Activity Summary
Wednesday 26th April - Day 237
Travel to San Cristobal
Walking tour:
Plaza de la Paz
Mercado Agroecológico y Artesanal
Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya
Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán
"Cerrillo" Park
Art street
El Caldero
Posh (drink) place
Admin purchases - tour & bus
Guadalupe Church
Dinner at Donki Burritos Sancris
Thursday 27th April - Day 238
Sumidero canyon tour:
Sumidero canyon vistas
Canyon boat tour - elephant monkeys, crocodiles and various birds
Chiapa de Corzo
Dinner at Trattoria Catanzaro
Drinks at La Viña de Bacco
Summary
San Cristobal
The centre and nearby areas of San Cristobal are really nice and is Luke’s favourite Mexican city. The city has a main walking street through it which has numerous restaurants, bars and shops and the whole place at night has a fun, chilled and safe feel to it. It seemed to offer more unique places than other cities we had been to, which was highlighted by a really good walking tour.
Only negative really was the streets are unbelievably slippy, especially for our 8 months worn out travel shoes which lack grip at the best of times, and the pavements are so narrow. The smooth stone and narrow paths made walking with all our bags a bit treacherous.
Transport
San Cristobal
Oaxaca hostel -> [Walk] -> Bus terminal -> [ADO overnight bus] -> Bus terminal -> [Walk] -> Hostel
Accommodation
San Cristobal - Hostel Boutique 55
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £10
We benefited from a free upgrade to our room which gave us two double beds and a private bathroom which made this place a whole lot better for us. The beds were comfy, plenty of space and the soft fur duvet covers were a delight. We had hot water and the room was at a great temperature without an AC or a fan - although we didn’t have any of the latter so possibly we lucked out.
Negatives; the WIFI was terrible and the two skylights in the ceiling didn’t have any shades so at 6am light would well and truly pour in.
But otherwise it was alright for 2 nights.
Diary
The night bus was a pretty decent way to travel (in Luke’s opinion). The seats recline pretty far back with adjustable headrests with decent leg room and space that allow for a lot more comfort than trying to sleep on a flight. We were pretty paranoid about our bags so ended up strapping them to the seat in our footwell which reduced potential comfort but rather than someone running off with them as we slept.
Luke pretty much slept the whole way so he was in pretty good spirits by the time we arrived in San Cristobal 12 hours later. Nicola for love nor money cannot sleep upright and requires a defensive ball structure that is either not possible or just space invasive. So as per she was running on empty and was also getting hungry. The usual alarm bells basically.
Once off the bus we again were close enough to walk. It was a 10/15 minute journey that was a bit more technical than we were expecting as the stone pavements had a wonderfully clean finish to them that our 8 month old travel shoes struggled to grip on to. We were both slipping around while trying to navigate past what seemed like rush hour pavement traffic with absolutely minimal space. Quite an ordeal.
At the hostel there was no doorbell so Luke spent some time trying to contact the host by phone and in the end a solid knock on the door from Nicola got someone’s attention. We had a rather challenging conversation in Spanglish with the lady as we tried to drop our bags off, who understood zero English, and ended up on the phone with the owner. No matter how hard Luke tried to rephrase ‘we want to leave our bags before checking in’ nothing seemed to resonate and in the end the lady just showed us to our room early. We dropped our bags and we’re out of the door in a few minutes.
There was a walking tour that started at 10am so in order to get Nicola through that she needed feeding. We didn’t have much time and just made a beeline for the central area to find a cafe. After a couple of false starts from google maps (the mobile data signal was terrible in San Cristobal) we found Café Bar 500 Noches which, while a nice place with lovely jazz playing in the background and decent food, was rather overpriced. But we got our food and were done just in time to make it over to the walking tour start for 10.
As with prior walking tours we were split into two groups and our tour guide was probably the most passionate man about San Cristobal you could find. He more or less spoke for 2-3 hours as we walked around what turned out to be a pretty small area of the city but he was interesting and great with suggestions.
What made the tour different was that there were arranged tastings which went above and beyond anything we expected. Firstly there was a local soup tasting at El Caldero and a Posh tasting (spirit made from corn). They appreciated tips but it wasn’t expected but it was a very nice touch and also helped to sit down for a while.
The walking tour went to:
Plaza de la Paz - starting point in the centre of the town.
Mercado Agroecológico y Artesanal - a local market that had a number of different stalls with a whole variety of international food, coffee and of course raw meat. A small place and probably not somewhere we would want to sit and chill.
Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya - this was an interesting part of the tour but also a very drawn out part. We went into a textile store run by indigenous people which sold authentic garments made by the local tribes. Our guide spoke at length about issues with knock offs and modernisation causing problems as well as the history of these tribes which was interesting but this went on for a long time. Nicola had practically fallen asleep standing up. Most interesting was that a number of locals wear long sheep fur garments that people are not allowed to take photos of as they believe it takes away their soul.
Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán - a church with a pretty intricate front. Inside it was still dreary and soulless however
"Cerrillo" Park - small courtyard area with another church.
Art streets - a number of streets had some pretty amazing graffiti / art. Very impressive murals.
El Caldero - got to try some local soup. Not bad and it was the first time Luke’s appetite has half returned.
Posh place - we were given 3 different Posh’s to try; classic, hibiscus and chocolate. The classic tasted like bad whisky, the hibiscus was quite nice and the chocolate was not too shabby, just very grainy from lumps of chocolate and essentially a poor version of baileys. Nicola immediately regretted her tasting of the classic which gave her an immediate headache.
Once done with the tour Luke debated trying to find a place to watch the City Arsenal game but had no idea where to go and Google was less than helpful. So in the end he went back with Nicola who required a nap and instead listened to the game on the radio. The moment Arsenal well and truly lost the title race. What better way to celebrate this than doing laundry - seems there are no self service machines so Luke’s had to settle for getting his Merino wool items going through the risky biscuit drier but after 8 months his attachment has diminished somewhat. Turned out all fine.
Once Nicola had surfaced we went out into the city centre for some admin, sightseeing and food. Firstly we sorted our tour to the Sumidero Canyon for the next day, initially going to the first tour company we saw and then on being about to pay found the ratings of the place were less than ideal so we made up a terrible excuse and ran away down the road to Jalapeno tours where we got it $100 cheaper. Turned out to be a pretty decent company for it.
Next ladmin job was to book our ADO bus tickets to Palenque. This would involve a pretty long slog around 3 sides of the square to avoid the road to Ocasingo as there was an increased risk of road blocks and in turn extortion. For the sake of safety, via Villahermosa it was.
Now all sorted with our chores we had a short walk over to Guadalupe Church and up the steps for the view over the city before going to dinner at Donki Burritos Sancris. First burrito and it made Luke very happy.
We had a short walk through the centre and Zocalo before calling it a night.
Our tour meet time was 8.45am at the Al Grano Cafe in the centre of town so after eating cereal, almond milk and a banana we picked up some snacks from the bakery as we were told we would be able to get lunch at some point. Nicola was fortunate enough to benefit from the bakery’s promo of ‘buy one get mucus covering for free’ as the server started spluttering over her pain au raisin while wrapping it. Unsurprisingly she didn’t eat it.
We were a little early so sat in the zocalo and bought some bug spray for what we expected would be a tenfold increase in biting incidents we had been lucky enough to have had respite from since NZ.
Once everyone had arrived and all names were taken we were off on the tour. We were told everything would be done in Spanish which we were fine with, here really only to see the sights rather than have any great insight to them, so were surprised to see other western tourists doing the same. Here we met Steve and Lee, two Brits also travelling down Central America more or less the same places and time scale, a similar age and also were away a similar time frame we were so naturally got chummy with them. Travelling Fwends.
On the minivan Nicola immediately boid off Luke to sit at the front and leave him for the back seat on his lonesome. Her reasoning was solid in trying to avoid the travel sickness and as Luke would find out, the back seats on a touring minivan are the smallest and warmest, so worthwhile avoiding. He couldn’t help but feel mugged off but it’s a dog eat dog world and in this instance Luke was the mouse.
It was a pretty long drive to the Sumidero canyon viewpoints but Luke managed some sleep while Nicola was plugged into her steamy Bridgerton audiobook but swears it hadn’t gotten erotic on this bus at this point so no flutters on the way to the canyon this time.
We had short stopovers at vista points 1 and 2. The best was certainly point 1 which had an almost horseshoe bend type view over the canyon and some pretty cool vulture type birds circling overhead. The haze was still so prevalent in an area which we would consider remote which is apparently due to predominantly pollution plus geographical spiel about how it's trapped. But this was really quite shocking and did ruin the feel somewhat.
Vista point 2 was a lot smaller and very busy so once elbowing past people to get a look in for a minute that was about all we could be bothered with here.
The second long drive down the windy and slow roads to the canyon boat trip started well and truly knocked most people out. There was a Swiss guy next to Luke who was basically on top of him the entire time due to limited space and the fact he kind of lost control of his body when he passed out and went full direct line nodding bulldog. Thankfully the guy stopped short of trying to sleep on his shoulder.
Luke was roasting by the time he got out of the van and it didn’t get much better once outside. It was a wam 38 degrees and pretty muggy. We dolled ourselves up with suncream, donned the luminescent green lifejackets and boarded the speedboat that would take us through the canyon. When the boat was moving there was some respite from the heat but once stopped the profuse sweating would kick right back into life. The best sweat patch of the tour winner goes to a western girl whose ass had completely changed colour from contact with the seat.
The canyon was pretty nice, a lot of likeness was made to Khao Sok in Thailand but hazier and less impressive. Either way it was nice to look at and the haze also seemed to diminish as we made the 2 hour journey through.
We managed to see some cool wildlife as well; a number of spider monkeys and other types of monkeys, two crocodiles and various birds such as storks. The crocs were pretty cool and the second one on seeing our boat decided to prematurely end his Essex sun tan glow up and slink off into the water which was both cool and slightly terrifying. The croc had a set of pearly whites a veneer wielding chav would be jealous of - it was like Jurgen Klopp's croc cousin.
Everyone disembarked off the boat in a hot mess and then set off in their own direction in Chiapa de Corzo. We were pretty hungry and at this point, so along with Steve and Lee we found a quesadilla restaurant that well and truly hit the spot. This was all we had time for here before meeting at Plaza de Armas Ángel Albino Corzo which was our pick up point identified through a photo on the drivers phone. A bit of a risky tactic but everyone seemed to make it.
We got back to San Cristobal at about 5pm and took off back to the hostel. Sadly this is where we say goodbye and our prayers to Luke’s estate blue merino wool hat he so fondly liked and is expected to have been left on the bus. He was very sad about this as it takes a special hat to not make his long ass head look weird. RIP and he will have to settle for a more boring colour when back home as his bright blue one has been discontinued.
After flip flapping a fair amount between restaurants we settled on having dinner at Trattoria Catanzaro, an Italian restaurant, and were joined by Steve and Lee for food and then some drinks at a very well priced wine bar called La Viña de Bacco. Very nice evening.
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