l84toff
Well-known member
Life in SUN Cristobal
This adventure of ours has gone from having a plan to go here and there in order to see as much as we can, to going somewhere on the spur of the moment. Either because someone suggested something or because we simply felt like it was the right thing to do according to our internal compass. When we arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas, we didn’t know how long we’d be staying for or where exactly we were going to next. We wanted to keep moving south and thought we’d be in somewhere in Guatemala within a few days. Our (very) broad plan was that we’d make it to South America sometime this spring, before possibly taking a break and flying home for the summer.
Suddenly we find ourselves residents of San Cristobal. Although the first order of business should be to re-name the place SUN & Hyde Cristobal. Why? Because it’s pure heaven here when the sun is out. The temp soars to around 30 Celsius with very little humidity, it’s absolutely perfect out. We find ourselves having morning coffee and playing cribbage on our balcony and working on our tans. Of course as I write this I’m buried deep under several layers of blankets because it’s cloudy. Cloudy here means the high is between 13-16 Celsius and unless you have a heater inside your all concrete house, it’s F-F-F-F-F-F-cold. According to the Weather network, it’s always 31C here - NOT!
I realize that our friends and family back home are experiencing a typical -30 Celsius winter, so this might all be falling on deaf ears. However, y’all have central heating - something that is seemingly unheard of here in Sun Cristobal even though night time lows are single digits. My new friend the parking lot attendant at the Chadraui told me it snowed the other night. SNOW! We finally broke down and bought a heater, even had to put on socks and start wearing a sweater. Ok I admit it, we’ve become soft
Some of our neighbours don't even have windows. Ok I'll stop whining about the cold now.
We’re going to school three hours a day, five days a week. Seems to be going well although I get a little frustrated sometimes. I guess I expected it to be a little easier considering I already had two other languages under my belt prior to English. Apparently I’m not a kid anymore though *sigh*.
We change up the scenery once in a while and have our lessons in a cafe. Lori and Lorena studying hard at Cafe Yik.
There are dozens of little cafes around here although we found ourselves coming back to cafe Yik often. Great coffee and atmosphere.
Another day, another cafe lesson. Lorena had to leave on some family business so Luz took over for a while.
We’ve settled into a nice routine of school and rotating between exploring the town and lazying around our casa. Weekends are very busy in the centro and you can’t go more than a few feet without half a dozen indigenous women trying to sell you something. The weird thing is if you buy something from one, three others show up offering you the same thing.
Some of the views from our apartment:
A typical backyard in this neighbourhood. There is a constant chorus of chickens, roosters, ducks, turkeys and dogs singing "the song of their people" all around our place, not to mention the church bells and vehicles driving past our place that play some catchy tune to identify what service they provide - AGUA or gas or... I can’t believe people have all these animals in their backyards here. At first it was annoying but now it’s all part of the scenery. I have to say I never imagined myself living in a place like this, least of all totally loving it! Ok maybe not the rooster calls that go all through the night - I thought they only did that in the morning?
So sad, someone hung this guy out to dry.
Hey, where did everybody go?
I don't think anyone clears their field here in Mexico, they simply burn it.
Man do we see some mesmerizing sunsets from our place. We have literally dozens of pics just of sunsets, so I'll only bore you with a couple.
It's typically the cloudy days that bring out the best sunsets here.
So one day I returned from picking up some groceries and while emptying the side cases I discovered this guy was no longer full - probably something to do with that hole above the 680ml. Hmmm!
Yup, found the iced tea. Somewhere along the way in Mexico I lost a couple of the rubber covers for the bolts protruding from the bottom of the case which apparently pierced the can.
You know since I have the case off the bike, might as well try and improve the shape since it still isn't quite right from the accident.
Our apartment is located near the top of a very big hill so we’re definitely getting a good workout every time we leave the apartment. Even so I feel kind of guilty for being lazy at times and have started doing the stairs next to our place. If you’re picturing perfectly neat stairs like in a stadium or the Hamilton escarpment for example…don’t. Every step here is uneven, of various height and length and various degrees of angle downwards. Between the doggy treats, dogs themselves and the odd drunk guy laying on the stairs, it’s somewhat of an obstacle course. With visions of doing a few sets the first time out, I barely made it back alive after one, and had a few choice expletives once I caught my breath. 286 stairs round trip, 911 steps = just brutal. Yup, I’m definitely out of shape, Lori scolded me as I lay there on the couch recovering, "you know you're not 20 anymore!" Although in all fairness we’re at 7200 feet and I kind of have one speed - GO!
I do have to say that it’s quite humbling seeing a man without a leg going up the same stairs with the help of some crutches. On another day I noticed an older man pulling an ice cream cart up those stairs, just going to work. What I do for exercise, these people do because they need to make a living. Really made me think of how much we take for granted back home and how much we complain about piddly stuff.
This adventure of ours has gone from having a plan to go here and there in order to see as much as we can, to going somewhere on the spur of the moment. Either because someone suggested something or because we simply felt like it was the right thing to do according to our internal compass. When we arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas, we didn’t know how long we’d be staying for or where exactly we were going to next. We wanted to keep moving south and thought we’d be in somewhere in Guatemala within a few days. Our (very) broad plan was that we’d make it to South America sometime this spring, before possibly taking a break and flying home for the summer.
Suddenly we find ourselves residents of San Cristobal. Although the first order of business should be to re-name the place SUN & Hyde Cristobal. Why? Because it’s pure heaven here when the sun is out. The temp soars to around 30 Celsius with very little humidity, it’s absolutely perfect out. We find ourselves having morning coffee and playing cribbage on our balcony and working on our tans. Of course as I write this I’m buried deep under several layers of blankets because it’s cloudy. Cloudy here means the high is between 13-16 Celsius and unless you have a heater inside your all concrete house, it’s F-F-F-F-F-F-cold. According to the Weather network, it’s always 31C here - NOT!
I realize that our friends and family back home are experiencing a typical -30 Celsius winter, so this might all be falling on deaf ears. However, y’all have central heating - something that is seemingly unheard of here in Sun Cristobal even though night time lows are single digits. My new friend the parking lot attendant at the Chadraui told me it snowed the other night. SNOW! We finally broke down and bought a heater, even had to put on socks and start wearing a sweater. Ok I admit it, we’ve become soft
Some of our neighbours don't even have windows. Ok I'll stop whining about the cold now.
We’re going to school three hours a day, five days a week. Seems to be going well although I get a little frustrated sometimes. I guess I expected it to be a little easier considering I already had two other languages under my belt prior to English. Apparently I’m not a kid anymore though *sigh*.
We change up the scenery once in a while and have our lessons in a cafe. Lori and Lorena studying hard at Cafe Yik.
There are dozens of little cafes around here although we found ourselves coming back to cafe Yik often. Great coffee and atmosphere.
Another day, another cafe lesson. Lorena had to leave on some family business so Luz took over for a while.
We’ve settled into a nice routine of school and rotating between exploring the town and lazying around our casa. Weekends are very busy in the centro and you can’t go more than a few feet without half a dozen indigenous women trying to sell you something. The weird thing is if you buy something from one, three others show up offering you the same thing.
Some of the views from our apartment:
A typical backyard in this neighbourhood. There is a constant chorus of chickens, roosters, ducks, turkeys and dogs singing "the song of their people" all around our place, not to mention the church bells and vehicles driving past our place that play some catchy tune to identify what service they provide - AGUA or gas or... I can’t believe people have all these animals in their backyards here. At first it was annoying but now it’s all part of the scenery. I have to say I never imagined myself living in a place like this, least of all totally loving it! Ok maybe not the rooster calls that go all through the night - I thought they only did that in the morning?
So sad, someone hung this guy out to dry.
Hey, where did everybody go?
I don't think anyone clears their field here in Mexico, they simply burn it.
Man do we see some mesmerizing sunsets from our place. We have literally dozens of pics just of sunsets, so I'll only bore you with a couple.
It's typically the cloudy days that bring out the best sunsets here.
So one day I returned from picking up some groceries and while emptying the side cases I discovered this guy was no longer full - probably something to do with that hole above the 680ml. Hmmm!
Yup, found the iced tea. Somewhere along the way in Mexico I lost a couple of the rubber covers for the bolts protruding from the bottom of the case which apparently pierced the can.
You know since I have the case off the bike, might as well try and improve the shape since it still isn't quite right from the accident.
Our apartment is located near the top of a very big hill so we’re definitely getting a good workout every time we leave the apartment. Even so I feel kind of guilty for being lazy at times and have started doing the stairs next to our place. If you’re picturing perfectly neat stairs like in a stadium or the Hamilton escarpment for example…don’t. Every step here is uneven, of various height and length and various degrees of angle downwards. Between the doggy treats, dogs themselves and the odd drunk guy laying on the stairs, it’s somewhat of an obstacle course. With visions of doing a few sets the first time out, I barely made it back alive after one, and had a few choice expletives once I caught my breath. 286 stairs round trip, 911 steps = just brutal. Yup, I’m definitely out of shape, Lori scolded me as I lay there on the couch recovering, "you know you're not 20 anymore!" Although in all fairness we’re at 7200 feet and I kind of have one speed - GO!
I do have to say that it’s quite humbling seeing a man without a leg going up the same stairs with the help of some crutches. On another day I noticed an older man pulling an ice cream cart up those stairs, just going to work. What I do for exercise, these people do because they need to make a living. Really made me think of how much we take for granted back home and how much we complain about piddly stuff.
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. Turns out Popocatépetl (which means “smoking mountain” in Aztek) is in fact an active volcano. It’s the second highest peak in Mexico at over 18,000 feet and apparently had some significant seismic activity in Feb with 1-2 km ash plumes. Sounds like fun. Oh gee would you look at the time…gotta go.
. What’s remarkable about Mono Lake is that it has no outlet causing the build up of salts. This in turn causes the water to be very alkaline. It’s surprising to learn that it has a pretty thriving ecosystem. 
