Our Holiday to The Coast and Chiapas

In November we went on a three week "holiday" which was GREAT!!! Let us tell you a little bit about what we got up to!!

First we took a 9 hour bus ride down to the Oaxacan coast which is on the Pacific Ocean. We were going to meet Luke (my brother in case you don't know!), his girlfriend Josie and 9 of their friends(!!) on a beach called Mazunte. The trip down was uneventful but when we eventually got to the coast the views were spectacular. As we wiggled our way towards our drop off at Pochutla we were extremely happy to be there! It was quite late when we eventually arrrived at Mazunte but it was still hot and we could clearly hear the sea. After finding a clean but non-descript room just off the beach (which had it's own bathroom - a luxury), we went for a stroll down to the beach. We had no idea where Luke was staying but found him by walking along the admittedly smallish beach and literally bumping into him. We spent a great couple of days with them all in Mazunte and the next door beach of Ventanilla generally chilling out, swimming, eating and drinking. The boys also partook in a little football action with some of the local kids - but that was way too energetic for the rest of us. Mazunte is a very relaxed pretty beach, with a few restaurants and bars and good waves. The village itself is tiny with only about 400 people living there, and the beach was on the whole quite empty (except for your typical hippy traveller type of course!!) We went on several boat trips - one to see dolphins and to molest or swim with (depending on your point of view!) sea turtles, and the other to a mangrove lagoon where we saw crocodiles and lots of birdlife of the feathered kind! Luke and a friend of his (Eric) decided that they would try and fit into Mexican life by attempting to grow the most ridiculous moustaches - very silly but entertaining! The only other thing to do in Mazunte is visit the Sea Turtle Museum which some of us dutifully did, where we learnt all about the different varieties of turtles that exist in the area. We couldn't molest this lot though!

After a couple of days all they all went off in various directions and Tristan and I stayed one more day at the coast in Puerto Angel which is quite near by. We didn't think the beach was as nice as Mazunte but we did go snorkelling which was great. Having never done it before I wasn't sure what to expect but we went off in a boat to several different bays and to some coral which was beautiful. The fish were gorgeous - just like you see in a tropical aquarium but a lot closer and of course free!!! It was very hot at the coast, and the sea was the perfect temperature so we spent a lot of time either in the shade of a beach bar or in the water covered from head to toe in factor 30! So I actually look a little tanned and not at all burnt - amazing but true!! We stayed in a good place in Puerto Angel called the Posada Canon Devata, where the guy who kind of ran the place made me some hot lemon and honey as I was still recovering from the flu! Everyone who heard me coughing were very concerned for me and at one restaurant they told me off for drinking a cold drink and gave me a complimentary mezcal instead - a cure for all illness!

We finally headed off to the next door state, Chiapas, on a gruelling 12 hour overnight bus! We didn't get much sleep that night! Chiapas has been in the news since 1994 when a group called the Zapatista National Liberation Army occupied the town of San Cristobal de las Casas and nearby towns by military force. The Mexican army evicted them pretty fast killing about 150 people in the process. The Zapatistas are fighting for a fairer deal for indigenous peoples, by attempting to "overturn a corrupt wealthy minority's grip on land, resources and power in Chiapas" (Lonely Planet) which has left many indigenous people impoverished and without basic rights. They have won widespread support but haven't really won any concessions. Fighting was still continuing between pro-Zapatista villages and the Mexican army until 1999, although it is relatively quiet at the moment. The Mexican army can't be seen to be blatantly wiping out the rebels so they are grinding supporters into submission by launching campaigns of violence, intimidation and detentions against some of the villages in the Zapatista heartland. We saw very little trouble - in fact we were stopped more by military blockades in Oaxaca looking for drugs and arms than in Chiapas. The only evidence of anything slightly weird is the Zapatista dolls that you can see in every market - black masked figures with guns - nice!

Anyway we arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas absolutely exhausted! But the town soon made up for it! It's really a very pretty town with lots of beautiful old buildings and churches. It has a great feel to it being quite artsy with lots of nice clothes shops and bars and restaurants galore - and Christmas was already in the air! It is 2100m above sea level so it is actually quite cold especially at night when it was positively nippy! We spent a very pleasant day there wondering around, doing a bit of shopping and enjoying the town. The next day we went to a very interesting house/museum called Na Bolom (House of the Jaguar in the indigenous language Tzotzil). It was the home to a couple called Trudy and Frans Blom. She was a Swiss anthropologist and photographer and he was a Danish archaeologist. They dedicated their lives to studying and protecting the indigenous Lacandon people and the jungle they live in - very forward thinking since they began this work in 1950 or so. Unfortunately we couldn't go on a tour of some of the indigenous villages nearby as they had cancelled the tour that day which was a great shame. But the visit to the museum still gave you an insight into the lives of the Lacandon people and how much we need to protect the jungle which is diminishing fast due to logging and the search for oil.

We went deeper into the heart of the jungle that same afternoon by heading off to Palenque in some of our new clothing purchases. Palenque town is a bit of dump frankly but just outside are some very spectacular Mayan ruins nestled into the tropical jungle. We stayed in a great hippie-type set up right in the jungle, very near to the ruins. They had cabanas and hammocks for rent and had a restaurant, bar and even a pool there too - very fun but weird to go to sleep listening to the sounds of jungle rustlings all around you! The ruins themselves were fascinating - huge pyramid type buildings covered in Mayan hieroglyphs and stellas. They were (according to the Lonely Planet!) built without metal tools, pack animals or the wheel and were at their peak from about 600 to 700 AD. It was abandoned in the 10th century and was not discovered again until the 18th century, and excavated much later some of it by Frans Blom (see above). As we walked through the jungle to get there we heard the most strange screech/growl/roar - scaring the wits out of us! Luckily a man who worked there walked past at that moment and told us with a wry smile that it was a howler monkey. The jungle also has lots of other strange creatures which we often heard although we only actually saw a weird rat like thing! There are also little waterfalls here and there in the jungle with pools which (even though we weren't really meant to) we took advantage and had a swim as it was absolutely boiling!

The next day we went to two more waterfalls - one called Misol-Ha and another called Aqua Azul where we could swim. They were very large and beautiful although very touristy. Then back to San Cristobal for a night before heading to the main city of the state, Tuxtla - which is a complete dump! The only good thing there really is the Canon del Sumidero which is a narrow reservoir flooded in 1981 as part of a hydro-electrical project. We took a very fast motor boat through the canon - it was bloody fast and we got bounced around a LOT, but we did see some great birdlife and some monkeys and the canon itself was very impressive reaching 800m at it's highest point. That evening we experienced our horribliest meal of our whole time in Mexico so far in a clip joint of a restaurant which Tristan equates to the "Elizabethan banquet experience" that he had the misfortune of taking a tour group to once! It was truly terrible food and the waiters insisted on yelling every time they served the house cocktail which was called a Pompo. It was also incredibly bad service. So all in all a crap place! We also went to see the film Charlie's Angels in Tuxtla as a little light relief from the very bad "straight to video" films that we were forced to endure on our many bus rides - sometimes several times over as there seems to be a limited number of films to go around!

After another gruelling 9 hours we headed back to the coast to meet our friend Simon who was coming to see us. We met him at Bahias de Huatulco airport which was basically a huge grass hut! We then hot-footed it back to Mazunte - our beach of choice! We had a great couple of days wave jumping, snorkelling, gossiping and even more chilling out!! We stayed in the most dingy place of all time the first night as nowhere else had any room. It was off the beach by some way and in a no-man land with smouldering rubbish, pigs and chickens. Not the most picturesque - but it did have a fan and your own bathroom even though the toilet had no seat! The next day we moved as fast as we could to the poshest place in Mazunte which were beautiful cabanas built into the hillside with amazing views (honestly!) of the beach, our own balcony with hammock and tiled bathrooms! Heaven! The only downside was that there was no electricity as yet and although candle light was very romantic the heat was not! But we enjoyed our time there very much.

We then headed back to Oaxaca with Simon and spent the rest of the week here in the city - eating, drinking, shopping and chilling - sounds familiar doesn't it! We did manage to finally go to Monte Alban, which are Zapotec ruins, and a scant 20 minutes away but which we haven't ever quite made it to!! We had lots of fun taking photos and admiring the breathtaking views. Monte Alban is certainly worth visiting not only for the ruins but for the "interesting characters" you see and the weird drinks that you can get in the cafe - both Tristan and Simon found the drinks aspect quite fascinating.

So that was more or less our "holiday". We are now completely skint but happy!!!

-Tamar, November 2000.