San Cristobal

After Palenque it was off to San Cristobal which is only 100 miles away, but unfortunatley over mountians so it took 5hrs to get there. San Cristobal is also approx 6000ft above sea level so the bus has to do alot of climbing.

We arrived in San Cristobal in late afternoon, the sun was still nice and warm, although we were warned in advance that because we were at altitude the temperature drops quickly at night - they weren´t wrong.

Our first night was spent celebrating Grahams birthday, we all went to a resturant which served food from Thailand, Vietnam, Greece etc but not Mexico. The owner plied Graham with 3 Tequilas and a jug of Sangria (which he shared with the rest of us). The group bought Graham a very nice chocolate birthday cake -yum!

Our first whole day in San Cristobal and we started with a little lie in - our alarm was set for 8am. We opted to do the Mayan village tour, these actually weren´t really villages more like self sufficiant towns. The people speak there own language, dress traditionally, practise there own version of catholism (they allow chickens in the church and then they kill them also in the church) and they have there own police and justice system, but there is little or no crime there because the community looks out for each other.

It was very interesting to learn about the indiginous indians and walk around there community but it was quite dirty due to the amount of rubbish lying around. Most of it was bio-degradable fruit peelings but there was alot of plastic bottles too.

When we got back to San Cristobal, the group went for lunch at Salsa Verde and we had the best tacos I´ve tasted on this trip. The salsa verde wasn´t too bad in moderation - quite spicy! We decided to take it easy for the rest of the afternoon/evening - Alan and I had a bit of a movie session and chill out!

Sunday was our free day and we started with a lovely long lie in to recharge our batteries - we also had 3 fleecy blankets on the bed and it was lovely and warm! We had decided that today would be our mooch around the market and all the shops day, I bought this pink headscarf to keep the sun off my head.

Tonight is our last night in Mexico as tomorrow we are crossing the bordering into Guatamala, so the plan is to go to a Salsa club for dinner and maybe a bit of salsa dancing. Alan has now finished his antibiotics and is back on the beer and Tequila tonight!!!!!!!