Team Guate

Looking for apartments.

We had our first brunch at Cafe Condesa. We’ve got some altitude sickness, but still managed to unload our car and make it into town for a day of setting up the HQ. I was a bit annoyed by the mandatory Q10 for parking anywhere in Antigua. It’s a change that makes sense when you think about the lack of parking meters in Antigua. But to charge on Sunday? Next stop is Mono Loco for some house hunting. It might be time for me to request a Craigslist network in Antigua again. I do it every three months and one day Craig will care enough about Guate as I do.

Brad calls this his Zolcalo now.

Por fin! Llegamos! We are here and now to find Nelly.

We are about an hour from Antigua after a quick stop at Casa de Don Robert for hot chocolate, pasta and to alert Nelly, our kind host, that we had not been swallowed up by the cerros.

We are driving on a newly paved four lane highway and all hell has broken loose between large chunks of rocks from the cliffs on the road, a massiv storm, fog, broken down cars and the usual windings of the highlands, oh and there’s sections that are unpaved without much warning. It’s tough love from Guate.

Just crossed La Mesilla in less than 30 minutes.

Plenty of topes on the way to La Mesilla.

We have a long day of driving ahead of us. At the end of it we hope to be in Antigua. First town: Comitan.

Not another church!

San Cristobal De Las Casas, the city we’re currently staying in, gained international attention in 1994 when the Zapatista Movement began their armed revolution against the Mexican state in hopes of creating an autonomous zone here in the Chiapas region. The movement is still alive and doing good work but it seems to be more mainstream and definitely less direct action-oriented these days. Well, they basically got their asses kicked by the Mexican army back in ’94 and stopped using their guns after that, doh!

Everything in this town is Zapatista themed: museums, stores, cafes, bookstores, collectives, handcrafts, T-shirts everything! There’s definitely a radical chic element found amongst the dreadlocked black-hoody types who come here in “solidarity”- most likely on their parents’ dime- but hey their intentions are good. Or at least the USD they bring is good for the local economy, heh. Chiapas is extremely poor- the Zapitistas have never accepted any financial support from the government and are 100% self-sufficient. As our genuine old school Zapatista host put it, “It’s like a mini Cuba in the middle of Mexico.” Maybe that means a lot of them don’t wear shoes and live hand-to-mouth but sheesh, you have to respect that level of dedication and sacrifice. No trust funds to fall back on with these people- they’re the real deal.

We’re taking the day off from driving to chill in San Cristobal De Las Casas-here’s the very beautiful main cathedral in the Zocalo.

Mmm…corn fungus! Yep, that’s what Huitlacoche is- a tasty Mexican dish also responsible for blowing up my lymph nodes last night. Ay carumba, I haven’t had hives this bad since I OD’d on shrimp at a cheap Chinese restaurant when I was ten. So last night after scarfing down three big juicy Huitlacoche tacos I got a stomach ache. Then my poisoner- ahem, I mean friend, Adam, noticed a “mosquito bite” on my neck. Since I was feeling queasy anyway I went to the bathroom to check it out. Didn’t look like much but 15 minutes later about half a dozen grape-sized lumps grew out of my neck, with smaller bumps appearing on my back, legs and one on my big toe. My eyes puffed up with little Chicklet bumps in the corners. Everything itched like crazy but I was just hoping my throat wasn’t going to start closing it up.

After two unsuccessful vomiting attempts back in the bathroom, I took a shot of Pepto and a swig of Robotussin and crawled into bed. But not before I snapped off a few lovely pix at the height of my reaction!

Today I woke up with fat rings under my eyes but my lymph nodes were about 90% back to normal. Tonight I feel all better so Mom, if you’re reading this– don’t worry I’m OK!

I don’t think the Google street team made it here yet.

We’ve gone through three rainstorms on our drive to San Cristobal. Here’s a small patch of blue as we reach it.

The landscape is starting to look more like Guatemala now, selva on both sides and that tropical heat near Puerto Barrios where my family is from. We are still a few hours drive from the border, but we roost in San Cristobal tonight.

It’s like the road through Presidio but not really.

We made it out of Mexico City’s rush hour traffic in 15 minutes and now we’re headed to San Cristobal de Las Casas, 11 hours later.

Brad says this is something about measuring time. Not pictured: numerals from the clock faces scattered all over the floor.