Chiapas by Bus – A Day of Adventure

March, 2012 - We were very happy to return to Mexico after

visiting Antigua, Guatemala.  Groovy was waiting patiently for us

in the brand new Marina Chiapas, and the construction around

the marina was still on-going.

A new palapa building that will soon house a marina bar and

restaurant was getting its final rafters, and Groovy was one of just

three boats that had taken up residence at the still-not-officially-

open marina.

One day we took a crowded combi van to the big

nearby city of Tapachula and made the half-hour

trip scrunched up against a young family with a

toddler.  The husband excitedly told us all about

the improvements coming to this small seaside

community of Puerto Chiapas.  Besides the new

tourist marina, which is the pet project of ten of

Tapachula's captains of industry, the waterfront

is rapidly metamorphosing.

Once home only to a large shrimping fleet,

Puerto Chiapas has cleaned up the filthy shrimping process and now

has a cruise ship dock, a growing malecón, and plans to become a

major cargo shipping port with new train tracks that head to the inland

industrial hubs.  This young dad was so thrilled by the prospects for his

small town that he nearly jumped out of the seat of the van as he

described the growth and what it would mean to his community.  He

was most excited that the endless construction all around us was

supported by Mexico's President Calderón and the political power base

in Mexico City.  His feelings of hope and anticipation for his hometown

and his young family were palpable.

That same joy filled the air in Puerto Madero, the small

town that fronts the harbor of Puerto Chiapas around

the corner from the new marina.  This is a gritty small

town that bustles with color and noise, pungent smells

and spontaneous street music.  It isn't a pretty town --

dust fills the air and, at first glance, it is dirty, decrepit

and run down -- but it hums with an inner vitality.

Smiles were abundant and all the streets were filled with crazy three-

wheeled backward tricycles that shuttled people from place to place.

Some of these trikes are made from the back half of a bicycle and

others are made from the back half of a motorbike, but all have a

skinny seat up front that is shaded by a flopping awning.

Passengers hop into the front seat and get a bumpy ride.

Mark couldn't resist trying one of these carnival

rides, and all of a sudden I was squeezing in next

to him and asking the driver to take us around

town.  "Where?" he asked.  "Oh, just up and down

the streets so we can look around!"

He was more than happy to oblige, and for 15 minutes or so he drove us up and

down all the narrow streets, waving to his friends while we giggled like little kids in

the front street.  What fun!

Whole families would pile into these things, mom, dad and three kids hanging on;

old ladies would settle their shopping bags on the seat next to them; and

businessmen would spread out, relax, and fill the whole seat.  In back, the driver

would pedal or roll on the throttle, and the little jalopy would jiggle and rattle

through town.

This is a tourist town for locals from Tapachula, the big city of half a million people

about 15 miles away, but it is far from an international destination.  All the tourists

are weekenders and day-trippers looking for a few hours on the waterfront in a

small seaside village.  Gringos are a rarity.  So we got a great laugh when a little

girl pointed her camera at Mark -- from the safety of her seat next to her mom in

a combi van -- and took Mark's picture.  We definitely stood out in this crowd.

Music played everywhere, mostly from

stereo speakers, but we rounded one

corner to see three men playing a

xylophone.  They were totally in sync with

each other as each took one section of the

xylophone, and the music was lighthearted and fun.  I later discovered that this long

legged xylophone was called a Marimba, an instrument that is prized and beloved

throughout the state of Chiapas.  This one on the streets of Puerto Madero turned out to

be one of the first of many that we would see both here and further inland in the state in

the coming weeks.

Meanwhile the

Tehuantepeckers continued

to blow hard out in the gulf,

preventing other cruising

boats from crossing to

Marina Chiapas from

Huatulco, although many

boats were waiting on the

other side to make the jump.  This meant life was very quiet for us

at night, as the two of us and Andrés, the captain on the sport

fishing boat parked a few slips away from us, were the only three

people actually living in the marina.

There was still no power or water at the marina, and soon we had

to make water to refill Groovy's water tanks.  We invited Andrés to

accompany us on our excursion into the bay, and he grabbed his fishing pole and happily came along.  There's no equivalent

Spanish expression for "A bad day spent fishing is better than a good day at work," but he knew exactly what we meant.  He had

already finished his boat work for the day, so off we went.

It turned out to be a fantastic day fishing.  After tooling around in the bay for just

a little while, Andrés caught a beautiful dinner-sized Sierra (Spanish Mackerel).

Back at the dock he cleaned it expertly and I made us all a dinner from it.  We

had lots of fun chatting away in broken Spanish and broken English over a

gringo style meal, comparing notes on some of the crazy expressions that fill

both languages.  Where we'll call a nice person a peach, Mexicans call a loved

one a mango, and where we sing "Happy birthday to you" they'll use the same

music and sing "You're a green toad."  Seems funny, but it fits the music

perfectly, far better than the long words for "happy birthday:" "feliz cumpleaños."

In the afternoons of these

pleasant days at the

marina, the cabin of the

boat was hitting 90

degrees, no matter how

we shaded the deck or

cockpit.  So we decided it

was time to head inland

into the cool mountains

once again.

We caught a combi van to Tapachula, and from

there took a large Greyhound style bus 200

miles inland to San Cristóbal de las Casas, a

quaint colonial town perched high up in the

mountains.

What a ride that turned out to be.  We had

front row seats to an incredible show.

If an interstate existed, the trip would be just

a few hours.  But not so on this route.  The

tiny, twisting, single lane mountain road

crosses two mountain ranges.  "Topes," or

speed bumps, are planted along these roads

every few miles and traffic slows to a crawl as

each vehicle spares its shocks and creeps

over the steep bump.  Every ten miles or so a

town crowds the road into a chaotic traffic jam.

And in between all this mayhem, the military bring the whole road to a

halt at strategically placed military checkpoints.  At several of these

checkpoints we were all herded off the bus to oversee the inspection of

our luggage in the baggage compartment.

I counted seven bus

stops, seven military

checkpoints, and an

infinite number of

"topes."  All this

would have made us absolutely crazy with

impatience, but the spectacular scenery

and lively towns we passed through made

it all worthwhile, despite averaging 22

mph for the entire trip.

For many miles we paralleled a river that

had communities living on both banks.

Little swinging footbridges connected the

towns on either side.

At the summit of one mountain we saw endless watermelon stalls, and for many miles

every town was connected by a bright red brick sidewalk trimmed with large, brightly

colored flowering bushes that flanked the highway.

This highway is traveled by vehicles of all kinds, from our huge bus to

cars and trucks to horseback riders to walkers pushing carts.  Uniformed

high school kids stood in the middle of the road trying to raise funds by

waving cars down.  The bus driver hung out the window and bantered

with them as we drove by.

When we pulled into one

town the bus had to

negotiate some very tight

turns.  We were just

commenting to each about

how hard it must be to drive

a huge bus on these tiny city

streets when the bus turned

a corner and suddenly faced

a complete roadblock.  Some electrical workers were replacing a transformer

on a power pole, and their truck blocked the entire road.  Oh well!  Our bus

parked in the middle of the road, and we all piled out onto the street yet again.

This time rather than watching men with machine guns rummage through our

luggage, we all descended on the local convenience store to get snacks and

drinks.  What a hoot!  We hung around in the street munching chips and

getting to know each other while we waited for the workers to complete the

transformer installation.  At long last they came down off the power pole,

moved their truck out of the way, and we continued on.

We enjoyed this drive a lot.  The last two

towns, Comitán and Teopisca, looked so

appealing we were tempted to hop out

and stay a while.  But San Cristóbal was

our destination, and at last, after nine

hours of climbing and descending, we

finally pulled into the charming city set at

7,500' altitude.

Dropping our

bags off at the

hotel and

dashing out into

the night we

found little kids

and parents, teens, tourists,

lovers and old folks all filling

the streets.  The air was brisk

and everyone was in jackets.

A chocolatier lured us into his

shop with the most delicious

fresh chocolate treats, and a

few doors down the mellow

tones of saxophone blues drew

us into the middle of a photographer's opening exhibition at an art gallery.

The wine flowed, the hot tamales were passed around, and the crowd spilled out of the gallery

and down the block.  We shivered in the bitter mountain air, but the spirit of this town was warm

and inviting.  It was easy to settle into San Cristóbal, and we ended up staying for 10 days.

Find Puerto Chiapas and San Cristóbal on Mexico Maps.