What a heady few weeks it has been! Semana Santa (Easter) celebrations in Guate are pretty huge, even in tiny pueblos like San Pedro. The population swelled like a pregnant belly, its progeny spilling onto the streets for the religious processions and profane after-parties. The main roads in town were wreathed in petal and fruit carpets each night, and caked with piss and vomit in the mornings. Granted, two separate populations were responsible for these street decorations. In any case I'm led to believe that people participating in both kinds of street-adornment were having a good time.
Mike and butters take a break from the kitchen madness.
No, I didnt take photos of the piss and vomit this time.
Amidst the increase in custom at The Fifth Dimension I managed to finish the cafe mural, which coincides nicely with the expiration of my visa and also the piquing of my itchy feet! I partially mitigated this sensation with a trip to Quetzaltenango last week with my trusty pal Oak. We wandered aimlessly for hours, gobbling street food and wondering what else a city could offer. Tostadas and pupusas are too tasty...serously why isn't maize included more in Aussie foods?
bellies full, we grew weary and hunted down hot volcanic baths in a town nearby. Four hours of soaking in sulfurous water left us smelling like week old egg sandwiches but dang were our bodies smiling. We missed the bus home, spent the night traipsing for a hostel and more hot street food, and spent half the next day riding in the back of utes and on crusty buses towards Lake Atitlan. You can always fit one more person on the back of a ute, dont doubt it.
The week following I got absorbed by a new ink concept and the rest of the world all but disappeared for me. And in ten hazy hours of travel to the Mexican border a few days ago I left said ink piece on the bus. Someone now has a half finished original and I am walking around with half baked ideas, wondering what to do with them.
Anyway...
Farewell San Pedro, it has been swell.
Mexico, you delicious whore. Your garish colours, your heady mix of trash and class has me smiling like a drunk who has pissed himself dreaming. I love the way you include the bruised fruits in displays on every aisle of life. I love your short fatties squeezed into tight jeans, your proud old men tipping their cowboy hats to the good day, and your beautiful indigenous women wearing black hairy skirts like skinned buffalo. I love your shitty beat up cars and your busted cobbled paths that splice the streets like a broken spine. I love how the sun looks like it will roll straight into this valley at dawn, and how so many couples kiss it into the mountains every night. I love your fruits that taste of sun and your dogs and your dirt. I love your awful music and icy sangria and your weird buffalo cheese that feels like chewing gum yet tastes like the sea gone solid.
Mexico, you delicious whore. Your garish colours, your heady mix of trash and class has me smiling like a drunk who has pissed himself dreaming. I love the way you include the bruised fruits in displays on every aisle of life. I love your short fatties squeezed into tight jeans, your proud old men tipping their cowboy hats to the good day, and your beautiful indigenous women wearing black hairy skirts like skinned buffalo. I love your shitty beat up cars and your busted cobbled paths that splice the streets like a broken spine. I love how the sun looks like it will roll straight into this valley at dawn, and how so many couples kiss it into the mountains every night. I love your fruits that taste of sun and your dogs and your dirt. I love your awful music and icy sangria and your weird buffalo cheese that feels like chewing gum yet tastes like the sea gone solid.
I shall feast barefoot upon your stink in my mind anytime i hunger, Mexico, for it is this sun on and in my belly that is my food. I shall return to San Cristobal Chiapas soon, this short rendezvous has driven me mad with love.
Next week I start a mural in a hostel of Antigua, Guatemala. This week I'm painting a couple of maps in Hostel Iguana in exchange for a bed and breakfast every day. Which leaves me more pesos to sample all the heavenly street food. My favourites so far... Elotes, esquites, tamales, quesadillas full of quesijo (that chewy buffalo cheese) and lime juice, and hand cut pallets of frozen yogurt on sticks.
This week in San Cristobal de las Casas was just a border run to renew my Guate visa, but after Guate I'm definitely back for more of it all...Im sure you see why.
No one has ever noticed that a tear clears the eyes...
Some snacks from the markets...tiny cherry tomatoes, tamales and avocado, all cost me less than a dollar all up.
At least the butchers are real about what they are serving. Yes, meat contains traces of animals.
