¡Viva Mexico!

I have only been in Mexico for a little over a day and am already so glad that I came!

After an early start yesterday morning, I arrived via shuttle in San Cristobal de las Casas. The ride was plesant, but because it was "privado" we were denied the great cultural comradary formed by cramming 50 people in a van built for 25 and I felt sad each time we passed a local on the road waving for us to stop and pick them up.

San Cristobal is a relatively small, colonial style city that, at first, reminded me a lot of Antigua. I headed straight for the Magic Hostel where I had read that I could get an affordable dorm bed (less than $5 as oppossed to a private room for $15!) and happily settled in before setting off to find a book store where I could buy a Mexican Lonely Planet (having conveniently put off buying one until I was actually inside the coutry..). Unfortunately, the bookstore was closed on Mondays and so I headed back to the hostel to plan my trip using an old copy of the Mexican Rough Guide.

After an hour or so on reading up on potential destinations, including a boat ride through Sumidero Canyon and a visit to Malinalco, which sounds absolutely beautiful and is also the site of an Aztec temple in which they made human sacrifices, I headed out for a dinner of tortilla soup and a documentary on the Zapitistas, a revolutionary army based in Chiapas which has been fighting for the rights of the indeginous people of Mexico for years.