Mexico, September 2009
Mexico! Yes, we have finally arrived in Mexico. Neither Kelly nor I can believe it. It is a country that both of us have been wanting to visit for a number of years.
We crossed the border with a great deal of excitement and were pleased to find that it was not a manic border crossing that we had been expecting. Whereas most of the countries that we had travelled through granted us with 90 day visas, we were pleased to discover that in the Mexican border town of Ciuded Quatemoc they stamped our passports with a 180 day tourist visa.
We decided to celebrate our entry into Mexico by trying to find a taco stand, but no tacos were to be found at that hour, so we settled for a ham sandwich at a local restaurant. We debated whether to carry on another 20 kms or stay put, as we had already cycled 92 kms that day. The decision was soon made for us as a motorcyclist spotted our bikes and came in to chat to us. His name was Mel and we found out that he was a retired school teacher from the UK. It turned out that he was on his way into Guatemala where he had recently bought some land and was relieved to be back after spending four months in the UK. Mel had toured an awful lot, both on his motorbike and by bicycle, so we ended up spending the afternoon chatting about travelling and the pros and cons of life in the UK and living as an expat abroad.
We all decided to stay put in the local hotel, have a meal and pass the time over a few beers. We thoroughly enjoyed chatting to Mel and after breakfast the following morning, we said our goodbyes and said that we would like to keep in touch to find out how he adapts to life in Guatemala.
We made our way towards Comitan where we had the offer of a nights accommodation from a friend of a friend (thanks Martin!). En route to Comitan, the scenery was very green and after about 40kms we started to climb. We both struggled as it was very hot and the climb went on a lot longer than we had anticipated.
Along the way, we were greeted along the road by many friendly people, many Mexican men were wearing their cowboy hats along with fancy embroidered shirts and boots. Pretty cool, I thought to myself. I wondered to myself how people back home would react to me wearing that outfit!
As we were cycling into Comitan, a man on a three-wheeled bike and ferrying a huge black plastic penguin (that was almost as big as Kelly) ,challenged me to a race. After 90 odd kms, the heat and the uphill, I finally conceded that he was indeed stronger and faster! After a cheeky wave and backward glance towards Kelly and myself, he disappeared through the traffic. Not long after, Julia and Hamilton, the people that had invited us to stay for a night suddenly appeared beside the road waving at us. They happened to see us as as they were driving back from one of the communities that they were volunteering in and gave us directions to their place.
We were received with such amazing hospitality and ended up staying two nights. They took us to visit an area of Chiapas called the Lagunas de Montebello, a national park that is home to 50 lakes that change colour with the sun. Not only did we get a chance to visit one of the communities that they were volunteering at, but we also enjoyed the opportunity to kayak and swim in one of the lakes and then later we were introduced to their family.
Hamilton and Julia installed a love of Chiapas into us, with its lakes, mountains, waterfalls and great food. We can't thank them enough for their friendship and hospitality- hopefully we can return this one day. Meeting people like Hamilton and Julia and learning so much about how people live in other countries is what has been such a highlight for us on this adventure, experiences which we will treasure for many years to come.
We would have loved to have spent more time with them, but they both had jobs to go to and we were keen to visit San Cristobal de las Casas. We said our farewells and started the climb out of Comitan - more uphill! The higher we climbed, the chillier we got, until at last we conceded to putting on a hat and jacket. We stopped for lunch in an inspiring, artistic and organic restaurant called Mi Cafe (thanks for the recommendation Hamilton), where we chatted with the owners for a couple of hours. They even offered us a place to stay if ever we wanted to return to this area. The heavens opened up and so we made it to a small village about 30 kms from San Cristobal de las Casas and decided to call it a day after 60kms.
San Cristobal de las Casas turned out to be one of our favourite colonial towns that we have visited so far (after Cuzco). It had a certain energy about it and we decided that it would be a great place to spend a few days. We met a local mountain biker who ran Penguinos mountain bike tours http://www.bikemexico.com/pinguinos/index.tours.html. He directed us to a great little hostel called Quia, http://qhiasancristobal.blogspot.com/ that we would never have found on our own. We loved the food market there, and visited it at least twice a day, to choose food for our evening meal and to try all the unusual foods that we hadn't see before such as cactus and chat to the stall holders.
San Cristobal was everything that we imagined Mexico to be, full of brightly coloured churches, busy plazas, handicraft stalls, and amazing architecture. We were interested to see the types of people that were drawn to San Cristobal. It was made up of locals, indigenous groups, spiritualists, hippies, tourists and expats, all of whom proclaimed that the region of Chiapas had a draw to it that brought a person back to it time and time again. We could understand why, as we too fell under its spell with its Mayan ruins of Palenque and incredible waterfalls such as Agua Azul and the dramatic Canon del Sumidero which is almost half a mile deep. Added to all this, Chiapas has quite an interesting revolutionary history.
Chiapas is famous for the Zapatista movement which began in 1994. On the 1st Jan 1994 the EZLN (Ejercity Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional), led by the masked Subcomandante Marcos seized the town of San Cristobal de las Casas. Their aims which were founded on those of Emiliano Zapata were to redistribute power and resources back to the poor majority. Whilst we were in San Cristobal we wanted to learn more about the movement. We learnt that in the early 1990s, the Mexican government had changed the constitution (Article 29) so that the land which had once belonged to all the local indigenous groups could now be bought and sold. The Zapatistas formed, not to overthrow the government, but to raise awareness of their plight - their need for medical and educational resources. They rejected the idea of globalisation and the selling of their land (which was being turned over to pasture for cattle that would be slaughtered and sent to North America for the fast food market). They also demanded to be allowed control of their own resources and to be able to set their own prices for food that they take to market, which takes account of the back-breaking work that they do. The Zapatistas have refrained from using arms since their 1994 uprising and instead have tried to advertise their plight through Mexican and international socialist groups, the Internet, NGOs, human right organisations and support from bands such as Rage Against the Machine (read the lyrics in their songs, People of the Sun and Zapata's Blood) and Manu Chao. We were interested to meet a number of people with socialist-anarchist tendencies who went out to the Zapatista communities to work as observers with human rights organisations to ensure that the Mexican military were not infringing upon people's rights. Since the uprising, the Mexican government has moved thousands of troops into the region to try and control this movement.
Both of us have fallen in love with Mexico and so far it has turned out to be everything we expected it to be and more.
