San Cristóbal De Las Casas

Although it's not Christmas we made straight for San Nicholas, a nice forestry area at the edge of town with great camping. We spent the first night partying around the pool table with a bunch of local lads and met a bunch of nice people some old friends and some new, including Josh, Chantelle and MK their dog (Maya's new bestie) who we would travel with for a while.

As we are soon leaving Mexico we wanted to take advantage of the cheap but top quality dentistry and one quick check up visit soon led to the inevitable follow up cleaning, extracting and patching. I had an incredibly uncomfortable extraction of a rear molar, due to it having a twisted root (I declined the x-rays to my error!), and spent the next week munching painkillers.

The rest of the time we spent exploring the labyrinth of markets selling an amazing array of artisanal products, and eating from a huge range of cuisine - highlights include an authentic Thai and Pibil Cochinita (slow cooked pork from the Yucatan area).

We visited Cholula, the next town over, but there are no photos as there were strict rules about protecting the indigenous culture who live here & still wear traditional dress. The church was unlike any other I've been in, for example there was a disabled boy being blessed with a chicken, that was subsequently sacrificed on the candle and pine needles covered floor, whilst the rest of the family drank coke (to burp out bad spirits) and pox (pronounced posh). Quite an experience!

On our final night in town the camp site got invaded with kids, and a dozen tents sprung up outside the van. Bizarrely enough their teacher had a pretty broad Barnsley accent and the kids where impressively clever & polite, so it was actually pretty cool to chat with them. We headed for slow Thai (it was worth the wait!) then drinks at Funky Burrito, whose owner rented an airstream on the camp site. We had a fun night hanging out with him and (repeatedly) sampling his own brew mezcal (little known sister of Tequila).Read more