We are back

We have been back for over a week...the ten days before leaving Playa were a little stressful mainly because of Mexican bureaucracy mixed with our incurable procrastination. Anyway we made it to the airport August 15th with 8 pieces of luggage, 2 kids, 2 cats and we all got home.

Andrea and Stefania were waiting for us in our empty house ... all our stuff was in the basement. But we can always manage to have a pizza delivered within 30 min., we are back in town.

The task of putting some order in this house seems overwhelming, but with some energy and commitment life is almost back to the normal chaos.

The kids rediscovered their toys and books, their trampoline house life.

It is was good to leave, it is also good to be back!

Chiapas con amore!

We got ready for our last trip before our departure.

First stop was Bacalar, great, amazing lake with blue-like-caribbean water. The kids had fun jumping from the pier and it was incredibly quiet. No waves, no noise, no tourists...we spent the night at Casita Carolina, in a bunglow decorated in mexican style by the lake. The idea was to kayaking in the morning but somehow we did not collect the courage so we just went for a swim.

Next, we are heading for Calakmul. An archeological site we thought we wanted to see after seeing this poster in the hotel we stayed in Campeche. Literally it was in the middle of the jungle.

We stay at an eco-tourism village, nice a little too village and not very ecological but still pleasant. However, we did not do our homework right and it was quite along way to reach the site. Once we got there, we had to walk one hour for the first pyramid.

The kids were good sports, they ask ONLY 10 times when are we getting there. We were almost by ourselves in the middle of the jungle, 30 km. from Guatemala.

So Alain goes up the pyramid and the idea is that we take turns so that the kids will not go up. While he is up there, a screaming monkey go in full action, Alain thought it was a wild animal having his family for breakfast. No it was just the screaming "dad" monkey reprimanding his "kids" monkey because they were not behaving! One good lesson right there in the middle of nowhere...

Well, of course we end up going all of us up the pyramid...

At this point we reorganize our trip deciding to stay overnight at Palenque but proceeding the next day for S. Cristobald with stop at the cascade, Aqua Clara and Aqua Azul and visit the Palenque archeological site on the way back.

I don't know if because we were deprived for our year of other nature that the one on the caribbean coast, but the road trip up to S. Cristobald was an incredible experience: it was a mix of forest, jungle, banana tree, corn fields and cows eating grass under tall tree.

However Chiapas seems the happiest land for animals and plants, people seems to have it a little harder. Flock of barefooted kids on the side of the street try to block your way to sell you something. An incredible rich land, with incredible poor people, the Zapatista movement had a point. Now the point seem lost, of the Zapatista movement the only thing left is puppet dolls that represent Marcos and his guerilleros sold on the sidewalk of S. Cristobald.

As politically aware tourists, we observe take note, move on and buy some stuff to relieve our conscience! And also to protect ourselves from the cold.

The air at S. Cristobald is crispy. It has not been crispy for one year for us, Matthias and Oscar are full of energy! We sleep with a big blanket and we buy ponchos and wool hats for the kids.

The town is alive: a group of late teens watch a documentary on Castro projected on the church wall on the main square, they are street vendors everywhere, there is the amber exposition (for my joy!).

The town is architecturally beautiful and it has a soul. We were enchanted by S. Cristobald...we end up spending the next day just wonder the street, the market, the churches and looking at the people. Our hotel was very cozy and the waiter at breakfast was fast and the eggs were just right!

We might go back to S. Cristobald one day, maybe we flight there instead of accumulating good 15 hours of driving.

On the way back we stop to Palenque. Beautiful but a little too touristee, now we are used to have the site all by ourselves, the people around and the vendors in the middle of the site kind of ruin the experience. Oh well, Palenque has to be seen in any circumstances.

We stay in the same hotels on the way back, we manage to visit other smaller sites as Becan and Sujil. What can I say the pyramids become almost an addiction....