Masses of people visiting the Temple of Guadalupe.
Men in traditional dress walking to the temple.
We saw lots of tired, dirty people trekking into town, some jogging, some walking, some barefoot, some with shoes, and of all ages. They were shouting and chanting cheers for the Virgin. It was quite a sight.
Pilgrims arriving by foot.
The truck that accompanied the running pilgrims.
San Cristobal was quite the eclectic city, with lots of foreigners from around the world who have settled there. Many also seem to have opened alternative restaurants (i.e. not traditional Mexican fare). We ate a couple delicious vegetarian meals in cool restaurant or cafe environments. Our basic approach to the time in San Cristobal was relaxed. We spent lots of time sitting in restaurants chatting after meals and then heading out to meander around. We spent a good bit of time in the market looking for the perfect gifts at the perfect prices. We also visited the Mayan medicine museum, which was super cool. It was really interesting to learn about various treatments and rituals, especially about the process for delivering a baby.
We also visited San Juan Chamula, a little town outside San Cristobal. The church was as amazing as our friends had said it would be. It was cool to see the people walking around in their traditional sheep fur coats and skirts. They kind of looked like gorilla costumes, to be honest.
A family in traditional dress. The man's vest and the woman's skirt are of the sheep skin I mentioned above.
The police force in San Juan Chamula appointed specifically to to keep the peace during the fiestas of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
After San Cristobal, we headed to Palenque. Having been warned about the twisty road, we all took Dramamine and proceeded to spend the day totally drugged. We slept like rocks and could hardly open our eyes for the entire 5-hour trip. We arrived in Palenque and found the tourist cabin haven we were looking for. We paid a completely unfriendly woman to stay in a grass-roofed cabin, had lunch, and then zonked out again for the entire afternoon and night.
The next day we got up early and headed to the Mayan ruins. We spent four hours wandering around resisting the temptation to pay a guide to tell us what we were seeing and consequently making our own *very scientific* interpretations/speculations of what we were observing. The ruins were absolutely amazing. They were HUGE and there were TONS of them. It was right up there with Teotihuacán and the fact that it was also in the jungle probably tipped it over and made it the number one ruins site for me.
Various temples at the ruins.
A carving of a mayan figure.
Jenna, I, Corinne on top of one of the temples with more ruins behind us. To the left are the temples in the first picture and to the right is the palace.
After the ruins we went to two waterfalls, one really tall one with a huge swimming hole in front called Misol-ha (which apparently means waterfall in chol, the main indigenous language), and another wider one called Agua Azul. In both, the water was a beautiful sea foam green color. We got wet going behind Misol-ha and then at Agua Azul we wandered upstream, passing tons of little waterfalls, until we found a nice place to swim.
Misol-ha
Corinne, Jenna and I in front of Agua Azul.
Looking downstream at Agua Azul.
We returned to Palenque for the evening, dropping Corinne off at the bus stop, and then Jenna and I spent time at our cabin site. We ate in the lively restaurant, listened to the band play, and watched the "fire show," people swinging ropes with burning charcoal-type things on the end in pretty patterns, before going to bed.
Our last day we got up and talked to Paco, the friendly tourism man, about taking a tour through the jungle. Paco works in Mayan medicine so he had offered us a plant tour of the forest. We headed off on what was supposed to be a three-hour tour, but ended up being a 5-hour trip. We trampled through the jungle, usually off paths, and Paco showed us useful plants and told us about all the people he'd successfully cured. He also showed us ruins that aren't preserved by anyone. We saw lots of stone structures covered in trees and undergrowth. There were pieces of pottery just lying around on the ground, which was neat to see. We also got to see a temple that is still almost totally intact, an underground aqueduct and underground temple.
Jenna in the jungle temple.
As far as jungle life goes, we saw a huge, spider, apparently it was poisonous, and a bunch of monkeys. The monkeys were really cool. Paco made these weird monkey sounds and they started to come down the trees closer to us. We saw a macho, two females and a baby. We also almost got peed and pooped on by one of them, which was kind of an interesting experience.
Howling monkeys in the trees above us.
After emerging from the jungle quite tired and hungry, we had lunch and then headed back to the woods to swim in a waterfall we'd seen. It was a neat little one, easy to climb up and with lots of little pools to sit in.
We arrived home Sunday morning after our 11-hour bus ride. Getting out of the bus was quite the shock. We left Palenque on a warm, humid evening, and arrived in Puebla on a COLD, dark morning.
Jenna left about midday Sunday and I returned to my house with the hopes of sleep. However, my friend Gerardo called and invited me to go with him and his cousin, Julio, to some little town on the other side of the volcanoes and I felt like I couldn't turn down the chance to see more of Mexico. I went and spent the whole day trekking around with the two of them and his cousin's mom. We were officially looking for land for his cousin to buy, but we really spent most of the time doing other things. We went to a market for some special meat my host mom wanted, ate there (I didn't get sick afterwards, yea!), and went to a park to film something for the Julio's comedy show on TV. Julio went swimming in the sulfur baths, we ate at a restaurant run by some friends of their family, and then went back to Chipilo to eat a cake with Gerardo's family. At midnight I finally got home exhausted.
I slept all day Monday, through the banging and shouting of construction workers redoing my bathroom. I was exhausted and head a headache so I spent some of my hours awake trying to ignore my fear that I might have contracted dengue fever in the jungle. I took malaria medicine, but there isn’t much you can do for dengue fever except wear bug dope and hope for the best. Fortunately I woke up feeling much better on Tuesday (I guess there are a million explanations for being tired and having a headache, a perfect one being an overnight bus ride followed by a day that didn’t end until midnight), so my fear has passed.
Tuesday was the wedding anniversary of my host parents so the evening was full of surprises. Gerardo and I made an apple crumb pie for them, which turned out to be my best apple pie yet, and my host sister from Tijuana and her two kids came early for Christmas to surprise my parents. It was a fun evening.
I think my next blog entry will be dedicated to Christmas festivities, so stay tuned!
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