searching zapatistas with Marcus

Hey,

I left Guatemala the first time after a bit over 2 months the 27th November to go to Mexico and meet up with Marcus, a friend from Dresden/Germany.

the order en La Mesilla (Guatemala)

To be sure to get to Mexico I wanted to take a shuttle bus to the border, La Mesilla/Ciudad Cuauthemoc. Good idea, but I just made it to 4 Caminos, like 15 minutes away from Xela. The bus broke, we had the choice to stay on more night in Xela or go on our own to the border. Finally we took chickenbusses for 4,5h to the border. I was two hours to late and Marcus worrying, where Iam. I couldn´t call him from my guatemalan phone to his mexican phone. But he was waiting in front of the passport control in Mexico, so we finally met, very happy that we found each other.

Then he showed me his car, it was like a monster, so huge!!!

We started driving a street in Chiapas. Marcus heared that there were a lot of Zapatistas living along this street. after two days we got to Palenque (after more than 400km) without seeing anything of the Zapatistas.

river between Mexiko and Guatemala

Our research in Palenque figured out that there are ´caracoles´ (they call their 5 regions likes this) near San Cristobal de las Casas. SO back into the car and to San Cristobal. On the way we found an old camp, but it seemed very empty. Some women told us, where to find somebody, but the house was empty!

a sign

From San Cristobal we went to Oventik, one Caracol, like 1 hour away from SC. From Oventik you can receive permissions to go to other Caracoles as well.

entrance Oventik

At the gate they ask us for our names, age, profession, and what we want to know, how long we want to stay. We tried really hard to explain well with less spanish what we want. After this we waitid for 10 minutes and they came back and told us, that we can´t come inside, because there is nobody in the village at the moment, who can answer our questions.

We drove back to SC and picked up 3 Serbians, who also wanted to see Oventik. They showed us their Couchsurfing host Jose-Luis, with whom we finally stayed for 2 nights. He has an awesome house, and he had also 2 guests from Argentina. We shared some time with them, playing games, cooking and Oventik agian. But the second day we couldn´t go inside again, so we left Mexico last Thursday and went to Huehuetenango. At the border all went out well with Marcus car, so we arrived Huehue already in the dark!

Marcus, me, Clara, Jose-Luis, Julian

where our host lives and Marcus car in front of it

Last friday we went to Xela and Marcus signed in for 3 weeks spanish lessons.
Saturday we celebrated Erins birthday with a Piñata. This is a big figure filled with sweeties. The birthday-girl has to hit the Piñata with closed eyes with a stock so long until the Piñata breaks. And there is also somebody who moves the Piñata, so that you never know where she actually is. We shared all the sweeties and also put some in every classroom. Sunday I left Xela agian to see more of Guatemala, and now Iam in Livingston, Carribean coast.

Piñata Dora before...

during....

and after the fight!