Guerillas in the Mist

Helen from New Zealand would be my last travelling companion on my trip. I met her on Caye Caulker in Belize and I had a feeling we would get on from the moment she said she had a hatred for Bono, Coldplay and People who wear Che Gervra merchandise. The 22 year year old was working her way up to LA where she would catch a flight to Ireland where she would be spending the next year working in Dublin before heading off again on her travels. Helen always managed to put a smile on my face and had the ability to make long bus journeys and we seemed to bounce off each other in some kind of Morecambe and Wise comedy double act so by the end of the two weeks travelling with her my kidneys started to ache from all the laughing…… and tequila. I’m glad I had the chance to travel with such a wonderful person for the the very last two weeks of my trip, in fact she really made the two weeks some of my favourite memories so far on this epic trip. Read on for some extremely random stories.

I was meeting Helen in San Cristóbal de las Casas later on that day as she had gone with another shuttle service to there. Splashing out and catching a shuttle back in to Mexico sounded like a good idea as I didn’t fancy 9 hours on a chicken bus. The first few hours went by very smoothly and I had plenty of room to stretch out and make myself home in the very back of the shuttle. There was only a couple of French travellers and a Japanese guy in the van with me so for a change I didn’t have my legs rapped around my head. We left the Volcanoes of Xela behind us and travelled along the rather wonderful and magic mountain road to the boarder of Mexico. We pulled up to the small boarder town and got our exit stamp for Guatemala and headed over to the Mexican immigration and another waiting shuttle to take us the rest of the way to San Cristóbal. Being Guatemala and Mexico things don’t always go to plan and from this point on things were going to be a bit cramped inside the shuttle. Another group of about 12 people had also booked the shuttle so the 14 of us squeeze in to every inch of the small van. There was so little room I ended up being squashed in the back corner of the van next to a French hippy girl who I swear I saw in San Pedro, she was feeling car sick so I was praying that she could last the next 4 hours as I didn’t fancy being her next sick bag (I’ve already had two girls being sick on me on this trip if you remember). I also spied a jungle coming out of her arm pitt and when every she reached up to get her water bottle I had a birds eye view, at one point I swear I saw a couple of howler monkey’s trapped in there.

We stopped at the Mexican boarder to get our passports stamped, a spot of lunch and a toilet break. Now I’ve seen some terrible toilets on this trip but nothing, nothing prepared me for what I saw in the passport office that day. My word, on entering the toilet I was stepping over used toilet paper that scattered all over the place, after dodging them I was confronted by one of the worse sights I have ever seen. piles and piles of shit layered in the toilet bowl. There was so much crap it was was more like the Everest of shit, to this day I have no idea why or how people use this toilet as the shit was above the lid so there was no way you could sit down. I should have taken a photo but if i spent more than 30 seconds longer in the I could have fainted. I must say with all the different shades of poo it had a Jackson Pollock painting style to it. Anyway enough about shit and on with the story, I have no idea why i just told you that but these things need to be documented….. or warn other travellers who are thinking of entering the chamber of horrors. Not even the biggest adrenaline junkie could face that sight for more than a few seconds.

Back to the story, I arrive at the very splendid mountain town of San Cristóbal de las Casas just after 5pm, walking down the narrow cobbled streets to find the wonderful backpackers and the equally wonderful Helen who had been there all afternoon waiting for me to show up, which was rather odd as we left about the same time as her. We were also joined by a fellow traveller from Guatemala who goes by the name of Susan, I couldn’t really tell you how old she was, but she was older than she looked. A great girl who had some interesting stories and a great job which was sailing a millionaires yacht around the world. So as you can imagine she has been all over the place. She was going to join us on our little adventure tomorrow to find the Zapatistas.
San Cristóbal de las Casas stands at over 2770 meters so at night it gets rather cold and also to make matters worse it was raining during the night and my fears came true when I woke up it was also raining.

Still this didn’t dampen the mood and off we went to our first place of interest, A very small village which is about 10 minutes north of SCC. Now I told you in the end of my last blog that I heard about a group of indigenous people who burp out evil spirits by drinking coke. I didn’t know if this was true and some urban ‘travelers’ legend but what I saw on that rainy day confirmed that we really do live in one very interesting world.
Pulling up to the main square of the village there doesn’t seem to be any difference to other villages I’ve been to in Mexico. There is a small market in the centre of the square and a large white catholic church standing proud as the main attraction of the village. From the outside it looks like any other Spanish Church but it was holding a secret unlike all the other normal churches in central America I had been to. The Church predominately Catholic as they follow Christ and the Virgin but the have also incorporated some of their Mayan Beliefs in to the religion creating a very unconventional type of religion.
I was not allowed to take photos in the church or around the square as they are very shy people and get very upset if you pull a camera out at them so I don’t have many photos to show you.
On entering the church you are hit by the smell of burning juniper and freshly cut pine needles that cover the floor in a thick blanket. The church feels dark and is only lit up by thousands upon thousands of small thin candles that have been placed all over the floor amongst the pine needles (I’m not sure what health and safety would say about this fire hazard). Surrounding the church on top of plinths are large figures of Jesus and his crew looking down at the praying Mayan people who seem to be in a trance and constantly chanting whilst kneeing down next to bottles of coke and other fizzy sodas. We were luckily enough to witness some kind of blessing of a Mayan child. The mother who was clutching the child who was being blessed, father and a young boy all looked over the woman shaman who must have been over 80 years old. The service was going on for a while when we got there and was still going on when we left. I stood there for a while and observed the ritual from a distance.
The shaman started to chanting and again get in to some trance like state before blowing a small whistle on the infants head then she would light up candles and blow them out by spitting what I thought was water but later turned out to be rum. After a few minutes of doing this they brought a bound up chicken in to view. Again, more chanting and this time they started to wave the petrified chicken above the candles. At this point the young boy who couldn’t have been more than 8 years old stood up and broke the chickens neck. Then the who family (Including the child and young boy) took a shot of rum that the Shaman pours them. The young boys was priceless as scrunched up his face after downing the shot….. a lot like me when I have absinthe. After witnessing this very strange practice I was thinking to myself can this get any more random? Err yes it can, like i said earlier and in the last blog they drink fizzy drinks and then burp out evil spirits and that is exactly what i saw going on. The shaman would neck a bottle of cheap orange soda and then proceeded to burp. It was like being in Paul Mccartney’s frog chores.
Upon leaving the church we went shopping in the market where I bought a silly hat as it was raining and one of the best soverniers i have bought in a long time. Zapatista Guerilla dolls, with balaclava’s, backpack and a gun….. which lucky friend is going to end up with one of them?

Crazy church

Postcard of the burping

The Zapatista’s were our next target for the days fun. These bunch of armed guerillas lived in the forest around the villages and towns. They are lead by Emilio Zapata and have been known in the past to kidnapped tourists and hold up buses. They are fighting for there own independences and to break away from Mexico and run the state for themselves. More info on them here
So as we drive in the taxi further up the mountain roads through the mist we get to a very small mountain village where Helen was hoping to interview them, i’m not sure what we were really thinking about going after armed Guerillas, but what the hell you only live once. But it was no good, there was no one around in this village who could help, just a lot of men standing around starring at the blonde haired Helen and a drunk who latched on to me until we got another taxi back down to SCC.

Postcard of the Zapatista’s

The next day it was time to say goodbye to Susan as she was off to the Mayan city of Palenque and Helen and I were off to the beach that evening, the day was spent looking around the market and shops and drinking milkshakes and then it was time to say goodbye to a very interesting part of the world. We bordered the night bus to Puerto Escondidos which was 13 hours away on the Pacific Coast. Its known as the Mexico Pipe line and is the best place in the country for surfing. On the way there as normal Helen and I would talk a lot of crap to past the time away. With such great and i must say intellectual and stimulating conversations such as what would you rather loose, an arm or a leg? We also had a Hillary Duff movie dubbed in to Spanish, the movie was so bad I could understand everything which was happening in it. Why that girl hasn’t won an Oscar yet is anyone’s guess. As I said to Helen, Duff is now my favourite shit celebrate and for the rest of the journey i wouldn’t shut up about her. Feeling a little left out Helen wanted a shit celebrity to talk about, so for a hour or two I was trying to think of one for her and then it struck me………. James Van Der Beek out of Dawson’s Creek.

Bless them both

The bus ride was terrible as the road winds itself down from the highlands to the coast. Every minute the bus is turning left and then right slamming my head in to the side of the window of the bus. I must have only got 1 hours sleep before I woke gazing out of the window to set my eyes upon the biggest waves I have ever seen in my life crashing on the beach. It is one of the most dangerous beaches in the world with at least 5 people a month getting rescued. Rip Tides, under tows and 8 meter waves make this place far to dangerous to swim but if you have big enough balls then you can surf the pipe line which in the summer (rainy season) when waves can reach up to 12 meters high. The beach is lovely and not to built up, bars, cafe and small hotels line the strip so partying and drinking is the main thing to do in the night and really that’s all Helen I did for 3 days. We also got a group from the hostel to go dolphin and Sea turtle watching. We didn’t see and dolphins but our energetic guide jumped in to the ocean and the next minute he has a giant turtle on the boat. I’m not sure how legal this was but he put the turtle back after we took some photos. Shhh don’t tell anyone.

After 3 days of chilling and partying it was back on the bus for another 8 hours to my last town in Mexico, The state capital of Oaxaca.

See you then.