Arriving in San Cristobol

We woke up at 6:30am yesterday to get on the bus at Lacanja before 8:00, and then spent the rest of the day driving, with a short and very pretty break outside of Palenque after we dropped Rebecca off at the bus station there. We finally arrived to San Cristobol around 8:00pm to meet our host families and embark on a mini-adventure for our suitcases. While I fully expected for the real fun to begin then, in fact, there were quite a few interesting sites along the way.

Outside of Palenque, when we stopped for lunch which I felt strange eating because of all the Dramamine in my sister, we spent some time watching a very large waterfall while Hugo arranged one last meal for us. While the other waterfalls we have seen were beautiful and impressive in their own right, size does matter, and as a result, this one has trumped them all.

 Afterwards, we were driving through nothing but highland country, and as a result, we were treated to Zapatista propaganda, despite the military presence that occasionally stopped us to inspect our luggage. The letters EZLN were occasionally painted on houses, often in faded letters. Once, I saw a restaurant named “Cocinera Zapatista.”  Most exciting, however, was probably a small town center with a name I can’t recall. There was a sign that read “Autonomous Province of the Zapatistas.”  Additionally, the school was emblazoned with the EZN, decorated with men carrying arms and wearing a ninja-like costume with a red band o n their foreheads. I wish I had my camera ready when we passed by.

When we arrived, we filed off the bus with everything we brought on it and met our host families in the language institute. I don’t have  a roommate because I have chosen to live alone, but I’m sure it’s going to be fine despite my initial trepidation about it. Already, I feel like my Spanish is improving because my host family makes an effort to gently correct me when I say things like “corporacion” instead of “corporativo,” or when my verb conjugation is a little off. They also have two children, which are fortunately pretty close to my age so I can foresee myself not wanting to kill them like I might be inclined to do with say, seven-year-olds. The oldest girl is nineteen, she goes to college is Tuxtla, the capital city not far from here, and she is studying tourism. Unfortunately, she is only home on the weekends because she lives at the university during the week. The youngest girl is fifteen, and reminds me a little bit of my sister Katie. I don’t feel like we have a lot in common, but because we will probably be spending some time together in the house, I’m sure we will find something

On a final note, before I went to work on finishing my Maya blogs and the glyph project last night, I, of course was stupid and brought up the Zapatistas because I want to know about them. It wasn’t so stupid after all because the family was happy to oblige and give me their perspective on them. Look for a post on what I have learned once I can do some outside research, and probably something about political tourism as well.