Cancun to Chiapas

I am in the beautiful city of San Cristobal! We arrived here this morning after an 18 hour bus ride from Cancun (yes, crazy I know). This bus ride really helped us get closer to the part of the Guatemalan border we need to be at in order to arrive in Xela in time to catch a bus to La Escuela de la Montaña.

Cancun was... interesting. The flight was fine, besides our lay over in Houston being too short and us running through the huge airport to catch our plane. It was out of a movie, I´m sure. So far, my theme is thinking that it wouldn´t be an adventure without such happenings. We laughed and high-fived after we caught out breath. Elisa and I found Sasha outside of customs at the Cancun airport. Our first attempt at transportation nearly had us ripped off. Fifty US dollars for a shuttle to our hotel? Nah, I don´t think so.

Our hostel in Cancun may be the fanciest place we´ll stay at on this journey. It was like a mansion, with brightly colored rooms and extremely hospitable service. The woman who owned the place, originally from Holland, had us stay in our own huge room with private bathroom instead of staying in the shared room (where rowdy frat boys had been staying). I realize anyone in Cancun is looking for a bit of a different experience than we are here for. It was still neat to walk around in the warm night and eat yummy mexican food, sip a cerveza while listening to a mariachi band. The boys at the hostel invited us to go dancing but we were exhausted and did not want to pay the US$45 to go to an open bar. We had some beers on the patio and watched the clouds and the stars. It was good catching up time for us, since we had not seen Sasha in months.

The next day we went to the beach by the fancy hotels, walking through them like as if we were staying there. It was sad actually, how many empty and closed resorts there were. The recession and swine flu threats have left Cancun desperate for tourists. The beach was nice and the water was as warm as a bath. The ocean floor was strangely squishy, like walking on a layer of jellyfish. I got stung by something on my knee, but I´m fine now.

The ride to San Cristobal was a beautiful trek through the mountains. It was part jungle and part pine stand. The pines had bromeliads on them! In the tiny towns, you could see children playing in the dirt with sticks and stray dogs watching the traffic go by. San Cristobal is nestled in the valley of those mountains, where the temperature is just right. Big rain drops started falling on us before we ran into this internet cafe. They stopped now, so I think we are going to venture out onto the narrow cobblestoned streets again. Each building is painted in some beautiful tropical color and you can smell the coffee, said to be organic here. The hot chocolate I had for breakfast was delicious!

Tonight, we will stay in Comitan and then arrive in Xela tomorrow afternoon.

Miss you all! I may not be able to write again for another week.

Love,
Ari

Jitterbugs

So I've packed my room and distributed my belongings (thank you sooo much to those who helped). I am now homeless. But with purpose! 

Flight leaves at 7:40am, getting to the airport at 5:40ish, a.k.a. leaving the house at 4:30 to be safe. I'm meeting Elisa at the airport and then we're off! There will be one stop over in Houston and straight to Cancun from there.

The itinerary as of now includes: traveling down the coast and then into Guatemala, taking 2 weeks of Spanish immersion course, volunteering on a permaculture project with a women's cooperative/mayan textile weaving school, volunteering at a sea turtle reserve. We're hoping to make it to Costa Rica by the end of August, but we are remaining flexible.

I'm so very excited right now, but I'm also a bit out of it from not sleeping. I'll sleep on the plane. There was no way, no how I would have slept before all of this.

Once again, thank you guys for everything! I will miss you and I'll do my best to keep you updated. I think I'm too sleepy to truly convey my feelings right now. A lot has been going through my head these past few days... I'll detail on the next update.

Signing off for now... wish me sweet flight dreams. :)

Love always,

Ari

First post

I didn't really think I would do the whole blog thing, but I convinced myself just 5 minutes ago that it would the best way to keep all of you lovelies updated.
These past few weeks have been filled to the brim with visits to all of my friends around the bay. I am experienced mixed emotions of excitement for my departure and honest sadness about leaving all of you... especially right now. The past year and half or so has been amazing and you have all made me feel so at home away from home. Some of you I have only gotten to know recently and I wish we could continue on that path, not letting my trip interrupt it. Some of you I met from the start and yet i have not seen you for months due to our busy lives. I have to say, it's tough to leave you.
When I come back, and yes I will be coming back, we should all resume our plans for camping and frolicking and such.

To my family and friends on the east coast: I miss you all dearly and I'm happy to say I will coming home for one to two months after my adventure. We should resume our plans for then too! It'll be that leaf-color season and I expect some upstate NY journeys, no?! =) Or at least some baby bonding times, collective cooking, or shopping trips.

Anywho, here is my blog! Enjoy!