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Published: January 24th 2013
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We departed Palenque at the very civilised hour of 9am, embarking on a 5 hour bus trip to reach our next destination, San Christobal de las Cases. The scenary on the way was incredible, we were high up in the mountains so it was foggy with lush forest and small villages and settlements dotted around. Lots of animals too and Mexican cowboys! It looked pretty cold outside and our arrival in San Christobal confirmed this.
We are told this was an unseasonable cold snap but it was colder than we liked - we even stopped and purchased hats and scarves from a street stall. We imagine they made a killing as they refused to negotiate price - why would they... buy it or go cold. Hmmm ... tough decision. The cold snap disapeared the next day and we were back to tee shirts.
Walking around San Christobel is such a pleasure, think cobbled streets, spanish influenced architecture, beautiful churches and inviting little shops and restaurants. We both agreed we could be in an European city. The people are kind, gracious and patient, almost every time we cross a road, the car will stop for us.
Mexico is turning
out to be quite the culinary delight! Restaurants, streetside foodstalls everywhere, so many interesting things to try. We like to try things not knowing what they are, however this backfired on Russell the other day when his tortillas arrived filled with shrimp-like creatures. He gallantly ate around them.
We also found a party shop which mostly sold candy. Russell was quite litterally like a kid in a candy shop purchasing variations of local candy by the 10grams including one which tasted like soap.
We visited quite a large market in San Christobel, with lots of hand-made crafts, jewelery, clothes, leathergoods and even baby turtles! (not for eating as they also had tanks and turtle food for sale).
In true Russ and Jane style, we decided we hadnt quite done enough, so we booked ourselves on a horse-riding escursion. This involved riding to and from a local village, where there was a "fiesta" taking place and what we initially thought to be gunfire, turned out to be celebration fireworks (how very Mexican!).
The ride went well although I was a little distressed as one of our horses was very skinny, so when our guide left us, we
hurridly gathered up some grass to feed him. We also treated the horses to lots of pats and kind words, sadly something they didnt seem to get a lot of.
We had already decided we would have a street stall lunch that day. While in the village market we found fresh avocados for 4 peso - which to put in perspective was just under 10 cents US each. We purchased some fresh bakery rolls and the most amazing locally made cheese ever each for $1US. So lunch in total was $2.50US.
As this was also our last stop in Mexico we felt it was only fitting to mark the event in one of the most Mexican ways possible - with Tequila. Although we didnt wind up on the floor.
The next update will be from Guatemala, fingers crossed the boarder crossing will go smoothly, Im sure it will involve men with machine guns!!
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