Day Thirteen - The trip to San Cristobal

Yesterday we made a long, long bus trip from Palenque to the city of San Cristobal de las Casas. We left Palenque and traveled about an hour to Agua Azul waterfalls. These waterfalls are beautiful and are usually a gorgeous aquamarine color. Unfortunately, with all the rain that Mexico has had, the water was a yucky brown color…we called them Agua Café waterfalls instead!


After another five hours on the most winding road I’ve ever seen, we arrived in San Cristobal. It’s amazing that it took so long because we only had about 200km (only about 125 miles) to travel in total. I’m telling you…it’s the Mexican speed bumps…they’re everywhere!  And being that we had the bus we had to practically stop at each one, which came up about every five minutes.

We spent the evening visiting a local citizen who has a burn clinic for the Mayan people in the area. He explained his work to us and told us that he travels out to the small villages to treat many women and children who are accidentally burned in their homes. This happens so often because most Mayans still cook over fires, instead of stoves. He also showed us his collection of local Mayan outfits/costumes. So many of them are beautifully designed with intricate hand-woven embroidery…they use vivid colors and take weeks to months to produce. The hard work that goes into these articles of clothing is amazing.

To end the evening, many of enjoyed some local cuisine - Italian!  I enjoyed spaghetti with meatballs, but it was nothing like Granny or Mom's!  I'm definitely looking forward to returning home and having dinner at Mom's!  My first request: Baked Macaroni and Fried Tilapia!