The Journey

Saturday is here. The journey was long and very tiring, but San Cristobal has one more visiting nutcase. There is a one hour difference between San Cristobal de las casas and Atlanta, so people are still up and bouncy while I am dragging my ass on 3 hours of sleep and about 9 hours of travel.

The Journey:

I arrived at Atlanta International Airport at 5am thinking it would be wise to be there a few hours before the flight. I was wrong. Check in and security took 40 min total, so I had 3 hours of sleep I missed for nothing. Deedeedee.

The plane left ATL at 9:45am (yeah lotsa sleep missed), and we arrived in Mexico City at 2:30pm Central Time. The in-flight meal was a delicious combination of rice and chicken and peppers and unidentifiable flavors best left unknown to the world. The roll was great for sopping up the last bits of that delicious sauce, not to mention throwing at someone to cause permanent injury. BUT it came with a free beer. Lunkendortz or some such wheat beer from Wisconsin, wasn’t bad. It reminded me of Sweetwater Blue. I love Delta.

While waiting in Mexico City airport, I discovered that they had beer too. Cheap good beer. Bohemia Oscura, an unassuming dark flavorful beer that required a second one to wash down the coming connecting flight and busride. At $2.50 a bottle, I was a happy camper. I slept through the flight to Tuxla/Guitterez and was more awake for the bus ride.

The bus ride was amazing. The layout of the town of Tuxla was reminiscent of some of the small towns in the Bahamas or Jamaica. We whipped through it like a bat out of hell, bus driver just wanted to get to San Cristobal. As soon as we got past Tuxla’s limits the scenery changed dramatically. Envision rolling hills covered in jungle with river breaking the trees in stark contrast to the green. Imagine for a moment driving up the slopes of a mountain with canyons, rivers, jungle, farmlands and ruins sprawled out in a panorama. It was a stark and beautiful view to behold. Until…

As we climbed the slopes to the peak on this winding treacherous road that snaked amid the rocks, we broke the cloud line and entered a foggy dreamlike world where the clouds shrouded parts of this lush scenery making the whole of it seem like some surreal border between worlds.

We finally arrived in San Cristobal, and let me tell you this town is gorgeous. The buildings are painted in a wide variety of colors giving the place an ALMOST theme park feel, but the cars whipping through the streets at insane speeds dispel that quickly. Traffic reminds me of downtown ATL during rush hour around construction while a festival is going on. I met Maria Natividad Cruz Mendez at the school, and she walked me back to the house describing points of interest and I took them in with what little broken Spanish I could muster. (being exhausted and having a headache does not help ones’ vocabulary) I met the family, very large and friendly group, but I could not give all their names right now for the life of me. It will take time. More to come…