Thursday, March 12, 2015

Nuevas Fronteras


The highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala are breathtaking, filled with endless colors, sounds and aromas. The air on Lake Atitlán is fresh and the sun is intense. The birdsong here is a wonderful soundtrack from dawn until dusk. Bananas, papayas and numerous flowering trees seem to grow everywhere that there is free space. Many of the indigenous Mayan people wear the traditional weaves of their villages in beautiful rainbow colors. 

The volcanoes remind us they are alive by releasing little puffs of ash every once in a while. Their stature is majestic, rising thousands of feet above the lake and surrounding villages. 


The journey to arrive here took two full days in the car. She was packed to the roof and our friend was sandwiched between piles in the backseat. Our first day took us from the northwest tip of Yucatan down through Campeche along the west coast of the peninsula. We then cut southbound into the heart of Chiapas in the southernmost tip of Mexico. The jungle gradually grew greener and thicker and the trees towered above us, much older and wiser here than along the coast. Coconut palms slowly morphed into banana and coffee forests. 

We climbed up through the mountain passes for several hours. As dusk settled in, in the dim sunlight we watched the corn-covered patchwork mountainsides pass us by, dotted with small villages. The steepness of these hillsides was remarkable. No modern machinery has touched those crops. Seeded by hand, harvested by hand. In the darkness of night, we wove through numerous highland villages. As the elevation increased, so did the fog. Thank goodness that a headlight polishing angel approached us in a grocery store parking lot the night before our departure! Our aged headlights were in desperate need of a facial! They helped us to safely navigate the dozens and dozens of nearly invisible speed bumps, or topes (tumulos in Guatemala) and the Friday night pedestrians on foot. 


Throughout the two days on the road we noticed many areas that had experienced recent mudslides, likely from exceptionally heavy rains. Men worked to haul away piles of rocks of all sizes. Heaps of sandy soil lined the road in some villages. Huge chunks of road were collapsed and washed away and there was no shortage of potholes, some half the size of our car. 

There were a few obvious differences that I noticed in Chiapas as compared to the other Mexican states we have traveled through:

One: the population seems generally happier. 

Two: the population is generally exceptionally well-dressed and tidy looking. 

Three: the villages and buildings appear very well-cared for, with fresh paint and virtually no garbage to be found.

Was their secret to success in their rebellion and refusal to follow along with the rest of Mexican standards? Was their desire for pride and equality that motivated a collaborative community energy? It felt like a completely different country! In a really good way. Wow!

The Zapatista movement has quieted down in recent years, but the spirit is still very much alive. Many people proudly sported cheerful grapey-purple tee shirts that said "Mover a Chiapas", meaning something like change Chiapas or shift Chiapas. 

We were so happy to see the lights of Ocosingo as we descended out of the darkness of the high peaks. We found a remarkably pristine hostel and the three of us settled in for the night. I awoke at 4am to a chorus of what sounded like a hundred roosters. I managed to fall back asleep until sunrise. We headed out very early to make the most of the daylight hours on the roads. The days and nights are approximately equal length here, about 12 hours of dark and 12 of light. It remains pretty much steady year round, as we are so close to the equator. The morning fog hung like scarves around the green mountain peaks. So lovely
One thing that I had read about in Chiapas is the occasional road block, set up to make a few pesos off of the unsuspecting foreigners passing through on these roads. We encountered this on our second morning as we traveled into the forested hills outside of Ocosingo. Two men had a pair of neatly cut branches laid across the road. We stopped and they said that they were collecting money to pay them for keeping the roads cleared of brush, which it did appear was really happening. They asked us for $20 pesos and we obliged. They were very friendly and thanked us with a smile, wishing us a nice day. We encountered a second stop a little while before the Guatemalan border. Three men had a rope across the road. One of them was shoveling a small heap of sand and they said they were collecting money to pay for their work on road repairs. We were skeptical. They asked for only $5 pesos. We said no problem and they thanked us and lowered the rope. That's one way to make some money. Something that would never fly where we come from!

As we approached the border of Guatemala we prepared all of our paperwork. We did our research ahead of time to make things smoother. We had to pay a fee to exit Mexico. We had to have the bottom exterior of our car sprayed with some kind of fumigation spray. We made sure to stand upwind. Two women approached and notified us of the grand fiesta happening mere meters from the fronterra gate.


The small village at the border just so happened to be celebrating their yearly festival that weekend. There were people and horses lining the Main Street. After making our rounds and filling out paperwork at several buildings, we watched the riders performing on their beautiful horses dazzling the crowd with amazing tricky footwork. We were granted our 90-day visas and as the parade finished we crept slowly along the street in our car. It was intensely hot so we had all widows rolled down. Hundreds of people still lined the streets in full celebration energy. They asked where we were from and encouraged us to dance along to the music as we rolled slowly along. One little boy yelled to me "what is your name?" in perfect English. I told him and he turned and told his little friends and they laughed. About 10 blocks later I heard someone yell my name. It was a different boy and as I looked his way, he and his friends giggled. Then two men leaned in the car window to have a chat with us. They spoke very good English and one told us that he lived in Seattle for a while. At the top of the hill at the edge of town, where the horses and cowboys were all convened, two men asked in Spanglish where we were from. As we slowly drove onward we told them Canada and one of them yelled in English "LOVE YOU!!" We laughed and felt like we were part of the parade. 

As we exited town, we couldn't help but notice that there was red and green paint scattered along the road covering nearly every telephone pole, boulder, cliff and bridge. The green paint often had the word UNE stenciled on in white paint. The red often had a white hand symbol and the word LIDER. We saw signs in some towns that said "Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza". These were all political campaign signs. They made everything look so bright and cheerful, despite the underlying discord of politics. 
In Guatemala there are many brilliantly painted "chicken buses" zooming past us going at breakneck speeds, honking and billowing clouds of black exhaust. They are usually packed full of humans looking like sardines and piled high with luggage on the rooftops. 


As the sun sank lower in the sky, we came through more villages and mountain passes. At the top of one pass we noticed that the sunset was absolutely remarkable. We pulled over to take some shots. It was one of most beautiful sunsets I can ever remember. It looked as if God was smiling down on the city of Quetzaltenango. 

As we very slowly wound down the extremely steep and often sketchy road to Lake Atitlan, we could see the lights of the villages surrounding the shores. We encountered a broken down chicken bus on one dark corner. The police were very friendly and helped us through. We finally arrived at our destination and we unloaded our gear and parked our car in the center of the village near the well-used basketball court center. After the first few days, we have seen something like reverse vandalism, where our bounty of bumper stickers has been slowly disappearing. They must be making room for us to add some new ones from our fresh bunch of adventures. 

Our casa for the week. 

Much more to come... my eyelids are heavy after a very full day and the combination of howling dogs and cricket songs is calling me to bed. Buenas noches. 

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