Yo soy como el chile verde, picante pero sabroso

Ahhh, now thast Christmas is is over we have some time to relax and get on the computer. We were actually supposed to leave San Cristobal today (new years eve) but it will work out easier if we leave on the second. Christmas dinner was an absolute smash!! We had 10 different countries represented, a ton of great food, and more importantly, great music. From Ethiopian throat singing, to Italian folksongs, everyone was just jammin and passing around instruments all night. It was a blast and after that we went to a christmas night show.. MUFAYA!!
The last few days have been spent cruising around town and neighboring ones, visiting a museumj or two. A couple of days ago, we went to Chamula and Zinacantan, to indeginous pueblos not far from San Cris. Chamulans are famous for their agressive, and defensive attitude, basically if you take pictures of someone they will knock the camera out of your hands... needless to say I got a few shots in....
But only 8km away is this peaceful, beautiful village called Zinacantan where they grow flowers and make these really beautiful shauls. The shauls are of a really thick mateial, but they are decorated with deep purple, green, sometimes blue and read patters of intricate flowers, birds, and things that are very sparkly. It is what everyone wears there and they are so beautiful, wrapped head to toe in an out fit of these colors, babies, men,m women and all. So as we were getting ready to leave Zinacantan these two women, dressed in this beautiful traditional garb, asked us if we wanted to see how the fabric was made, explaining we can take pictures, all free!! So we folllow her to her house and she wraps this huge weaving fabric set up and pulls a wooden stick around her back and really starts going at it on the fabric... muchos musculos! So after describing the practice and telling us that it takes a month to do one shaul, and she had been doing it since she was 12, I was astonished that these cost only 300 pesos!!! The women brought out homnemade tortillass with chese and salsa for us and told us that if we came back on another day, she would show us how to make tortillas... The people from Zinacantan are far more tranquilklo than the Chamulans, just like we heard (even though they are so close).

Yesterday we visited this Cañon de Sumidero, a boat trip through this beautiful gully of a river. We saw a couple of crocodiles and monkeys, and some beautiful scenery....
Ridibng bikes a little bit here in San Cris. and loving it, cant wait to be in Belize andf be cruzing around the islands!!!!
Prospero año nuevo a todos!!!

Merry Xmas from SanCRistobal!!

So it has been a while since the last post, let me see if i can kinda paraphrase the last couple of weeks...... Zipolite was a blast, meeting really good people, eating for cheese pizzas with roquefort, and laying in the hamac until you fall asleep. We visited a tiny secluded beach around the corner called Play del Amor, Sonya got stung buy a sting ray (extremely painful) and i think i might have a broken toe, additionally, we met a guy from the UK thats legal name is Crazy Horse Invincible. Thats not all, but mainly just a vacation from our vacation.
On the 20th, we took a night bus 12 hours to San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas, the home of the Zapatistas. We are staying with our friend Tom who we met in Patzcuaro, and meeting many of his friends who live here, from frenchies, italians, germans, all over the world, and everybody is really good people, and its an even more beautiful and international town. On Christmas we are goona have a traditional Christmas dinner, and I think we are gonna make sweet potato pie or some desert. But everymorning here is great, we wake up, put on a pot of coffee, and retreat to the garden with sophie, the other roomate, tom, and us sitting amongst gorgeous virmilliads and orchids, with orange tree that has fresh oranges right now, and an apple tree that draws hundreds of parrots when they are ripe.
Other than that, the future is looking good, and tonight we may go to a reggae show with a band that everyone knows and hangs out with called MUFAYA (more fire, but since they are french they just say the sounds like jamaicans.. hillarious, super intense sound system reggae). I know it doesnt seem like much has been going on, but we keep bust, and if the market isnt closed by now, we are gonna get some stuff.
Hope many of you are enjoying a white christmas.

Breakast tastes better barefoot.

So a couploe of days ago we arrived back on the Pacific side in Salinas cruz, on the Oaxacan coast. Although its on the other side of mexico, it is a south coast, as is where we are in Zipolite. After staying the night in Salinas Cruz, and celebrating sam´s birthday by watching two of Mexicos biggest soccer rivals go at it, we woke up early, once again ang headed west up the coast.

We first arrived in a pretty small town named Pochutla, where we then got on another camioneta (a small truck with benches in the back used for transportantion.. often called a collectivo) heading for the tiny little one road beachtown of Zipolite. It is about ten minute from Puerto Angel, and offers considerably warm water with options of snorkeling, whale watching, and alot more. It is mexico´s only sanctioned nude beach and was founded by hippies in the sixties looking for a place to watch the perfect Solar Eclipse. Right now we are staying in a room, yeas a real room with mosquito net, a fan, no bathroom, for the same price that it was to camp on Lake Catemaco. Zipolite is by far the cheapest place we have been so far in Mexico!! Fruits and veggies are cheap, but why cooik for ourselves when you can go and get a plate of THE BEST BBQed CHICKEN you will ever eat, with sides of delicious mexi-rice, mac salad and more tortillas than you will ever use for only 2 dollars!!! . SO DELICIOUS!!!!!! So Ive been eating chicken the last few nights, except for tonight when we had some delicious italian food.. focacia, keish, the works.
Being on the beach, and the beach leading all the way up to the one road this town has, I rarely wear shoes anymore, not even to breakfast. And if we go out, or even if we dont, we will always eat with our toes digging into the sand.. in fact i am barefoot right now as I write. It is an extremely liberating and relaxing feeling to not give a care about anything, fall asleep in a hamac in the middle of the day, and swim more than a handfull of seperate times in a day.

Just yesterday we discovered many of the different, even smaller beaches by boat on a tour where we saw a couple of humpback whales, manta- rays diving out of the water, and snorkeled for about an hour. Im really browning up nicely, being on the water especially and sonya is browner than i think i have ever seen her. Jealous yet??? We decided we probably wont leavce here for a while... it is VERY easy to get comfortable.
Until nextime.