Across the border...

We're now writing from Guatemala. We're in Huehuetenango, which is only about 2 hours from Mexico. We didn't want to push it today and thought we'd spend a good while reading the internet, transfering some of Ben's photos to disc, etc. Only in Hue-hue (rhymes with was-way) all of the internet places are closed on Sunday! Defeated we headed back to the hospejade to shower. But then lo and behold, on our way to dinner, one had opened up. We've been out of e-mail and internet range for a week... neither Ben nor I can remember the last time we went a whole week without checking our e-mail. (We're sad, we know.)

But you probably don't care about all of these details. The better topic is what we've been doing for the last week. As Ben mentioned, we were traveling the Carratera Fronteriza, (Frontier Highway) which runs through Chiapas south and west along the Guatemalan border. It begins in Palenque, where we last updated you from. Then it heads east to Bonampek and Yaxchitlan, both sites with Mayan ruins. This part also goes through the Lacondon jungle, where we did some camping and hiking. This part of the highway is traveled by tourists; not hordes and hordes like Palenque, but the people there are used to people coming through. After Yaxchitlan, it's a bit of a different story.

We rode combi's, which are basically mini-buses that run on fixed routes, south and west to the Lagos de Montebello. This takes you through a lot of deforested jungle and then up into the mountains, past fields of banana trees and little villages. In one town, a man literally said to Ben, "¡Gringo! ¿What are you doing here?" Also, on this stretch of the road, there are no gas stations. Our combi bought gas from a stand with 5 gallon plastic jugs of gas and a siphon with a funnel made out of a two-liter Coke bottle. We made it, and there were only chickens on the combi for part of the ride.

Lagos de Montebello is a group of mountain lakes where there is a national park, so we did some walking around there and took a ride on a raft that was literally like Huckleberry Finn- logs lashed together into a flat rectangle. Surprisingly dry. That finished up Ben's story, so today we said ¡Adios! to Mexico and headed into Guatemala. We have a few days before I leave, so we're just slowly heading towards Guatemala City (and the airport). After I leave, Ben will head north for more stories.

There's obviously more to tell... we could write volumes about each individual day. But the internet place is closing and we'll write more soon. We're well and safe, and we're also looking forward to being on the beaten path a little bit more. Let me tell you, Chiapas is beautiful and awesome, but no one goes there for the food. At every meal for the last five days, it's been some kind of tough meat (beef or chicken), black beans, corn tortillas, and a slice of avacado. At breakfast, subtract the meat and add eggs. Keep everything else the same. We had high hopes at one restaurant that had "Vegetarian Food" painted on the side, thinking it would be something different. No sir. Not a vegertarian item on the menu. Ben had the beef, I had the chicken, we both had beans, tortillas, and a slice of avacado.

Palenque II

Laura's making me look bad with all her posts, so I thought I'd add one, too.

We're now in Palenque - the town, not the archaeological sight. The archaeological site is the beautiful place Laura described. The town is a dusty place of low concrete buildings and open storefronts hawking blouses, shoes, bananas, and whatever else you might need. Except chargers for Nikon camera batteries. I can assure you that they do not have those.

Today has been kind of a staging day for us. We woke up in the place Laura mentioned - a campsite that our campground/cabins/vegetarian restaurant/granola hippy hangout terms "El Templo." Its basically a circular, two-story, open-air platform with a wood plank floor and tin roof. Vines with huge leaves crawl up the supports, and the roof amplifies the rain so that a sprinkle sounds like a downpour. It rained all night the first night, and it was nice to listen to, dry and in our tent. Last night, as Laura said, we fell asleep to the sound of a band at Don Mucho's restaurant, across a clear jungle stream.

All of this was great, but my backpack was also attacked by the same swarms of biting ants that went after Laura's feet.

Don Mucho's is the center of a little tourist community called El Panchan. It has quite a few people with long hair, or dreadlocks, selling bead necklaces and hemp bracelets. In the middle of the Mexican jungle, it's absolutely packed with foreign travelers, though not so many Americans. There was a girl -- I think she was Spanish -- wearing a hand-made shirt that said, "I'm afraid of Americans." I told her that some of us bite, but not all of us. She seemed taken off guard, which I have to admit I liked.

Anyway, the path from here leads south, and then west, hugging the Guatemalan border. We'll be seeing the ruins of Bonampak, Yaxchilan, and the indigenous community of Lancanja Chansayab. Then we'll turn west, climb into the moutains again, and visit the the Lagos de Montebello.

Hasta la proxima...

Palenque

Imagine sleeping outside in the jungle, up off the ground away from the ants and mud, under a roof protecting you from the rain that vacillates between mist and downpour. You wake up and hear the birds, or the rain, or the monkeys. That's where we've been for the last two nights- camping on a raised platform near Palenque, the famous Mayan ruins. It's not quite without amenities though, since we went to sleep each night listening to live music from the restaurant across the creek.

We arrived in the Palenque area on Saturday and went to the ruins on Sunday. Our guide, Raul, tried to impress upon us the mysterious connections the Mayans had with the universe. "Not just the sun," he told us, "but the whole universe." Ben and I know a little about archeo-astronomy from last summer's visit to Chaco Canyon, NM, but Raul went so far as to mention that "The Mayans probably had contact with aliens they knew so much about the universe." I don't know about that, but they did know how to build some enormous and sophisticated buildings, with giant entries and art, paint that has lasted for over 1000 years, and even a sewage system.

I actually enjoyed the afternoon more, when Ben and I were able to just ramble around on our own. There is so much at the site that is not accessible or still covered by the jungle. It's hard to grasp how big it was. What we did manage to grasp though, was the beauty of the place. The waterfalls, the birds, we even saw a monkey (from a distance, way up in a tree). The jungle is definitely awesome. Beautiful, but not always nice. I'd argue the ants biting my feet this morning were along the lines of malicious.

Brother Sun

What to do when you're stranded in a monsoon, waiting for a UPS package? I decided to track down a local character who Laura and I sighted early in our trip here.

We saw him first at dinner one night, when he brought his bongos to play along with the band. His attire was "old Mexican hippy": Shoulder length frizzy hair, a white tunic, and a rasta-colored knit hat like the ones that Jim Brown, the famous running back, always wears (does anyone know what I'm talking about with that?). Anyway, he was drumming along, his intense face looking a bit like a confused Will Ferrell.

Later, I bumped into a couple dudes with bongos on a cobblestone staircase toward the edge of downtown. They had bongos, and one was smoking something that was not a cigarette. I mentioned the guy I'd seen drumming at dinner.

"Oh, El Hermano Sol," one said. "He's a local character."

His name itself made me curious. I asked the American owner of a bookstore about him. "You're the second person this week whose asked about him," she said. She thought he made drums, hung out with the local hippy/gypsy/bohemian population, and hadn't been seen for a while.

But I'd seen him. When I asked about him at a restaurant, I was directed to the crafts market at Santo Domingo church, where El Hermano Sol appparently sold drums.

So I went there, strolling between stands of woven dresses, embroidered blouses, and brightly colored tapestries. Finally, I asked a long-haired dude selling necklaces if he knew El Hermano Sol.

"Alfredo!" he yelled, and El Hermano Sol himself emerged from behind a blue tarp protecting a vending stand from the rain.

So we chatted. Brother Sun told me he first came to San Cristobal because of a vision he had in the mountains of Oaxaca. It was so strong that he asked his wife to go back with him. She did, and the message was clear: the Holy Spirit had told El Hermano Sol to abandon his settled life in Puebla, not far from Mexico City, and move to remote San Cristobal de las Casas.

Here, Alfredo de la Montana (I'm not sure that was really his name) became El Hermano Sol. He opened a restaurant called La Familia, where everyone ate, and people paid as they were able. The community swirling around him gave him his nickname.

Eventually he got tired of runninga restaurant, though, and about that time he met a Greek man who'd spent 6 years in Africa. This man taught El Hermano Sol to make drums, and he's never looked back.

Alfredo and I talked for a while about politics, religion, the Zapatista rebellion, and various other topics. He was very nice, very tolerant of my questions, and knowledgeable about religion or politics. We even discussed liberation theology (a big topic in a place that's had a rebellion, with some church support), which he disliked because it contrasted with Jesus's message of peace. He liked Martin Luther King better.

Towards the end of the conversation, I asked him if he were sort of the hippy Godfather of San Cristobal de las Casas.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not a hippy."

"What would you call it, then?" I asked.

"A revolutionary!" said a friend next to him.

"No," said El Hermano Sol, mellow. "Simply that I am, that's it."

Rain Rain Rain

OK, so there is a reason it is called the rainy season. Not rainy day, rainy weekend, but rainy season. It rains all the time here! Ben and I didn't realize how lucky we were to have good weather the first few days we were here. Bring an umbrella! Bring a poncho! Bring an entire waterproof outfit! (One package came today, so hopefully we go to Palenque tomorrow. )

Wrapping up

Ben is about done with the story... he has spent today going around and getting some last bits of info. At this point we're waiting to move on because the Fed Ex package with Ben's replacement credit card is somewhere in Mexico. Hopefully it's on its way to our hotel. (For those who are confused: his wallet was stolen the day before we left.)

Yesterday we went on a beautiful (punishing for us) bike ride out into the countryside. San Cristobal sits at the bottom of a valley, so if you want to get out, the only way is up. So now you know why it was a wee bit hard. But once we completed the initial portion of pedalling straight up hill, you are in these mountain meadows and indiginous villages. Particularly picturesque was an old Franciscan mission from the 18th century. It's falling apart now, except the church, which is used by the indiginous people. Also on the ride was a stop at a natural limestone bridge.

I'd love to get a picture up, but we've been struggling to find a place with a connection that can handle uploading. I spent 40 minutes yesterday in an effort to bring all of our faithful readers some visual stimulation, but it was not to be. (I say faithful readers, but outside of my parents and Andrea, I'm not convinced anyone is reading this! It strikes me as a little egotistical to think that lots of people are hanging on every word.) Anyway, I have a feeling we´re going to be in town for a few days waiting for that pesky package, so maybe you´ll hear more. Stay tuned!

In the mountains

We've left the beach behind for the mountain town of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, the southern-most state in Mexico. Ben is working on a story about the town, so he has been (and is currently right this minute) working hard at researching the town and surrounding region. Here's the prelimary report:

It's a lot cooler here; the weather almost feels like a Colorado mountain town, chilly in the morning and evening, suddenly hot if you're in the sun. The town itself has a pretty, old Spanish colonial center, but spreads out into a pretty big city of nearly 150,000. There is a university here, a lot of European tourists (we havn't run into any Americans!), and plenty of cultural festivals ranging from Jazz to musical troubadors to foreign films.

Outside of the city are dozens of villages populated by indigenous peoples who are descendents of the Mayas and still keep to many of the traditional ways. This includes speaking Tzotzil instead of Spanish. They dress traditionally, practice a form of religion that is part Catholic and part pre-Hispanic traditions, and believe that being photographed steals their soul. Yesterday Ben and I went on a tour to two of these villages. The church in Chamula (pictured here) is one of the most interesting things I think I've ever seen. The floor is covered with pine needles, the walls are lined with statues of saints, and the offering tables are so full of candles that they generate an uncomfortable heat. People go in for traditional healing, which involves a ceremony with small taper candles directly stuck to the floor with wax, drinking soda and a traditional alcohol, posh, circling a bag of eggs around the distressed person, then breaking the eggs and sometimes sacrificing a chicken. (We saw all but the chicken.) I'm simplifying of course, and there is more to these peoples' lives, but I'm struck by how small their world seems. And I wonder what they think of us, tramping through their church.

We'll try to upload some pictures soon-since we're in a place to do it, but there won't be any of the indiginous people. If you try and take a picture in the church, the religious authorities will come and break your camera. Let's just say we weren't about to risk it.

The wild life

Ben mentioned the massive rain we had the other night. It has brought out all kinds of crazy animals. We saw a frog with the little suction toes climbing on the outside of a glass door. It's also stirred up the bugs a bit more, which to this point haven't been bad at all.Last night I was startled by a toad as big as a softball (probably the source of the mysterious noise). They also caught a red crab (at the top of the hill mind you) that was almost six inches across its body. So imagine it's big legs clawing at the bottom of a blue bucket and you've got it. We've also seen several puffer fish with spikes all over them washed up on the beach. For obvious reasons, all the dogs that roam the beach won't go near them.

Today, our last full day here, we went to El Centro de las Tortugas, which is The Center for Turtles for all the rest of you. It's not really a museum but a research center where they do conservation work for marine turtles especially. It's cool because you get to see them up close. There are 8 kinds of marine turtles, and seven of them live in Mexico. The biggest they only have a skeleton of, because its diet is jellyfish and it's hard to manage that in captivity.

The center represents a big push for conservation here. This beach only fifteen years ago was the site of massive turtle slaughter- more than 1,000 per day were killed here. (You can see why it wasn´t a hot spot for tourists.) When the turtles were a protected species and hunting them was banned, the economy spent a little time experimenting with slash-and-burn, and then someone told them about turistas like us. There are also a lot of posters attempting to convince us that eating turtle eggs is NOT an aphrodisiac. In fact, the guide told us that they only have more cholesterol than regular eggs. So remember: real men don´t need to eat turtle eggs.

Nothing, part II

Here's what you need to know about our day: We got up at what was probably about 9:30, though neither of us bothered to find a watch. Then we walked up to our posada's little restaurant for breakfast, as we've done the last two days. We ate some fruit and pancakes, then sipped coffee until about 11, maybe. At that point, the caretaker, Jeff, suggested we move to Corona. Which we did. For several hours.

All this time, the dark blue Pacific stretched out down a cliff below us, gentle swells crashing against tiny islands of rock. Those are the essentials.

In any case, I'm now in Pochutla, a bit inland and decidedly not touristy or scenic, but also the spot to buy onward bus tickets (Laura is still chillin on the beach). We now have plans for Friday night: an all night bus ride to San Cristobal de las Casas, in the state of Chiapas. ¡Que Divertido!

Last night it rained again, hard, with lots of lightning. We sat out on our terraza and watched it for a while, until the spray started to get too cold. Then, at some point in the middle of the night, I went to investigate a horrible sound just outside our door. It was probably a frog, but I did go with the pocketknife part of my leatherman drawn. Everyone should feel free to mock me for that.

I had exhibited similar courage a few hours earlier. I'd left our bottle of water on the stairs outside, and I saw a mass of hard little legs crawling around it when I went to retreive it. A scorpion! So I grabbed a guidebook and bashed the thing to death with the spine of Rough Guide to Central America. And then I saw it was a crab. A long, long way from the beach, but a crab nonetheless.

In response to Andrea's question, Laura has read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and is starting on Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible - both summer reading for her students (mock her, please, for working on honeymoon). In an odd honeymoon choice, I am finishing Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, which I'm reading kind of because someone recommended it, but also because it was a paperback and not very big. I'm onto Tim O'Brien next.

Hasta la proxima....

At the Beach: A lot of Nothing

I just told Laura I was going to blog about what we'd been doing the last couple of days. Her response? "What have we been doing?"

A good question, whose answer is: "a lot of nothing."

First, to those of you who have received thank-you cards promising that we'd be having margaritas in your names, sorry. In the irony category, we just had the worst margarita of our lives, and we had it on a Mexican beach. Go figure.

Now Coronas, Coronas are another story. They cost between $1.50 and $1, and they get warm fast, so you have to drink them fast. Not that that's entirely bad, of course. But coozies! Why doesn't Mexico have coozies?

Laura touched on where we are, but I'll give you a bit more. The beach is called San Agustinillo, but our "posada" actually sits above a tiny cove just around a small headland from there. We're up on a cliff, so we have to descend a long set of concrete stairs (which run between a bamboo railing and a barbed wire fence) to get to the beach. There, the waves crash over a number of big rocks sticking out of the water, and little fishing boats dot the horizon. They mostly catch red snapper, which have made it to our plates more than once.

It rained last night, a good drenching rain that made everything cool this morning. The power seems to have waned, but not gone out. In any case, it was a nice atmosphere to sit on our big deck and look down on the waves, the beach, the boats, the pelicans.

It takes forever to upload photos on this connection, but there are some good ones at the website of our posada.

The Winding Road

Yesterday we came to Oaxaca's coast and are so glad to be here! No phones or banks in Mazunte, but they do have internet.

We arrived after a six hour trip in a 15 passenger van on one of the craziest roads I've ever been on. The unending windingness of this road cannot be exaggerated! It takes you up high through the mountains, all the way up into pine forests where long sleeves are a good idea. Getting out for the first time after coming down was like taking a breath of heaviness... you go from altitude to the tropics with nothing in between.

The beach is extraordinarily beautiful. The "town" has such a laid back feel... probably because there's not much here. There aren't many people either; the beach at it's most crowded probably had 50 people at the most, mostly Mexican kids with boogie boards. Not surprisingly, Ben has already gotten a sunburn despite our best efforts with SPF 30 and sitting in the shade. He is just a white guy, and that´s all there is to it.

Oaxaca: Where they Kill Teachers

No, no, not American teachers! (Relax, KR) Laura and I simply happened to be here during a several-day protest against the govenment. Turns out that, several weeks ago, the state government decided to break up a teachers´ union strike by force. If I understand correctly, the teachers were camped out in the Zocalo (the main plaza, also a lovely place to have lunch and a few beers). Anyway, the army or police came, things got nasty, and several people died. Hence the protests, calling for the governor´s head. His figurative head. We think. (As the photo shows, the Communist Party of Mexico was also involved.)

Our days here have been good. Oaxaca City is a great colonial town full of cobblestone streets, ornate churches, and other colonial buildings. It is not a place that moves fast, which is mostly for the best. Both of us have been slightly sick (at different times), which makes us nap, which is not entirely bad. Also, we´re staying in a beautiful little hotel with geraniums and bougainvilleas (sp?) and a bunch of flowers we don´t know everywhere.

Yesterday, we hung around the city and went to the huge Zapotec ruins of Monte Alban, about 20 minutes outside of town (Laura is pictured at the ruins). Today, we strolled, napped, and looked at some really good art galleries, as well as some craft shops. Then we joined the protests, threw stones at the riot police, and ran away from the tear gas.

Ok, not that last part.

Tomorrow, we´re off to the beach. Not sure how easy it will be to blog from there, but here's a preview: We get up late, walk on the beach, read, sleep, drink margaritas and eat. Repeat that for about five days, and that should do it.

Until then...

Here we are...

in Oaxaca, Mexico. This blog was Ben´s idea, but then it occured to me it can be fun and that way we don´t have to burden those who don´t care with mass e-mails about our honeymoon trip. Look for more to come.