2003-11-30 - 4:29 p.m.
My Pop asked me why I went to Chiapas ... it sounds so dangerous.
Truth be told, it was for bragging rights. Which is a jackass reason to go someplace truly dangerous like Iran or Afghanistan. But if that's the reason you go someplace that ultimately makes you think of birthday cake, it ends up being an embarrassing reaon. If yesterday's guerrillas have become today's stuffed cotton dolls, it feels a little silly to have been worried about it.
Truth be told, I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be dangerous long before I got there. I had already met many other travelers who'd been there, who told me it was 'pretty' and even 'cute.' Yeesh. But I was still disappointed at exactly how adorable San Cristobal was.
That said, Chiapas is still one of the most beautiful and fascinating places I've ever seen. There are plenty of non-jackass reasons to go there.
For example, you can take a ride in a speed boat through a canyon with walls up to a kilometer high. You can rent a cabin in the middle of rain forest. You can get drunk on tequila with a couple of Australian girls in a bar in the middle of rain forest. You can see the awe-inspiring remains of a huge city built by one of the most advanced prehispanic civilizations in the Americas (the Mayans) in the middle of a rain forest.
You can walk among the living breathing pure blooded descendents of those very same Mayans. You can see clothing and customs as exotic and colorful as anything you might imagine in, say, Africa. Women wearing the hair like big black towers practically in the middle of their foreheads. Men wrapped in hot pink panchos, dripping with elaborate embroidery and ample tassles.
You can also just hang out all night in a hostel patio with college kids drinking cahuama (the Mexican 40 oz).
