Comitán

Although most tourists don't visit Comitán we decided to spend a few nights there after recommendations from my Spanish teachers in San Cristobal. It is a 'Pueblo Mágico', making it a recommended tourist destination by the Mexican tourist board.

We did not like Comitán. We were the only people in our hotel, and although it was a nice room, it all felt a little creepy and desolate.

The historical center was pretty but very small and empty, and the most redeeming feature, the square, was closed, due to covid. There are only a few restaurants around the square which are touristic and pretty terrible. And other than the restaurants there really wasn't much else to explore. 

The best part of Comitán was the proximity to amazing natural attractions in the region.

So the next day we set off to the Casadas El Chiflón. Surprisingly there seemed to be no tour agents in Comitán so we had to walk to the outskirts of the town and take a Collectivo to the waterfalls, which was an adventure in itself. 

The waterfalls were undeniably beautiful, there are 5 in total all at different levels leading up a mountain. We swam at the base of the waterfalls in crystal clear waters (the only place available for swimming) and then hiked to the very top of the mountain to the final waterfall to admired the stunning scenery.

There are three ziplines between the waterfalls, we decided to do just one. We flew over the forest below which was incredible and terrifying all at the same time.

We returned to Comitan by Collectivo, only to have another depressing dinner around the square.

We had intended to stay another two nights to visit the Lagunas de Montebellos National Park the next day. But at 10pm, while tucked up in bed, we decided we couldn't possibly stay another night in Comitán. So we took out the laptop to assess our options and it seems the only realistic plan for our remaining time would mean getting on a flight the next morning at 11am from Tuxuala. So we booked a 5am bus out of Comitán and prayed it would run on time.

San Cristobal de las Casas

Our next destination was high in the mountains of the state of Chapias, called San Cristóbal de las Casas. We took a 9 hour overnight bus, on my birthday, to get there. Although most of Chapias is humid and warm, San Cristobal sits at an altitude of 2,200m which gives it a much cooler climate. Night and early morning felt positively freezing in comparison to Mazunte, but in reality was about 9 degrees. We bought scarves and jumpers from the numerous street sellers, and wrapped ourselves in as many layers as possible come nightfall. 

Our first day in Chapias was a slow one, while most people won't feel much from an altitude of 2,200m I am in the unfortunate 20% of people who do. Luckily I didn't experience anything like my time in La Paz (4500m) some years ago, instead it was mostly tiredness, lack of appetite, some headaches and beautiful bloodyshot eyes which lasted our whole time there.

Jonny threw me an adorable birthday party for two in our amazing airbnb, and we wandered the adorable colourful streets of San Cristóbal to get ourselves acquainted. It's a small pretty city and everywhere is easily accessible by foot. It's a popular tourist destination for Europeans and Mexicans as it oozes culture and character. Chapias has a rich indigenous community and San Cristobal is where all these communities come together. It's wonderful to see different communities in the streets, each with their own unique costume. Many come from the surrounding villages to sell their handicrafts and textiles to the many tourists. 

And many tourists there were, the narrow streets were incredibly busy. Perhaps because Chapias has enjoyed a low level of restrictions for much of the pandemic due to low covid numbers. While we were there it was coded 'yellow' the lowest in Mexico at the time, but has recently been at 'green', meaning no restrictions. From speaking with locals, they did not feel that they had less covid, just less reporting of it. Given the large indigenous communities throughout the state who rely on traditional medicines and rarely if ever

 attend hospitals this seemed very likely.

 Chapias is the poorest state in Mexico. Little old ladies and young children street sellers fill the tourist streets. Eating at a table outside can be heartbreaking as children approach trying to sell small braids or wooden toys but always look longingly at the meal in front of you. Given the public primary schools have been closed since the start of the pandemic (and will be until August) it's hard to know what the situation is usually like.

But the south of Mexico has the lowest minimum wage in the country at just €10 a day so its easy to imagine why children are encouraged to start working young. 

While in San Cristóbal I went to spanish classes at San Cris Language school for four hours in the morning while Jonny worked. The mornings were grammar classes and afternoons conversation skills with Sofie who could speak zero English which surprisingly was no longer necessary for me. All the classes were one on one but there were plenty of other students, some who had months in San Cristóbal and the language school.

To my surprise there was another Irish student called Stephen who also had a pretty good level of Spanish. He'd been traveling Mexico for four months and had a house in my beloved Stoneybatter. He was a data analyst but had quit to travel.

San Cristobal is the kind of city where you continously bump into the same people, which is exactly what happened on our first weekend. Nightlife in San Cristobal was buzzing while we were there, plenty of pox bars (Chapias local liquor, made out of corn prenounced Posh) and live music bars. We bumped into Stephen in a tacqueria with a friend from Slovakia. They told us of a bar they'd be going to where a Balkan band would be later playing and we arranged to meet them later, amused at the prospect of seeing our balkan music for the first time, in Mexico.

 First we went for some Pox and then onto Revolution, a Cuban bar with a lively dj rapper set.

We then went onto to El Paliacate. When we arrived the big sliding metal door closed but we could hear people inside. We knocked and were hurriedly ushered in by a bouncer. Apparently there was supposed to be a 10pm curfew at venues because of covid restrictions, but clearly it wasn't being very well policed. El Palicate was absolutely packed, and had a cool underground vibe, a small low stage with the audience gathered around both sitting on the floor and on seats. To my absolute joy there was some boylesque performances and the crowd were going wild. After the full Balkan brass band came out and played an amazing set, meeting our new slovik friends standards.

After we wandered to another music bar to just catch the end of another Mexican rock band before hitting the hay. We had ended up on a pub crawl with live music at every venue! 

San Cristobal was quickly turning into our kind of place and so we decided it best to change our plans and route once again to extend our time there. 

On Sunday we did a tour to two neighbouring villages. The first was Zinacantan a village famous for their flower growing industry and as a result the towns native clothing are made from a purple linens covered in embroidered flowers. To have and to wear the traditional dress is a source of great pride for villages, particularly because they are not cheap. A full outfit coasts about €400 and yet most people in the village we saw were wearing them. We visited a locals house and business, where we encouraged to drink pox on arrivals. Masks are not worn in the villages, in fact they think masks a ridiculous idea for stopping a virus. Instead they drink pox every morning, as the believe it purifying and a preventative to catching any disease or sickness. We had incredibly delicious  tacos made for us at the home and were shown the workshop where clothing is embroidered. 

Next we went to the village of San Juan Chamula. Because it was Sunday there was a market and it was full of locals doing their weekly shop. They wear incredible sheepskin skirts and waist jackets, because the traditional trade of the village is sheep. We were warned not to take any photos of people in the village as we would face large fines for being disrespectful. The prominent members of the village (all men) were gathered in the square, ready to hear any issues in the village and to pass judgment and instruction. 

We made our way to the villages church. From the outside it looked like any other small 15th century colonial church. But inside was one of the most culturally shocking experiences I had had on my many travels. The village incorporates native pagan believes with Catholic ones, and the result is fascinating. Inside the church was empty of the usual pews or alter, the walls lined with small cabinets each with its own Saint heavily decorated with flowers. The prominent families in the village are given the great honour of being given a Saint to maintain, but they often spend thousands of euro ending up in debt buying flowers for their saints. The floor of the church is covered in straw and candles with groups of families huddled around the candles on the floor. To get to the top of the church we had to weave between the groups, carefully avoiding candles. Families also burn incense as an offering so between that and the air is thick and smokey. They also offer pox and coca cola and drink them on the floor together. 

If someone has a problem, a shaman is brought into the ritual. The shaman will pray with the family or person who needs help and brings with her live chickens which she or he will rub over the person who needs help. She or he will burp loudly (thanks to the coca cola) to help expel evil spirits. The chicken will at somepoint be killed as a sacrifice. 

 We also were keen to visit the Zapatistas village but due to covid they are not accepting tourists at the time. The Zapatistas are a rebellious force for the indigenous people who fought against the marginalisation by the Mexican Government. In 1994 they coordinated a 12 day uprising which centered around San Cristobal. They still have alot of support in San Cristobal and throughout Chapias. The rebellion died down when the Mexican government promised to grant some autonomy to the Zapatistas. Sadly to date they have not kept to this promise. 

Another tour we did from San Cristóbal was to Cañon del Sumidero. It is a 30 minute drive from Cristóbal as it's all down hill has a scorching climate compared to the cool San Cristobal. We sailed down the river surrounded by the canyon which feels exactly like something from 'The Land Before Time', and although there were no dinosaurs there were plenty of alligators. 

The scenery was truly stunning. 

After traveling all the way through the canyon and back, we switched to our mini bus and drove to various viewing points from above to look down to the winding River. 

While we were in San Cristóbal, the state run museums were sadly closed due to covid restrictions so we spent our afternoons wandering to the amazing textile shops, drinking hot chocolate and eating in the amazing variety of international cuisine. People from all over the world had fallen in love with San Cristobal and made it their home. One evening in a tapas wine bar we got chatting to an Irish couple who had been living in Canada. They had thought about returning to Ireland for a while but after a two week visit at Christmas they decided not to, telling us how terrible the lockdown there was. They said lockdown in Canada wasn't as difficult as the Irish lockdowns.

On Saturday night we invited Brendan and Andrea over to our Airbnb for drinks as well as Matt from the UK who was in my Spanish school. We had a few drinks before heading to a famous rave we had been hearing whispers about from fellow tourists. It was situated just outside of the city in a skate park, beside a local market. 

The Mexican doorman told us his girlfriend was from Dublin and he'd be moving there this summer!

Downstairs was the skate park, almost empty of people but upstairs was a large  room with a bar and dj box full of people dancing to the Russian DJ who had flown in especially for the gig. We danced all night long, meeting people from all over the world, including a from Ballymun in Dublin and a girl living in San Cristóbal who was originally from Armagh. We had met more Irish people in one night than our entire trip of Mexico! 

Knowing the night couldn't be topped we decided to leave San Cristobal two days later for the town or Comitán. 

Mazunte and San Agustinillo

Just 40 minute drive from Puerto Escondido is the adorable village of Mazunte. Along this stretch of the Oaxaca coast are three fantastic beach towns, San Agustinillo, Mazunte and Zipolite, all in close proximity to each other. San Agustinillo, the smallist, is just a fifteen minute walk from Mazunte and Zipolite, the largest, is just twenty minute truck ride.

 We initially picked Mazunte as it seemed to promise the best WiFi which Jonny would need to work and WiFi was becoming increasingly sparse as we ventured further from the Yucatan. If you had time and no WiFi commitments, spending time in each of these towns would be highly recommended.

Mazunte is how I had expected Tulum to be, small, full of hippies, beautiful beaches, dirt roads, no English and scorching sun. It was also as if covid didn't exist, we didn't see a mask or hand sanitiser during our time there. Mazunte is the type of place you can't sanitise. Everything was organic, the buildings were wooden with palm thatched roofs. The electricity would sometimes flick off and on at night time. International hippies had made it there home but spoke Spanish to one another, never wore shoes and played drums, flutes, violins or accordions in the streets to try and raise money from passing tourists, others made hand made jewellery, or offered reki or tarot reading.

Mazunte felt timeless, it could easily pass for 1960 if it weren't for the odd truck, though even they weren't so modern.

The locals were as laid back as the hippies who had invaded, seemingly accepting of their presence and not phased by the fact their drinking rituals started at 10am outside the local corner stores.

I loved everything about Mazunte. It had a magical and peaceful atmosphere and it felt a million miles away from the rest of the world and all its problems.

Jonny, however, could not stand the hippies. His unexplainable hatred would case him to curse them under his breath in the street and privately verbalise his distain to me but could never fully explain what it was exactly about them that brought about his very real fury. It became an ongoing source of amusement during our stay.

Our Mexican routine kicked in, I found a language school behind the village up some dirt roads on a hill, where I would attend spanish lessons every morning while Jonny worked. The school offered a cheaper rate if you agreed to be paired with another student, so I did. I can only hope they made the pairings based on convenience rather than ability. I was paired with a Californian called Keith. He was tall with long unwashed hair and sometimes with a distinct fragrance of body odour. He had been going to the classes for nearly a month and seemed reluctant to utter even a sentence in spanish, or to even attempt it, much to the teachers and my frustrations. 'Just try!' she would plead in spanish, always refusing to speak English with him, but her pleads were usually to no avail.

Our teacher was as hippy as Muzante itself. She had visited from her native Mexico City seven years ago and never left. A story that was a common one for the village. She had a husky voice as though she'd smoked far too much, but was impossible to age. Like everyone in Oaxaca she was short, at 5 foot 1 I had become tall. I liked her, she was enthusiastic but our classes were a struggle because of Keith's unwillingness.

On my first day during our break I asked him about himself, in english. He was traveling with his girlfriend Natalie, who from what I could gather, could already speak Spanish. He'd been in Mexico and Mazunte for 3 months. They had no return flights but he spoke of returning for a job. 'Oh what's the job?' I asked.

He planned on growing and selling weed in California.

 'oh because its legal there now?'  I tentatively asked.

'No, no, illegally, you get more money that way'.

He told me he liked Irish people because he had lived and travelled in his van in the past with an Irish couple from Donegal.

For the afternoons Jonny and I would go to the main beach. It was a beautiful inlet surrounded by cliffs. In the distance you could see whales and dolphins out at sea which was incredible to watch with an evening beer. Mazunte also offered some amazing sunsets. Crowds would gather at Punta Comata, up on the cliff for the occasions, and hippies gathered to play drums and sing as the sun went down. Clever locals would come with gallons of home made Pulpe or Mescal to sell. The sunset and sound of the waves crashing on the cliffs below made the experience truly magical.

Nightlife was fairly tame in Mazunte, day drinking was more the hippies vibe, but there are plenty of incredible restaurants. As well as traditional Mexican, there was an amazing pizza restaurant, run by Italians and a Chinese restaurant run by a Mexican who'd spent years studying in China.

One night which was not so tame was after an afternoon trip to Zipolite. We took a twenty minute ride on the back to a taxi truck (Mazuntes version of a collectivo). Zipolite beach is the only nudist beach in all of Mexico. It is long open and expansive, but not as pretty as the beaches of Mazunte. The town is bigger with more of an evening buzz. We happened to stumble upon an Irish bar called 'The Bar'. We decided to go in for 'just the one'. How wrong we were. The pub was small and dark with a lone tall ginger pale deadlocked man behind the bar, who was unmistakenly Irish. Not only was he Irish, he was from Swinford in Co. Mayo, twenty minute from my hometown. He was beyond thrilled to have two Irish people, and even more thrilled to hear I was from Mayo. I was the first Mayo person he'd had in the bar. He was excited to introduced us to his Mexican girlfriends mother who was working across the road. A bottle of Jameson was taken out, shots poured and we knew were in for a long night. Also perched on the bar was a Danish man, who was an enormous fan of Irish Trad music, to the point that he knew the lyrics to every Irish Trad song we put on, some songs I'd never heard of. The bar filled with people as the night wore on and we had some sing alongs which any pub at home would be jealous of. It was an interesting mix of people, some local expats, one from Australia who claimed to be a retired 'spook' (spy) for the Australian government. He had been working in Turkey after 9/11. Apparently the Turks were very accomodating to the Australians given they had beaten the Australians during WW1. The information he gathered was then passed onto the American government. It's impossible to know if his stories were true but he was very convincing and either way it was entertaining.

 Paul, our mayo barman, at one point decided he didn't want anymore customers because they were only distracting from our conversation and closed the shutters. As people left we were able to find more out about Paul's life in Mexico. He'd been in South America for 8 years, starting in Argentina and had set up the bar three years ago. He wasn't much older than us, his parents had died and he had one sister who lived in the UK. He told us how hard it had been when tourists stopped coming when the pandemic first hit. We asked him why Mexicans seems so unphased by the pandemic, 'because they die every day here, they're used to death'. 

He told us there was no covid in Zipolite. 'Nobody gets it here, of course not!' 

We asked him if he had to pay money to the cartel. No, because they like him, he said. But everyone else did. 

At two in the morning it seemed it might be time to try and get home, something which turned out to be a problem given we were twenty minute drive away. Paul went out to look for a taxi but none could be found. So he said he'd have to drive us. He had had more that a few whiskeys but left with the prospect of sleeping on the bar floor it seemed the best option. Luckily there was no one else on the windy dark road between Zipolite and Mazunte and we made it in one piece. 

While staying Mazunte we decided it best to extend our trip again and changed our flights once more. We kept a keen eye on news at home and in Europe about air travel, there had been announcements about hotel quarantine in Ireland being brought in but was a long, long way off from becoming reality. More disturbing was an unexpected announcement from the French president that flights from outside the EU would no longer be allowed into France. Our return flight transited through Paris. After a weekend of panic, it turned out to me little more than political showboating, flights would not be cancelled, planes would still fly, we would just need to fill out a new form. Which I'm sure was good news for the thousands of french tourists in Mexico.

 With our extra time we decided for more time in Mazunte. However, our hotel was booked out so for a change of scenery we went ten minutes down the road to stay in San Agustinillo. We spent three nights in a fabulous Cabaña on a steep hill which overlooked the sea. San Agustinillo is a slightly fancier Mazunte. We were shocked when one restaurant told us we needed a reservation to dine there and turned us away, despite being half empty. Reservations were unheard of in Mazunte.

 The beaches in San August were fantastic, and much quieter than Mazunte. My favourite thing about the Oaxacan beaches was the late afternoon food sellers. Little old ladies would walk the beach with baskets and bags full of mysterious treats. From Pescititos (mackerel tacos) to chocolate flan for a minimal price. I still think about the chocolate flan we had on San August beach.

We also did a boat tour from San August to see the whales and dolphins which was incredible. We got amazingly close to a humpback whale, so close his giant tail almost hit the front of our boat. Next were the dolphins which swam all around us, one jumped out of the water right beside us to say hi. It was an unbelievable experience. We also saw plenty of Turtles who come to the surface to warm up,  birds often land on the shells for a rest. 

After two incredible weeks on the scorching Oaxacan coast it was time to leave for the state of Chapias.