Day 8 18.07.15
We arrived in the early hours in San Cristobal de las Casas. Moving around town felt a bit like having done an all-nighter but somehow having slept some of the time. The entire group had breakfast and then split up. We decided to go for a little ride along the countryside on horseback.
We were picked up by a local “ranchero”, at least that’s what I liked to call him… We were literally picked up, as we drove to get to the horses on the back of a pick up truck. We even held at an upholstery shop and received little benches to make the transportation more comfortable.
We gathered up some more people from different groups or that were travelling alone and drove further up into the mountains. We got to the horses and were quickly assigned them according to whether we had ridden before or not. The beginning was a really nice stroll, slightly disturbed every once in a while when the little rancher boys would animate ALL horses to jump into trot. Not the nicest feeling on asphalt. However, we did then move on to a more forresty area where the horses pretty much climbed a mountain on a muddy and steep little passageway. It was fun when you had a bit of speed and the horses could climb with a bit of initial speed.
We had however, some horses that made up their own mind about moving along and just decided to add some snack time into their ride or even better decided they would go up an entirely different route. Oh these horses :). It was a good time though and we even cantered at parts.
We then stopped for about an hour at a little village. You really could sense the poverty here. At the beginning of the street the were several open shops set up displaying handmade textiles, clothes, rugs and little figurines. I managed to find an authentic Mexican blouse including the traditional belt that I had been looking for, for a couple of days now. I didn’t even want to barter down the price, since I saw how they were living and how much they would normally make of these products. And to be honest, paying 150 Mexican Pesos for a top and a belt is in itself a bargain.
We then moved on to the town centre were there was a little church including a procession that was entering it. We opted out of entering the church, but remained on the town square and did some people watching. All the while we were surrounded by little children, probably from the ages of 3 to 12, that were trying to sell us little bracelets and little figurines and belts that either they had made or their mothers. We bought some bracelets of a very young girl, but thankfully didn’t give in to buying the rest of the plaza empty. The poverty level was quite depressing. There was a man who was clearly completely drunk at about 11:30 in the morning, who was lying on the floor, bare foot on the main central town plaza. Kids going around selling you stuff even though they could be at home or just playing about. It really made you appreciate what you had a lot more.
We then headed back to the horses and again enjoyed the ride back. We made some horse changes and then everything went a lot smoother. It was a good morning!
We got to the hotel, checked into our rooms, had a shower and then met up with the rest of the group for a small bite to eat at an Argentinian restaurant. I had some black pudding - quite good! - while the others had empanadas as a quick lunch. We stayed seated in the restaurant until the rest of the group had joined us for dinner.
A small little fun fact: Our whole time in San Cristobal de las Casas was spent in prohibition (well theoretically)… This weekend the locals voted and therefore no restaurants, bars, hostels, nowhere, were allowed to serve alcohol – not even to the foreigners. There was a small arrangement made with the Argentinian place we went for food, and so we could drink some wine – illegally! But had a good time as we met another tour guide on his own vacation. We had some great steak there, which just melted in your mouth! So all in all great food and great company. We really wanted to go out salsa dancing and so we were looking for a place to do so. Unfortunately due to the “prohibition” no clubs were truly open and so we went searching for a hostel that supposedly did serve alcohol. We eventually found it and managed one Mezcal, before the police came in and “raided” the place. Nothing happened, but we decided to leave the hostel and return to our hotel. We were later on told that we could have been arrested and detained for 48 hours, had the police caught us drinking and purchasing alcohol. So we were quite lucky there!! Tired we fell into our beads.
