Round and Round the Blockades

We left Catemaco early on Sunday 26th June to make the 300 km journey to Chiapa de Orzo and arrived there late afternoon on Tuesday 28th June. You may well wonder why it took us 3 days to get there. Not this time because of winding mountain roads or mechanical failure but because of road blocks made by the protesting teachers. We spent most of Sunday in heavy traffic jams and lengthy diversions caused by a major road closure, making slow progress to an entirely unmemorable industrial town near an oil refinery where we stayed for the night.

We were reasonably certain that we would make it to Chiapa in one jump on Monday and we actually made good progress until we got to Tuxtla Gutierrez, a city just 12 km east of Chiapa, which we managed to get into via a back road as all the main roads were blocked. However, once in we could not get out again. The protesters were somewhat bolshy and not prepared to say when or if the road block would be lifted so, like it or not, we were stuck in Tuxtla for the night. We did, however, take advantage of our incarceration and had Footloose Lucy's brake fluid renewed at an auto repair workshop (see footnote). We also went to a very nice restaurant where there was live Marimba music and colourful traditional Chiapas dancing.

Thin blue line between the police and protesters at Tuxtla Gutierrez

Marimba players in restaurant at Tuxtla

We set off again on Tuesday morning and took a bit of a chance on some back roads, as all the road blocks in and out of the city were still in place. We soon found ourselves assisted by some locals who were standing at every junction, pointing out the correct piece of dirt track that we should be going along. But, of course, one of them had his hand out and it cost us 20 pesos to get round the road block along the dirt tracks and back doubles out onto the correct piece of road again, but we felt that this was good private enterprise and we didn't mind paying a quid to get out of Tuxtla.

We took a 50 km detour to avoid the main road but, even then, we were entertained by another road block on a little minor road. This road block was of a more friendly variety and, as we drove up, they said we couldn't go through but we might be able to in an hour or so.

With typical British aplomb we took out the camp chairs and table, deployed Lucy's awning and Sue proceeded to make ham sandwiches which we sat and ate under our awning, washed down with a can of cold beer, much to the amusement of the protesters. True to their word, they did let us through and we finally arrived in Chiapa de Corzo at 3.30 pm, having left Tuxtla at 10 am!

Making the best of a road block: Sue preparing lunch

The cupola in the plaza at Chiapa de Corzo

Flamboyant tree in the plaza at Chiapa

Fountain in the centre of the cupola

Chiapa de Corzo is a nice little town located next to a river. Our principle reason for stopping there was to visit the Canon del Sumidero, a spectacular gorge which you reach by launch from the town. Alan spent most of Wednesday morning trying to get the transformer fixed after it blew up (this is what we have been using to convert the 110 volt supply to 240 volts so we can use the battery charger) We then went along to the embarkation point for the launch and stayed there for two hours during which time several people came and went but there was never the sufficient number of passengers to persuade the boatmen to take us up the river.

We tried again on Thursday morning and we sat in the queuing area, for want of a better word, for about an hour and nothing happened. Given that they wanted a minimum of 15 people to fill a boat to go up to the gorge it was fairly clear that this was not going to come to pass. Somebody then had the bright idea that we might like to hire a special boat, specially expensive that is. Generally speaking the cost of a trip is 190 pesos but that's together with another 20 odd people. We however paid 2,500 pesos for an exclusive boat all of our own.

As for the gorge, it was absolutely everything that we hoped it might be. This is a an area that has been flooded to form a large lake except that it's a very long thin lake and it has a hydro electric dam at the end of it. The river winds its way through the rocky canyon and in places the walls tower a kilometre above you. Clinging to the walls of the canyon is vegetation and every crack in the rock seems to have a tree forcing its way out of it.

Canon de Sumidero

We saw numerous pelicans and later on we came across a bunch of croc sitting on a sand bank. One of them had its mouth open and a butterfly was living very dangerously by fluttering in and out of its mouth and perching on its nose. 

Brown pelican in the canyon

Butterfly living dangerously in the canyon

Crocodile nursery

We decided that our 2,500 pesos was money well spent, particularly as we were unable to vist two other sites, a 160 metre wide sinkhole and a waterfall, due to their location near Tuxtla, cut off by the road blocks.

We left Chiapa de Corzo on Friday morning to drive the 50 km ascent to the highland city of San Cristobal de las Casas.

Our initial impression of San Cristobal was that it is not quite our sort of place. It is clearly a popular travellers' destination and there are a lot of shaggy bearded, barefoot kaftan wearing gringos shuffling around the place, inclined to gather in cafes and the place has a slightly dishevelled backpackers feel about it. That said, it has grown on us over the couple of days we have been here, there are some lovely old colonial buildings and the plaza comes to life on a Saturday night, as it does in so many places we have visited.

Cathedral in the plaza at San Cristobal

Steps up to Cerro de Guadalupe, hilltop viewpoint

View from Cerro de Guadalupe over San Cristobal

Traditional Mayan figures of owl and toucan

Yesterday, Saturday, we went to visit some caves nearby known as the Grutas de San Cristobal. They are in limestone and they vary in width from a passage between rocks where you have to go through sideways to ampitheatres the size of a cathedral. There's about 500 metres of them including the last part where you have to have a guide and put a hard hat on. They have a myriad of stalactites and stalagmites and frozen waterfalls and columns where stalagmite and stalactite have joined, some of these things 3 or 4 metres high and half a metre across. We were very glad to have visited as these caves are the most impressive that either of us has ever seen.

Stalactite column in Las Grutas de San Cristobal

Today we visited a couple of nearby villages which are home to the Tzotziles indigenous people but the two villages were each very different in character to the other. We were advised that these peoples can be very suspicious of outsiders and that we should not take photographs in certain places and of certain occurances like religious ceremonies so Alan had to behave himself and repress his normal photographic tendencies a little.

On the way we came across a couple of road hazards which are quite common in this part of the world.

Every day driving hazard on a mountain road (landslip)

Rock fall close to land slip

The first village we came to was called Zinacantan and seemed a very traditional and a rather proud sort of place where the people in the markets were wearing the traditional costume and much of what they were selling was the elaborately embroidered clothing that they were wearing. The people were courteous but really couldn't have cared whether we were there or not. There were no tourists there at all, apart from us, and the market was entirely of goods and items being sold by and bought by the local people.

Market place at Zinacantan

Sue buying bracelets (3 for 10 pesos or 50 pence!)

Children from Zinacantan village

In contrast, the second village, Chamula, had a lot of tourists milling around. The market there was huge and had some local handicrafts but most of the stuff there seemed to be angled towards the tourists.

At Chumala market

Market scene at Chumala

Chillies for sale, Chumala market

Market scene at Chumala

Whilst there was a considerable aversion to being photographed in both villages, in Chamula we came across a group of senior men all wearing traditional hairy jerkins and being entertained by a band who were in Spanish musician type costume. We watched for a bit and then Alan asked the chap who seemed to be the master of ceremonies (that conclusion reached because he was busy passing around a large bottle of tequila) whether he could take some photographs. He spoke to the most senior of the men who were seated and, after a certan amount of thought, the senior guy told the master of ceremonies to give Alan a slug of tequila which he duly sank to the approval of the elders. He was then given consent to take photographs, thanked the elders politely and everyone seemed happy with the encounter.

Musicians entertaining village elders

Tomorrow morning is Saturday 4th July and we will be leaving San Cristobal and heading to lakes and rainforest to the south of here.

Footnote - Following our last post we received some helpful comments from a number of friends about our brakes failing, for which we are very grateful. One of the suggestions was to completely renew all the brake fluid which we have now done.