tory & i pulled into san cristobal de las casas, chiapas, mexico, today at 5 pm after a day filled with scams but which began & is ending beautifully. we awoke in santiago de atitlan (guatemala) where yesterday we witnessed a ceremony asking intervention from Maximon (San Simon), the patron saint of vice, presumably to help a family member with a cocaine problem. i’d tell you more but everything the man said was in a Mayan language except for “bendecir” to bless the cigarettes & booze being offered, and “cocaina” & “marijuana”. The attendants pour the booze into the wooden statue’s gullet, & stick cigarettes in his mouth, light em, & gingerly tap the ashes off as it burns down. He chain smokes, by the way. He has to to smoke all the cigarettes he’s being offered. He’s also wearing about 50 neckties. We showed up as a giant group of German? tourists was leaving, & were left alone with the attendants, Maximon, & a drunk who was cursing the Saint from the street, mostly again in Maya. But then came the man with the offering & the prayer, which went almost an hour while Tory drew portraits of the still-standing-despite-enormous-quantities-of-alcohol saint, and our young guide waited patiently.
So um yeah i was trying to say how we woke this morning at 5am & took the boat (you can only get to Santiago de Atitlan by boat) back to Panajachel, whence we got a horrible breakfast & shelled out $30 each (yup 30 american dollars) to get a ride to the border, whereupon our until-then-very-helpful driver managed to stick us for $20 more as the “border crossing fee” supposedly paid to the border guards but for various reasons we’re pretty sure he pocketed it. Once in Mexico we ended up having to change Quetzales to Pesos at a horrible rate because we were stuck, then i got stuck for 10 pesos by our first bus driver (my fault this time, i converted wrong)… finally, though we’re back in North America & it feels good. actually this town reminds me a little of Italy or something, except for all the little revolutionary Zapatista dolls for sale on the street (this was the center of the 1994 uprising).
Oh yeah, hot showers & great pizza. We’re happy.
they’re closing the internet down now, gotta go.
love p
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