Arrived last night in San Cristobal de Las Casas, which is finally exotic and remote enough to make it feel worth all the long driving. Wow, Mexico is HUGE! Can't believe how many hours of driving it has taken to get across it. All fascinating hours with ever-changing landscape: from empty desert to highland plains to volcanos to dense jungle valleys to big, crowded cities. To get here, we drove from Veracruz through the most beautiful jungle I've ever seen - gigantic mountains covered in lush lush lush green, occasional rivers, waterfalls, pineapple farms, sideways corn fields, wetland birds, indigenous villages. I only saw the jungle in rapid glances as it was my shift to drive and that particular road was a minefield of gigantic potholes. Passed through Tuxtla Gutierrez, a big city and the capital of the state of Chiapas, then finally San Cristobal which is a beautiful mix of colonial architecture, indigenous culture, and lots of young people who look like either travelers, bohemians or political revolutionaries (or wannabes). San Cristobal is near the Laconcon Jungle, the center of the Zapatista movement, so there are politics all around though I'm sure we most of them sitting here sipping our cafe con leche and speaking so little Spanish. Beautiful textiles and jewelry ... I think I'll finally do some shopping today. The people are very very friendly.
Next, Guatemala, if we can figure out which border we can bring our car through. The closest one to the amazing Tikal ruins, where we'd like to go next, is Frontera Corozal. With all our reference materials we haven't been able to ascertain if we can cross there - maybe only by boat, which leaves the Subaru behind. So we may have to drive south quite a bit to get to a land crossing.
Sorry no picture this time. Indigenous folks are totally freaked by pictures - a tourist was killed a while back for taking someone's picture. So, yeah, the camera stays in the bag.
Hasta luego ...
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