It had been a long time, perhaps too long, that we did not travel by bus at night. It seems obvious that we are missing it. So here we go for a crossing of the Yucatán Peninsula to the south of Mexico, the state of Chiapas.
Old stones, continuation and end
The trip is going well and we arrive almost fresh and tidy. It is therefore in the early morning that we discover the small town of Palenque our bags on our back. A Mexican-style breakfast (scrambled eggs, onions and tomato sauce, mashed red beans and corn cakes – a champion breakfast) we put our burdens in the hotel and explore what attracted us here. Indeed, despite its calm, this big village is a crossing point of choice for history lovers. One of the largest sites in the Mayan world, home to temples, burials, palaces and a superb museum.
What we can say is that we are not disappointed. Already the site differs totally from those previously visited. As in Calakmul, the ruins are scattered in the forest, for many on the mountainside. Chiapas is not flat as are the eastern states of the country, peaks emerge from the forest everywhere. We had heard a lot about Palenque and Ben was looking forward to coming here. He is thrilled. We wander a few hours among the ruins, observe the archaeologists who restore the bas-reliefs and frescoes of the palace, climb the steps of the temples, discover the tomb of the king and his queen. It’s infinite. And all that under the looks and screams of the screaming monkeys, once again tenants of the place. They are never wrong. We thought we had seen everything but it was before we arrived at the museum. Huge surprise! Beautiful pieces saved from looting, pottery, bas reliefs, and especially, above all, the tomb of the king discovered in one of the temples that had just been visited. Superb.
After two days of rest during which we were able to catch up a little organizational stuff (visit the hairdresser and shoemaker in this case), we leave to visit our last Mayan remains. Found of our freedom, we decide not to join one of the many organized excursions, very popular and quite affordable in the area. Well, we see everything we wanted but we struggle more than expected… The locals like to take a small tax to tourists for anything and everything. A little patience and we still manage to advance without too much trouble. On two days we visit the sites of Bonampak and Yaxchilan, located a few hours drive from Palenque. The first hides the most beautiful fresco of the Mayan world discovered at the moment. It’s beautiful and it differs from what we have seen so far. Yaxchilan is just as different. It is reached after 45 minutes of canoe on the river separating Mexico from Guatemala. We enjoy our morning on site thanks to a group of about forty Mexicans on a tour through the south of the country. Their good mood and their kindness are communicative, we get to know each other, we discuss and we laugh all the way. And then the setting is superb. The ruins are very wild, lost in the forest close to the river. The buildings are scattered here and there, on different levels, and always with beautiful details preserved looting. Isolation has helped and still helps preserve this magical site.
This stage in the Chiapas campaign also allows us to chat with some locals. We discover their pace of life, the problems they face to send their children to study, their fight against inequalities and for the preservation of their culture.
The beating heart of Chiapas
That’s it, we have enough of old ruins this time. We change the atmosphere completely and we slide a little more towards the south-west of the country and the heart of Chiapas. After another night by bus, we arrive at San Cristobal de las Casas. Since our departure in January, there is not a single traveler who has visited Mexico that has not praise the attraction of this city. We can not wait to judge by ourselves… So it is again in the early morning that, with our bags on our backs, we cross the city towards our hostel. First observation, we are at 2000 meters altitude and this is felt. It is much cooler than in Palenque and our bags are a little heavier. But once the bags are laid for breakfast (eggs, red beans, you know the menu) we can appreciate the charm of this city.
Audrey is thrilled and you guess why. Colorful facades! All over! Out of sight! She spends the day grafted camera on the eye. And then San Cristobal as the cultural capital of Chiapas is full of nice little places. The restaurants abound and that’s good, chiapaneca cuisine is rich and varied. And then we can finally drink a good coffee or a hot chocolate, the region produces everything you need to enjoy this side too. Our three days on site allow us to immerse ourselves in the history of the region and Zapatista movements that shaped the current Chiapas. There is also the super small museum of amber where you learn everything about fossilized resin. As in Jurassic Park, we see small mosquitoes millions of years old, trapped forever, but also ants and some scorpions. Not bad at all.
We also discover two small villages of the area, San Juan Chamula and Zinacantan, offering original practices of Catholicism (we sit on the ground in the church, shake a living chicken over a candle, we spit on it and we recite incantations – it’s not the day of the lord on France 2 – french TV) and a little craftsmanship (women weave nice little confections, but it’s not that impressive). We are not subjugated we have to admit. The area has become very touristy and the typical “small villages” have lost their simplicity. Our Free Walking Tour in San Cristobal is another example. It is a much more Americanized tourism than we have seen so far. Everything is a little sensationalized and consumed on the surface. We take advantage of the meanders of the market to let our group get ahead before we hide in a small shop selling unknown fruit. The place is ideal to do some shopping in this huge market, perhaps the biggest we’ve seen this year.
We spend our last days in Chiapas in the capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez. Not so charming here, if not the museum of Chiapas with beautiful pieces from the temples of the region, Palenque for example, but also the beautiful zoo where we see our first and only jaguars, emblems of the country. The city is especially a good starting point to visit the small neighboring city of Chiapa de Corzo (very little interest for our taste finally) and the Cañón del Sumidero. In the company of forty Mexicans on vacation, we leave by boat for a morning on the river winding at the foot of the cliffs, thirty kilometers of green gorges among birds, monkeys and crocodiles. Once again we find that in Mexico, everyone is friendly and knows how to appreciate his day. The good mood continues in the evening in a small park in the city where the locals meet to dance around the municipal orchestra, every day of the week. They know how to make life sweet and it’s a pleasure to enjoy a little with them.
The end is near…
Well, more than a few days before returning to France… But before reaching the airport, we will make a small stop by the seaside, to rest and get tanned to make everyone jealous back home.
The journey is done in two steps. First a night bus to Valladolid Yucatán. We travel 20 hours instead of 15 because the demonstrations in Tabasco, the neighboring state of Chiapas, prevents us from getting through by bus. Escorted by the police with a dozen other buses, we finally find a small country road to cross the border safe and sound. Well yes, “safe and sound”, it may seem normal but just after crossing the border, our neighbor explains us “you can sleep, we don’t risk anything anymore”. Accustomed to the trip, she has already seen armed groups stop buses at night to collect a tax of passage. Sometimes it’s better not to know, we feel better!
We come back to Valladolid a third and last time to find some souvenirs we had noticed a month ago (it’s not a bag that Audrey absolutely wanted that bring us back here, no no, that’s not why we made this detour of several hours). We also take the opportunity to return have fun at the Oxman cenote playing tarzans. The opportunity for Audrey to make a small torticollis she will drag until our return to France. When we tell you that we came back here to fill up on memories!
We then spend our last four days on the Caribbean coast in Mahahual. This small fishing port is lost between Tulum and Bacalar south of Quintana Roo. With only two thousand inhabitants, we thought we would find a little paradise. It was without counting on the steamers spilling a few hundred (thousands?) Of tourists, most of them North-americans, on the waterfront. What follows is quite sad. The prices are literally doubled, it’s shocking, even if we manage to reduce them by explaining that we are not rich Texas gringos. And we are not lucky because although we are staying far enough from the village, the beach at our house is covered with Sargassum, these brown algae. It is a real scourge for tourism and they have just arrived here, two days before we got there. Excellent. And then there is also the little cyclone that strolls off and offers us a strong and constant wind day and night. And our eco-housing is nice but the solar panels have a problem and we have no more electricity after 19:30. So we eat with a headlight… Well, this is not the end we had imagined, but there is still sun, calm and grilled lobsters tasted their feet in the sand with a fresh coconut.
That’s it, our Mexican adventures ends here. A short trip by bus (three buses, it is so lovely the bus, we will miss riding bus) and we arrive at the airport of Cancún. We can conclude on this country that we expected much more Americanized than it is (in the south at least) and where the inhabitants and history have delighted us day after day. We leave tired but satisfied. Our plane is bound for Brussels, Belgium and we already have the feeling of being back in the boarding lounge. Many things experienced during the last eleven months come back to our memory and we start to take stock of this magnificent year. But all of this, we’ll talk about it in our next and last article.
See you soon,
Audrey & Ben