Quest to See the World

Thank goodness I´m getting out of here tomorrow because all of these delicious pastries are going to make me fat if I don´t. I got a round loaf of freshly baked bread and 2 pastries for $1.10. That was my dinner today. Lunch was 3 sopes for $2.20 with fresh squeezed lemonade. the sopes weren´t quite as good as Rocio´s though. I took it easy today and just checked out the town, took some pics, bought my scary zapatista doll and a long sleeve t-shirt…nothing exciting today. well, i did go to the market, the local one where they sell fruits, vegetables and live chickens and was going to take a pic of the large bags of beans for sale in all different colors, with no people in the picture and was told that it would cost me $1 to take the pic, so i didn´t. i can understand people wanting money to take pics of them or their kids, but the food?? it wasn´t even her food stall!! i guess it´s the zapatista attitude.

when i bought my zapatista doll, first the lady told me 15 pesos, then after looking at it for a minute or two she dropped down to 10 pesos, that´s just $1. i gave her the 15 because it´s not going to break my bank and it will go a lot farther for her, what´s the extra $.50 going to do for me anyway?

i said that i wasn´t going to do another long trip anytime soon, but i am. tomorrow i´m going to Misol-Ha and Agua Azul waterfalls near Palenque and to Palenque, departure: 6:30am. the next day i take off for Guatemala again, but to the northern Peten jungle area where the Tikal ruins are. The trip is 10 hours, but i´m doing it tourist class this time because it´s a complicated route and i also want to be able to sleep on the bus if possible. it´ll be a bit exciting to ride on a boat through the forest. looking forward to seeing the monkeys at tikal…

Haven´t had a chance to drink a margarita yet. i´ll have get one, as well as a taco tomorrow night before i take off for guate again. what would a visit to mexico be without a taco?

After a van ride, two super packed chicken buses, a walk across the border, a shared front seat of a car, another van ride and another car ride, i made it to San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico after 9 hours. I don´t want to do that again anytime soon. I´m whooped!! I woke up at 6am to call the long distance bus company in Xela this morning, but they didn´t have any buses running to the border today. I packed up my stuff and was on my way. While making my way to catch the van, I had to call my mom at work to find out the exchange rate between Guatemalan quetzales and Mexican pesos because I forgot to look it up last night and I didn´t want to show up at the border and get ripped off. I was really confused when i got there because the two towns are 3 kilometers apart. I had to get my exit stamp from Guate, then walk to a car that drove me to get my Mexican entrance stamp. Before getting into the car I had to use the bathroom and it was posted that there was a charge of 3, but it didn´t say in which currency and at that point i didn´t even know what country I was in. The guy said that he´d take 3 of whichever, so I paid in pesos and saved a couple of cents. I´m still glad I did it because the whole trip was only $13 as opposed to $35 from Xela and $65 from Antigua on tourist transport.

I had to enter the chicken buses from the back today and when I got on the second one I hit my forehead soooooo hard on the top of the door frame and now have a lump. I don´t remember ever having to get in from the back when I used to ride them to school. At least everything else is feeling normal now.

the border crossing was really strange because i could´ve gotten here without ever seeing any immigration official. [read on]