Sick in San Cristobal
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2008
1
9
37
Trip End
Jan 01, 2009
San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Our first impressions of San Cristobal was the cold! After the lofty heights of 35 degrees plus we were back down to 15-16, in other words, an Irish summer! For the 1st time in over 2 weeks we had to wear trousers. The hostel had a really nice communal area, nice big garden, fruit trees and hammocks, but the rooms.....well the rooms were the worst we stayed in. The looked like they used to be stables of some sort and they were colder than the temperature outside, as you´ll see from the photos. I slept the two nights there in two pairs of shorts, a thermal vest, a t-shirt and a hoodie...with the hood up too!
Eoin had been very sick on the bus down here so he was laid low for the whole first day. Myself and Bill went looking round the town and saw it was a very nice place. The architecture was really nice. I know we´ve seen loads of churches in Mexico, but some of them here were really beautiful buildings. There´s also a really strange sight to be had here. The people here are very very religious and believe that 1: you can´t take photos in a church cos it takes away the good spirits and 2: In order to banish the evil spirits from the church they all drink Pepsi and Coke there!! It was really really weird. It looked and sounded like an evil marketing plan from the men in the USA but they were very adamant about it!!
The other big impression we had from the place was that the poverty was very very high here. It was definitely the worst place we´ve seen for people trying to sell stuff on the streets. Kids as young as 4 and 5 were working all hours trying to sell some wristbands. Bill bought a few of one and we were surrounded by about 20 more of them, and one of them even managaed to rob the ones he´d just bought, off him when we were trying to pick up our bags and make sure nothing else was stolen. The poverty factor was made worse by the fact that when you go into the church and you see this amazingly, beautiful place with gold and marble everywhere, and the same people who were begging in the streets come in and throw money into lighting a candle or collection boxes. I won´t say anymore about it cos I´ll go off on a rant about the Catholic Church, but it was very sad to see.
Anyway, back to reality, the hostel provided a bonfire every eviening so with Eoin still a but crook, myself and Bill sat up playing cards with the other guests and sat round the bonfire, it made a big difference from Party Central Escondido.
The next day Eoin was better so we all headed off round the town, and looked at more bits and pieces but by the time the evening came I was now sick again and spent the night running across the communal courtyard to get sick. The guy on reception must´ve got some sight when he saw me running with all the clothes on, hood up and a hand to my mouth!
So in reality, we didn´t really get up to too much here, due to the illness hitting us again. On a brighter note though I was gald to be heading to Palenque, which I´d been looking forward to since we first arrived in Mexico, everything I´ve read and heard along the way has been great so hopefully it won´t let me down and we can leave Mexico with happy memories!
So will talk to you all soon with an update from there, and hopefully some great photos!
Cheers
James
Comments
Langers
You two are sicker than a plane to lourdes!!!
Jim Im liking the blog,but youre never living down this line.....'lofty temperatures'......Hey Fintan, have you seen Fachtna anywhere!!!
Seriously though,great pics,cant wait for the next lot.