Mexico X:
Christmas in Comitan and No Sleep in Palenque
12/24/06 – 12/29/06
General Map (can’t seem to find a map of
Comitan): http://www.travelchiapas.com/map/map-2.php
San Cristobal de las Casas to Palenque: http://www.travelchiapas.com/map/chiapas-road-map.gif
Palenque Map (really just to give you an idea of how huge
this place is): http://www.mayadiscovery.com/ing/archaeology/palenque/map/map.html
(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!)
So here we
are, late afternoon on Christmas Eve, standing with our loaded bikes on MEX
307, just outside the ruins of Chinkultic, waiting for a collectivo to take us
to Comitan. It’s not looking likely and
Christina is getting nervous that we won’t find a phone for her Christmas Eve
family calls. Across the road from where
we were waiting a bunch of folks are watching us. 4 young guys, a young woman, and 2 grown
men. One of the men approaches us and
asks what we we’re doing. He tells us
that it may be hard to convince a collective to take us. And if they do we’ll have to pay extra for
the bikes. We know this and nod. A few of the boys come over and ask us all
sorts of questions about the bikes. They
seem to be in their late teens. We all
stand around and wait together for a few minutes. Then the man points towards his truck: “we
can take you for the same you’ll pay the collectivo”. Okay, we say, but then looking at the truck
and all the people, we ask: “how the hell are we going to fit?” This doesn’t seem to be a problem in their
eyes. “and with the bikes?” Still no problem. “and with all the stuff already in the back
of the pickup?” No problema. They grab
our fully loaded bikes, against our yells of no no no, toooooo heavy, and heave
them into the bed of the pickup. This
takes 4 of them per bike, groaning and laughing.
After the
massive yet efficient effort of getting the bikes in (we only lose 1 pannier,
the one on Christina’s bike that always falls off anyhow), Christina turns to
the group and says: “So, you’re taking us to Argentina, right?” They all look blank. “Christmas in Argentina is beautiful” she
continues, smiling as if nostalgic. They
begin to look at one another in confusion and fear. “Comitan?” one of them asks. “No, no, you said you could take us to Argentina.” More looks around. Then she can’t hold it anymore and begins
cracking up. There’s a second until they
catch up and then everyone is laughing and slapping one another. “haaahhhaaa, Argentina, ahhhahahahah!!”
One of the
men gets in to drive. The young woman
and Christina get in front with him. The
4 teens, myself, the other man, our loaded bikes, a whole bunch of buckets and
bags, and a couple dozen large cut branches of a pine tree crowd in the back. I am scrunched up sitting on the pines
between the wheel of my bike (which begins spinning in the wind) and the rear
gate of the truck. 3 of the boys are
sitting on top of the bikes and other cargo – I can’t even tell how they’re
holding on. The 4th boy and
the man are squatting across from me, equally squashed. I suddenly notice they’re all holding beers
and grinning - grins that let me know it’s not their first beer of the day. In fact the older man looks downright drunk. “Cerveza?” he slurs. “Claro”, I reply. I am handed a cold Modelo. It tastes like heaven. And the truck roars off.
It’s
amazing how much you can learn, and no matter how frustrating it is, how much
you can actually communicate, with only a handful of common words. Nobody in the back of this sardine packed
pickup spoke English except for the boy nearest me. And he only spoke a tiny bit. My Spanish is very limited. Yet somehow we all talked. Beer always helps. Turned out that the boys weren’t all wearing
the same football (soccer) shirts for the hell of it. They were all on the same team that had just,
hours earlier, won some Chiapas
wide championship. They were celebrating
their victory! It also turned out that
the drunk man, whose feet were pushed into my knees, was the father of three of
the boys. The other boy was a cousin
whose sister and father were riding up front with Christina. “Football is in my father’s heart. It is his passion” the nearest boy spoke in a
mixture of Spanish, English, and hand gestures that made up our conversations. While the other 3 boys were content on
howling into the wind and sucking back a seemingly never ending supply of
Modelo, the nearest boy and his father (though not above the howling and beer
drinking) were intent on talking to me.
Every
fifteen minutes or so we’d stop and someone would get out to piss. I tried to explain the idea that we just
“rent” beer, always having to give it back, but it didn’t go over. They did like the word “piss” though, and
began using it instead of “pee-pee” which is what they’d been calling it. Ah, the beauty of cultural exchange. They also kept trying to ask me how to say
“seis Modelas”, and I would say “Six Modelas”, until finally I realized what
they meant. “Six Pack!” I yelled. “Six pack!” they all yelled back into the
wind. And then the boys banged on the
roof of the truck. It stopped and they
asked me: “you like six pack?” Well, who
doesn’t? Actually, Christina doesn’t,
and she told them when they offered her a beer at our stop. This surprised them. But not as much as when she told them she liked
Tequila and Whiskey, not beer. This sent
them into a fit. They pounded one
another on the back and kept shouting “whiskey!” Even after we had pulled off again the boys
kept repeating it to me: “whiskey?!”
They’d all give the thumbs up, wipe their wind and laughter tears, and
point at Christina through the back window.
The father
I couldn’t understand at all. But the
son nearest me, whose name I never learned (or might have and can’t remember),
would patiently wave his father’s comments aside and continue on with me. There was something so very passionate and
alive in this beautiful boy’s face. And
it wasn’t just the beer and victory shine, he had a fire burning deeper than
the average person you’d meet on the street.
Or at least it was more visible.
We talked and talked about football, American football (we both agreed
it was fun to play, but sucked on TV), books (he wasn’t shocked like most
people when I told him we didn’t watch TV at home), philosophy, Frontiers
(borders), Chiapas, US History, and on and on. I really don’t know how this happened. Really, neither one of us could speak each
other’s language. But on we went. At one point politics came up. I tried to explain that I couldn’t stand
politicians, but didn’t think I was getting my point across. He smiled, nodded, and then stated in Spanish:
“Politics is not Reality”. I didn’t want
this truck ride to end.
A few
kilometers before MEX 307 met the Pan American (MEX 190), we turned off into a
small dusty ranch. The boys in the back
asked me what we were doing for Christmas.
“Well we were going to try and make it to Guatemala, but I think we’ll just
be in Comitan.” I try and explain. They smile and nod. “Will you spend Christmas with us. Here, with our family?” I would love to, but we need to get to a
phone. I try and tell them how important
it is for Christina to call her family on Christmas Eve. They understand, kind of. We pile out of the truck, and they ask
Christina. She tells them the same. A few of them begin to pull our bikes out of
the back. I am heart-broken. I cannot imagine a better way for this
heathen to spend Christmas. But
Christina needs a phone and they don’t have one. So we all pile back in and head on towards
Comitan.
We don’t
know where we’re headed in Comitan, so they just drop us off on the side of the
main business road. They help unload our
bikes and tell us that the bus station is a few blocks ahead. They ask us again: “are you sure?” We aren’t, but say yes, thank you. Hugs all around. My conversation partner gives me a long hug,
a slap on the back, some sort of hand shake fist knocking thing, and then tells
me that I am his friend and in his heart.
Then they’re off. We shout Happy Christmas and Thank You to the
taillights.
It’s dark
out now. We repack the bikes, make sure
everything is secure and not broken from the truck ride. We walk the bikes to the bus station. The next bus to the border town of Ciudad Cuauhtémoc didn’t
leave till late. Border towns are
sketchy enough during the day, so we’d have to stay here the night. As we sat in the bus station eating a candy
bar and trying to get up the strength to go look for a hotel, Christina turned
to me and said: “I really think we should go to Palenque.
The people in the cab of the truck said it was more beautiful than El
Chiflon. Maybe we shouldn’t skip it.” Palenque is a group
of Mayan ruins in northern Chiapas,
just on the edge of the jungle. They are
really large and supposedly very impressive.
It’s also a must see stop for the Lonely Planet gringo-trail set. Every
international we’d met was going to Palenque. And I have this hate/love thing going with
the international backpacker crowd now. For
this reason, and because although I’m interested in Mayan history, it’s really
not my priority (compared to how the ancestors of the Mayans are living in a
modern capitalist state in this age) for this trip, I had wanted to skip Palenque. But just because a place is “popular”, doesn’t
inherently make it a bad place (that’s a form of snobbery Christina would say. It’s what kept me from reading Rushdie’s
“Satanic Verses” for so long - a big mistake I’m not above admitting.). Also the taste at Chinkultic had opened me up
to more Mayan ruins. So although I
sighed deeply at her suggestion (probably most of all because I had it in my
mind we were on our way to Guatemala
and I had built that up in my mind – I’m not into backtracking, and Palenque was the opposite
direction), I agreed. We took down the
times to Palenque
from the bus station and went off into the night to find a hotel. We were hoping that although it was Christmas
Eve, we could find a place that wasn’t totally booked. We had been warned about this (as we were still
be warned concerning a place over New Years), but of course we’d done nothing
about it.
The Centro
wasn’t very far, though down a very steep hill.
We stopped at the first hotel we found.
A guy met us at the open door. He
said he had space left. He told us the
price and then asked us “but how much did you want to pay?” I missed the whole thing, as it was in
Spanish, but Christina was so exhausted that she didn’t even bargain – despite
his obvious offer to go down on the price!
Anyhow, it still wasn’t much. And
the place was beautiful. A good place
for Christmas. And we got the last room
available. Perhaps in the whole
city! With his two sons helping, we got
the bikes up into the courtyard and got our room. The first order of business was to find a
phone. We walked to the zocolo. It was one of the prettiest we’d seen. A really large square, full of benches and
trees. There were also a dozen or so
modern art sculptures. It was really
strange to see them there juxtaposed against the colonial architecture and a
lit up sign announcing the 400th birthday of Comitan. We found some pay phones at one corner. Christina made her calls while I watched the
Christmas mass fill the nearby cathedral.
We were getting stared at (Comitan is certainly not a tourist city), but
not in mean ways. As Christina began crying
on the phone at missing her family at a time so special for them, I noticed an
interesting reaction among the people passing by. They would see us and stare blankly. Ah some gringos there. But then, as they got closer and noticed
Christina crying, they would pause. The
pause wasn’t necessarily in their stride (though it was in some), but in their
thoughts. You could actually see
it. They would see this gringa crying
and all of a sudden she wasn’t just another outsider, she was a human being,
suffering. Their whole posture and
attitude would soften and they’d continue on.
After the
phone calls we briefly discussed biking back to where our friends in the pickup
lived to join them for Christmas Eve.
But it was late now, and it was kinda far away, and the highway would be
dark. It didn’t make much sense. We were both pretty upset about it. Though wiped out, even more so, we were
hungry. So we went off looking for food. On the other side of the zocolo sat a warm,
inviting looking pizza place. La Alpujarra. Although we’d had some bad
experiences with pizza in Mexico,
we decided give it another chance. And
we were glad we did. Inside was spacious
yet warm. African music (sounded like a
Fela Kuti inspired jam) from the speakers.
An open kitchen beneath an arch.
We liked it instantly. The pizza
was the pretty damn good (still that problem with the crust though…) and the
agua de jamaica
was fresh and quenching. The place was
run in front by two distinguished middle aged men. They both had small, well kept beards. Neither looked Mexican. In back, in the kitchen, several indigenous
women cooked and cleaned. This being the
usual division of labor and gender in Mexico - the opposite it seemed of many
US restaurants where the men were the cooks and the women were out front as
waitresses.
With our
bellies full we walked back to our hotel.
Inside we saw that our bicycles had been moved aside and in their place
sat a huge, long, rectangular table full of people. Lots of people. Maybe over 50! Kids sat at another table off to the side,
while some ran around the courtyard. It
was a Christmas Eve dinner feast! We
smiled and climbed up the stairs towards our room. But we were called back, in English, by an
insistent group of adults at the center of the table. “Come eat with us. Come drink with us!” No thank you, we told them, thank you very
much, but we just ate a big meal. “But
it’s Christmas, just come and sit then and talk. Like we say in Mexico, don’t be a Rancher, come
sit down.” So they cleared us a space at
the center of the table and we sat. The
two speaking English were father and son, Dave and Dave. The younger Dave was a teacher of English in Mexico City. The father had learned many years ago at
University. It wasn’t long before
Christina (the “truck driver” her family calls her because she can pack it in –
we’ve had more than one waitress in Mexico ask if she’s pregnant when
she orders more food) was digging into their pork and rice. The whole table would ask questions and Dave
the younger would translate. And then
came the Tequila and the Christmas cheer.
The group was on a tour, from Mexico City,
of the Mayan ruins of Mexico. We had seen their huge tour bus outside
earlier in the day. At one point a
mother brought her young daughter over and sat her down next to Christina. “Talk to her in English” she basically
demanded. Christina asked the little
girl, who looked terrified and brave at once, a series of questions which the
girl answered in perfect English. They
took several pictures of us, and I took one of a good portion of the group
around the table. At another point,
after it had come out that we lived in the north-east of the US, and old
woman turned and said: “Ah yes, you can see your Nordic features in your faces.” We laughed the whole next day over that one. We stayed late and drank more Tequila and
talked until it was only Dave, Dave, and the two of us, yawning at the
table. Not a bad way to spend Christmas
Eve.
Christmas
morning Christina wakes me with a poem she has written. It is beautiful. We watch some TV and spend the morning in
bed. We decide to take the night bus to Palenque. It leaves Comitan at about 9pm and gets in at
4am. That way we can sleep on the bus,
avoid having to pay for a hotel there, and just go straight to the ruins before
the crowds arrive. Anyhow, we like
Comitan, and it’s nicer to spend Christmas day here than on a bus. We go back to La Alpujarra for lunch and
end up staying there all day reading and drinking coffee. Sometime in the late afternoon Christina
almost jumps out of her seat. “Loaded
bicycles!” she exclaims. I turn and sure
enough there they are. A middle-aged man
and woman on touring bikes. Fully
loaded. We can barely contain our
excitement. Besides the folks who blew
us by (literally and figuratively) back near El Chiflon, we hadn’t actually
talked to any other touring bicyclists.
I rushed over. Valery and Tony
were from Switzerland
and very serious cyclists. They sat with
us, drank some coffee, and told us of their travels. They were riding some very beautiful hand
made touring bikes made in Switzerland. Their plan was to make it to Costa Rica before returning to Europe. They left after a bit to find a hotel. Very nice folks - check out their website (not
in English, but you can check out the great photos!): http://www.alaskatandem.ch/Gallery2/main.php.
We decided
to eat more pizza for dinner. The owners
of La Alpujarra,
who were the two men acting as waiters, now recognized us (it was only our 3rd
time here!). We talked a little to the
more outgoing of the two. Christina told
him that it was the best pizza we’d had in Mexico and he went off on a rant
about how Mexican food was no good, it was all pork, pork, pork. Christina, who loves her pork, tried to
explain the misunderstanding (did he think she was saying this was the only
good food in general in Mexico??)
but it got lost. We notice however that
there is no pork on the menu. The chorizo
was “chorizo de rez” (sausage of beef), and the ham was “jamon de pavo” (ham of
duck). After dinner we head off to the bus for Palenque. The Swiss bikers, and now our new friend at La Alpujarra, have all told
us that the ruins are really worth seeing.
I’m feeling a little better about it.
Plus we’ve decided to leave the bikes behind in Comitan at the hotel
(they refused to take any money for watching them!). Since we’re returning there anyhow the next
day, it didn’t seem worth the hassle to navigate and negotiate them on the
various busses.
The bus
ride is long, but luckily the air is not on full blast. The road is tortuously curvy for large
sections of the ride and we can’t really sleep.
We arrive at the town of Palenque
(not the ruins, but the small town of the same name a few kilometers up from
the ruins) at around 4am. We’d read that
there was a little “village” called El Panchan, about halfway between the town
and the ruins that had a bar, restaurant, and several places to stay. We figured we’d head over there and wait for
the ruins to open at 8am. Sitting across
from us in the bus station, yawning like us, were Christina and Michael, a
couple from Austrialia. They were headed
to the same place so we shared a taxi. The
taxi dropped us off in the dark jungle.
It had begun to rain. We of
course hadn’t brought any rain gear.
Through the mud and dripping dark the four of us followed each light we
could find, hoping it would lead us to someone awake. Nada.
We found the restaurant Don Mucho that served as the central hub to this
village in the jungle. It had outside
seating so we lit some of the candles we found behind the bar, and settled in
to wait. Christina and Michael were great,
funny, and laidback. At 6:30ish the
folks who worked at Don Mucho began to trickle in. Christina and Michael went and got a room at
a nearby hostel. They kindly offered to
hold our bags in their room while we went to look at the ruins. We shared some breakfast with them and a
French woman, and off we went.
We decided
to walk because it was only a few kilometers away. The morning was wet and cool. We had been expecting wet and very hot. It was actually pretty refreshing. The first stop was a museum. It was very informative and well set up
(unlike most other museums we’d been in so far). Since the ruins themselves pretty much lacked
any on-site descriptions, the museum was crucial for a contextual understanding
of what the hell we’d be looking at shortly.
Upstairs in the building was a traveling exhibit of printing seals and
early Mayan printing blocks. Very
interesting and cool to see. The place
was packed with tourists (mostly Mexican) and it was comforting, in an awful
way, to see that Mexican tourists were just as goddamn obnoxious as American
ones. They insisted on pushing, throwing
their trash on the ground, touching things that said DO NOT TOUCH, using flash
photography, and just being loud and rude.
Outside,
in the on and off rain, it was the same.
We figured the massive crowds (many coming in on large tour busses) must
be partially to blame on Holiday season. With so many people, crawling like a thousand
ants over the crumbling stones, the calm, peaceful stillness that we loved at
Chinkultic was nowhere to be found. The
ruins however, were spectacular. We
spent almost the whole day exploring, climbing, and trying to imagine the
people who lived, worshiped, and played here.
We took many photos (see the flickr site), but like most photos of
ancient ruins, they mostly come out just looking like the pile of old rocks
which they are. Ah the beauty of
context.
I also
experienced a first here at Palenque
– the absolute terror of claustrophobia.
I’ve only experienced the true fear of a phobia once before (but since
it happened once, perhaps it doesn’t even qualify as a phobia?) and that was
from the massive form of a un-submerged submarine hanging in the dry docks of a
New England shipyard – but that’s a story for another time. Here the spell hit me inside a tomb of one of
temples.
The tomb
of the Red Queen: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/red-queen-tomb.htm. You walk up these steps into a tiny doorway
(the Mayan were a very short people).
Once inside you are in a narrow hallway with a low ceiling. Off of the hallway are several tiny rooms you
can look into, including the one that held the actual Red Queen. On this day, packed into the hallway, and
down the stairs, was a tight double line of tourists, butt to crotch, making
their way through in a slow shuffle.
Once inside the air was hot and heavy.
I had been cut off from Christina by a group of about 10 pushy women. I began to panic. My thoughts ran wild. What if I need to get out of here?! There is no way. The crowd pushing me
forward. I can’t breathe. I used all my will to force the panic back
and move forward a few feet with the line of people. But it would return. In my right hand was a large walking stick
I’d been using to climb the muddy hills and slippery ruins. My only thought was that if I needed to I
could smash my way through this tight sea of flesh to the air outside. But even that was an irrational thought
because there were so many people they would have just probably beaten me
back. But for some reason I clung to the
stick, and its violent hope, like my only savior. I made it out just in time it felt like. I was going to go crazy. I immediately told Christina about it (she’s
had similar attacks of anxiety with heights, though her phobia freezes her,
while I was just itching to burst into flight) and tried to calm myself. Within a minute or two of being outside I
felt fine again. Damn. That’s a first. Hopefully a last.
After the
day at the ruins we were wet, tired (still hadn’t slept), and hungry. But there were these waterfalls we really
wanted to see. They were called Agua
Azul (http://www.locogringo.com/chiapas/aguaazul.html)
and we were told they were about a half hour ride up into the mountains from Palenque. We got a ride into town and found a
collectivo that was heading that way. I
found some cheap and good street tacos to keep us happy until we made it there
and we sat and waited for the collectivo to fill up before leaving. It was getting late though and we began to
get worried that the place might not be open.
Christina asked the driver’s helper how long it took to get there. He told us about half an hour. Before we could discuss it some more the
driver arrived, the door slammed shut, and we were off. We climbed up, up, up into the beautiful
mountains. The sun sank down, down,
down. Christina and I kept looking at
each other and then out the window nervously.
We had heard the area around Agua Azul was dangerous at night. Nothing too serious, but robberies were
supposed to be frequent. Soon the sun
was completely down. We had already been
driving 40 minutes, and according to the kilometer signs weren’t even halfway
there. Shit.
An hour
and a half later we arrived at the turn off for Agua Azul. There, taxis waited to take us the 5k or so
to the falls. But we didn’t want to
spend the night there. Our friends
Christina and Michael were holding our bags in their room and would probably
freak out if we never came back that night.
The taxi drivers told us that there were no more collectivos that night
– we’d have to wait until morning. We
asked them if they would take us back to Palenque. Nope.
They wouldn’t. We were reduced to
trying to hitch. Not something we wanted
to do at night, not something we wanted to do here. We began to cross the road and suddenly a
collectivo pulled up. We rushed over. Yup, they were the last one of the night
going to Palenque. We were lucky, because he was running late
and usually came by 20 minutes ago. We
sheepishly got aboard - the taxi drivers who had just seen us get off from the
other direction shaking their heads. We
decided we would try again in the morning.
Back at
Don Mucho’s the bar was hopping. Christina
and Michael were there with a table already and jumped up when they saw
us. “We were starting to get worried
about you!” We sat down with them and
ordered some drinks and dinner. A band
set up on the stage next to us and began playing. We spent the rest of the night there with
them drinking and eating. At one point
the lights went out, the band changed to a group playing tribal rhythms, and
people began doing highly acrobatic dances with fire. Some had sticks, like torches, lit. Some ropes with burning balls on the
end. It was hypnotic and erotic. We eventually realized that it was late and
we had nowhere to stay. Christina went
around and asked at the various nearby places.
Nothing. Booked solid. Shit, we’d have to go into the town. We said goodbye to our new friends (mates)
and got a taxi back into the seedy town of Palenque.
Every
hotel in downtown Palenque
was booked. Every one! We spent a good hour walking around, checking
out every corner and alley. It was the
Christmas holidays, and there was nowhere to stay. So we went to the bus station (the only place
open 24 hours) and sat down to wait for morning. Another night with no sleep. Uhhg.
At dawn we went next door to the bus station and found a collectivo that
was headed to Agua Azul. Even at 6:30 in
the morning, Agua Azul was beginning to fill up with tourists. We hiked up along the falls. They were pretty, but not amazing. In fact they weren’t even Azul! All the photos we’d seen had shown water
similar to the colors at El Chiflon, but this water was dark, almost grey. Maybe it was the clouds, silt in the water,
the time of year, who knows? But it
wasn’t blue. We has some crappy
breakfast at one of the dozens of restaurants that lined the falls and left the
falls behind. The bathrooms cost a hefty
peso, so we hiked up the road a bit and went out into the jungle to pee. There, were we stopped, we discovered the
amazing sight of a group of leaf cutting ants at work. http://www.blueboard.com/leafcutters/. We could have stayed and watched them all
day, but we had to get moving. We caught
a ride to the top of the access road and then a collectivo to Ocosingo (halfway
to San Cristobal). Ocosingo made it into the news in 1994
because it was one of the towns the Zapatistas took. It was also the place where they lost 34
members in the initial fighting. Today
the military presence there is intense.
From there we take another collectivo to San Cristobal.
We’re glad
to back in San Cristobal
because we love this place, but we’re so tired from lack of sleep that we can
barely walk. Christina however is intent
on going to a Maya Medicine museum that we never got to visit while we were
there. We have an hour and a half before
our bus leaves for Comitan. So we speed
walk through the town and fly through the museum (which is not very good,
though the information packet they hand us is interesting) and taxi it back to
the bus station just in time.
Back in
Comitan, before crashing, we head to our pizza joint. We have a good talk with the owner we’ve
become more friendly with – his name is Mauri Mendez. Turns out he, and his partner and some of the
indigenous women cooking(!) are Moslems.
He is originally from Argentina. Many years ago he was traveling in South Africa
when he heard the amazing sound of Islamic music. He returned to South Africa a year later and was
invited to a dress-up party. He decided
to go as a Moslem in full dress. Late at
night, coming out of the party, with a beer in his hand, he runs into a whole
group of actual Moslems. He’s mortified
and embarrassed. They look at him and
ask him what’s up. He tells them and
they invite him inside where they begin telling him about the ways of
Mohammed. And that’s that. Anyhow so now he and several Islamic families
are running a pizza restaurant, a school, and several other endeavors in Chiapas in order to
spread their Sufi faith. Pretty far out. He tells us that he employs indigenous
workers because he finds them much more open minded and honest than Mexican
workers.
Back at
the hotel we fall into bed, but not before planning our next course of action. Way back on the Oaxacan coast I had heard
about a Zapatista gathering in Chiapas set for the days over the New Years, but
at the time I had figured we’d be long into Central America by that point. But here it was, December 28th,
and we were still in Chiapas! It was the kind of once in a lifetime
opportunity we didn’t want to miss. So
we decided we would head to the “Encounter” (The official name of the meeting
was: Todo Sobre el Encuentro entre
los pueblos Zapatistas y los pueblos del mundo) which would take place from December 30th through January
2nd in Oventic, Chiapas.
Its purpose was for individuals and collectives from all over the world
to meet with the Zapatistas and hear what they have been doing and for them to
hear what we’ve been doing in our struggles.
And also to lay the foundation for a common front of struggle against
neo-liberalism (which they have set forth an example of here: http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/SixthDeclaration.html)
– almost like a new International (from the bottom left)? And lastly it would serve as a place to
discuss the details of a future “Intergalactic” meeting. Plus there would be dancing and
basketball. Anyhow, it sounded like a
wonderful way to spend New Years!
The next
day we slept in very, very late – which we needed. We got some errands done, did some laundry,
wrote some emails, figured out the logistics for getting to Oventic (back
through San Cristobal!),
and took some pictures. In the evening
we went again to La
Alpujarra to eat pizza, talk with our friends, and say farewell. As for Guatemala, well, it wasn’t going
anywhere.
