July 9th--The Road to San Cristobal

Let me begin by stressing the importance of reading ¨the manual¨to your technological devices before screwing around with them.

We awoke in Palenque to monkeys howling and birds chirping so hard I thought they might explode. I found some small mammals resembling giant guinea pigs roaming the hotel grounds. Employees called them ¨sereque.¨

We climbed on the bus around 9 and went to the Misol-Ha waterfalls. Some people walked around them. They were beautiful. Hopefully people got some good pictures because after that I made a horrific mistake. I clicked the wrong button and managed to reformat my memory card. Now I have a nice clean memory card to start taking new pictures. I looked through someone else´s manual to try to get them back, but there isn´t a troubleshooting section called ¨So you accidentally deleted 8 days of photos. . . ¨

We headed toward San Cristobal. On the way we were stopped by vendors holding strings across the road to halt. As we rode to the highlands, winding around hairpin turns, the foliage changed from lush tropical palms and flowers to coniferous forests. The clothing changed from white and light to dark, heavy sweaters and vivid colors.

The monotony of the bus ride was broken by Maryann´s observations and stories. We saw families and children out working and playing. We found that either people don´t want their picture taken by tourists on a bus or they have a funny way of waving with one finger. Jacques tells us that Chiapas is the poorest state in Mexico. We´ve learned about the Zapatista uprising in the state and we passed through the city that was central to the Zapatista movement.

We arrived at the Holiday Inn and went to see the San Cristobal de las Casas. It is cool and beautiful. It is quite touristy and has a bohemian feel. We met Janet and ate dinner at Na-Bolom. Janet came for a Fulbright 30 years ago and never left. She is a journalist. After dinner, several of us went to a local hot spot--Revolucion Bar. It was a great place to people watch.

Lessons learned today:

• I don´t like avocado and cheese sandwiches
• Don´t screw around with your camera without backing things up
• Stories about bullets are more interesting than scientific explanations
• Don´t touch strangers´napkin drawings

Emily
Perry High School
Canton, OH