Chiapas Part 2

I was back in Chiapas and would be in places I had been before for the next 4 days. On the plus side, these would be the last repeat visits on the trip. I got up in the morning and walked out to the Palenque ruins. This was a round trip of around 20km from the centre of town including the ruins themselves. I seemed to be in a walking mood. The lower entrance was closed which sucked, as I had walked it the other way round alst time. On my way in I walked past this huge pit with a log over the middle. I skipped it, but then in my new found conquering fear mood decided that I must take it on and on the way back crossed it. Another strike againts my fears. Palenque is more beautiful than most of the other ruins and a veritable must see. However I had seen it before and a lot of it was out of access this time. I mainly went to be able to compare it freshly with Tikal. Its prettier, but Tikal is immense.

When I got back to town I made my first ever attempt at hitchhiking and failed miserably. Damn it. I now want to go back and hitchhike Europe though as so many people seem to be able to achieve this easily. It costs a reasonable amount to take a tour to Misol Ha and Agua Azul, but eventually I stumbled across a combi van who would take me to the crossroads for 35 pesos. Nice. So I took the van out that way and was promptly told I needed a taxi down the hill because it was very dangerous. This seems to be the constant spiel so I ignored it and walked down. It is a little dangerous as there are no pavements and its a long walk, but nonetheless I made it. The bastard Zapatistas stopped me for another 10 pesos contribution (flleecing), but the plus side of walking is that you can ignore the official entrance. The guard whistled at me as I ducked through a side footpath, but I prentented I had not heard him and snuck in.

Agua Azul is a really pretty waterfall. Not as powerful and dynamic as El Chiflon, but it stretches across the river and cascades over itself in pools and drops of the clearest blue. Its so blue and very pretty. I decided I would hike to the source, which they suggested was a 50 minute hike. It took me 40 minutes at a good pace, so I think its more like an hour or so. I ended up far off the beaten track and walking through the jungle and forests on my own. The river and the cascades were my own. No tours, no people. Not even locals. Total serenity. I got to the end of that path and began to climb the stones for a better vantage point until I noticed giant cobwebs covering the area and abandoned my venture. So I decided to climb over the rocks and subsequently fell in the river. My shoes were soaked and clogged with crap as I seemd to fall into the only pool that was not crystal clear. On the way back it was pitch black and the road very dangerous as the cars came round blind. I had walked 50km in one day by the time I reached the top and was paranoid that no more buses would be running. I was 60km away from Palenque. Shit. 110km in one day was a lot even for me. I got to the top and walked into a shack. I asked if there was a bus and he said yes in one hour. So I settled down in the shack with the locals watching odd Mexican westerns on a rickety old television. Eventually the minivan arrived and I bundled in. There was no space so I stood hovering over some rugs until it slowly emptied one by one. I returned to my bed in the hospital ward hotel and crashed exhausted.

In the morning I caught a bus to San Cristobal De La Casas (or as Mike correctly pointed ourt from last time (San Chris De Burgh for the lady in red on the bus). On the bus I got the film Underdog (about a superman style dog) and a Dolph Lundgren film where he's a bad arse cop. It was like one of our bad film nights at home. I had been to San Cristobal before and think its a beautiful little colonial town, but after Guanajuato and Zacatecas it no longer looked as good. Still its very pretty and I climbed the long winding steps to the church on the hill for a good look and found a stray dog that I believe to be half wolf. On the way down I bought some bread and cheese and fed another stray dog. This dog then proceeded to follow me all over the city. In the hostel (that has a campfire at night to drink around and had been recommended by Michael) I found two Aussies who were travelling up Mexico (so I gave them this blog for ideas) and a German who was idewntical to Guy Pearce (very scarily identical). I kept thinking I was chatting with Guy Pearce. We grabbed some beers and went to watch a Zapatista film. I drifted in and out, because it was good but dull. They talked about the Zapatista movement and what it meant. They also said they had stoppped charging tourists money. Total bollocks as I had been done twice already. My friend sin Comitan had said how they figured the movement was cooked up by Marcos (an old school friend of the then president) to benefit both politically. I think it may have been conceived as a toursit boom. Noone went to Chiapas as tourists. So they create some new age Che Guevara for the hippy left students to come visit, ideolise and moronically worship. Voila. Tourists industry. Then again maybe its real. I got back to the hostel and we got smoke blown in some eyes by some Aussies drinking around the fire. I also got contacted by some random Argentine girl on couchsurfing with regards to London.

In the morning I got chatting with some ITESM students and a Mexican girl before grabbing a bus down to Comitan. I missed the original one getting my music fix and so was a little late. I got the Dolph Lundgren film again. Great that was definitely the one I wanted twice. I found a leflet for hostels on the Mayan trail. This was useful as te Central America Lonely Planet, covering the Yucatan had omitted the Yucatan. I had not realised this before I gave the Mexico one away so I had no guidebook for Campeche and Merida. I met Sally and Ana and dropped my stuff off at Ana's place. It was an immense old house covering an entire block with a courtyard in the middle. It was slightly crumbling around the edges, due to the huge cost in maintaining it, but this added to the historical attraction. I met the dog (who is nuts) and Ana's four year old daughter (we formed our own band with her on the marimba and me on the 5 stringed guitar). It was not great music, but it was fun times. Me and Ana went to this poetry reading in Spanish for the new arts centre they are putting together and we drank posh (lethally strong Mexican moonshine). All the locals wanted a bit in their fruit drink when it was known some was about and it felt like covert drug dealing. Afterwards the three of us went to a place called Wings, where a Mexican girl tried to set me up with her gay friend. I believe she was more my type than him. When we got to Anas the two of us stayed up drinking until one thing led to another and we ended up having fun for 5 hours. I was very tired in the morning, but had a very fun night. Still I had a night bus the next day and this would kill me. We grabbed breakfast the next day and debated the difficulty in everyday conversation with the fact that 'negro' means black in Spanish but is rather offensive in english.

I got a bus from Comitan to San Cristobal again and had to kill time until the evening before I took a night bus up to Campeche and into the Yucatan. In a restaurant opposite the bus station I ate some very bad rotten melon and this would kill me for days. The cheap bus was full as well so I had to pay 100 pesos more. Sucky.