3/12- Rolled into San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, in the morning. At the bus station we were offered several nice cheap places to stay by nice English-speaking folks. If we go back, we’re going to look up one lady’s place that sounded great. She showed us pictures, and it was beautiful. But, we already had a reservation, so off we went to Magic Hostal II.
Arrived, and were underwhelmed. No hot water, one shared shower, and a bunch of stoned gringos lounging around like lizards. Despite the fact that we had a reservation, we had to wait for a room. I got a bit cranky, but took a shower and tried to mellow out. Sat and talked with some of the guys there about the place, and they all said it was alright... Whatever, breathe deeply. One dude was riding a fat dualsport motorcycle across Mexico and to points south. He was all bummed out because he hadn’t gotten arrested, beaten up, or involved in a traffic accident. I showed him our destination in Honduras, and he started looking at the Mosquito Coast, saying, “Dude, I’ll bet trying to get there would be _impossible_! That would really kick my ass! Yeah, I think I’ll try it!” May you get all the trouble you want, bro... Actually, feel free to take my share, too! What a loon.
Eventually got a room, and it was okay, although it reeked of dope from the neighbor girls, who did little but sit in the dark and puff, apparently. Unpacked all our stuff and made up a bag of laundry, as by this point pretty much everything we had was filthy. Went out and found the laundry place, and attempted to explain to them in Spanish that our clothes were wool and silk, and to please wash them cold and dry them cold or they would end up as donations for the Guatemalan children... Despite repeated attempts, we left with the uneasy feeling that we’d just said our goodbyes to our wardrobes. Let it go...
I was wearing my shorts, which I hadn’t broken out up to that point, and realized that I needed a belt. I’d come to the right place. On the way in, we had waved away lots of kids and tiny women selling all manner of woven items, including, yes, belts. I determined to buy one. Psychically attuned to my every need, the universe dispatched several tiny girls to offer me their impressively diverse collections of woven belts. When I stopped and showed signs of actually being inclined to buy one, every belt-peddler in San Cristobal apparently got the news instantly, and in seconds I was surrounded by at least twenty women and girls, none much taller than my navel, loudly hawking their wares by attempting to insert their handiwork into my nostrils for inspection. Fortunately, they couldn’t reach that high. I started the difficult task of choosing between thirty thousand similar objects by grabbing likely colors at random. When I grabbed a nice tan one from a diminutive girl, every other vendor instantly whipped out their tan model and started loudly telling my why theirs was superior, pointing out fine details of stitchery, etc, none of which I could understand, and certainly not all at once! Feeling like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians, I kept grabbing belts at random while Maryse looked on bemused. Finding an appealing color, I tried it around my waist, but found it too long for my non-obese self. “Necesito uno mas corto,” I said to the throng. “Este es mas corto!” They all shrieked in unison, waving their “short” belts at me. Taking one at random, I tried it with the same result. Hmmm. Taking another, I got the same thing. “Este es lo mismo,” I said, “necesito uno mas corto, porque no soy gordo!” which brought a chorus of giggles. Again, they held up the “corto” candidates. Trying one at random, I found it was also too long. Feeling slightly desperate now, I was at a loss for how to proceed, when Maryse said, “Why don’t you just hold up the belts next to each other, and see which one is shorter?” Bingo! What would I do without you, baby? I did as she suggested, holding onto my reference belt. “Este es mas corto!” insisted a little girl. Measure, and nope, it’s the same! “Lo mismo!” I announced, which brought gales of laughter. “Mas corto!” Measure. “Lo mismo!” Laughter. Repeat. Eventually, I found a nice rust-colored belt that actually was shorter, tried it and it fit! Moved on to the bargaining stage, paid $3.50US for it, and the throng broke up except for a couple of the more persistent kids, who followed us for the next couple blocks. When we made it clear that we didn’t need another belt, or more bracelets (Maryse bought one) or in fact anything at all, they resorted to plaintive whimpers of “¿peso? ¿peso?” until they got bored and moved on. All except for one really dilligent beggar, who followed us for blocks insisting we give her something. Finally, I reached into a pocket and gave her a US dime. She got pissed! The tiny mendicant finally gave up and stomped off muttering curses at us and something I couldn’t catch about a “volcan”- maybe she was consigning us to a volcano for our miserliness? Gotta learn better Spanish for moments like that.
Got some maps and info from the friendly tourist kiosk in the main square, and went off to the coffee museum for a truly fine cup of local espresso along with a tour of the history of coffee production through time with emphasis on the workers’ movements for social justice in Chiapas especially. Life-size dioramas or typical coffee workers’ homes, and schedules of their workdays. Suffice it to say that Juan Valdez is not the cheerful middle-class guy you might have imagined. In reality, coffee workers have been exploited in a pretty heinous manner up to the present day, and are continuing to struggle for basic human rights and living wages, something most of the people who might read this just take for granted. Buy fair trade shade grown organic coffee, and not only get some good joe for a couple extra shekels, but make a real contribution to real people’s struggles for social justice!
Wandering around San Cristobal, we ran into a couple markets with absolutely gorgeous wool garments of every description for ridiculously low prices. Only our southern course and limited luggage capacity prevented me from buying everything in sight. I did get a sweet wool knit earflap hat in natural white, tan, and brown wool for $4US... Score!
Next, we continued our search for swimsuits. Someone directed us to a big mall a few blocks away, and we dutifully trudged there only to find that the giant Wal-Mart-type big box store did not in fact have swimsuits. Okay, walk back to town... On the way, we passed a little hole-in-the-wall eatery and had awesome little cheap gorditas of nopales and champiñones, with horchata. Muy barato, muy rico! Maryse had her first habañero experience, and cried as it slid down her throat, leaving a streak of pain that lasted for hours. She is very sensitive. I am insensitive, and chuckled a bit at her state of enchilada.
Trying to orienteer around town with the maps we’d gotten from tourist central and my Boy Scout compass ended up being totally disorienting. For one thing, all the streets change names every two blocks or so, at random. One street name may appear several places in one city, on different portions of different streets. Road signs are infrequent at best, and to top it all off, the sun wasn’t in the right place, according to my compass. WTF?? It took some time for me to figure out that the road maps aren’t necessarily printed with north at the top. Har, har. By sundown, we had oriented ourselves by walking every street in town, seemingly, about three times... “Oh look, here we are again...”
Topped off our day by visiting the large market, where along with the endless piles of beautiful vegetables and melons of every description, we saw such delicacies as large baskets of live snails crawling all over each other, piles of chicken feet, and some sort of incredibly spiny, deadly-looking thing that we were assured was good to eat. I took a picture, with flash, of some teensy garlic all braided up and hanging (which unfortunately just looks like regular garlic in my picture owing to lack of anything for scale...) and the (Mayan?) woman at the stall went absolutely batshit, screaming and squawking and generally flailing around like the Wicked Witch of the West after a good soaking... I tried to tell her that I took a picture of her garlic and not her person, but she was inconsolable. We moved on, quickly.
On the way back home there was a big fiesta of some sort in the central square, with music and big crowds and some sort of lightshow projected on the wall. It appeared that it was a video of an 80’s Mexican hair band, but who knows? It was getting cold (SC is up in the mountains and refreshingly cool at night) and late, so we moved on.
Having an early bus to catch, we called it a night, dropped by the laundry place and retrieved our clothes (thankfully only ever so slightly shrunken) and retired to our home sweet hostel for a couple hours of shuteye before an epic day of travel. San Cristobal, or at least what we saw of it, was pretty sweet, and we definitely plan to return and spend more time on our way back up.
Next: La Frontera and Guatemala...