Sunglasses Always Fit

Chiapas was a dream ever since university as a Latin American Socioeconomic and Politics major at UCSB, with a super hot professor who had strategised alongside Zapatistas and Sandinistas. Can’t remember his name, but he was always a little sweaty with a shirt unbuttoned dangerously low. His lectures were packed – I was not the only hormonal college student completely mesmerized by his tales of guerrilla warfare strategies and jungle-living in solidarity and advocacy.

Now living in Guatemala, closer to the heartland, I knew I would go. The part you can’t fathom from the misleading Mercator map is that 100 miles as the crow flies is actually 12 something hours in a bus that makes you think you will die every ten minutes and you don’t tell your mom about it until after you’ve arrived. 

But I had about eight weeks off this summer, more than I’ve had for a few years, and booked a week in Chiapas. I needed this solo time. I spent the summer 24/7 with family. As someone accustomed to living alone with zero accountability or dress code or sense of proper nutrition, I was ready for adventure. 

We love a 5am pick-up that’s an hour late, but the van was decent, if driven by the craziest, most distracted young man in the world. It was so cold I unloaded all possible garments from my backpack to cover myself and had to close my eyes and chant “he drives for a living and is a professional, he doesn’t want to die and will be safe” for all 12 hours.

We had a long wait at the border. This is one of only a few land crossings, and understaffed, up in the mountains. La frontera is closed on the weekends and I had to pay an entry fee I didn’t know about. Bribed and paid someone to use a government bathroom, got a new stamp and only had a few more hours to go.

The scenery is beautiful in the highlands . . . indigenous culture and language survived because it was just too damn hard for the Spanish to get there, thank goodness. Like where I live in Guatemala, the Chiapas region is a gem. 

San Cristobal de las Casas is where one stays to explore the region. I picked a fun hostel but paid for my own room and bathroom because I am too old for bunk beds and shared toilets with strangers. I like staying at hostels because they usually have a restaurant/bar in case you don’t want to go out alone, activities, and are cheap. Winning. 

I haven’t traveled alone for over a year, since my trip to Beijing, but fell right back into the joy I feel from observing others, sipping a beer in a hammock at dusk, signing up for free city walks and wandering off to take pictures of anti-Trump graffiti, making friends in five minutes on an all-day tour but never learning names or expecting to see each other ever again as we casually share observations and intimate details of our lives.

I’m a biological night owl and late bird rising. It was so nice to revert to alarm-free hours, meander out whenever I woke up to find a new alley with “the best coffee” to try, and then see where a day took me based on recommendations from blogs and TikToks. 

The days took me to an indigenous village in search of chicken sacrifices and traditional embroidery, to sprawling textile markets and candle stalls and cathedrals combining traditional and modern, to steps up and down the churches at opposite ends of the town, to an artisanal cocktail bar with a garden in a rainstorm where I was forced to stay for hours and drink totally against my will, and a vegan restaurant run by a Zapatista and Palestine supporter who has traveled the world in support of marginalised indigenous groups.

Cañon Sumidero was more impressive than I was expecting, with soaring cliffs, deep waters, animal sightings, and ghosts. Hundreds of years ago, Indigenous people committed mass suicides by jumping off said cliffs into the waters instead of submitting to the Spanish conquistadores. I saw the most beautiful, clearly sentient tree there, talked to a monkey, who was probably a paid actor.

Somehow, I escaped a sunburn, and helped mediate an argument between truly obnoxious young British girls traveling simply to take pics for instagram and drop racist-adjacent comments about their experiences travelling and some Italians on our bus who said they were too loud. Just a note – if Italians think you are loud? Reevaluate your whole life.

I tried a temescal experience, which is sitting in an ancient brick hut with a shaman and a dozen other people, with the door hammered shut, and a heat generated by volcanic rock, steam, and herbs. There is no light, no ventilation, lots of chanting, and you’re told to imagine the moment of your conception. We were all in bathing suits, sweating, crying, close to fainting, and I made it through the first 40 minutes or so before someone else in the group, also named Rachel, said she needed to get out because her septum piercing was burning her nose off. Several of us crawled out with her, apologizing to unknown ancestors, and after a group shower under cold water, headed to the bar for happy hour. Much more my speed than visualizing conception.

The 4am pickup for Palenque was super fun. We survived the death-defying drive through mountain roads in the early hours, walked through old villages to visit waterfalls, grottos, and lakes. The crown jewel was the site of the ruins, worth paying extra for a guide who taught us so much about Mayan culture, hierarchy, and history.

We scrambled over ancient temples under the sweating sun, dipped into creeks under the shade of rainforest trees, ducking from the sounds of howler monkeys on patrol, trying to not touch the plants for fear of poison or tarantulas or prickles. The air was steamy and full of mystery and violence – thousands had been sacrificed, willingly and unwillingly upon these grounds. We drank from the streams and observed ant colonies and tried out ancient face-painting techniques based on native shrubbery. 

And then came my last day in Chiapas. I had a church on top of a hill to climb to, a green juice bar recommended by instagram, laundry to pick up, souvenirs to buy, new-found friends to spend a happy hour send-off with, and a hammock by the fire calling me. The sky threatened rain, so I didn’t bother with makeup, grabbed a coffee, and began the climb to the church on top of the hill. 

The steps of the ascent began about a 15 minute walk from my hostel, and the stairs zig-zagged up for the absent penitents. The steps were lined with hostels, cafes, benches, flowers. A few minutes up, I saw a handsome young man who was clearly there to run the stairs as a workout, large headphones askew as he fiddled with his phone and looked at me, and then his phone, and adjusted his posture on the bench. I had my own headphones in, holding the skirt of my dress up from the damp stone, counting to ten in my head over and over to keep myself going. 

“Something something something,” he said, and smiled at me, in Spanish, and through my headphones and the beginning patters of rain, I could not and had no wish to understand and engage, so I just smiled and huffed a “Sí” and kept going. Up the stairs. All million of them, racing against the gathering dark clouds, cursing the cute, flowy dress I’d chosen, along with the tiny purse that didn’t hold an umbrella. 

The church at the top was . . . a church. The view was . . . alright. But I had done it! Now to go back down and – there he was again. About halfway down, looking up the stairs as if waiting – for me.

This got long . . . I’m gonna break it into two. Come back for how it ends :).