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So we are about to leave mexico. We have spent the day in mexico city, and about 1 day too many here, really.. It is pretty disgusting here, very unlike Chiapas. We took a colectivo from san cristobol to tuxla, then a plane from tuxla to toluca, then a colectivo-bus sort of thing from toluca to mexico city, then a taxi from the world trade center in DF (mexico city) at around 9pm to a hotel. It took like an hour in the most insane traffic here. We should mention that everyone here drives with their windows open and they also dont have catalytic converters  and seem like they cut the gasoline with karosine or something, cuz most of the cars stink and make you naseaous, so being stuck in a taxi for an hour with the windows down in mexico city is like the most unfun thing you can do, although myriam managed to have a entertainig conversation with our cab driver, who managed to find us a cheap hotel for us that was in a safe place in town. It only costs about $45, but the AC didn{t work and after killing a cockroach we felt a bit more comfortable, although we were still hot. in the middle of the night, we couldn{t handle it and decided to open the window and let in the mosquitoes, who ate us alive.. ugh!   So this morning we went to the mesuem of antropology which was fun and interesting, and also went to chapultapec park, where they all try to sell you gross food.. So then it was another cab ride through the grossness to the airport where we are now.. about to fly to the us and breath air!! adios mexico!!! M&M We are still in san cristobol. We took a nice hike up into the forest, found some mushrooms, mostly rossulas, and a few amanitas, and several hedgehog mushrooms and also elfin saddles. Then we ran into this cute mexican indigenous guy (the only person  we saw). He immediately shook our hands and was surprised to see foreigners up in the forest. We talked for like 45 minutes, where we had a multicultural exchange.  HE taught us how to saw madrone, oak, butterfly, rainbow, fern in his native language, and we taught him the same in spanish.. It was cute and fun. nonbody has the right time here.. we have asked several people what time it is and it can be anywhere from 2pm to 5pm and it's totally random.. it's bizarre.. We've changed our plans a bit and we are gonna fly out of here (tuxla) to mexico city tomorrow instead of taking a 7 hour bus ride on a  long winding road back to villahermosa then a flight to mexico.. so we'll gety to check out mexico city.. ok I gotta go. m&m in M So we are in San Cristobal de las casas. It's a fairly touristy city, but it pretty nice.  It is a very old city with old churches.  We are staying at a nice bed and breakfast place with an American expatriate. It's a very nice place to stay and fairly inexpensive and there are 3 cute dogs in the house. IT has an indoor courtyard with lots of hummingbirds flying in and such. 
 Today we went to a couple of indigenous communities and got a tour of their cities and their bizarre religious customs.  They are Mayan and got converted to Catholicism, but they have mixed it with their traditional customs and Cola cola. So, you go into this cathedral and there are pine needles on the floor and people bringing chickens to kill in there and candles, and CASES of Coca-cola, Strawberry Fanta, and Sprite. They burn lots of pine resin incense, and kill chickens, and then drink coke of strawberry fanta and burp! All the while in the extremely smoky church, people are dressed in heavy wool clothes, praying, and there are like 3 different bands playing at the same time in side, and there are also people setting off fireworks that were crazy loud like every 30 seconds… Apparently the elders of the town have deals with Coke or Pepsi.. IT's really strange, because these people are generally anti-imperialist and they have deals with coke and pepsi.. there are coke and pepsi logos all over the town, too..
   Anyway the tour was actually very inter sting and educational, and we learned about how bad the missionaries are to these indigenous people (although we already knew that), but it was still very educational.. 
  Yesterday, before arriving in San Cristobol, we visited another ruins, Tonina'. It was really really amazing. It is always an experience taking a colectiva (a collective van) up into the mountains. There are all kinds of zapatistas and indian people on it and it's fun to look at them. We were pretty much the only people at Tonina'  and it was really amazing to be able to wander through the ruins and be the only people there. They were amazingly impressive. There is no way that they would allow a place like tonina to be wandered through in the US due to insurance and liability. Seems like it would be so easy to fall down and then you'd fall like 100 feet and probably be seriously injured, but alas, there are no danger signs anywhere, and the stairs are the original Mayan stairs that were made in 700ad; uneven and giant and steep. Also there are crazy passages that have no lights at all, pitch black with stairs down and uneven footings, etc..  Although, actually, in San cristobol it's not that much better. I've slipped and fallen like 20 times here in the narrow sidewalks; kicked bits of sidewalk, fallen in holes in the sidewalk; etc. The streets are made of cobblestone and so many people have walked on it that they are worn smooth..
  So that's pretty much what we've been up to.. We haven't found any wild mushrooms yet, and have wandered through the markets looking for them. We've been told that it isn't the season.. But it ripe season for stinky meat which is everywhere in the markets… Upton Sinclair is rolling over in his grave at the health violations we've seen.. giant pieces of meat in the back of pickup trucks without any plastic or anything on it.. then thrown onto a dolly.. Watermelon and fruits with flies all over them, etc.The markets are also pretty interesting, though with lots of varieties of beans and corn and fruits and coffee and mysterious powders and cute little old ladies selling them.  Also there are lots of really cute dogs wandering around everywhere.. they are very very smart and know how to cross the streets and how to maneuver in a crowd, etc.. We want to take a dog home, but I don't think we will..
  So that's my update.. There is a big political campaign going on and a big rally just came through the street so we are gonna check it out.. there is a huge election here soon and people are really excited about it…. lots of fireworks and stuff..
 
Burping our way to salvation….
/miguel y myriam
Greetings from the heart of zapatistaland, Ocosingo!
   It's amazingly beautiful here. We arrived here this afternoon, and took a look through the town. There is a big central market here where the people sell vegetables and random stuff. Little children yell Gringo Gringo! at us, but they are also smiling in a friendly way. Again we find ourselves in a very friendly town. We are staying in a hotel that costs about $20 a night; It's simple, but the toilet, or something neart the toilet leaks, but other than that, it seems fine.
  When we came into the town by bus, which was right on time, we saw an autonomous zapatista community called Paisasote nueva, so we decided to try and visit it. We found a cab that would take us there, and we started walking down the road. All of the children came out of their houses and were smiling at us and waving and saying hola! and buenas tardes, etc. We wandered down the road, which has murals of zapatistas and colorful building that are schools and medical places for them.  A family asked us to come and visit with them. They gave us some fresh bananas, just because they were being friendly.  Turns out the father was a subcomadante in the zapatista revolucion in 1994. He showed us his picture which was on a postcard. We talked for a long time with them. There are about 700 people that live in this community. They took over this rancho during the revolucion and created this autotonomous community.  They grow corn, squash, beans, and all of their food on their land there. They live very poorly; this family had a small shack, but running water. They fed us a sweet squash soup;  just squash sweetened with cane juice, and told us about how they live and their community and we asked lots of questions.  The father, Alberto, wanted to go to the united states and asked us many questions about the us and how to get there. We warned him about the immigration, etc.  It was a very fun talk and a very beautiful walk on the road there.  Anyway,  we were so honored to be invited into thier world and it was a fun conversation. We wished we could do more to help them. Seemed a bit innapropriate to give them money, though.. They were mostly interested in conversation.
  Aside from that, the food has been good. The serivce here is very intersting. They always expect you to be ready to order in like 30 seconds. Ususally we have been ordering rice, beans, tortillas, and sometimes guacamole, which they are often slightly confused about. They seem to give us like the smallest dab of beans you can imagine, and huge portion of guacamole, and like 20 tortillas, which are usually hand made. Then, oddly, they never give you the check until you ask, and they are often puzzled or surprised that you are asking for "la cuenta". And they often dont' have any change. We needed change for about $20 and the waiter went to like 4 different places to get change.. Anyway, just a weird thing that happened..
Anyway,  that's the excitement for today..
Tomorrow we are going to check out some more mayan ruins and then we are off to san cristobol de las casas..
 
hasta luego!
 
<Subcomadantes Cohenes>
So we are in Palenque, Chiapas today. We arrived yesterday. This is one of the centers of the Zapatista revolution several years back. Chiapas is still under the control of the zapatistas to some extent.  We took a tour up into the mountains today and saw several signs, etc that say, ÿou are in zapatista country. They are very friendly, supposedly. actually everyone here is very friendly, and again our spanish is good enough for us to communicate and understad people and order vegetarian food, etc. 
  We went to the Palenque ruins yesterday, which are old mayan ruins. They are very impressive pyramids and stuff like that. There are lots of giant lizardy things that make these scary loud hissing sounds. At least that´s what I think was making those sounds(semicolon) it was either that or monsters!
Today we went up to see some spectacular waterfalls and we swam in them, too.  It is really up in the mountains that things look a lot more like a 3rd world country. Simple houses, and little kids (mostly girls) being very very very insistant that you buy their fried bread or lemon or friend banana, or regular banana, etc. It is kind of annoying, but cute, too.. There are lots of stray dogs around, too. They are very cute and all of them are about luna sized.
Weather has been pretty hot and humid, and it rained really hard for like 10 minutes, still its not horrible.
The food has been pretty good. We are liking the handmade tortillas. Oddly enough, here they are fond of giving you stale bread with salsa, whereas in america they give chips and salsa.
I assume you all know that it´s myriam´s brithday today, and are all sending her wishes on her 3^3 birthday!
Tomorrow we are off to ocosingo, in Zapatista territory. They supposedly have a big market place. We havent found any vendors of wild mushrooms, although someone offered us psychedelic mushrooms(we think), which we kindly refused. 
 
ok, we´re off!!
==Señora y señor Miguelito Cohen==
ps send anyone to blog.moldfarm.com if they want to see these emails..
Hi everyone from mexico!
They have very silly characters on their keyboards here like Ç and ? and ¿ and I keep hitting them by accident. Anyway, so we are in villahermosa with is in Tobasco. It is warm ad humid, but it´s tolerable. Our flights were all on time and we got here in good time. We have been getting along great with our spanish, although some things are over our heads, but we have gotten most of what people are saying and peope understand us (aside from the strange looks we got when we didn´t want any¨carne¨ in our food) ññÑÑ oh yeah, there are Ñ too here!!  Villahermosa is surpisingly very american. There are places that are just like a 7-11 and wall-mart and such..  We are off to Palenque soon via bus. There si no way we would drive here.. it´s really insane how they drive.. They have VW bussess all over the place that are kind of liek taxis and kind of like busses, and there are often like 20 people in them.
ok we´ll write more soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
love
=-Los Çoheñs-=
 
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