Hey there everyone!
We just got back last night from Chiapas so I thought while everything is still fresh in my mind; I would tell you all how it went. Let me start off by saying San Cristobal de las casas ( the city we stayed at in Chiapas) is one of my favorite places I have ever visited! It's surrounded by gorgeous mountains and has cobble stone streets that are lined with beautiful buildings...there was a definite European feel to it and I fell in love with it from the moment we entered the city.
We left Thursday night at 12 midnight (It is a 12 hour bus ride so we needed to get started early). Thursday morning, I woke up feeling really sick so I just spent the day working on homework, packing up, and resting. Around 11:30 my family drove me to where we were to meet the van that would take us to Chiapas. The whole day they were so worried about me being sick and having to be on a bus...it was really cute and I felt really cared for. The ride was probably one of the most miserable ones in my life but I managed to fall asleep for a few hours on the floor of the bus. Around 8 in the morning, we arrived in Palenque which are some Mayan ruins about 6 hours away from San Cristobal. We spent a few hours there exploring the ruins and climbing up pyramids. Part of the ruins were in the jungle and there was even a waterfall which was pretty sweet. Even though I was feeling pretty crappy, I enjoyed seeing the ruins. We then hopped back on the bus and drove for about an hour to a waterfall. it was absolutely gorgeous and some people swan in it. Since I was sick, I decided that probably wouldn't be the best idea so I just went exploring with some other gals from the program. We found a sweet path behind the waterfall and explored that. After around 2 hours we headed back to the van for the 5 hour trip to San Cristobal.
It was quite the trip! Chiapas is in the mountains so we were whipping around curves and going up and down mountains for a straight 5 hours. It was pretty intense and there were a few times I thought we were going to end up going off the mountain but the gorgeous view made up for it! The pressure changes along with the bumpy ride and the fact I was sick made it pretty miserable but eventually we arrived in San Cristobal and I was able to go to sleep.
I slept until the next morning and woke up feeling a lot better. Shannon, Francia, and I decided that we wanted to spend the day biking around and exploring the area. After eating breakfast, we walked to a place where you could rent bikes that was close to our hotel. The Italian man working there was really friendly and helped us get bikes and showed us some places where we could go. While we were getting ready, a guy around our age walked into the shop and said he wanted to go biking too. He was all alone and didn't have anyone to go with so we invited him to come along with us. We had a really fun time getting to know him throughout the day! His name was Demetree and he was from Switzerland but is backpacking through Mexico and South America for the next 9 months. He had only been speaking Spanish for about a month so Shannon and I ended up doing a lot of translating between him and Francia who only speaks Spanish. After getting our bikes, we all decided to go check out a state park in the mountains about 10k from the city. The ride there was pretty intense and basically straight up the mountain with cars zooming by but the view was beautiful. Huffing and puffing, we finally arrived at the park and locked up our bikes. There were giant caves there so we decided to explore those first. They were pretty sweet and really long. Afterwards, Shannon and I were challenged to a race down these cement slides by some other students at the park. We quickly agreed and started talking smack to them in Spanish...they got a kick out of that. The way you slid down the slide was by using crushed coke bottles which I found rather comical but it worked great! (For those of you wondering, we lost the first two rounds and won the last one) After sliding, we took a break to eat some lunch and then went biking on some trails in the park and headed back to the bike shop to return our bikes. The ride back was way easier and it was fun to cruise down the mountain with cars speeding by...Defiantly an adrenaline rush. We returned our bike and returned to the hotel and then went exploring in the market and the city. It was really sweet and it was fun shopping in the market.
That night, we went out dancing with some other students we had met who were in San Cristobal with their university form Tabasco. They were all super nice and we had fun dancing the night away with them and didn't get back to the hotel till 3:30 in the morning!
After sleeping in the next day, we ate breakfast and then went to a little Pueblo close to San Cristobal to see what life there is like. We got a tour of the church and went to visit the house of a lady who sells beautiful textiles. She invited us back to the little shack that is her kitchen and taught us how to make tortillas...they were delicious! Afterwards we were invited to a ceremony at another house. It was pretty neat that we were invited as foreigners usually aren't invited to stuff like that.
The ceremony was pretty long and we all didn't really know what was going on but it was interesting to see. The part that broke my heart was the fact that their religion is a mix of Catholicism and ancient traditions and involves a lot of idol worship. Many of the people believe that if they don't complete these ceremonies, bad things will happen and it made me sad to think that they are praying to empty things that have no power.
Afterwards, we returned to San Cristobal and I did some more shopping in the market and walked around and took pictures. I then went back to the hotel where I worked on some homework and had a quiet time.
That night, we just hung around the hotel and talked to our new friends and then went to bed.
The next day we got up and all ate breakfast and then we went to another pueblo to see Day of the Dead celebrations. People there were decorating the graves of loved ones with flowers and leaves and it was really pretty. We also visited the church there and then returned to Merida.
That afternoon, one of my friends here wanted to get a tattoo. Never having seen one done in real life, I decided to tag along and see what it was like. The place was pretty sweet and they did piercings as well. We decided to ask them how much it would cost for a nose piercing and they told us $15. I've been wanting to get my nose pierced for awhile but I didn't want to do it right away so I watched my friend get her tattoo and then we went out to eat tacos al pastor. By that time, I decided that yeah I really wanted to get my nose pierced and it wasn't going to get any cheaper so we went back. Another friend decided to get her ears pierced. The entire process was crazy! First, I had to pick out the stud I wanted and then I sat down in a chair and the man showed me the packaged needle he was going to use to pierce my nose so that I could see that everything was super clean and not opened. First, he put the needle through my nose and then he left it there while he turned around and grabbed the stud so for about 10 seconds I had a huge needle sticking though my nose..i felt pretty hard core. He then inserted the stud as he pulled the needle out and that was that. It barely even hurt!
After Sarah pierced her ears, we all walked back to the hotel and spent some time doing homework and I had a quiet time and then we went out for dinner at a really cool restaurant and came back to the hotel to go to bed.
The next morning, we woke up, packed up and headed back to Merida. It was another long 12 hour bus ride but it was defiantly more bearable than the trip there as I was feeling a lot better!
Today was back to school which felt weird after not going for about 10 days. The trip was amazing though and I would love to go back someday!
Hope you all are having a great week!
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