We're spent a great week here and San Cristóbal is a beautiful town with some lovely people that we have met (look out for photos soon). The only drawback to San Cristóbal is that its cold!!!!! After I took all of the warm stuff home, or else we left it in San Fran - we could now really do with our vests and woolies. I've bought loads of shawls and ponchos and scarves to compensate! The town is at a high altitude, hence the temperature, and we are nearly in rainy season too so there have been some spectacular downpours.
The family that we are staying are great and the more we get to know them the better we like them. They are very politically aware and active and are friendly and easy going too. Señor Francisco, Señora Socorro, Hector (14 years), Miguel (27), his wife Anai and baby Caleb live in the house, with Rosa their domestica. Paco and Juan (29 and 26) visit but don't live at home. Today we were taken of a tour of San Cristóbal including into some of the poorer 'barrios' and the woods. We also visited Francisco's brother and family who had children of 11, 12 and 14. Miguel was doing a puppet show (something he does, educational puppet shows not just for children) that we were looking forward to going to see - we thought that was where we were going but somehow it never happened and we don't know why. Mark's Spanish is much improved but he wasn't able to find out why we hadn't gone.
Mark adds later: It turned out that the village where the puppet show was to be had cancelled, due to mixing up Miguel's organisation with another that they suspected were involved in the rumoured plot to pass off giant worm's eggs (huevos de gusanos) as hen's eggs. This rumour has taken southern Mexico by storm over the last few weeks - the price of eggs has tumbled, and who knows where the rumour started (though I noticed that Cubans call US-ers gusanos sometimes). In the end, though, as they say here, solo Dios sabes (only God knows) ...
We had a good week with our Spanish lessons. We all felt exhausted after the classes but certainly Mark has improved a lot and I have made a good beginning - can't tell what the girls have learned as they won't speak - but if I ask Rosa what a word is she often knows but just won't speak. Our teachers were really nice and the couple who run the school were a delight to hang out with and were very patient with us as we hung around taking advantage of their good natures! Thanks Sandra, Erica and Michael (and Mark's afternoon teacher, Dionyso).
We are planning to stay up to another week here, as we like it so much and haven't had much chance to look around yet. Then we are going to Oaxaca for a few days, then to Mexico city to fly to Cuba! Two weeks there and two weeks in Jamaica and then home!!!!!! Can't believe that we will be home soon.
- Heather
1 comment:
ah, to vicariously travel through my blogging friends. thanks for sharing all your adventures over the past months.
Oaxaca city - i remember wonderful markets, sqares and restraunts. but, there were a lot of tourists and the markets were a bit more pricey than in other places in Mexico (from what i remember).
a great city with lovely colonial architecture nonetheless.
If you have time, you should get a bus from the city to the wonderful artist/surfer village of Puerto Escondido, which means 'hidden port'. It's in Oaxaca state; but, i'm not sure how far from the city. but, the beaches are beautiful and well worth the effort, even for a non-beach bum like myself.
Enjoy your time left in Mexico, and the rest of your travels. Rene and i look forward to seeing you all in Coventry . . . sometime in the not too distant future, i hope.
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