Tuxtla Gutiérrez (22-23 dic)

Tuxtla is the capital of Chiapas, and where I started my travels through the state. It’s pretty small and there’s not much to do...I did all the cool stuff on my first day there and then was pretty bored my second haha. But when I got there Sunday morning I met this Spanish guy named Carlos at breakfast and we decided to go to el Cañón de Sumidero together. It’s this giant canyon in the next town over called Chiapas de Corzo. When the Spaniards were fighting the indigenous population there, and the Chiapas realized that they were going to lose, they decided to jump off the cliff en masse instead of facing defeat to the Spaniards. I really wanted to hike to the different miradors at the top of the canyon, but apparently that takes about 3 days (or an overpriced cab ride), so I settled on taking a boat down through the canyon.  The views were spectacular! The highest point of the cliff is 1km straight up! Una locura. There were also some waterfalls we saw along the way, and lots of wildlife. The entire boat ride was a little over 2 hours, and when it was over, we wandered about the town a bit before heading back to Tuxtla.

It is HOT here! Like 36 degrees in the day. I love it. Except for the fact that you could not pay me to wear pants in that kind of heat. Yet the men here apparently have never seen legs before and feel the need to comment on them when I walk by on the street. Like why do I have to sacrifice the comfort of not getting sexually harassed for the comfort of not getting heat stroke??

After we got back to Tuxtla, we went to the zoo. It was pretty cool; it only has animals native to Chiapas, and they all live in environments as similar as possible to their home environments in the wild. Like all the animals that could be dangerous to humans are obviously caged in, but they have huge enclosures that they can run around in, and many of them have stone walls instead of cages, and you view the animal from above. And there were some animals that were just free to roam about the entire zoo! Super cool.

That night Carlos headed to San Cristóbal de las Casas, and I probably should have gone with him, but I had already paid for 2 nights at the hostel in Tuxtla, so I stayed there. The next day I wandered about the city a bit before going to a marimba museum. It’s an instrument kind of like a glockenspiel or vibraphone, and is traditional to the region. We had seem some playing in the zócalo in Oaxaca, but had not known what they were called. Every night in the parquet Marimba in Tuxtla, they have musicians playing and people from the town dance the marimba. I went that night to watch which was pretty cool. All Mexicans know how to dance! I’m so jealous! Monday I tried going to a few other museums, but they were all closed. I wandered through the botanical gardens and went to a couple little markets and the zócalo (where they have an ice-skating rink and a fake snow hill to slide down). But yes, there’s not much to do there.

I am currently on a bus to San Cristóbal and am literally in the clouds.  And we just keep getting higher! I’ll be spending Christmas here, and although I’ve been told its cold, I think it will pale in comparison to the crazy ice storm everyone is facing back home right now.

Feliz navidad!