First days in Mexico

So it is 22:30 and I leave from Guatemala City in a touring car of Linea Dorada with destination La Mesilla, a Guatemalan village near the border with Mexico. It is night and I'm tired so I sleep and I have no idea of where we are and what happens around me, but it doesn't matter, because at 6:30 we arrive at La Mesilla at the scheduled time. Immediately I hear the familiar voices (always the same when you leave a bus or any building where tourists tend to come) "taxi, taxi, taxitaxi, taxi" and for this one time I say "sí gracias", instead of the usual "no, gracias", because I'm too tired to find a cheaper alternative (and the initial offer of €1 is not that bad if it is really as far as the driver tells me). So I get on the driver's seat of the tuktuk (together with the driver of course) and he takes me to the Guatemalan border. There is a guy with Mexican pesos waiting for my Guatemalan quetzales and he gives me an exchange rate. I'm too tired to care if it's the correct rate or not, so I give him all my quetzales and dollars and receive the pesos he gives to me in return. Then I enter a small office of the Guatemalan border police, that takes its time and continues to watch TV as it checks and stamps my passport. When I leave the office, there is a collective taxi waiting for me and the driver offers me the seat next to him, which is already occupied, but that doesn't seem to be a problem here, so I get in and squeeze into the seat. A short while after that (less than 10 minutes) we arrive at the office of the Mexican border police. Same story here, nobody cares about Dutch people entering their country, so upon showing my passport I receive the stamp and I can continue to the next step in the process of entering into civilised Mexico: a minivan taking us to the closest city, Comitán, where I arrive around 8:30. The driver leaves me at a kind of bus station from where collective taxis leave to San Cristobal de las Casas (my goal for today). This time we are only 5 in the car, that's already better and even better is that I can sleep a little more. Around 9:30 I then arrive in SCdlC and I walk to the first hotel on the list in the Lonely Planet and reserve my bed for 2 nights. After settling I walk into the friendly city center (some streets are closed for traffic, no guns and no dirt/garbage or piles of volcanic ash in the streets). From here I'll just tell you about the occasions that I do not walk around in the city center or relax in the hotel, because that would take half of the words on this blog and would cost me a lot of extra "taps" on my iPhone keyboard.

I leave early the next day to go to the national park Cañon del Sumidero (canyon of the sewer, doesn't sound to attractive, but the pictures convinced me). The guide arrives at 9:30 with 15 other people who will also go. We leave from the city and drive through a landscape that is very similar to the ones I've seen in Guatemala (mountains, a lot of green, agriculture, people with 200 kg of wood on their back etc), just the roads are better and the people do not drive as crazy (still crazy for European standards). Anyway, we arrive, see the last minutes of the match that Spain lost to Switzerland and get on the boat. Cañón del Sumidero is a valley created by a river that is thus surrounded by mountains, and a lot of nature. For about an hour and a half we navigate over the rivers, see some impressive mountains, beautiful landscapes, waterfalls, tucans, crocodiles and spider monkeys (seen enough of those by now). Then we return to the van and the guide drops us of in a village called Chiapa del Corzo, a small village with not much extraordinary to see. It's really hot, so I prefer to spend some time in the cool church. 45 minutes later we are taken back to SCdlC. I feel a little stomach sick and am afraid it will be worse, so I lay down for a while and fortunately feel better, so then go for dinner (can't finish, but the remainder will be breakfast for tomorrow). 

Today, Thursday I take another tour, this time to the traditional village of San Juan Chamula. This village has its own culture and even its own form of government. Our guide looks like a gringo, but has lived here and even studied the language, so he makes a chat with almost everybody. I guess that's also quite important to be accepted to the village with a group of tourists every day of the week. So we walk around a little and then arrive at the main square where some kind of festivities seem to be going on. Apparently it is one of the holidays of the village and the villagers have made a huge load of liquor and hand it out to everybody including us (we don't like it, just the guide drinks two cups out of respect). Then we enter the church, which is full of people and smoke, quite a magical place like that. Afterwards we walk back to the van and head off towards SCdlC. Unfortunately this blog will be my only memory of San Juan Chamula, as the people from there believe that taking a picture can tale their soul away, so we could not take any pictures. Now I'm back in SCdlC I watch the last 10 minutes of the first half of France-Mexico in a TV/motorbike store and then go to a restaurant to watch the second half (all bars are full), Mexico wins so everybody is happy.

Today is Friday and it is time to leave San Cristobal, even though I have had a good time there. I am picked up at 6 in the morning by another minivan and we drive around the city for 45 minutes picking up people from other hotels. The last hotel that we pass is almost next to my hotel.. If I had known that, I could have slept 45 minutes more.. The Mexicans seem more efficient than the Guatemalans, but still a long way to go before getting at the European level.. Anyway, we leave the city and are quite some hours on the way before reaching the first destination, the waterfalls of Agua Azul. Really nice place, blue water (which the name also suggests) and an enormous heat and humidity (until now I've worn my sweater almost all the time). A short while later we leave for the next place,  Misol-Há, another waterfall, a little higher and water of the regular colour. Our next destination is the ruins of Palenque, like so many other places in Mexico and Guatemala the most important archeological Maya site of the world. But I must admit that it is very nice, not much worse than Tikal (which, of course, is the real most important Maya place of the world).   

I spend the next two days relaxing, watching football games, reading and eating in my half-in-the-jungle hostel (the flora, fauna and weather do suggest is jungle, but it's still close to the city) and on Sunday evening I take a luxury bus from Palenque to Tulum. About 12 hours later I arrive, find a hostel that includes bikes with the bed rental, then use the bike to go to the centre and the beautiful carribean beach. And now I'm back at the hostel and I think it's time to finish this blog. Later I'll meet Alberto here (or tomorrow morning if he doesn't make it) and in 2 days we'll go to Playa del Carmen. I will leave from there Saturday early in the morning to fly to Panama and I guess that I'll upload my next blog from there.

Saludos from Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico 

Btw, I'm going to try to upload a daily picture of the place where I am (if it's interesting at least), you'll find them here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=435050&l=82d4ff0adb&id=226700492