Monday, October 11, 2010 Ocosingo village, Tonina ruins

I was really discombobulated this morning when I walked outside the hostel and there was no protesting refugee camp. All I saw was the lone janitor sweeping the clear street. It was like the movie Big. I guess Monday through Friday, rebels gotta work. I waited a little while for this Astrovan to fill up with people before it left for Ocosingo, a Tzetzal village east of San Cristobal de las Casas. I was expecting the ride to be a quick hour max, but it took two hours to go just 20km! It was also the curviest road this side of Lombard Street, and the driver acted like the Astrovan was a Porsche on the Autobon. I felt like puking once I got to the town. Ocosingo was a tiny little town, but the market was the place to see and be seen. Basically all the vendors were Tzetzal women in their traditional colorful blouses, which was awesome. All of them were selling bananas and green oranges, so I bought some bananas. I really wanted to eat at the taquerias, but there were literally no customers in the five that I saw, so no thanks. So I starved instead. I took a small combi van to Tonina, which were a bunch of ruins in the middle of the countryside, which were picturesque. There was a huge temple, and actually the Tonina people commanded a large area of power for the Maya, around 800AD. It was slightly hot out, but also pretty empty, which was nice. I basically had the run of the place, and my pictures never even had any tourists in them. I'm still wearing the same black Lacoste shirt that I've been wearing the whole trip. In my defense, it's cold so I'm not sweating, I have four different ones, and they make great travel shirts because they match everything, are cool, are cheap (since they are fake), and look presentable for photos (clearly the most important reason; seriously, I'm not going to wear a cheap ugly t-shirt for my Christmas cards). I had some quesadillas at a roadside shack where time stood still, dogs were basking in the sun, and there was absolutely no noise besides some grasshoppers flying around. The combi for the return trip never showed up, so even better: I rode in the back of a pickup truck to Ocosingo. It was a pretty fancy pickup truck, with seats, handles, and a cover. We picked up these Mexican army men from the base, who were so classy: every other word was hue, and they were degrading women the entire time. I did the inevitable and hopped into a shared vomitmobile van back to town. I had dinner at this hole in the wall place which I'm almost positive gave me Montezuma's Revenge (I knew it was only a matter of time until it happened...) After that, I went online and basically posted my entire Mexico journal onto this blog. Why not? It´s only $1 per hour for internet here! What else am I going to do between dinner and drink/sleep? Back at the hostel I hung out with the French Canadians and we chatted, watched YouTube videos, and took shots of this "Fandango" anejo spiced rum, which was only the finest quality. For a normal fifth, a bottle was, I kid you not, two US dollars. I gave them each one peso ($0.10) for my shots, which mostly covered the almost more expensive Coca Cola chaser.