Tag: Adventure

Ride from Tuxla to San Cristobal de Las Casas and First Steps Around San Cristobal de Las Casas – 20220626

I had my last moments being a fancy boy in a fancy hotel, took a mirror selfie to show off the fanny pack and jumped on donkey to ride for San Cristobal de Las Casas.

Rocking the Fanny Pack

Donkey is still a little wonky from the kid hitting me, and I should get it checked out, but I probz won’t for a while anyways.. It was only about an hour and a half ride but it was crazy foggy for much of it and the whole way I was climbing and there was a lot of construction.

Foggy Ride

San Cristobal is actually pretty high altitude, around 7000 feet, pretty much as high as my comfort level goes, but I think since I was just in Cusco for a while my body will be semi-acclimated.

My first impression of San Cristobal is that it is an incredibly nice old city built now for tourists. But it seems that almost all the tourists are Mexican. The vendors are a little aggressive, constantly bothering me while I’m sitting trying to eat.

Met another motorcyclist who introduced himself as “Crow”

The locals walk around with gold teeth and there’s tons of places selling sweets of all kinds. I wonder if there’s any connection(I found out later the average person in Chiapas drinks 2.1 liters of coca cola per day.)

Is there anything better than churros?

All during the ride I saw a little girls carrying a huge load of logs right up a steep hills with a straps that go around their foreheads.

The hostel I’m staying at only cost $15 for a private room and it’s super nice. It’s called Posada de Abuelita and the front desk lady Nilly was super nice and showed me the amazing amount of public spaces throughout the hostel. It’s places like this that make me analyze places for future ideas if I ever get a house or open my own hostel or hotel.

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Pielut in Mexico

Gorditas

Street Art

I had nothing to do for the night so I found a free walking tour on guru where I met some pretty cool other travelers and had a cool guide named Ana.

On the tour we tried the local alcohol called Pox. It’s made of fermented corn and sugarcane and it’s actually really good.

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Catedral

Pox

Vendor

After the tour we headed to a bar to see a little bit of live music. We got to see this guy absolutely shred this fiddle. I’ve never seen anyone so good who seemed to enjoy himself so much. He was hopping around the stage like a happy leprechaun the whole set.

Happy fiddler

Leaving Oaxaca, Rainy Season Begins – 20220623

After dragging my feet for a long time and staying in Oaxaca way longer than I had initially intended I finally started the drive out of Oaxaca Towards Chiapas, the last state in Mexico that I would visit on my tour of Latin America. My last night in Oaxaca I took my first ever dance class to try to learn a little bit of salsa and I actually really had a good time at the class. The salsa part went way over my head but the bachata class was pretty easy and I felt like I was pretty good at it, at least for a gringo.

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Oaxaca Te Amo

La mezcaleria

Free Cats

But in the morning I put my riding boots on and headed South! It was time to cross one more state and then cross the border. The second I started riding it started sprinkling and I rode in and out of rain ever since. Rainy season for me started in 1 day. I knew it was coming but I still hate it. I don’t have good rain gear and I’m worried about my stuff which is packed in very questionably waterproof bags. When it rains I shove my phone in a plastic bag and let every inch of my body get soaked and I squint as hard as I can as the baseball sized drops smack my eyeballs.

Once the rain started to pick up hard in a matter of minutes I could feel the cold bite me all the way to the bone. I stopped on the side of the road at some small restaurant shack where they brought me out a big cup of chocolate and it felt as if I was pouring my own soul back into my body.

And Just Like That, Rainy Season Began

I finished the day in a tiny village called Sancristobal(Not San Cristobal de Las Casas). I rolled into town and everyone was staring at me. It is not a place foreigners ever go.

I rolled up to this building and asked a guy outside if it was a place I could stay and he said yes. It was like a little convention center. I asked him how much and he said 300 pesos. That’s about as cheap as it gets for your own place here and it ended up being perfect. Because of all the rain I was able to work on the motorcycle under the roof of the place. I installed the USB port so I can charge my phone and put in a new air filter, but it is much different than the old one, I hope it works out alright. It’s more like a big sponge instead of the harder old one, but it should work..

Getting some much needed work done on Donnkey

I went to go eat something and it cost me 100 pesos for a big plate of beef with a fresh coconut. It was quite a nice meal and then I went back to my room to edit some old videos. I’m still so behind on editing Mexico videos. Oh well.

Alebrije Art Around Oaxaca – 20220622

Today I jumped on the moto to head down to San Martin Tilcajete. I REALLY love the albrije art that they make around Oaxaca and San Martin is known as the birthplace with the best shops. My plan was to drive the 40 mins south to walk around the various shops and look at the art.

Once I arrived I walked around as the absolute only tourist there. Very few shops had opened up even by 11am. Clearly the only tourists that go there go there with van groups and I’m assuming it always happens at a predetermined time. Because I just king of bumbled around letting myself into shops as the artists stared up at me from their work

My favorite shop was a place called Taller David Hernandez. They showed me the process of how they made them and they were so well done. After seeing it none of the other places looked nearly as good. At the taller they were working on an octopus for some lady in San Francisco and it was absolutely amazing. He said the piece would cost about $10,000 which seemed like not a terrible price for how much work gets put into it. You can see the work in progress. The dark blue is just the primer and the stripe on one of the tentacles is the more intricate pattern that will eventually cover the entire octopus.

Octopus in Progress

The process consists of them getting the wood which is a specific tree, cutting it into shape of an animal, letting it dry for 10 months, and filling the cracks that form with chips of wood. They then soak it in gasoline and then prime it and begin painting. Watching the girls do the painting was amazing. I don’t know how its possible that they painted so finely. It really made me want to do some drawing again.

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Carved and dried and waiting for primer

Alebrije

Alebrije

When I got back I headed to the market to get some overdue things done. I bought an extra pair of pants as my other ones ripped this morning cleeeeear down the crotch, and I hired a guy to change out my phone battery for 100 pesos. He did a great job and I went to eat some lunch and some mangos from my favorite mango lady while he did it.  The “Manila” mangos here are sooo good especially with the spicy salt that mango lady puts on it.

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My favorite mango lady

“Manila” mangos

Then I rested for a bit at the hostel a little before heading out of Oaxaca for the warmer and more humid air of Chiapas.