San Cristobal and Sumidero Canyon

December 2^nd-4^th, 2014

Aussie Matt had suggested that I visit San Cristobal de las Casas, a small city high up on a mountain.  We took an overnight bus and when I woke up in the morning the bus was on seemingly endless climb on a straight road.  Off to the right the valley stretched out below.  We eventually rose up to cloud level and with the early morning light the views were stunning.

Climbing up to San Cristobal:

San Cristobal is a relatively sleepy town, well at least it felt like that after a week in Mexico City.  Unfortunately our first interaction with the locals wasn’t great as we had super grumpy taxi driver who wasn’t pleased with us talking so he tried to drown us out with the radio and then motioned with his hand to his ear and said “Blah, blah blah” (or the Spanish equivalent) about the girls gabbing.  C’mon dude, we’re the customer.  Arriving at the hostel he also insisted on giving Verity a mitt full of one peso coins for change.  Oh well, it’s best not to let grumpy people get to you.

We settled in at the Iguana Hostel and headed out for some breakfast.  It was notably chillier than Oaxaca due to the elevation change.  I wondered whether my fair weather Aussie friends were going to last but true to my usual experience with women from down under, they’re tough if they need to be.  We wandered around town and the zocalo was nicer than that of Oaxaca but a large part of that might have been due to the lack of vendors with ugly tarps strung over their heads.  There was a large fake Christmas tree in one corner and they seemed to be working on some kind of winter slide and skating rink.  There seemed to be some kind of ceremony going on in the square and I asked a lady at an info desk whether it was a fiesta, but no, it was some kind of memorial service for a local doctor…whoops.  There was a policemen band and the thing that struck me as odd was that they were not only holding their instruments but had machine guns slung over their shoulders too.  Really, are the guns necessary?

A lovely pedestrian only street:

A building by the town square:

O Christmas tree...

The machine gun band:

A very interesting plant shop:

The restaurant for lunch:

And a lunch of champions it was...sharing some nachos with a litre of beer;

Out on the town that night...

The next day we got a shuttle van to go to Sumidero Canyon some 45 minutes away, back down the road we had climbed in the bus.  It was a 2 hour boat ride of spectacular scenery with canyon walls stretching up over 1000 meters above the water.  Our guide was amazing at spotting wildlife as we ended up seeing an iguana in a tree, two full sized crocodiles basking in the sun and even a baby one.  How he spotted the baby one I don’t know.  We were flying by at top speed and he stopped, took the boat over to the bank and the small croc was behind a log.  Many people on our boat couldn’t even see it once we were stationary and only 10 feet away from it.   Unfortunately my Spanish isn’t good enough yet to understand most of what he was explaining so the English speakers missed out a lot.  At the far end of the canyon was a hydroelectric dam which was the reason that the canyon was now navigable by boat…a nice side effect.

Our chariot arrives:

The ladies are ready:

The canyon is that a way:

Some vultures by the shore:

Lovin' every minute of it:

Cruising down the canyon:

Knuffle going down the river:

Our expert guide:

The girls enjoying the ride:

Our first croc...he seems to like garbage:

The view from above:

Stunning walls:

I like my hairdo in this one:

A statue by the dam to commemorate those who died in building it:

Heading back:

Can you spot the baby croc? (right in the middle)

The little red bits by his head are butterflies:

Afterwards the van took us to some small town which had some old brick structure in the center square.  Belle, Verity and I spent all of five minutes checking it out and then headed off for lunch where we were joined by an Aussie family of four, the parents and their two sons in their twenties and then it was back to San Cristobal.  The canyon was a welcomed change from all of the buildings, churches and museums from the past few weeks, I much prefer nature.

The old brick structure:

A gorgeous sunset from our hostel roof: 

From San Cristobal I said goodbye to Belle and Verity as they were off towards the Yucatan Peninsula while I was heading south to Guatemala.  They were great traveling buddies and I hope they have a wonderful trip.