Illegal Immigrants in Guadalupe!

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My French amigos Jeremies, Amelie and I boarded a two hour camioneta ride that we originally intended to take to the Zapatista pueblo La Realidad. However, we spontaneously decided to check out Guadalupe upon hearing it was also Zapatista affiliated. I did not know what to expect as I had only seen video images of the masked guerrilla fighters in the pueblos of Chiapas and here I was staying in one of their towns- after my previous experience at Laguna Miramar, I wanted more adventure!

We got off the camioneta and relaxed for a bit as we arrived at the hottest time of the day. There were no hotels or hostels in a town of this size, so we asked the owner of the comedor (restaurant) if he knew of a place we could stay and he offered his floor space to us. Although the comedor owner let us know we were free to stay in his pueblo, we were not totally convinced of our acceptance there. We asked him if there was some sort of town jefe (boss) or president we could speak to in order to find out if we were ok to stay. He led us to another guy who ended up stuffing our stomachs with tamales but did not really answer our questions about the possibility of us staying the night. We left the second guy's house in a state of confusion and the three of us eventually decided that we had no other option but to stay now as all the buses had probably passed by for the day and there was very little traffic on the roads so hitchhiking was out of the question. We went back to the comedor and paid the owner $2 each for our floor space and walked around town a bit as dusk had arrived.

During his walk, my friend Jeremies apparently met some other Spanish travelers who were staying in the pueblo as well and warned us that we should be working while in town otherwise we might piss everyone off and that if we were not working we were staying in the pueblo "illegally" (the Zapatistas have their own rules and are completely autonomous from the Mexican government). By this time it was getting dark out and we stayed inside the restaurant "hiding" for the remainder of the night. Three Guatemalans arrived as we were eating our dinner, each carrying huge bags of clothes to sell in the nearby pueblos. We ended up sharing our floor space with them that night in the restaurant as they also needed a place to crash. I felt pretty uneasy that night as I had never been any place before where I was considered illegal- especially in such a small town where everyone knows each other. Luckily we made it through the night with no problems and took the first bus out of town the next morning. My French friends and I went our separate ways that morning as they had to meet their friend in San Cristobal, so I was solo once again and on my way to La Realidad with no idea what to expect next!!

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