Valladolid-Merida-San Cris

Tom and I got to Valladolid, where we spent about...three days. I stayed in the same hostel as last time - "La Candeleria," situated in the northern part of the city next to an old church. We were woken up every morning at 6am by the bells for mass. The town was very lively, there was a lot going on. Mass was held every night outside of the church in the plaza. We didn't know it at the time, but they were celebrating four hundred and some odd years since gaining their independence.

The first full day there, I returned to Ek Balam. They were the quieter ruins nearby. We took a collectivo there, and walked around. There were some paths behind the ruins that we decided to walk along. There wasn't a sign, but turns out we weren't supposed to be walking on them. After meeting a man on a bicycle who asked us "donde vas?", we were kindly escorted out. We were pretty much done there. We then decided to walk out to the main road and get a bus back to Valladolid. The walk was a little longer than anticipated, and fairly boring, but we ended up catching a bus, and paying much less.

The next day, Tom went to Chichen Itza and just lounged around the hostel. Getting some stuff done that needed to be.

From Valladolid, we headed to Merida, a city I spent some time in last year. We ended up staying in a different hostel that was pretty quiet, and had a nice courtyard. We ended up staying a few days there. It was even more lively than Valladolid, with all of the celebrations. There was live music every night in the main plaza. Merida was a nice city to walk away, and it was nice to see it this time without being scarred by a bull fight. It makes me shudder to think about it.

One day, we decided to go to Progresso and hit Dzibilchaltun on the way back. Progresso is on the coast, having heard quite a bit about it, I decided it would be worth the trip out there. It was a little disappointing, it was very windy and the beach was mediocre. It was a pleasant little town, but was overrun by the cruise ship crowd. Apparently a couple of cruise ships stop there every week and little stalls pop up along the board walk selling over priced knick-knacks. We had a nice little picnic before looking for the collective to Dzibilchaltun.

We had been told that the collectivo would drop us off 2km from the ruins, and our collectivo kindly offered to drop us off right at the ruins for an extra USD$50. Gee, thanks. We declined and decided to tackle the 2km to the ruins. It really turned out to be closer to 6. We arrived at the ruins, exhausted, but eager to see them. Being so out of the way, they were fairly quiet and void of tourists. We could climb on them, and there was a nice cenote I jumped into. I was thankful I had brought my swimsuit. It felt so good to cool off.

Eventually the site was starting to close, and we begrudgingly set off on our 6km walk back to where we could be picked up by a collectivo. The walk was not very pretty, along a main road. After about an hour of walking, a car stopped and offered a lift. Vincente un profesor en la universidad catolica. He dropped us off at the outskirts of Merida where we were easily able to find a bus back to the centre. So we returned to our hostel, very sore.

The next day, was our last in Merida. We had decided to take a night bus to San Cristobal de las casas. Tom and I walked around one of the markets, and got some fresh bread and veggies to make EPIC sandwiches for our bus ride. We bought an avacado, about the size of a baby's head. Yum Yum.

Tom went back to the hostel, and I decided to walk around some more. I sat in a little square outside of a university to do some writing. I stuck up a conversation with a mexican student and we got on the topic of food. I was saying something about how hard it was to find vegetarian food, so he said he would take me to a place to get the best vegetarian taco I have ever had. He took me to another market where a family friend had a stall. She was making tortillas by hand and gave me a lesson. Fairly basic. They have these iron things to squish the dough and make them flat. She then made me an awesome veggie taco, which I ate even though I was not hungry at all.

That night we took a night bus to San Cris. It was supposed to be a 13 hour trip leaving at 1915. Instead, it took closer to 17 hours. We stopped in Palenque for about four hours at 2am. I was a little too groggy to understand what was going on, but people were ANGRY. Later, I learn that the driver had been driving for 12 hours or something (he could not legally drive any longer), so he stopped for a four hour nap.

We arrived in San Cris Wednesday morning, and I absolutely love it. It is up in the highlands, fairly close to the border with Guatemala. It has a nice hippy vibe, with beautiful buildings and a lot of churches. A lot and a lot of churches. We have done a lot of walks. Wednesday, we pretty much explored the town. We are staying at a nice little hostel, with some friendly people.

Yesterday we took a walk outside of town, there was supposed to be a nice church and some woods, but I think we missed it. It was still a plesent walk. The afternoon was spent by exploring some more. I sat in a nice little cafe with an uber strong espresso and flan and did some more writing.

Today, we headed to huitepec, a privately owned park nearby which contains a volcano and a fairly decent uphill hike. It was pretty, and a nice walk. It's good to be outside and nice to get exercise this way. Beats running amidst crowds and traffic. We then took another combis on the way to San Juan de Chamula, a fairly traditional mexican town nearby. They had a church there (which I still need to do some research on). It was interesting. You can't take any pictures inside. There is some sort of grass or hay that litters the floor and there are hundreds, if not thousands of candles lining the walls. Heat radiates from them, and they surround pictures of what I think are saints. There were people sitting on the floor praying. There were two women, sitting with a man, and a chicken. It looks like they were blessing a woman, and then the chicken. Then the man broke the chicken's neck. It was rather shocking, and I am still puzzled as to what it was all about.

After walking around the market a little, we returned to San Cris. We had lunch, and then I decided to walk around a little on my own. I tried to find the museum of mayan medicine, but got utterly lost, so have left it for tomorrow. I then walked around the market, which was almost as good as the one in Sucre, Bolivia, but not quite. It was all open aired and absolutely chaotic. I love markets in this part of the world. The colours are amazing. There are flowers, fruits and vegetables absolutely everywhere. In this market everything in the stalls was artfully arranged, and not strewn everywhere like they are in most places.

There were cats all over the place, slinking into stalls, stealing meat. There was one that dropped some chicken onto the floor and began nibbling on it. The stall owner then picked it up, and sold it to someone else. I wish we had markets like these back home, but they would break every single health and safety code.

The plan is to leave on Sunday for Xela, but I like it here, so may stay longer. I looked into Spanish classes but they are rather expensive so will probably wait until I get to Xela.