Our destination this time was the highly recommended state of Chiapas, located a brief 11 hours from Puebla.
We decided to leave Friday night at 11:30 and make the trip overnight on an upgraded bus line for lots of leg room and comfortable seats. After a bit of an ordeal with Dan (ACDC concert the night before) arriving on a bus from Mexico City at 11:28 and me arriving at 11:29 (after breaking into his room and packing 3 of every clothing article he owns) we drastically shortened the trip with about 10.5 hours sleeping.
We arrived in San Cristóbal (a beautiful and historical town of about 200,000 residents) which was supposedly the best place to spend the nights for the trip.
After randomly meeting up with Tom's "girlfriend" Elena (planning to meet up with Tom who was also in Chiapas but with a different group) from Spain Dan and I found a nice hotel with sweet courtyard, queen size beds, and monster shower for less than 20$ a night (despite our best efforts Elena insisted she would not be staying with us for the weekend).
From here we grabbed lunch, did a little looking around San Cristóbal (including seeing the awesome Church of Santo Domingo and Cathedral) and headed out for a tiny and very indigenous town called Chamula (in a van carrying boxes of live and very angry chickens right behind my seat).
There was a decent sized food market here which featured a lot of stands with almost no customers leaving us to wonder how they ever made a profit selling all these perishable foods. In addition nearly every stand was worked by a young child and it was pretty clear they would never know anything outside of Chamula which put things in perspective for Dan and I as we had traveled nearly every one of the last 8 weekends and were studying abroad in the first place.
Chamula also has 2 churches, one being the ruins of the burned down Church of San Sebastián and the other being the Church of San Juan which features thousands of candles and incense which are put out and burned only to be swept and scraped up every day.
After Chamula we headed back to San Cristóbal and climbed a series of steps to the San Cristóbal church situated on a hill overlooking the entire town of San Cristóbal in the valley below.
We took in the view for a bit then went back down for margaritas at a restaurant on the Zocalo and proceeded to hand Elena off to Tom (though I am almost positive she was dying to stay with us studs) as he passed through on their way to a different destination.
Next we headed across town to another temple situated atop a large hill where a wedding was taking place. A beautiful sunset and discussion on the benefits of being single ensued.
From here the two of us grabbed dinner at yet another candle lit restaurant with live piano music and no other tables without a girl. Fortunately we made up for it by ordering a huge plate of assorted meats.
After some recommendations we made our way out to a couple of the local bars and stopped by a concert which was taking place in the Zocalo before heading back for bed.
Sunday morning came a bit early, but after having had 3 travel agencies tell us (despite some classic arguments in Spanish) the day before that it would be impossible to visit both the Chiflón waterfall and the Sumidero Canyon in the same day, we had planned our route and knew what we had to do.
After Dan had sufficiently frightened a variety of small children and mothers around town with his ghastly morning "shouldn't have gone for that last drink" appearance which he seems to have mastered we grabbed a 7 AM collectivo bus headed in the direction of the waterfall.
After a transfer and another ride we arrived to the park and as luck would have it, got to take a "took took" up to the trail.
We walked through the forest and along the river about 20 minutes which allowed a couple peaks of what was ahead before finally everything opened up onto the tallest most magnificent waterfall I have ever seen.
We had an unbelievable look around from the several observatories and got absolutely drenched from all the spray coming up despite being well above the river below which was actually more of a small canyon with us looking over from one side.
Next we noticed there was a zip line crossing both ways over the canyon. I had never done one before and figured there was no time like the present, though Dan had already cruised a "2k canyon" and felt it was a bit of child's play. Little did he know how interesting I would make it.
After climbing the tower the man started dressing me with the harnesses. Per the usual I was blabbering in Spanish so he decided to give me the instructions including the part about the wooden hand held brake in Spanish which didn't quite register. Nonetheless I figured it was a simple enough process and took the plunge.
After a rather slow descent I found myself stuck in the very center of the rope dangling over the canyon. I couldn't figure out what the heck was the problem and continued to hang there for quite a bit as various instructions were yelled to me in some language not resembling anything I speak from guys on the other tower.
Once I started registering some serious pain in the groin and surrounding regions I realized I needed to let go of the wooden break and after doing so slowly cruised down.
After walking from the landing tower to the other launch tower I was clipped back and ready to go. This time I caught the guy saying that to go faster I just needed to let go of the break...not quite. I jumped off again and did this and what do you know, I zoomed across the canyon.
Crossing over I got a great view of the waterfall and everything was great until I realized the landing tower was approaching way too fast. The man was waving his arms all over the place and yelling but when I reached for my brake it was dangling below me and useless so I had to take my leather gloved hand and grab the rope until I slowed just before crashing into the tower.
Having stared death in the face or so it seemed to me I descended back to my tierra firma on shaky legs as a decent sized group laughed and pointed at the dumb white guy.
After a thorough verbal lashing on my ineptitudes as an adventure sportsman from Dan we headed out bound for the canyon.
3 hours of van time later we were in Tuxtla Gutierrez the largest city in Chiapas and managed to catch the finale of one of the most beautiful games of football ever played as the Bengals, on the road toppled the defending champ Steelers in Pittsburgh.
From here we asked around and got a ride out to a beautiful small town outside Tuxtla called Chiapa de Corzo where there are several water front restaurants, live music, and boat companies on the river which eventually flows into the Sumidero Canyon.
We got tickets for the last boat ride of the day and then got a 2 hour tour through the canyon from end to end.
It felt absolutely surreal with how enormous the cliffs on either side were (at 1 point being 1 kilometer above the water) and to date was the coolest thing I have seen in Mexico.
Almost everyone on the boat was absolutely enraptured with the magnificence.
We got back just as the sunset was finishing up and headed back to San Cristóbal.
Though we had big plans, we didn't end up making it past the appetizers stage and after a quick walk around headed back to the hotel for the conclusion of the Colts Patriots game (sweet Bill Belichick) and then an early night to bed.
The next day (which will be the next blog) we had plans for taking a tour to the famous historical ruins of Palenque with stops at two more waterfalls along the way. With over half our trip down, we were worn out, blown away by what we had seen, thankful to still be alive (or at least I was), and very excited for what lay ahead.
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