Chiapas Trip

Here's a summary of our week long trip to Chiapas with our friends from Paris, Samantha and Olivier. Voici un sommaire de notre vacance au Chiapas avec nos amis de Paris, Samantha et Olivier. Day 1 (Sunday April 27) Mexico-Tuxcla-Sumidero-San Cristobal Flew in from Toluca to Tuxcla with Interjet...smooth as always. We immediately drove to the Sumidero Canyon. Went for a boat ride all the way to the dam. On the way back we saw a crocodile in the distance...perhaps it was a stuffed one for tourists! On a prit l'avion de Toluca à Tuxcla...relax comme d'hab. Tout de suite on est allé vers le Canyon Sumidero. On a fait un tour de bateau jusqu'aux écluses. Vers la fin du tour, on a eu la chance de voir un crocodile...mais de loin. On se disait qu'il était peut-être empaillé pour les touristes!

Day 2 (Monday April 28) San Cristobal-Ococingo-Agua Azul-Misol-Ha-Palenque Samantha and I were in awe of these beautiful local indigineous skirts. The surrounding women got a kick out of seeing a foreigner wearing their skirt! Samantha et moi étions en train de négocier des jupes avec des mayas. Les étrangères commencaient à faire le spectacle dans le marché!

Misol-Ha We went crazy at Misol-Ha. On fait les fous à Misol-Ha.

Day 3 (Tuesday April 29) Palenque-Lacandon

Day 4 (Wednesday April 30) Bonampak-Yaxchilan-Las Guacamayas

Day 5 (Thursday May 1) Lagos de Montebello-Comitan This is where Manu and Olivier managed to get a tick on their body. I spotted Manu's tick as we were paddling around the lake and got it out quickly. Olivier didn't find out until the following morning...the tick was already getting big on his juicy blood! The hotel guy in Comitan managed to get it out alright, with the head and all.

Day 6 (Friday May 2) Comitan-Ruta de Cafe (Tapachula)

When you are lucky, you meet someone special in your travels, someone who you probably will only see once but that makes a difference. Bruno was that someone for all of us during our chiapas trip. Bruno is the owner of La Finca Argovia. It's a coffee plantation. He's a German descendant and his family has been in the coffee business since the late 1800s. La Finca has beautiful cabins with huge comfy beds, and delicious food... To get there, we drove 1 hour from Tapachula up the mountain on the Ruta de Cafe, (it's quite bumpy). We all felt as though we were in heaven and didn't want to leave the place. Bruno gave us a tour of the coffee production and the plant production (which he incorporated into his business 15 years ago when the coffee prices dropped). We enjoyed a jeep ride through the jungle, plunged our arms in warm compost, tried the "miracle fruit" and learned a great deal from this exceptional man. Check out their webiste: La FINCA ARGOVIA Day 7 (Saturday May 3) Tapachula-Playa Arista-San Cristobal

Playa Arista (beach) has the warmest ocean water I have ever been in. It felt as though we were dipping our feet in a warm bath. We had lunch, but the restaurant was sketchy. We didn't get sick, surprisingly! Day 8 (Sunday May 4) San Cristobal-San Juan Chamula

At 7am, we had the lovely surprise of finding our car vandalised! The back window was smashed in by a medium sized rock. Some fool must have done in in the wee hours of the morning. We weren't the only car to be targetted. Another car stopped by us showing us his back window...it was smashed the same way. We spent the bigger part of the day at the police station filing a vandalising report, then the airport 1 hour away to exchange the car. All in all, you wonder what was that all worth...someone got their kicks by smashing a car window without stealing anything?? Whipty doo! We learned a lesson: ALWAYS PARK YOUR CAR IN AN ESTACIONAMIENTO (parking lot)! In the late afternoon, we manage to enjoy a bit of the area. We browsed though the Sunday Artisan Market and then went to San Juan Chamula. This is a special place I have heard about ever since the beginning. Day 9 (Monday May 5) San Cristobal-Tuxcla-Mexico HOME!