Palenque town was about what you might expect. The only real reason for its existence is its proximity to the ruins at Palenque.

That said, the town was pleasant enough. There was a serviceable town square with a couple of very decent coffee shops just back a bit. Plenty of bars and restaurants for the tourists, and plenty of hostels.

There were also many different ways to get to the ruins, some 10km away from the town. The most popular option seemed to be the tour offices, which abounded, or one of the large air conditioned buses. However, by far the best option was to walk up the street, one street back from the main drag. There you'd find crappy old microbuses and a bloke yelling out “Ruinas!” at the top of his voice. For the price of 10 pesos each way you could catch one of these straight out to the ruins. The microbus filled up with a variety of locals toting their wares, on their way to the ruins to hawk them to the tourists, but there was some sort of code of honour operating as none did more than say hello with a smile to us while we were travelling with them. After alighting at the ruins we would be fair game.

The microbus dropped us off a few hundred metres short of the ruins and it was a pleasant walk up to the gates. The ruins at Palenque were, once again, impressive. A very different setting from the last set of ruins we had seen at Monte Alban, well worth the trip. A lot of other tourists, of course, but the place was extensive and the jungle setting meant it didn't feel too crowded. There were places you could sit and contemplate, like the two young Americans sitting off by themselves, deep in oh-so-important discussion.

“Man..all the tourists....they're like...like...always click, click, click with their cameras, they just don't....you know...?” the young bloke whined at the waify looking girl beside him.
“Yeah,”she whined back, “they just don't stop to feel the energy.”
“I was gonna say they just don't chill, but yeah, you're soooo, like, right and stuff.”

Inexplicably, in a land where even beggars make an effort to keep their hair neat and clothes clean, some travellers go for the deliberately scruffy look to blend in with the locals and end up looking just like the tossers they are.

For us, it was time for another night bus, but this time, we were prepared. A couple of well timed Dramamines, and we were on our way to Cancún.

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Photos

Bottle Shop, San Cristobal
The search for Christmas grog continues