December 16, 2003 San Cristobol de las Casas

Greets from Southern MExico.

Just got back from an amazing boat trip through a really famous canyon that I don´t rememebr the name of.

Apologies for spelling, etc, the keyboard here is quite poor

So the walls of this canyon are 2400 feet high, and we wewere in a speedboat crusing the entire 15 miles of this amazing place. The walls of the canyons are covered in nice greenery and as we went into and out of the light, the colors faded and came through, along with the reds from the stark sheer cliffs too.

If all this wasnt enough, we saw a whole bunch of crocodrillos, as they call their crocodiles. The first one wasn´t too big, only 15 feet long, and he wsa nice enough to open his mouth for what I hope was a pretty amazing picture. The next one was 25 feet lng and just huuuuge and scary and he was nice enoughto sit and do nothing to scare me while I took some pix of him. I would say that I was uncomfortably close to this huge thing.

Then the best part of the trip was the end. We wrapped up at this dam, which is 600ft tall, and probably would have been really amazing to look at but we were on the top of it in the lake, so I dont really know how tall it is, but it must be tall, eh? And then The guy tells us that the monument that is by the dam, a really huge scuplture of three guys back to backtoback is a monument dedicated to the engineers who built the dam. Well, thats the first dam monument to an engineer I´ve ever seen and made me feel pretty special.

After that we cruised back thru the canyon again, and there was annoying y oung mexican couple joking and kissing and flirting in the back of the boat right behind me and I was thankful for our American virtue of not having su ch embellishing `public displays of affectino. Ah well.

So spent a few days sitting in the Zocalo of Oaxaca before coming here to San Cristobol. Been staying in some pretty fun ýouth´hostels, and met quite a few foreigners. I am pretty surprised that there are so few americfans traveling here and lots of europeans and aussies. Kinda nice too, as I am on a bit of a vacation from Americ.

Speaking of Los Estados, I arrived here and was greeted by full front pàge pix of a funny looking ex'iraqi dictator. I guess its nice that they caught him, bu t my first thought was that it probably locked up the reelection of ol senor Bush who is disliked by me, and hated by just about any foreign person I have met.

Wow there is just an absolutely amazing market here in down. I Am trying to decide if I should buy $200 of stuff and take it back home and sell it. Purses and rugs and jewerly and just amazing vibrant cfolors. I certainly liked all the stuff.

Food here has been pretty good. I´ve been real happy with my spanish and have been eating lots of snacks on the street and trying little things. It is a totally different experience than my last Mexico trip or trips wh en iI was working for P&G and usually on expense and when not, had enough cash to enjoy the finer things. I enjoy how close I am to the culture, but am also seeing how many people feel about all the rich tourists running around....they have a bit of angst and are quite skilled at ripping people off. IT is a quite different feeling than I´ve had elsewhere, becaus, to me, it seems MExico is just too close to the UISA and somehow that makes the locals all the more angry. Usually people try to rip ya off, but its just good business, here, they seem a bit um, what do I mean, insulted perhaps. Things aren´t very cheap in MExico either, not that much less than back home, so unlike other place sI I hve been, we are not super rich compared to lots of locals traveling. If this made no sense, I apologize, it sa bit of a ramble.....çç


So what else? Decided to have a nice meal tonight and guess whos cooking? Moi! One of my friends wanted to make it a market day to practice her spanish, so while I hotrodded thru the canyon she got all the goodies for the meal and I thnk itll be pasta and chicken and salad with a little lime mexican flavor. I am pretty hungry and looking forward to it.

Spending another day here and then off to PLaya Del Carmen to meet up with my sis. Can´t wait to get there, sit on the beachg, relax!

Oh, heh, and if I hear Feliz Navidad again, and I am assuredly bound to hear it an additional infitude of times, I am going to kill someone!!!!!! Songs with english and spanish in them are of course more hip down here, and Feliz is kinda the prototypical Spanglish song of all time. Sigh!!!

Hope all´s well!!

Ryan