Mexico IX: El Chiflon y Lagunas de Montebello

12/19/06 – 12/24/06

 

General Map: http://www.tourbymexico.com/chiapas/cristoba/cris_lag.jpg

Map of San Cristobal to Las Rosas:

http://www.maps-of-mexico.com/chiapas-state-mexico/chiapas-state-mexico-map-b1.shtml

Map of Las Rosas to Comitan (far upper right hand square of map, a bit cut off.  El Chiflon is on the river San Vincente, about halfway along the main “red” road in that square of the map):

http://www.maps-of-mexico.com/chiapas-state-mexico/chiapas-state-mexico-map-b2.shtml

 

(photos from this time are up, as are photos right up until our leaving of Mexico.  You may want to wait to see the latter ones until you read further updates, but as always, that’s up to you!)

 

We arrive in the little city of Teopisca in the late afternoon.  The zocolo is being bombarded by a car-audio store that sits on the square.  It’s so loud it’s painful.  We quickly load the bikes and look for a route out of town.  The major route here, the same one that San Cristobal sits on, is MEX 190.  Otherwise known as the Pan-American Highway.  The plan is to follow it just a few kilometers outside of town where we’ll turn off towards the south and the valley below.  Starting this late in the day we’ll be lucky to make it to Las Rosas, the only large town down there, by nightfall.

 

The weather was perfect – cool and sunny.  After a few ups and downs, the road settled into a continual downhill.  And except for a dog-chasing scare near the beginning, it was a wonderful downhill.  Full of little yellow flowers and large sun-flowers against the backdrop of dried cornfields and green mountains.  The late-afternoon sun (my favorite time of day for biking, or anything on empty roads for that matter) illuminated everything.  We stopped for a while at a graveyard a-riot with colors.  A couple of bright red birds flirted with us there, but never let us get too close.  As the sun finally came down we approached the plateau where Las Rosas was built.  The final kilometer of downhill we got pelted by a meteor shower of tiny dusk bugs as we flew into town.  I could feel them stinging on my skin and taste them in my teeth.

 

Las Rosas was a cold town.  People stared at us, which was not unusual when we entered a town off the gringo-trail, but the stares were backed with hostility.  But it was nighttime and we were tired.  We found a friendly woman by a church who gave us the name of a family who rented out rooms.  “They’re Christians” she told us.  I wasn’t sure if that was good news or not, but she seemed to think it positive.  We walked and biked around for a while looking for these mysterious Christians but couldn’t find them.  We did though find the zocolo.  It was happening and full of excitement.  The main church was full of what looked like hundreds of papier-mâché or tissue paper balls in a thousand colors hanging from the ceiling.  We wanted a closer look but decided to continue on our mission.  The road to the west of the plaza led up to the steepest set of steps I’ve ever seen in a city.  Atop of them sat another church, all lit up.  There was no way our tired legs were getting up there now.  A man approached us and said he heard we were in town (news travels fast when the gringos appear) and looking for a place to stay.  We asked him about the Christians who rented rooms and he gave us some directions.  As usual, the directions weren’t great, but a few more stops later and we came to a large house with the Jesus Fish carved in the iron gates.  Uh oh.  Christina, woman of faith, was less worried and rang the bell.  A young boy came out and looked us up and down.  He then ran off to ask someone else.  A middle-aged woman finally appeared.  Christina repeated what we’d heard about them renting out rooms.  The woman looked us up and down a few times and then outright lied.  “We don’t do that.  We don’t rent rooms.  Nope.”  And that was that.  Back in the square the same man who gave us directions found us again.  “ah, yes, well, they are particular” was his explanation.  I said that it must be my beard.  He just laughed a bit, but didn’t say yes or no.  But he did point us to the best hotel in town.

 

The best hotel in Las Rosas (right off the plaza), was the worst hotel I’ve even set foot in.  And I’ve been in some pretty seedy ones.  Even lived in some.  Not to mention that it was haunted.  Christina pointed to all the candles burning behind the front desk.  That’s a bad sign she warned.  The room stunk like rot, the mattress was cloth on springs with maybe some farm animals in between to give it that lumpy feel, the bathroom was slimy and grimy, the pillows gravestones, and the sheets covered in some slick film.  Plus they we charging us more than a nice hotel in San Cristobal.  Somehow (I think it was sheer exhaustion combined with darkness and hunger) we made the decision to stay.  That night as Christina tossed and turned (in her sleeping bag liner – no way we were touching our skin to anything in that room), I watched a really, really bad zombie movie: “Dia de los Muertos”.  It took place in Mexico and a lot of it in a really creepy hotel.  Even though the acting was terrible and my disbelief wasn’t suspended for a second, I kept looking at the door, thinking of those candles burning down in the lobby.

 

The next morning we made up for the horrors of the night before by discovering, completely by chance, the best breakfast we’ve had in Mexico so far.  We were cranky, tired, and hungry, and just trying to find anything on the way out of the town.  We got a little lost trying our way back to the road that led out of town and stumbled upon what looked like a bar, but the woman claimed that they could do breakfast for us.  There was no menu, but she asked if we wanted some eggs and beans.  Okay.  And damn, the food was so good.  With that homemade soft white cheese and a whole basket of tortillas.  And lots of it.  Ah, Las Rosas was redeemed.

 

The next town of any size out of Las Rosas was San Francisco Pujiltic, although it was pretty damn tiny.  The way there was straight down the mountains.  Intense downhills for over 20 kilometers.  Yeeeahhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa!  Well, I speak for myself.  Christina hates the serious downhills.  She rides her brakes almost all the way down, taking the heavy bike very slow.  I just let it go, putting on the brakes only when I begin to touch on that “too much” feeling.  The result is she’s clenching a lot and her muscles feel it afterwards.  So these days of going down, down, down, are almost more exhausting for her than the uphill climbs.  It doesn’t help that every 40 minutes or so a giant, overfull truck of cut sugar cane comes by, forcing us off the road.  At one point a pickup truck goes by full of people in the back.  Several, including a little boy, are wearing ski masks.  Ah, our first Zapatista sighting.  They wave at me and I wave back.

 

Francisco Pujiltic sits at the floor of the valley.  From there we turn east and spend almost 30k along a flat, hot, road flanked on both sides by miles and miles of sugar cane plantations.  To our west, where all the giant trucks are headed, we can see the stacks of some massive factory.  Our guess is that it’s where the cane is getting processed.  I find a nice firm yet thin stalk of it along the road and keep it as a dog protection rod.  We are dehydrated, hot and tired when suddenly our eyes spot something odd on the distant horizon.  It looks like the side of the mountain to our northeast has two massive white rock faces.  Odd amidst all that green.  As we get closer it looks like the rock faces are moving.  Could it be?  And then yes, finally we are close enough to see, they are waterfalls!  We make the entrance to the fabled El Chiflon by late afternoon.  It’s a kilometer or so up a dirt road to the official entrance.  A dollar entrance fee.  Camping is permitted.  Perfect.

 

At our first glimpse of the river we think we’re hallucinating.  The color.  What is that color?  This bluegreen, turquoise.  It’s the color you see in photos of the Caribbean coast in those glossy advertisements.  But it’s thick.  And it’s pouring down the mountain – in a river!  We are dumfounded with its beauty.  We are told part of what gives it the color and look is a high quantity of talc in the water.  And sure enough, our skin feels fresh and soft after putting our feet in.  But damn it’s cccooollllddddd.  We lock our bikes next to the shed where we paid our camping fee – the guy there (their version of a park ranger) says we can keep our bags inside the shed over night – it will be locked.  We take what we need for camping and leave the rest behind.  The campsite is a good ten minute walk up the trail that follows this magical river.  We set up the tent and felt like collapsing.  But the river calls.  Just down from our campsite is a little shack selling chicken sandwiches and cups of cut fruit and vegetables.  We wolf down a bunch off food.  Back towards the entrance is another shack that is selling coconuts cut open with a straw for sucking out the milk.  We get one with lime and rum and sit and watch the river.  We sleep really, really, well with the river in our ears, in our dreams.

 

Waking up next to a river is both peaceful and invigorating.  I love it.  We cooked some breakfast and packed up the campsite.  A middle aged American father found us and talked a bit.  A west-coaster.  He was the first non-Mexican we’d seen at the falls so far.  When we mentioned this to him he replied that most Americans were scared of coming to Chiapas because of, you know, those Sandinistas.  I see Christina flinch, and glance at me to see if I’m going to say anything.  But I’ve been too lulled by the river.  The hike up the river to the actual falls took about 40 minutes.  Straight up!  There are several falls, each one getting larger and larger.  At the top the cascading water is so powerful and falling from so high, that the air around us is a continual heavy mist.  At times it even feels like it’s raining.  We stare in awe.  Back at the bottom Christina is set on swimming, or at least dunking herself, in the river.  I foolishly tell her that if she goes, so will I.  I sit and watch as she slowly, torturously lowers herself into the freezing water.  Once one part of her body is numb, she lowers herself a little more.  About 15 minutes later she’s actually in – swimming in the slow blue current and bright sun.  She’s a gorgeous sight.  But now I have to do the same.  Brrrrrrrrrrrr.  I complain more, and take longer (you know, us guys have lower pain thresholds), but finally make it in too.  Oh my god we felt great afterwards.  The Mexican tourists walking up and down the trail looked at us like we were insane.  Except for one little kid, in as far as his ankles, we’d seen nobody swimming.

 

We leave El Chiflon (sadly, looking over our shoulders) late in the afternoon.  After a very brief flat area, the road goes up, up, up, trying to make its way over the mountains and back up to the Pan American highway and Comitan.  Our bodies are not at peak, and the climbing is really hard.  At one point where we’ve stopped to fend off some dogs, we suddenly see a half-dozen cyclists, fully decked out in their spandex, come flying down the hill.  The front guy waves.  I think it’s the fellow from Los Pinguinos back in San Cristobal.  Two gringo cyclists stop and cross over to us.  They had thought for a moment we were from their group (and my downed bike and the dogs got them worried), but upon seeing that we weren’t they lost interest in talking to us except to say: “good luck going up those hills”.  I think they saw Christina in her skirt, and me with no visible spandex, and couldn’t be caught talking with us.  We continue on our way. 

 

Around sunset, after about 15k straight up, we reach a sort of plateau dotted with a few ranches.  We ask someone how much further to Comitan.  18k pure uphill is the answer.  So it’s either camping along the side of the road somewhere or asking at one of the ranches.  We’ve discovered that asking people, if we’re able, is the best way to go about it.   The first place we come to has a name we can’t resist: “La Fortuna”.  We walk the bikes down the dirt road a bit, wary of the barking dogs.  A woman comes to the wooden fence.  We tell her that we’re trying to make Comitan, it’s too dark to ride on the road, does she know where we could camp nearby?  We always phrase it this way instead of “can we camp on your land?”  She says we can camp there, in the yard, but first she’ll have to ask her husband.  The husband walks over and looks us up and down.  He’s not so sure about all this.  Christina has a hard time understanding his Spanish.  He asks if we have passports.  Passports?  Did we hear him right? Passports?  We tell them yes, but they don’t ask to see them.  Odd.  He finally shrugs, still not happy about it but also not willing to deny us a couple of square feet for our tent.

 

He disappears and reappears with two plastic chairs and a plastic card table.  He sets a large jug of water and a cup on the table.  A nod and he’s gone, off to do the chores among the multiple animals.  There are several cows, a whole mess of chickens (with chicks), a couple of dogs (growling and not pleased to share their space), and two really cute kittens.  The cows come and check us out.  Once they are bored and leave, the chickens come pecking around our table.  After them, the dogs sniff us out.  Like each group of animals taking turns.  The kittens are too small and scared to approach us, but they take turns making short excursions from the kitchen where the woman and her daughter are cooking.  We make dinner on our little stove.  Like an idiot I put the stove on the table and as our pasta cooks I melt a nice circle into the white plastic surface.

 

After our meal the woman comes out to talk with us.  We tell her what we’re up to and talk for a while around the candle lantern light on the table.  Somehow it comes out that I saw the truck of Zapatistas on the road.  Tomorrow is December 22^nd, and the EZLN (Zapatistas) have called for actions in support of the struggle in Oaxaca.  This could mean blocked roads around Chiapas and we talked about this.  She told us that she supported the Zapatistas and that they were fighting to help people like her family.  She then told us why her husband had asked about our passports.  Apparently last year, 2 Chinese men, and a Japanese man walked across the border from Guatemala without papers.  Kinda of appeared out of nowhere.  Headed towards the USA.  Anyhow, I guess the authorities found them and put the scare in the local folks.  Helping out illegal aliens (like for instance, letting them camp out in your yard) could get you jail time and or stiff fines.  So he wanted to be sure we were “officially legit”.  The daughter came out a little while later and shyly talked with us all as well.  The husband stayed clear but we could hear him shuffling around in the dark yard.

 

The next morning the animals all came to check us out in shift again.  The kittens were a little braver and came to investigate the tent.  The dogs ignored us.  We ate out usual oatmeal breakfast and packed up our gear.  In the outhouse I discovered between a brick and the toilet, the largest toad I’ve ever seen.  Really!  I raced back and told Christina I had to show her.  Damn huge.  Like the size of my two shoes put together side by side.

I offered to pay for the melted circle in the table but was repeatedly rebuffed.  We also tried to offer to help do any work around the place.  Again, just shakes and refusals.  We gave the daughter our email (she used email at school and perhaps would send us one when her English got better she said) and waved goodbye to La Fortuna.

 

Okay, 18 kilometers, all up.  Here we go.  About halfway up we come to a valley with the town of Tzimol.  On the outskirts of town we stop to get some water from a woman’s water hose.  Out of the blue, a neighbor from across the street sends her little daughter over to us with a handful of little oranges.  She smiled and waved.  One of those random acts of complete kindness that buzzes in me for days (and still today, thinking about it) afterwards.  I couldn’t stop smiling and thanking her.  We stop for lunch at the very happening bus depot in Tzimol.  A woman was making quesadillas in the corner.  Every time a bus came in, the place came alive with music and tons of people lining up for food.  Kids ran around and the whole place seemed like a grand fiesta.  The quesadillas were huge and we had to wrap up some for later.

 

We finally make it up to the Pan American (MEX 190 here) by the early afternoon.  We are exhausted but exhilarated that we made it with so much daylight left.  Instead of turning north on the highway and heading into Comitan (the original plan was to spend the night there), we decide to turn south and continue biking towards our next destination, Las Lagunas de Montebello.  Or as I’ve also seen them, Los Lagos de Montebello.  The stretch of the Pan American between the turnoff towards Tzimol and the turn off to the lakes is a wonderful change from the mornings ride.  Rolling hills, up and down.  The uphills aren’t small for sure, but relatively, they are marvelous.  And best of all, for the first couple of kilometers, there is an actual shoulder on the road!!

 

We turn east at La Trinitaria onto MEX 307.  This road runs basically due east for over 200 kilometers, along the border of Guatemala.  It then turns northwest, continuing to follow the border up to Palenque, and then back down south, making a sort of giant loop through far eastern Chiapas.  It looks like, on the map at least, that it would make a really great bike route.  However, not for us.  We’ve decided to have Christmas in Xela, Guatemala.  So just two days here and then jump on the bus for Guatemala.  Christina has spend time in Xela (with her sister Kate), and likes the idea of being in a familiar place for Christmas.

 

The lakes we were after sit about 70k from the turn off at La Trinitaria.  The road here is also straight and rolling.  The environment has changed greatly from the mountains of the morning.  Now, stretching out in all directions, as far as we can see, are brown, yellow, and green plains.  It looks to me like Africa, though I’ve never been.  I can almost imagine lions lounging under some of the trees.  In the far distance we can see the black clouds and vertical lines of a rain storm.  It looks to be moving off to the north, but as we continue the skies darken, wind picks up, and temperature drops.  It’s also getting towards evening.  About an hour in the rain starts – not heavy, but fat large drops.  The weather is moving fast across these plains though, and soon we’re left with a setting sun and a gorgeous rainbow.  The sun is finally down and we are worn out.

 

We stop at the first place we find - a small store with its lights on.  We go through our spiel.  The man first says we can camp there, but then he gets a smile (the smile of pesos) and says he has a better idea.  Are we going to the lakes?  Yes, well then he happens to also own some cabins right by the lakes.  And his son just happens to be coming very soon in his truck to go there.  We could but the bikes in the back of the truck and go to the cabins.  Food.  Hot water.  Very pretty, he tells us.  We know we can’t go on in the dark, and it would be pretty awkward to say: “No, we will camp here”, so we agree.  We all go inside his store/home and take seats to wait.  The focus of the room, the universal altar, is a television blasting out a female Mexican version of Jerry Springer.  We all watch as some jealous boyfriends beat up some jealous girlfriends, or maybe the other way around, I can’t tell, because I’m distracted by what I see above the TV.  Mounted and stuffed, hovering over the television, is a 4 foot large white crane.  Its wings are partially spread, as if about to fly, or maybe chastise us from on high.  It’s actually kinda of freaky, but I can’t take my eyes off of it.

 

We’re saved by the arrival of the son.  We load the bikes in the back of his truck.  It’s one of those work trucks with the high side walls and open top.  Even though it’s cold we stand in the back with our head in the wind, trying to make out the passing countryside in the growing darkness.  The cabins are plain and basic.  But there’s hot water (we are still chilled from the cold ride in the rain and wind) and hot food.  It’s called Pino Feliz, Happy Pine.  We eat a dinner of steak, beans, and avocado.  It’s perfect.  We also discover the place has a kitten.  She takes an immediate liking to us.  I fall asleep in their hammock after dinner, the kitten curled up on my stomach, sleeping as well.llow from Los Penguins (I think it'ly see a half-dozen cyclists, fully decked out in their spandex, coming flying down t

 

The next morning, after breakfast, we play with the kitten some more.  We meet the little girl who “owns” the kitten.  She’s a complete brat and plays way too rough with the little gato.  Christina has to scold her several times about being gentle.  The kitten looks terrified every time the brat comes around.  We also meet the kitten’s parents, the mother comes to meet us, but the tom cat keeps his distance.  While Christina is reading, and I’m napping in the hammock, I hear some scratching sounds.  It sounds like a piece of plastic being pushed around on the concrete.  I peer over the edge of the hammock.  The mother cat has found a piece of one of our panniers (this little plastic part that helps mount the pannier to the rear rack) that’s always falling off.  She had pushed it from the yard all the way over to where I lay, and left it there for me.  A very, very strange moment.

 

We bike to the lagunas in the early afternoon.  They’re a couple of kilometers away over the same up and down rolling road of yesterday.  The lake are beautiful, but nothing out of this world.  El Chiflon has spoiled us.  They remind us of the Pacific Northwest of the USA.  Pines trees and all.  At one of the lakes (there are 68 in total!), we meet someone who tells us we should check out the “grutas”.  We’re not sure what grutas are, but we head off down the road to where they are supposed to be.  The paved road soon ends at a large lake and parking lot with vendors.  Leading up a hill is a dirt road.  We follow it on our bikes through the woods for a while.  After a really steep hill we come to a house.  The path is blocked by an old pickup truck (with PA plates!) and an old man.  He tells us we cannot take our bikes further.  He also tries to insist that we take him as a guide.  We leave the bikes in the care of an old woman at the house and leave the old man by his pickup.  At first I thought that he told us we couldn’t bring the bikes because he was scamming us to hire him, but it soon became clear that we were on a path where the bikes would have been useless.  We climbed down, down, down, steep slippery wooden steps.  At some places the steps were rotted away and we slipped and slid, catching ourselves on roots and branches.  The whole place was covered in a wet, oozing, mud.  About 20 minutes of descending later, we came to a river.  The path followed the river for a while, and then opened up to a view.  The “grutas” were basically a massive hole carved in the side of the hill by the river, inside this hole were long, hanging rock formations.  It was pretty impressive.  The path continued around the hill for a view of the hole from the opposite side.  Here the river rushed through and then disappeared under hundreds of green, moss covered rocks.  It was a strange sight to see this powerful river just vanish underground. 

 

Just a bit behind this sight sat a large cave.  The Cave of the Bridge to God it was called.  Several indigenous men and women sat outside of it on blankets napping and talking softly.  A large pot of something cooking sat nearby.  We asked if it was okay to enter the cave.  They smiled and waved us on.  It was pitch black inside except for the slight flickering of a couple of candles.  As we approached these, another set of candles further in came into view.  We slowly made our way, trying to keep our footing on the unseen rocks and the slippery mud.  We suddenly heard noises, chanting in fact.  We followed the sound around a bend in the dark.  There in a separate chamber, that one would have to almost crawl through to enter, were a group of people standing and chanting.  Christina crawled forward a bit to get a better view, but it was clear this was a private ceremony and we were not invited.  What they were chanting sounded familiar to Christina’s Catholic ears, but what we were witnessing was a far cry from any Catholicism the Pope would recognize.  We continued a bit down in the cave.  I realized I had a flashlight in my bag, but it was weak and barely illuminated the ground beneath our feet.  Up ahead we could hear what sounded like the rushing of a river.  Perhaps it was the river from outside that we saw dive underground?  I imagined it coming up inside this cave.  Perhaps we could find a cavern with this underground river.  The thought thrilled me, but I couldn’t see for shit, could barely stay on my feet, and the mud was getting thicker.  We debated for a minute and then turned around.  Outside we asked the lounging men and women.  Yes, they told us, the river did appear again deep inside the cave.  Damn.  We really wanted to check it out, but we weren’t prepared.  Needed better shoes (Christina had her sandals –which she bikes, walks, and does everything in- and I had my one pair of sneakers, not with very good tread), and a better light.

 

Sad for missing such a sight as it surely would have been, but still reeling from the surreal nature of the cave and candles and chanting, we made staggered and climbed back up the slippery mountain to our waiting bikes.  There was still an hour or so of daylight left so we decided to try and make it to a group of Mayan ruins nearby, named Chinkultic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinkultic.  The ruins were just closing when we got there.  We decided it was too late to take a bus to Comitan and on to Guatemala that night anyway (adhering to our rule of not coming into big cities after dark with the fully loaded bikes), so we might as well stay another night and see the ruins in the morning.

 

Back at the Happy Pine we met another couple from the US, a rare event actually.  Not only had we seen almost no Americans on our trip, but we’d see NO American couples at all.  Not only that, but Faith and Jonathan were around our age.  We all talked into the night.  They were from Portland, OR where they ran a theater called Hand 2 Mouth: http://www.hand2mouththeatre.org/index.html.  They were partially here in Mexico on business (setting up theatre cultural exchanges), and partly on a vacation.  We really liked talking with them, and their stories of OR made us want to get back to that beautiful state very soon.

 

The next morning we packed up, loaded up, and went to Chinkultic.  It was a pretty small place, but beautiful and interesting.  There’s a certain stillness and peacefulness to these ancient sacred places that is extremely unique and pleasing.  We had the place to ourselves except for Faith and Jonathan who showed up a bit after us, and a handful of other folks.  The views from atop the temple were amazing.  We could see no less than 9 different lakes!  One of the lakes just off to the side was where the human sacrifices were thrown – it was a nice straight drop.  The Mayans, though not as famously brutal as the Aztecs, still loved to offer up their fellow humans.  Christina posed for photos in some areas that looked especially designed for throat cutting (we later found out from one of the men who worked there that they served other purposes not as bloody). 

 

After the ruins, and some very tasty roasted corn near the entrance gate, we settled up at the Happy Pine and hit the road.  The plan was to try and convince a collectivo to take us to Comitan and from there the Bus to Guatemala.  There were very few actual busses on this road, but the collectivos ran all the time.  The problem was that it was now Christmas Eve afternoon and everyone riding on them had a thousand and one packages and bags with them.  We waited for a while with no luck.  Either they weren’t going to Comitan or they weren’t interested in trying to load our bikes onto their minivan top racks (“baskets” they called them).  We began to realize that we weren’t going to make it to Xela, or anywhere in Guatemala for that matter, in time for Christmas.  We’d be lucky if we made it into Comitan tonight for Christina to be able to make her Christmas Eve family phone calls – phone calls that if didn’t get made would put her entire Irish Catholic clan into serious anxiety mode.  Plus there was the fact that most hostels and hotels were completely booked over Christmas time.  Even if we could get a collectivo, could we get a place to stay for the night??  We might end up like Joseph and Mary, knocking on doors, asking for a place to sleep.  Our baby Jesus: two loaded mountain bikes.  The sun sank lower.

 

lucinating.  The color.  What is that color.  This bluegreen, turquiose, with an almost thickness.  It'