A Whirlwind

The past few mornings, the first thought that has come into my foggy mind has been, "Where am I?" The past week has been incredibly busy, and depsite my journal-writing and note-taking habits, I am finding it quite impossible to recall everything.

Today is Monday, which means it was more than a week ago that I left Oaxaca City with Andrea. After Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapa del Corzo, and San Cristobal, we wrangled our way onto yet another bus and began to ride north to Palenque. We paid a bit extra for the service, but we stopped twice during the 5 hour journey. The first stopping point we came to was Agua Azul, a series of large blue pools and dramatic cascades among dense, mountainous jungle. We spotted the aqua pools through the trees and I thought, "Wow, this was totally worth the extra $5." But then we began to climb, and more pools became visible. The water was bluer, then greener, the cascades higher and stronger. It was incomparable to anything I had ever seen before.

Yes, the sides of the trail were crowded with food and souvenir vendors, but nothing could distract from the beauty of the water. Even seriously horrible translation work (one sign said "Dangerous Notto Swim") could not dampen my spirits. One thing that did stick with me, other than the beauty, was the large quanitity of EZLN/Zapatista t-shirts, backpacks, and other stuff. The sight really solidified my opinion that Marcos is as much of pop culture icon as Che, and such t-shirt stardom distracts from what those men really represent. (Still, I love my Che tee.)



After Agua Azul, we got back on the bus and headed to Misol-Ha, another waterfall closer to Palenque. In the rainy season, I'm sure the 45 meter aquatic drop would seem quite dramatic, but the streams raining down from above lacked the awe inspiring power of the previous rest-stop. The best part of the stop at Misol-Ha was that I found a man with a large knife to cut open the coconut I had purchased at Agua Azul (There was a restaurant with a fullt stocked kitchen, so my savior was no random machete-wielding fellow, although it would make a better story.)
Our arrival in Palenque was dampened by the bus driver's refusal to drop us off where we had agreed, which resulted in our having to wait by the side of the road for 20 minutes, sweaty, guarding backpacks, and weary from a long day of travels. After a bitter, maldicion sprinkled discussion with the bus driver (in Spanish, with Andrea backing me up in English) we got to where we wanted to be. The driver's disregard for our agreement with the agency, our safety, and our comfort will certainly be included in the next update emailed to the Lonely Planet guidebook company.


But ANYway, we arrived in Palenque town, found ourselves a nice hotel room for $8 each, and spent the night eating fresh baked bread and chatting. The next morning, we toured the ruins, which were great, but more crowded than I expected. The jungle had really reclaimed many of the structures, but some fantastic restoration had been completed and the contrast of the dark gray stone and the bright green grass was astounding. However, the perfectly manicured lawn in the central area of the ruins made it a bit difficult to imagine the area as it was during Palenque's golden era. The pyramids did not tower like those in Teotihuacan, I was not blown away by the engineering feat of something like flattening a hilltop (Monte Alban), but Palenque has a different kind of charm. The jungle, the sounds of the howler monkeys high above the temples, the roof combs that appear like misplaced pagodas atop Mayan temples... there was just something about it that, as I look back on that day, makes me smile and feel like I saw something really special.

I spent that night in the hippie hangout of El Panchan, right outside the Palenque ruins park, but still 4.5km outside Palenque town. Andrea had already left to return to Tehuacan, so I was on my own. And on my own I was! I had a whole 6-bed dorm to myself, and silently appreciated the multi-lingual paintings of "peace" that decorated the walls. I read. I wrote. I ate more bread. It was perfect.

Early Friday morning (6am), I got on a minibus to start the journey to Tikal, Guatemala. The first leg of the journey was to the Mexican/Guatemalan border. We then crossed the border on a small boat, traveling about 25km downstream. After that, another minibus took us over unpaved roads for 2 hours. We finally hit tarmac, and promptly got a flat tire. Miraculously, all was well again in less than 15 minutes, and we arrived in Santa Elena, the mainland counterpart to Flores, Guatemala, about 2 hours later. The whole bus load of tourists (about 12 of us) needed an ATM, so we hunted for that. After striking out at a broken machine and one in the middle of a half-hour money change, we found a gas station with an ATM and got the Guatemalan Quetzales that we all so badly needed. From Santa Elena, we drove across a small bridge to the island of Flores, in a large lake of blue water.

Flores is a tourist town, but the island is so small you can walk the whole thing in about 25 minutes. It's charming with lakeside cafes and hotels, small hostels, and good people working everywhere. I befriended a Dutchman named Tom with whom I hunted for a good hostel. We paid Q25 each (about $3) for a dorm at Hostal Doña Goya and enjoyed a hot meal for the first time all day at a lakeside restaurant named La Villa de Chef. The sunset was one the those that kept appearing to be at its peak, only to continue to light the sky redder with each passing moment.

The next day, we headed to El Remate, a small town on the other side of the lake, about halfway between Flores and the Tikal ruins. We were dually warned about crowds at Tikal, so Tom and I both thought it best to avoid the crowds and arrive at the park when the doors open at 6am. Not wanting to awake too, too early, beginning the road to Tikal from El Remate just seemed logical, as it cut the travel time in half. Little did we know that the town had it's own charm with which to romance us. Touristy, but more subdued than Flores, El Remate is a spread out village of maybe a couple hundred local folks -- most of whom must have businesses in Flores or Santa Elena with which they support their families. There was little agriculture or other evidence of subsistence existence, just a couple snack shops, three soccer fields, and then about a dozen small hotels and restaurants. Spread out on the shores of the lake, the town was most notable for the number of piers from which you can dive into the Caribbean-colored water. Horses relaxed near the waters edge in some areas, making for spectacular silhouettes come sundown. That night we went to the town fair and road the ferris wheel. The spectacle of foreigners on the big wheel attracted crowds of spectators. I had never before seen so many people stand to watch a wheel go around and around. But it appeared well constrcuted and maintained, although it was powered by nothing more than a large piece of farm equipment. We spun rapidly, but without so much as a shake or rattle. It was a great ride. My hotel room that night cost $4.

Finally, Sunday morning, I reached Tikal ruins. It was foggy and cool and entirely void of tourists. I saw all the major ruins before the crowds arrived around noon, and I marveled at the massive pyramids under the cool shade of towering ceibos and other jungle vegetation. My first impression of Tikal was good, but not great. I expected monkeys crawling on the ruins, toucans scattered among the leaves above, and parrots calling out for crackers from hidden shadows in the forest. This was not the case. But as I readjusted my perspective and began to look at Tikal as a sprawling, jungle of limestone buildings set in an even more sprawling jungle of trees and plants, I began to feel the awe that I had expected. From high above Temple IV, I could see the tops of all the trees, and the tops of several pyramids towering over that. I saw parrots and heard the call of several howler monkeys. But it was not until Temple V, pictured at the right, that I fell in love with Tikal. (That's me on the stairs.) The symmetry of the stairs, the rounded corners, and the steep, steep angle at which it was all put together set it apart from not only everything else at Tikal, but all the other Mayan and Aztec sites I have seen. The view from the top was tremendous, and I finally got a glimpse (a long one, too) of a howler mom carrying her baby from treetop to treetop. The miracles of nature and those of mankind spread out before me in harmony, and as I look back on it, I feel more certain than ever that the search for "small wonders" has motivated humans for as long as we have walked the earth.

¡Vive Chiapas!

Today I write from San Cristobal de Las Casas, a small mountain town in the state of Chiapas. This place was made famous on January 1, 1994 when it was captured by the Zapatistas, a radical group fighting for indigenous people's rights in Chiapas. The Zapatistas, led by the pipe-smoking, masking-wearing Subcomandante Marcos, apologized to San Cristobal tourists for the incovenience, saying, "We're sorry, but this is a revolution."
Today, San Cristobal is a buzzing town of indigneous artisans, hippies who have adopted the town as their second home, and tourists from around the world. The Zapatista influence is still strong, but as the group has no ambition to overthrow the government ("We're indigenous and Mexican"), it is quite a tranquil area. Rebellious antics continue in pursuit of equal rights for indigenous Mexicans (1 out of every 4 people in Chiapas is Mayan) and in the hope of forcing the government to honor accords made with the indigenous peoples throughout the 1990s, but most are nonviolent and aimed directly at the landowners who persecute the indigenous people. There are lots of Zapatista-named stores, streets, and organizations in town. Many artisans sell Subcomandante Marcos t-shirts and other wares, but his status as a cult icon has shifted to that of Che Guevara-esque pop culture stardom.

Last night, I attended a Frida Kahlo documentary screening at a local independent film house. Before the show, a group of local children from the organization Sueniños performed a puppet show. They adapted traditional Latin American stories for the theater, working everyday after school on the project under the supervision of a handful of passionate volunteers. The kids are all younger than 10, come from the poorest areas in the city, and were in danger of failing out of school before they joined the program. It was quite an inspiring display, in contrast to the documentary which painted Frida as a poor victim of heartbreak. Although I disagree with the filmmaker's perspective that she was trapped in a marriage with a man who could not be blamed for his infidelity, the movie was still quite good. Several Kahlo experts were interviewed, and their perspectives provided a good balance to the bias of the narration.

After the movie last night, Andrea and I went to Bar Revolucion, where we heard some sappy live music but made a few new friends. We stayed out pretty late last night -- this town stays alive well past midnight. Although it's quite cold (we are 2100 meters above sea level), the air is so fresh it's hard to avoid staying outside until all hours.

Tomorrow, I am headed to Palenque and then it's east to Guatemala for a couple days in the Tikal/Flores area. I am excited to keep traveling, but I have fallen in love with this town. I could definitely see myself coming back here to volunteer at a local school or work on some sort of community development project.


The energy here is great. There are a lot of open minded folks, diverse restuarants, lots of bookstores, and -- of course -- great local crafts. The streets and sidewalks are narrow, but cobblestoned in the European style. The days are cool, but the sun is strong. It feels like winter in the shade, but Mexican summer in the sun. Hostels are cheap (40 pesos per night), the food is good (I bought a Vietnamese stiry fry dish for 60 pesos and got two meals out of it), and everything is clean. Chiapas is Mexico's poorest state, so you can really see the positive impact tourism has made on the local economy. But keeping things eco-friendly is a challenge. Also, the surrounding indigenous towns host tour groups several times a day and while it would be cool to observe the locals who drink soda to keep evil spirits at bay, it's a challenging ambition to observe and respect simultaneously. I opted out of the 100 peso guided horseback tour to San Juan de Chamula. Making people into a stop on a guided tour is a dangerous habit... I think it dehumanizes people and makes them into objects of entertainment, which is contrary to the ideals of most of the tourists here in the first place. Then again, this is the same issue that you always confront when chasing intercultural interaction, and the only solution is to simply be careful of yourself, your fellow tourists, and the impression you leave on the people you visit.

I'll leave you with that thought. But for your entertainment, here are a couple photos from this past week.


Jessica visited me last week, and we went to Oaxaca, which was quite cool. We also visited Monte Alban, the ruins outside Oaxaca City, perched on a mountain top. Check it out -- no other tourists. It was beautiful.










After Jess headed back to the States, Erick and I went back to Oaxaca State and visited San Jose del Pacifico. This tiny, tiny town is located on the edge of some incredible Oaxacan peaks. We rented a cute little cabin. This is the view from our front door.









We had to wait for a loooooong time to get a bus back to Oaxaca City, but we kept ourselves entertained. Behold, the first blog picture of Erick.











I met up with Andrea in Oaxaca City, and we took an overnight bus to Tuxtla Gutierrezx. From there, we took the short ride to Chiapa del Corzo, a small town beside a huge canyon. We toured el Cañon del Sumidero by boat, and I was luckily able to snap some amazing photos. We saw a lot of crocodiles, too.

This past weekend, I finally climbed el Cerro Colorado, a small mountain outside Tehuacan. I had previously planned to climb el cerro three times, but my ambitions were thwarted by a hurricane, a cold, and the lack of transportation. Needless to say, I was looking forward to the climb excitedly.

I awoke at 6:40am on Saturday, as the cerro is a cactus covered mound of dry dirt and rock, hardly offering the shade of a cactus flower. To avoid the heat, my goal was to start the climb before 8am. At 8:10, I started trekking across a wide plain of donkeys and crops, towards the base of the mountain. I had to jump across a literal river of shit before reaching the bottom of the trail. It was disgusting, more so than anything I have ever seen before.

But anyway, the climb started with a steep incline, but then leveled off for several kilometers. I expected the hike to take three hours, but I reached the peak in two. I think I actually could have done it faster, but knowing that coming back down can be as exhausting as the climb up, I figured there was no point in pushing it. Out of my group of four, I was actually the first to the top. It was a liberating experience to stand at the edge of the upper plateau and look down on my city. I am really proud that I was first to the top, as I ever never been the fastest at anything except, well, reading. But I guess all the walking I do to and from school has really helped out my little legs muscles.

At the top of this mountain, there is a big cross that sort of overlooks the whole Tehuacan valley. There is a ladder inside, so I -- of course -- climbed to the top of the cross. For about ten minutes, I was the tallest thing in the Tehuacan valley, which was very cool. I had three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while at the peak, and took a few pictures. There were lots of butterflies everywhere, and one actually landed on my hand! It stayed there for almost 3 minutes, and I was luckily able to snap a few photos. Coupled with the rainbow earlier in the week, I was feeling showered in good omens.

I certainly am lucky. I have had a great time here in Tehuacan, and although I am really excited to travel east to Chiapas and Guatemala and then south to Nicaragua, I am a bit sad about leaving this place. So many great people have touched my life here, and I have rarely felt as loved as I have felt the past few months. I hope this is not the last time I walk the streets of this town.