Comitán, our own little Shangri-La

With only a couple of days left to spend in Mexico (we had to be in Xela by August 1st for language school), we headed south but decided to spend a night in Comitán. To our pleasant surprise, this little city turned out to be a gem. We were able to find a posada with hot water for 120 pesos, our cheapest yet in Mexico, and enjoyed exploring the town for the rest of the day.


(not bad for the price)

Although the town is rather large, with over 100,000 people, it is very mellow and clean. There are also very few tourists, so we were not accosted to buy something on every other block.




(all public parks had lots of modern sculptures like the one in the foreground)


(main cathedral)


(Medical consultations for just over $1)

One of the highlights was finding the Shangri-La, a sweet bar that served about 50 different kinds of delicious mixed drinks that came with one appetizer per drink. What better way to eat dinner and spend the pesos we needed to get rid of anyway before leaving Mexico? (exchanging pesos seemed so silly at the time, especially while admiring their drink/appetizer menu)


("Mariachi - Keep your distance!" This was much funnier after spending a couple of hours in Shangri-La.  If you are not amused, I think you know what you need to do.)

In the morning, we found a torta shop on the end of our block that also served amazing banana milkshakes ("licuados").


(Mike at possibly our favorite restaurant in Mexico)

Jill was even able to satisfy her craving for elote (corn on the cob with lemon and chile) by buying some from an extemely nice street vendor. I guess we will remember the town more for our gluttonous attack on it than anything else, but trust us, it is a nice place to spend a day or two.

Agua Morena

Close to Palenque on our way back south, we went to two other tourist sites, Misol-Ha and Agua Azul. Misol-Ha is a 115+ foot waterfall. It was a pretty cool stop and the area around the falls is very chill, with casual vendors selling souvenirs, food, and drink (the bathrooms were out of service, though, so food and drink intake were avoided). There was also a cave you can hire a guide to take you into behind the waterfall.


(Not sure what was going on with Jill's hair that day...)



After Misol-Ha we went to Agua Azul, "blue water" in spanish, and apparantly the water is in fact blue at times (we´ve even seen it in pictures!).  But, our experience was much more morena (brown) than azul. Due to rainy season, the water had a lot of debris and sediment moving through it. Despite the somewhat misleading name, the falls were still very impressive. We had read and heard from fellow travelers that the area was a bit sketchy with reports of peoples bags getting stolen while they swam, but we had no problems at all (likely in part to us being cheapo´s and not bringing a single peso with us to buy souvenirs/food, but also becuase the area seemed to be about as safe as any other.  For instance, we didn´t leave our camera on shore...).

A small restaurant in the parking lot provided us with some amazing chicken tacos, and the family who owned the restaurant kept an eye on the bike while we played at the falls. The highlight for us was stopping in an area to swim and rope swing with a rather jolly (in the rotundest sense of the word) Mexican who was absolutely loving it.







After a fun day of swimming in beautiful falls, we spent the night in downtown Ocosingo. We were able to find a hotel for 200 pesos with cable tv and pizza across the street, so we got some pizza to go and vegged out in front of the tv watching American movies. It was a perfect ending to the day.

Palenque

Driving through Chiapas is beautiful - lots of farmland, curvy mountain roads, and small towns (sadly including plenty of topes, or speedbumps).



Also very interesting to see so much support for the EZLN, or the Zapatista Army. This area of Chiapas includes the cities overtaken by the EZLN back in 1994, including San Cristóbal and Ocosingo, and has had horrible instances of violence carried out by the military and paramilitary groups since. Currently the situation is calm, but the poor people of the area still feel that the government owes them better services.


("Land recovered in 1995 with the help of the EZLN and independent farmers. The land belongs to those who work it. Zapata Lives. The Fight Continues.")


(vendors along the roadside)

We had a reservation at Hostal Yaxkín in the Eco-turistica zone of the town of Palenque. Location was ideal - away from the hustle of the main streets of downtown (and "hustle" was selected intentionally, and no, not for everyone`s favorite dance), as well as easy walking access to downtown, a commercial street, and the corner of town closest to the National Park, where it's easy to catch combis. However, the hostel staff was not at all accomodating to our change in nights, even though we had called to inform them that we would be arriving two days later. We only lost M$X 40 from our deposit, but their attitude left us bitter (combined with the fact that we lost 40 pesos! For reference and full disclosure, yes, that is only US$3.30.). I suppose that's what we deserve for trying to make a reservation.

The next morning we caught a combi out to the ruins of Palenque to not have to worry about the bike or anything attached to it. We bought our entries (M$X 51 each) and had a fine breakfast of empanadas at a stand beside the parking lot. The owner`s son of about 7 years old entertained us the whole time with his very polite (formal, in fact) questions and mannerisms - quite the little salesman! We opted to not shell out the US$40-60 for a guide, and instead just wandered through the ruins with a map. I'm sure we could've learned more than we did, but as our next step, we still probably would have opted to just take a guidebook with us that explained the ruins, instead of forking out so much for the guided tour.

Entering the ruins, we realized exactly how many tour buses had dropped off loads of passengers in the hour that the park had already been open - a LOT. We were gladly able to break free from the crowds at ruins that were just a short walk away from the main areas.

Temple of Inscriptions was one of the first we came across. Here is where the tomb of King Pacal was found, and until 10 (or so) years ago, you could go down hundreds of feet into the temple and see his tomb, but sadly, we were only able to see a replica in the museum (actually in 2 museums - many of the original artifacts from his tomb are displayed at the Musuem of Anthropolgy in Mexico (jade mask, red gown, offerings - example pic of King Pacal´s goods (hehehe) seen in our Mexico City blog)).



Other buildings are not as well preserved, but still magnificent, especially seated in their jungle surroundings.





You can even walk through some of the passageways of the palace




(Temple of Inscriptions at left, Palace with tower at right)




(ball court)



Paths through the jungle were interesting to walk along, with plenty of plants and animals to watch.


(blue dragonflies were everywhere)


(GI-normous!)







What´s crazy is that all morning long there was this eerie high-pitched screechy squeely sound that I`m pretty sure was the inspiration for all of Alfred Hithcock´s sound effects. Too bad we don´t have a way to record/upload sounds, but just believe us that it added to the ambience, especially in some of the tucked away ruins that were empty, except for us. Turns out it was an insect, and they just make that noise. But those chicharrines (or something like that...) are definitely more eerie than any other insect we´ve ever heard before.



We arrived at the musuem after walking through the ruins for 3-4 hours.



Both of us have enough trouble studying Spanish, we can´t imagine what Mayan must be like to learn!

San Cristóbal de las Turistas

After our fantastic stay in Tuxtla, we headed on over to San Cristóbal de las Casas. The drive was enjoyable, as far as the road goes (sweeping mountain curves, not too much traffic), but downright scary as for the weather. Massive, dark greyness awaited us on top of the mountains above Tuxtla, with bright flashes of lightning that were luckily moving away from our direction of travel. Sadly, we weren´t able to capture the full effect, nor did we feel like stopping in the downpour, but here´s a glimpse.





after awhile the sky relaxed some for an enjoyable ride...


A noticeable change along the way was the shift to a much more indigenous feel in the area. People walking on the highway wore brightly colored traditional dress, all those working in the fields as well.  The towns and ejidos seemed more consistently impoverished than many we had passed up to this point. And I have never seen corn fields as difficult to farm as some that were visible along this route - literally quarter-acre patches on a 45 deg slope up at the top of a mountain with nothing but cliffs below some of them.


(Note: this picture is actually from the road to Palenque, but only decent example of a surprisingly located farm field we had)

San Cristóbal has a very nice center of town. It also has a rougher side around the edges, where the majority of inhabitants live that we passed through when entering/leaving town, as well as while walking a couple of days. Right near the plaza, we started asking around for rooms. Many small hotels were willing to come down in price, but we kept looking for cheaper. Eventually we found a nice hotel a few blocks away from the plaza that gave us a simple double room for M$X 200 a night. They even let us drive through their lobby to a parking spot, since the road to the garage had a massive trench in it. With a board set from the street to the top step (about 3 high), Mike pulled in from the street. WOW, that board flexed a lot! Sorry no photos of that shoddy ramp.

Food was easy to find throughout town, of all varieties. We chose to eat some Comida Ecónimica for M$X 30 a piece and it was fantastic! (However, our next comida ecónomica experience was far less successful...)

All throughout, we felt safe walking around, and enjoyed all parts of the city. Common sights included indigenous women carrying crafts and flowers for sale, brightly colored buildings, and, ya know, pigs waiting for phone calls. Pretty much all the usual.









One day we went to the Museum of Traditional Mayan medicine, which was really interesting, and sells medicines to the public. Worth a stop if you're into plants at all.



Due to our first stop of the morning, we were not welcome in this bar (uniforms, drugs, and guns prohibited for some reason)



There are some streets within town that feel European, in part for the nicely appointed cafes and shops, and also because the majority of people that we saw seemed to be European.



The market was bustling every day we walked through. It had a big mix of clothes, electronics, food, but not necessarily the best selection of any of those items.


(women selling live upside-down roosters by the handful)


(a little less lively form of poultry)


(Rambutan is a bright red fruit about the size of a racquetball, with soft spiky looking things that prevented Mike from wanting to bite into one for the longest time, with a large seed in the middle surrounded by a white jelly-like fruit that is quite tasty)

...and sometimes not so bustling around the market



For some reason, the nighttime market in front of the cathedral has the best selection of woven goods, carved wood, and other souvenirs. You've got to be willing to buy it based on how it looks in the light of a match (or battery powered equivalent).



Immediately before Mike's stomach turned into a black void of rejection (he will spare you any more details of the food poisoning acquired during our second comida ecónomica experience, which, by the way, was bad enough to keep us in San Cristóbal 2 more days than expected) we ate at a great little vegetarian restaurant.



But once rested and back to health, off to PALENQUE!!


(Pulling the TA out of it's spot. Rocks to support the ramp seemed like a much better idea than testing the somewhat low ground clearance.)