Por la Selva Lacandona, Chiapas

Esta vez, salimos de Palenque en compania de Miriam y Sergio. Pusimos sus bicis en el techo y salimos rumbo a la selva Lacandona (alli habitan los Mayas lacandones cos sus vestidos tradicionales blancos), y en pleno territorio zapatista. Durante el viaje, aprendimos diferentes juegos, contamos historas , e intentamos hablar “en mexicano” y a veces cuando nos paraba la policia le contestabamos diciendo buey, en uno de esos juegos perdi (gustavo), y tuve que pagar una prenda, asi que me pusieron una nariz de payaso, y me pintaron la cara, asi tuve que pasar todo el dia! La primer noche nos quedamos en la estancia de un amigo de Felipe, y luego si nos adentramos en plena selva, en un pueblito Maya llamado Lacanja Chansayab. Cada maniana nos levantamos con el ahullar de monos y el canto de los gallos. Tambien pasamos por un par de cascadas, Las Golondrinas donde nos baniamos y entramos en las cuevas atrás de una de las cascadas, y tambien fuimos a otras (mucho mas impresionante) llamada Las Nubes. Esa noche dormimos cerca de la Laguna de Montebello, y a pesar de que el tiempo no nos ayudo mucho, igual pudimos apreciar la belleza de este lugar con sus lagos y pinos. Ayer llegamos a Comitan, y despues de almorzar en el mercado unas buenas quesadillas, mole de pollo, unas sopitas de pollo, tomamos rumbo por las montanias a San Cristobal de las Casas. De nuevo, es dificil de explicar lo bien que lo pasamos (o estamos pasando), no solo por los paisajes que tiene Chiapas, sino sobre todo por la mas que buena compania de estos amigos, que el camino nos esta ofreciendo.
After finally leaving El Panchan in the pouring rain, the first day we drove through official Zapatista territory and made it to a ranch that belongs to a good friend of Felipe’s called Valle Escondido, and the family let us set up camp under some palapas that they have set up (a whole kitchen with beautiful wooden tables and chairs). We had a nice swim in the crystal clear river that comes down from the mountains, and bought a chicken from some local people (who killed and cleaned it for us) to make on the fire. The next morning we took off again, playing some riotous games – Miriam and Sergio are great, and it makes it easier to travel with on-board entertainment for the kids! We decided to stop at a waterfall area called Las Golondrinas. From the photos you can see how beautiful and powerful the falls are. We had a great time swimming to the falls and sitting underneath where you can see the caves that the swallows swim in and out of at dawn and dusk. Sergio made us a nice lunch of pasta with a creamy broccoli sauce, and then we were on our way again. We had heard of a Lacandon village called Lacanja Chansayab in the jungle that you can visit, close to the Archeological sites of Bonampak and Yaxchilan, inhabited by the only unconquered group of Maya. We got to the village close to dusk, and talked to a Mayan man we met called Mariano and his wife, who are just starting out with a camping area called “Pequeno Cascada de Rio Cedro” on their land. They have a small waterfall and a couple of huts, so we decided to stay there overnight. That night we took a walk in to “town” - which is basically just a couple of taco places and a couple of small stores, but you can see that they are starting to build infrastructure for tourism – and there were surprisingly quite a few foreigners there! We ate some quesadillas at a place that happened to be run by Mariano’s nephew. The next day we had a refreshing dip in the waterfalls, packed ourselves in to the westy and continued the adventure. We drove for most of the day to get to a place called Las Guacamayas, right on the edge of the river that separates “civilization” from the Lacandon Jungle Biosphere Reserve. This place offers boat tours that cross you over to the jungle to see the protected scarlet macaws (guacamayas) and if you are lucky you can see crocodiles, monkeys, boa constrictors and many other animals. We decided not to do the tour in part because it was the wrong time of day and we would have had to stay overnight to do it at 7 am. We kept driving for a while until we got to this cute little town called Chajul, again right on the river/jungle frontier, and asked around until we found a perfect place to camp on the river. We had a fire but were forced to go to bed early because it started to rain. The next morning we were woken up by the mantled howler monkeys on one side of the river battling with the roosters on the other! It was then that we realized just how the idea for King Kong was born – it is hard to believe how much noise these little monkeys make! Gustavo ended up being the big loser in one of our ongoing games, so his “prize” was that he had to wear a clown nose and make-up all that day, and say “buey” (which is the Mexican equivalent of “man” or “dude”) at the end of every sentence. I don’t have to tell you how much we laughed that day, especially at military checkpoints! We drove through more jungle until we started to head up into the mountains to get to a waterfall place we had heard of called “Las Nubes.” The drive there was pretty crazy, as you had to drive 12 km off the main highway from a village called Jerusalen on this twisty, steep, bumpy, narrow road through corn and banana fields – those were the longest 12 km of our lives (it took us 40 minutes), but it was worth it in the end. The waterfalls were really impressive, especially when you are suspended from a hanging bridge over them, and after a 1 km long scramble up the edge of a cliff, the view was breathtaking. We could see why is called “las nubes”, as the mist from the falls makes it look like you are in the clouds. At one point the sun came out and created a beautiful rainbow. It has been raining alot lately so the water was a bit brown, but usually it is this impossible blue colour. After our visit to the falls we headed for an area known for its many emerald-blue lakes, called “las Lagunas de Montebello” – we ended up staying overnight at a camping place on the edge of a lake in a town called Tziscao. The scenery had changed once again, and there were abundant pine trees mixed in with the tropical foliage, and we were reminded of a cross between Punta del Diablo and photos we have seen of Scotland. The lake had overflowed and it was a strange site to see the pine trees partly submerged. It rained a lot while we were there too, but at least we were finally able to have hot showers where we were staying! We stopped for lunch at a market stall in a nice little town called Comitan on our way to San Cristobal, and got there by 5 pm.