Day 9 19.07.15
Today we slept in and then went out for breakfast to check out the town a bit. We have noticed that this town is full of hippies. Better said of foreign hippies. They stand around the streets selling their own (home-made) jewellery, selling soaps and what not, looking completely undone and “free spirited”. Well. A couple of us have talked about how we feel about these street vendors. We are a bit sceptical, as they are taking away from the locals. Yes they might have more means to produce what they are selling, and therefore might be selling different products, but some of these people might even be coming from rich families or are travellers that couldn’t leave San Cristobal. Its just a very distinctive sight having small children working the streets selling their products, and have the older hippy community doing the same.
We went to take out money from the bank and then went looking for a spa for a manicure or pedicure. We are in desperate need. Unfortunately as today is Sunday we were in no luck. Maybe we will be luckier in Palenque.
Apart from that we all just did our own little things, reading books, catching up on writing, tanning, strolling around the city or going on an individual tour to a Canyon.
Just before dinner I headed out for a short stroll around the town, trying to take in the scenery, the small little colourful houses and visit one last church before we left for Palenque. It was quite idyllic.
The church is set high up overlooking San Cristobal. You walk several sets of stairs and the view is amazing! Especially this evening when the sun was slowly setting, the clouds were coming over the mountains, a great view.
At seven we met up for dinner at a small local cinema where others of our group had watched a documentary about the Zapatistas. This is a regional movement of indigenous people that have been oppressed by the Mexican government, their land has been taken away and military zones have been constructed around them. The Zapatistas had some quite violent and bloody movements against this, leaving some to be killed in front of a church in San Cristobal, others to flee into the mountains and take cover. The last active movement was about 10 years ago, but no one knows really why this has suddenly stopped as there has not been any forthcoming from the Government and so this could all still be bubbling under the surface.
We had our group meeting at this cinema and most of us decided to eat there for dinner as well. Probably not the best decision, as we had had a great dinner the night before and this didn’t quite cut it. It took ages to come, it was dry and not as good as we expected. We were all still really drained from the day before and most of us opted for an early night in, seeing as we were leaving early the next day to Palenque.
