Tema: Tomar el Taco

So as you loyal readers know, Ryan and I went to Mexico this past weekend. We return today with pesos, bellies full of sweet, sweet Mexican street food, and an unrenewed visa complete with a new disdain for humanity—but more on that later.

Flashback to last week… Tuesday we went to Salcajá to visit their local market, and to our surprise it was much larger than we expected it to be. I kept asking about prices of cortes (the fabric used for traditional Mayan skirts), but they cost way more than I was prepared to pay. It was a fairly interesting market though, and it was kind of neat (kind of) to stop in a town we always pass through whenever we go anywhere else.

Once we got back into Xela, we decided to check out the Casa de Cultura, assuming it would be open that is. For once it was, and we walked on in. The sign said we were to pay Q6, but there was no one to collect said fee, so we continued on into the museum of sorts. This had to have been the most sad, pathetic, random museum I have ever been to. You walk up the stairs into the first room and are greeted by various Mayan artifacts in display cases (some of which have big cracks taped together with masking tape), which in itself is fairly cool, but what little information cards and labels there are, are printed on small index cards full of typos with what must have been an antique typewriter. Then another room featured plants and Guatemalan beverages, while the prize-winning room next door contained freakish stuffed animals—including a row of giant squirrels, a four-horned goat, a goat with eight legs, cow, pig, fish, human, and dog fetuses in jars, and last but not least, hawks wearing bowties. Yeah, this is Xela’s most well-known museum. Welcome to Guatemala’s second city. And then out of nowhere one of the workers approached us and asked us to pay while we were looking at some exhibit. Other rooms featured a stuffed quetzal and some stuffed peacocks (which had a card that says it would be more attractive if it hadn’t been killed by a shotgun blast!) and a room dedicated to the marimba!

Awesome. I also got my first haircut in Guatemala, and it didn’t turn out too bad. At the same time, the city decided to give me a sneak preview of what the rainy season holds in store for us. It had hardly even drizzled in this town since we’ve been here, but this day the skies opened up, and it poured, poured, poured, until the street was a river and the beauty shop women advised me to wait. It didn’t stop though, and I eventually ran through the streets with my wimpy little umbrella, splashing through the streets, returning home looking like a stowaway who’d been kicked off the boat. That’s when we found out that our bathroom ceiling also has a small leak in it. The gods of fun just keep on giving here.

Even so, come Wednesday morning we were rather ready to embark upon our international Semana Santa adventure. We quite literally woke up with the dawn at 5:30 in the morning and headed to our friendly neighborhood bus terminal (ha).

We got on, what we thought, was a bus headed directly to La Mesilla, the border of Guatemala. We thought this because we paid for a full fare of Q30 to La Mesilla. Hmm, silly us. When the bus pulled into the Huehuetenango bus terminal, we quickly learned that the bus was in fact, not going to La Mesilla, but to Soloma. Cool. But we already paid. Confused and rapidly becoming more frustrated, we ambled about the terminal trying to figure out what was going on, while being hassled by ayudantes trying to convince us to get on their bus to La Mesilla. Ryan exploded at one point which prompted one of these guys to say in cool, cool English, “Hey, don’t get mad.” We went back to the first bus though, where another woman who had also paid was confused and angry. Thankfully the workers told another bus we paid, so we didn’t have to pay twice. We were on our second bus to the border now, proving once again that Huehuetenango just kind of sucks.

Eventually, we reached the border of Guatemala at La Mesilla. You just kind of get out and walk across to Mexico. But then, you have to take some kind of taxi to get to immigration in Ciudad Cuátemoc because there are 4 km between the two places. Remember this later. Also, no one really forces you to walk into customs. Anyone could easily just walk from Guatemala to Mexico or vice versa and no one would stop you. But anyway, part of our reason for going to Mexico was to renew our Guatemalan visa, so we dropped into the Mexican immigration office and got our passport stamped.



We were in Chiapas and on our way to the city of Comitán. The difference in the level of comfort and space between Mexican and Guatemalan transport was already painfully evident. The seats in the little colectivo van that carried us to Comitán were so comfortable. People weren’t hanging out of the door while we were driving, either. If Mexico feels luxurious to us after living in Guatemala, I don’t even know what it’s going to feel like to get back to the US.

Unfortunately it started to rain again, and essentially didn’t stop raining for the rest of the night. Boo. We decided to stay in Comitán for the first night because it was supposed to be a pleasant city that few travelers stopped in, and also so we could visit the Lagos de Montebello the next morning, but mostly because we figured it would break up the trip a little. Thankfully, it ended up fulfilling all of these things.

The city was indeed very pleasant, in spite of the rain. We took to the streets, exploring the center which had a very pretty main plaza. We went into the free museum of archaeology, and were once again amazed at the tremendous difference in quality between the museum and Xela’s Casa de Cultura that we had just visited the previous day. And this one was free and looked like a real museum and stuff.

We later took advantage of a 2x1 pizza deal where I also was reunited with my long lost friend Manzana Lift. Mmhmm.. Viva México.

The next morning we caught another colectivo van and headed out for the Lagos de Montebello, a series of beautiful lakes of varying sizes and hues scattered throughout the forests of Chiapas. As soon as you get to the main parking lot, 4-5 men approach you and ask if you want to rent a horse or a cabin or have a guide, etc. etc. They’re persistent little devils. The main lake we saw was Lago Bosque Azul, and it was really very tranquil and lovely.



We then avoided the horse renting men, (deciding that if they asked us again we would say that Ryan was scared of horses and could you please stop suggesting it) and started on a forest trail that eventually led to two grutas (grottos). The first one was stunning, so massive, with the sound of running water trickling through the rocks.





We hopped across the rocky river to the other grotto which was mostly a very dark cave that we didn’t explore to thoroughly due to not having adequate lighting.



We saw one more little lake while we were at the Lagos, which I believe was Lago Encantado, if I remember correctly. I’m too lazy to look it up. Sorry. It was pretty too, with less people there.


The only other thing we did was order some quesadillas at a little comedor and listen to the sounds of marimba in the air, before catching our transportation back to Comitán, and from there immediately to San Cristóbal de las Casas.

The monotony of the van ride to San Cristóbal was broken up by an animated 14-yearold girl named Dora Heidi. When we stepped inside, she asked us where we were from. When we told her, she asked if she could sit next to us and chat for a bit. I was afraid she worked for some kind of tour company or something, but we soon learned that she was just 14, curious, and very lively. I learned that she is from Tonalá on the coast, that she works with some kind of Christian organization who would be looking for funds in San Cristóbal who apparently rescued her from her messed up family life, that it was her first time to the city, and that she really liked the music of one Anet Moreno, and would tell me to listen everytime one of her songs came on the radio. She wants to study marine biology.

She told us that she always saw these backpackers walking around and was curious what they thought about, so she decided to talk with us. She was tired of everyone being silent on transportation and didn’t understand why people weren’t more open. She asked us many questions, one being what were artesanías (handicrafts) typical of the US. I told her wooden rabbits sitting on swings wearing flower hats, but really nothing. When we parted she introduced us to her comrades and we parted ways.

Into San Cristóbal. We arrived at the city slightly tired, and headed towards the center of town and our hostal. We stayed at a place called Rincón de los Camellos which seemed nice at first, mostly because our room was bright and cheery, with flowers in a vase, and pictures of smiling African people on the walls—a welcome contrast to the gloominess of the majority of the places we’ve stayed in. However, we later were to find out that the hostel was inhabited primarily by loud, incosiderate French people who thought it was cool to shout and sing with a guitar until nearly midnight. (Oh we’ve become such morning people, ugh.) Anyway, they were fairly rude and didn’t seem to care that they might be keeping people up. I’m not sure what’s wrong with these people anyway. They never seem to ever leave the hostel, when there were exciting and interesting things going on around them in the city that weekend. No, they’d rather stay in the hostel and be French and annoy people. (end of long rant)

Anyway, on Friday we mostly just got acquainted with our surroundings, eating some wonderful street food, drinking some ponche de piña with little bits of cake in it (as we would do every night). Actually Friday was a bit of a food fest for us. We ate the following: tacos de tinga (chicken tomato combo mix), huaraches con nopal (this was my first time ever hearing of huaraches, but they were good—a oval tortilla bottom topped with refried beans, some cheese and cream, and cactus paddles.), a bean tamal, churros, fried plantain, spicy cut up corn in a cup, and these pastries that looked like cannoli but were filled with melted marshmallow—so good. Man, Mexican food is better than Guatemalan food. At least there’s more variety and we surely took advantage on this trip.

It was so nice to be in a city full of people, out late at night, enjoying themselves. I wish there was more of that here in Xela, but things tend to wrap up fairly early here. It was also more lively being the Semana Santa. The city was full of tourists, both foreign and Mexican. Vendors carrying loads of bracelets, shawls, and belts took to the streets in hopes of making a sale. There were many free events, music, theatre, storytelling, etc. It was a good vibe.

Friday and Saturday we spent entirely within San Cristóbal. We played around with the idea of visiting one of the nearby villages or the ruins of Toniná, but we were kind of tired of travelling and knew that Sunday would be very travel-filled and tiresome. There was thankfully lots to do. We ate lots of great Mexican food (soups like sopa azteca, tlalpeño, chilalingo), more street food, more ponche. We visited the museum of trajes regionales that is really only open by appointment one hour of the day. It’s this man named Sergio’s personal collection which is just vast. He was a very interesting man who was quite knowledgeable. I learned a little and now feel refreshed and inspired to start writing my history of Mayan weaving for Trama.

The artesanías market was also very big and not as obnoxious as Antigua’s. The vendors were far less pushy and there were products I hadn’t seen before, and with different designs. Let’s just say I picked up a fair amount of gits for people. (Yes, you.) There was also a small book fair going on, where we picked up “El Gran Libro de las Tortas” which speaks of sandwiches around the world and how to make them! For a measley 10 pesos. There was also a cool weaving cooperative, but the prices were very expensive, much more than Trama. Eek.

We sat around a lot in plazas and watched people and said “no no no”to the pushy vendors. I think it would be cool to follow around one of these vendors for a day and make a movie about it. Could be a neat concept. Anyway. Friday was also Good Friday and we saw a total of 5 different processions with Jesus and co.



Saturday was Ryan’s birthday. To start the day off, we dropped in on this little paper making group called Taller Leñateros. It was pretty awesome. They make their own paper out of different leaves, fibers, plants, and then sell things in their store. They also publish some books and magazines. I picked up a few more little gifts here for people I think will appreciate them.

We also wandered into the free museum of popular culture where a small little band was starting to play while men and women did a little simple dance while shaking maracas. It was pretty cool but soon got repetitive.

Ryan didn’t want anything fancy for his birthday, of course, but I bought him one of the typical maroon Mexican sweater poncho things he had his eye on, and treated him to a nice simple Mexican meal of huaraches and tacos. The huaraches were huge!



We later ate a tres leches cake outside that we’d picked up in a panadería

.

The highlight of the evening was to come later when the city had its “burning of Judas” celebration. It was much like the Fallas of Valencia, with effigies made of papier machiere, (and firecrackers/fireworks) were made and strung up on a wire. Each one was some kind of criticism about a problem in the world, most either Mexican issues (graffiti, president, gangs, tacos), worldwide issues (drugs, pollution, abortion), or bitching about the US (immigration, Bush, corn).

The little plaza was packed a half hour before the burning was to begin. A highschool marching band wearing leopard print was playing songs, including the Mexican hat dance! Ha. The announcer talked about each little falla and talked about the theme. There would be a contest for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. I still don’t know who won.




Anyway, there was one float thing that featured a person eating a giant taco, making fun of a holiday Mexicans have called day of the taco, and how it’s wrong to celebrate such a thing when a lot of people are starving in the country. But when the announcer mentioned this float, he said, “El taco, tema: tomar el taco” (The taco, theme: eating tacos) It was funny and I think it summed up my theme in Mexico as well. Partly. So, slowly each float was doused in gasoline and lit on fire. Some burst into flames and fireworks would shoot off in various directions—into the air, into the crowd, until the crowd would quickly begin backing up, out of fear of being lit on fire. It was quite a sight.



Afterwards they had a little ceremony for the new queen of the fair which was kind of amusing and strange. Students with guitars sang for her and everyone watched on attentively. And that concluded the night.

Sunday was a day marked with strife. We got up around 6:30, which is 5:30 Xela time with ambitions to head all the way back to Xela. We did this but not without compications. We were informed at the immigration office of Guatemala that we needed an “exit stamp” that we did not receive when we left for Mexico. We were not aware that we had to go through customs of the country we were leaving and the country we were entering. Also there was no sign saying this and Mexico didn’t say anything about this!!! I started to become frustrated and angry. He told us we had to pay a fine of Q300 which was outlandish and we simply didn’t have it. He said our other alternative was to just keep the visa we already had that runs out April 16th, and then we have to pay Q10 for every day we go over that visa. So we decided to do that for the time being… ugh. One of the main reasons we went to Mexico was to renew our visa and that didn’t happen so, needless to say I was pretty bent out of shape about it. We are going to look into all our options to see what the real deal is behind these fines and nonsense. Either way we will be leaving Xela no later then April 21st to begin our trek back home.

THEN, we had to go back 4 km to the Mexican immigration office to get our exit stamp that we didn’t know we needed to avoid trouble with Mexico when we come back. We also learned we had to pay an obnoxious tourist tax of 237 pesos. At least we could pay with credit card. I hate customs people. They’re so robotic and quick with you. Just like people who work in airports. Loads of fun. So we were back in Guatemala, but with a newfound bitterness for everything and everyone around us. Our time here has been great and fulfilling but it’s also starting to wear on us, and we’ll be ready to start heading out of Xela in a little under two weeks (or sooner depending on what we find out about these fines and visas). The bus to Huehue and then Xela was packed and uncomfortable as usual. Our bitterness wore off some as we arrived back home, ready to start this next week. In spite of the shadow that Sunday cast on everything, we still had a great trip.