Winter Break I: Cañon de Sumidero, San Cristobal, San Juan Chamula

This year for winter break (Mexican government offices are closed from the 20th of December to the 6th of January), I headed south to the Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco, as well as a quick jaunt into northern Guatemala. Here is a map of the visited locations:

December 21st: We were a little late leaving Puebla due to traffic in Mexico City, but finally did arrive in Tuxtla-Gutierrez, the capitol of Chiapas, the following morning. While most of Chiapas is charming and cute, the town of Tuxtla leaves much to be desired. There are however, 2 worthwhile things to visit: the natural protected area the Cañon (Canyon) de Sumidero and the Tuxtla zoo that only features animals native to Chiapas. While it is possible to see the Cañon from above (bus) or below (boat), we opted for the boat trip. After leaving Chiapa de Corzo, you pass under a bridge, and not long after enter the canyon. Along the way there were great views of the steep canyon walls, crocodiles, and a rock formation/waterfall called the Christmas tree. The turn around point for the boat trip is a large reservoir for a hydroelectric dam, which is also the point where you find the food boat (we have yet to be on a boat in Mexico where a vendor boat doesn’t pull up along side at some point). While the canyon was beautiful, it was hard to ignore all the trash that has earned the canyon the nickname Cañon de Basurero (trash dump canyon).

December 22nd: We spent the next day wandering around San Cristobal with its cute cobblestone streets and red tiled roofs. Chiapas’ population is made up of a high percentage of indigenous people, mainly of Mayan decent. San Cristobal was also the center for the Zapatista rebellion which began Jan 1, 1994, so on our return visit to San Cristobal, we were actually there during the 15^th anniversary celebrations. San Cristobal is known for amber, traditional crafts, and good coffee. It’s pretty touristy, but that also means a nice break from Mexican food. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mexican food, but it’s nice for something else once and a while too. So here are some pictures from the sites around the city.

December 23rd: The 3^rd day was spent just outside of San Cristobal in a small town called San Juan Chamula and a community-run ecoreserve. San Juan Chamula is a small indigenous town that has gained fame for its church and the rituals that take place within. Things were pretty tame when we went in, but at other times there are sacrifices of live chickens or other such things. Photos are not allowed to be taken inside the church so I’ll try to describe as it is definitely the most unique church I have seen so far. As you walk in to the pewless church filled with smoke from the burning incense, the ground is covered in pine needles (on a tile floor this makes for some treacherous walking) and at various places on the floor, different people are gathered making rows and rows of lit candles that are stuck directly to the floor. There definitely seemed to be a fire risk. While the images of catholic saints and an altar are present, they have been pushed to the sides and appear to be secondary. There were some chickens roaming around, but all alive when we were there. It’s hard to explain, but the general idea is it is not your average catholic church.

Outside the church in the main plaza is a decent sized market, pretty standard for Mexico, but off to one side, on the edge of the municipal building was a corridor strictly for the sale of chickens, which was kinda neat (unless you have an avid fear of bird flu).

And in keeping with our norm, we visited the cemetery just on the outskirts of town. Visiting Mexican cemeteries can sometimes be an interesting and difficult thing to do. Often, as in this one, it’s not clear where to walk without possibly stepping directly where someone is buried and since you tend to lease and not buy your plot in Mexico, the bodies aren’t generally buried that deep.

On the side of the road back to San Cristobal is a small community run ecoreserve called Huitepec. It’s not a long hike (only about 2.5km), but takes you up to some cloud forest and is a great example of community and NGO protection of natural areas.

Winter Break II: El Chiflon, Comitan, Lagos de Montebello

Decembr 24^th: On Christmas Eve, we packed up and headed to Comitan, about an hour and 45 min southeast of San Cristobal. We quickly dropped our bags and hopped on a combi (headed back for Tuxtla) that dropped us at the entrance to the waterfalls El Chiflón. El Chiflón is a series of impressive waterfalls. At the midpoint, is the most impressive of the falls and there is a lookout deck that you can walk out on to get a better view, but beware, you will get very wet. We were lucky enough to have a rainbow at this waterfall, but later when we realized the waterfall was called the rainbow waterfall, we figured it wasn’t that rare of an occurrence. And my favorite, we got to ride in a little 3-wheeled taxi.

COMITAN

December 25^th: On Christmas Day we caught another combi and hopped off in the national park Lagunas (Lakes) de Montebello, a series of lakes with a range of colors from cobalt blue to turquoise. I managed to take a pretty bad tumble on the shoulder of one of the roads, not sure which was more bruised, by ego or my hip, but by the end of the day was still sporting a bit of a limp and a shiny purple bruise. While hiking is not super easy in the park due to the landownership issues (ejido vs public land), we managed to walk more than 15km (and see a bunch of lakes), but most of this was actually on the roads. Not too much was open in Comitan when we got back, but there was an open place advertising Caldos y Cervezas (soup and beer), so that was the Christmas night feast.

Winter Break III: Guatemala

December 26th: The 26^th turned out to be a very long day for a number of reasons. We hopped on a combi at 7am and headed to Frontera Corozal, the jump off point for Guatemala and 2 sets of ruins, set on the banks of the Usumacinta River, the border between Guatemala and Mexico. So a combi, as a refresher for those that don’t know is basically a van that acts as a bus. You can get on it for the whole distance or hop on and off as needed. This time, we were in for the long haul as we set out along the Careterra Frontera (border highway, shown in red) for a 5.5hr trip.

The scenery was amazing as we passed curvy mountain roads, rain forest, pretty fog, and small villages. However, because it runs the border, that also meant 6+ military checkpoints along the way. We finally arrived at the intersection of the highway and the road to Frontera Corozal, got a taxi to town, paid the $15 peso/person highway maintenance fee (more on this later), and arrived in the tiny town that is Frontera Corozal. Unfortunately, it was a lot smaller than we had initially thought and like the last gas station we had seen 6 hours before in Comitan, it appeared that the last atm or bank had been there as well. While we weren’t out of money, no one could assure us that there was an atm where we were headed in Guatemala, so we got on the next combi heading out of town and continued 3 hours north to Palenque, the nearest place with banks (and as we were later to find out, doctors).

December 27^th: Restocked with pesos and assured that there was an atm in Flores, Guatemala as well, we headed back down to Frontera Corozal early the next morning. From Frontera we took a boat down the river about 35 min and over to the Guatemalan town of Bethel.

I use the word town loosely here. There isn’t even a dock where the boats land and then it’s a scramble up a small, muddy hill (not sure how well that works in the rainy season) to 2 small stores and 4 people wanting to change your Mexican pesos for Guatemalan quetzals. We filled out immigration papers while we waited for the bus to come, and as we guessed, the one that showed up was a chicken bus. From the landing, it was a 10 min ride to the immigration office where we thoroughly confused the officials because our work visas, not our passports were the only stamped thing when we left Mexico, but finally got through.

Then it was 4 hours on our chicken bus, although no actual chickens got on we did have a dog or two.

We finally got to Flores at about 2:30, only to find that the last van to Tikal (the ruins we were going to see) left at 2. While we weren’t really planning on going to the ruins much that afternoon, Tikal has a rule that if you get to the entrance after 3, your ticket is good the next day, so we were planning on taking advantage of that and camping there as well. Oh well, on to plan B, which wasn’t such a bad option. Flores is a cute little town, actually an island in the middle of a lake, with almost a Caribbean feel to it with the buildings and colors. And because the island is so small pretty much every hotel has a good lake view and balcony.

December 28^th: One of the main draws of Tikal, the largest set of Mayan ruins in Guatemala, is the chance to see the sun rise will sitting atop one of the giant pyramids. Unfortunately that would mean leaving Flores at 4:30 since we weren’t able to camp. So instead we opted for the 6am van and arrived at the park (the ruins are also situated in a natural protected area) at 7:15. While I have now been to over 25 ruins in Mexico and sometimes they are starting to loose that same feeling of amazement that you get with the 1^st couple, Tikal was incredible. The pyramids at Tikal are the highest (and steepest) in Mesoamerica and while you can climb almost all of them, they are so steep that for safety reasons the park as opted for ladders up the side instead of allowing you to climb the stone stairs. I should apologize for using the word “ruin” here in reference to Tikal. Whereas in Mexico the word ruin is widely used (example most transport headed to an archeological site here in Mexico will have a sign saying RUINAS), evidently it is a little offensive to use it in Guatemala. Kurt asked a little boy how he liked the ruins and his father promptly replied that ruins refers to a dead culture and the Mayan culture in Guatemala is not dead, so they really are temples and pyramids….oops.

The other great thing about Tikal is that it is big. Some of the temples are a good 10 to 15 min walk from others, and through gorgeous rainforest, a nice change from the well manicured, grassy sites of other ruins. In addition, since it is a natural protected area, there is an abundance of flora and fauna and even some small trails that get you away from people and temples. On one of these trails we were lucky enough to see toucans, trojans, a paca (think over-grown guinea pig), spider and howler monkeys, and some other random stuff.

After a long day at Tikal, the back patio at our hotel was especially appealing.