Well, this is the second email.
However, I have a little personal announcement. The web page I have been working on since february has finally gone up. The address is executives.uninter.com.mx On that you will find a link to my page, www.toddmosier.com So… check it out if you care to. And would any mosier/hoag that gets this pass it on to others of the fam.
About the trip. Well, last time I wrote, I was in Catemaco, waiting to leave for somewhere else. Well, I got into villahermosa at about 1 in the morning, missing the bus to tuxla guiterrez, chiapas (where I am now) So I hang around the bus station until 3:30am, when a bus for palenque, chiapas leaves. So I take that, get in around 5, 5:30. What a nice hour to arrive. No sun, no people, no food, maybe not so nice.
Anyway, I walk around until about 7, when I ask a VW microbus driver how I can get to bonampak and Yaxchilan. He says I have to take a tour, which would be around the corner. I’m walking away, then he calls out, “Hey, gringo, guero” which basically means, “hey stupid white american.” I hope on a bus which happens to be going there. ONly problem is… it’s german day. I spent 12 hours, from 7 to 7 at night, with people who only spoke german and a tiny bit of english, and even less spanish, with the execption of two guys. So, I had enough german for a day.
But the places were absolutely incredible. Bonampak had over 1,200 sq ft of painting that was super conserved, and yaxchilan was this huge city that had hardly been excavated. To get there, We had to take a boat on the mex/guatemala border for about an hour. Then, we’re greeted by spider monkeys hanging from trees, right smack above a temple on the riverbank. There was one temple with a basement laberinth without any light. I got lost, basically, then paniced and ran around, hitting walls and not seeing a thing, as some bats screamed at me. I finally got out.
Next day, I went to Palenque, which cannot be described. Basically the Versailles of the Maya culture, around 700 a.d. Incredible. Then, off to agua azul (blue water), a series of 500 separate waterfalls that formed sky blue pools. I went swimming. I had fun. Then, it started raining. In case I wasn’t clear, all of chiapas is basically a rainforest. that means rain. and heavy rain. so… i got to ride back to a crossing to wait for my bus, in the back of another pirate (those jungle gyms on wheels) and I got, yeah, let’s see, pretty wet.
I went to San Cristobal de las Casas, kinda a mecca for an international crew. I get to a hostel, they’ve got no rooms, but hey, they got a hammock. They never told me the hammock was in the middle of a meeting area. So, I start chatting with a guy from israel, then with a swiss, then along come a couple of norweigans, then a couple of danes, and to top it off, an english type and another israeli. They decided to play a little language game. They played telephone that went from the english guy through these languages. English to norweigen to dutch to german to italian to hebrew to english. It was pretty fun. I was pretty tired. But, they decided that they wanted to party, so they brought out their friends jimador (a high class relative of jose cuervo) and mr. schmirnoff. Albeit a fun night, I was very tired. Oh, and i learned a bit of german, “biter, biter, biter” which means, “go,go,go”, i think.
Next day, I check out san cristobal, which has the best donuts and bread you’ve ever tasted. Then I went to semejoval, the amber capital of mexico. On the bus ride up, a guy started selling me his amber. Well, turns out he wanted to give me a private showing of his stuff. I said ok, why not, not thinking it would be in my hotel room. But yep, he just followed me right up, laid his stuff on the bed, began to pull all the stuff out. I was about two inches from the door, thinking he was going to pull out a gun or something, but no, he was super nice and I bought a couple things from him. I was pretty scared.
Which brings me to today. I left semejoval and went to Chiapa de corza, where there was a gigantic (ginormous) canyon. The tallest part was about 1000 meters, which is about .6 miles for the metrically challenged or about 1 km for the mathmatically challenged. And it was straight up. I mean straight up. You could throw a rock off the top and it would land in the water. Or you could throw yourself off the top and would land within thirty or forty feet of it. Quite amazing.
Now, well, i’m waiting. It’s 6 o’clock, and my bus leaves at 11. a few hours, nothing more. from here I go to campeche and the yucatan to sun myself. Enough of the jungle and mountains. I’m heading for the beach. Sandal tan’s coming along, but not good enough yet.
Two weeks till the end of the trip. It’ll be crazy being in the us again.
adios,
todd