11-7-05

It was a beautiful ride over the mother mountains (Sierra Maudre) to San Christobal de las Casas. As I gained altitude I thinking that I would have to stop and put on some more clothes as it was getting really chilly up on the mountains. It was also high enough to get into the clouds and spit a little rain. I finally made it over the top and not far down the other side I came to an area where there were a hundred green houses. The ones I saw near the road were covered in plastic and had the sides open. I think there were a few really old ones made out of glass. I could see lots of little seedling plants in the ones I could see into.

Some of the hills I went across were covered in corn. They terrain here is very steep and I cant imagine how anyone could consider farming this but I guess that with a hand hoe and a lot of work it can be done. I didn’t get a good photo of the corn but I did get this one from a stopping point that shows a cow tethered out in the corn.

oh, as I was headed up the mountain I saw this Fandango night club sign and thought of my buddy Joe and his Fandango Hot Club he has going at the bookstore after hours.

I can see that this is a fairly large city but maybe the interesting stuff is in the central part of town. I took the road in that pointed to the central or historic part and stopped at one of the first hotels that looked like it might be reasonable. The gal showed me a really nice room with windows that close and no open vents to the outside like I have been living with. It was cold and it was starting to rain and it looked really good to me.

I took a little walk and found I am near the middle of the old part of town. I picked up some tour information and will look it over tonight. There are restaurants and museums around as well so I think I was really lucky to find this place. It had a nice little courtyard and my bike fits in well and there is a locked gate as well as a watchman.

There is a tv in the room and it gets five stations I think. It is rather cold in here and I am on the bed in my liner for my riding suit. It is nice and warm fleece and it is made to double as a cool weather casual light jacket. I looked and the bed has one blanket on it but I think I am going to have to get my down bag out to cover the bed tonight. I am evidently spoiled by that warm weather and my blood has thinned out.

11-7-05

It turned out to be a beautiful day but I wore my liner all day.

You are going to have to put up with a lot of photos as there was cool stuff all over. This little knocker was on a door to an internet shop that wasn’t open yet.

This was in an old church and what I found interesting is that there were seven swords driven into her hart. Almost all the old paintings in these old churches are so blackened with candle soot, it is hard to see what they are.

There were a lot of little balck dolls being sold by Indians.

This is a common vegetable sellers system. They all have the same stuff and are right next to each other.

An old municipal building now a lawyer school I think had some really nice murals.

Sometimes it feels like this

sometimes this

ha, ha, I liked those.

Workmens tools for the day. They were working on the court yard of a church.

built as a bell tower for the nuns.

Some new bells that are going in the building next door I think or maybe replacing ones that were removed. I could look at them good and saw that they had a date on them as do all bells to show when they were made. These were made 2005.

I stopped in a nice furnature store and they were selling these types of nicely made kitchen stuff that would fit right in an old house. They were priced around $800-1000 which I thought was a little high but I haven’t bought furnature ever.

I walked by an open gate and spied this new BMW 1200.

I was in a museum and saw this photo of the guy with the iguana and had to take a photo of it for my friends Nick and Roger/Carla who have them. Theirs aren’t as nice as this one.

This was in the museum too and I like this traveler. He has saddle bags and his bed roll tied on back like I have mine.

I found a amber museum and they had some really nice carved amber.

Sorry about the photo quality but they were taken thorugh a glass case.

The view of the old part of town sowing the tile roofs and narrow streets.

I had to take this one for Megan who got the shells I picked up last year and has offered them to her hermit carbs that she has for pets. I hear that some of the crabs have taken on new homes in some of those Mexican shells. This guy looks happy.

they look like Icelandic sheep.

I saw several women wearing dresses made like this. They don’t appear to be plets so I think they weave them with the locks out and it makes a very attractive and warm dress. I would take photos of them but they say that they do not like their photos taken and they don’t seem very friendly at all. They will sell you something but never did I see one smile. There is a huge vendor setup near one of the churches and there were all sorts of stuff for sale. There were a lot of foreigners there too. In fact I met Ken and Sophia there looking around. They are the ones in the last log at Zipolite. I met another one of the gals that was at the place too and that happened in a internet store where I was checking my email. She is staying here for a week or so and going to language school and staying with a family. She took language school someplace else in Mexico but she said that she stayed with folks from the US and didn’t get as much as she should have like she is now being surrounded with Spanish. 

There was quite a bit of this coarse knit wool stuff for sale. You can tell from this that it gets cold up here.

I really like ear lap hats and Anna gave me one she got me in Bolivia I think it was. It was one of my favorite hats and when I got in the accident before I left, someone helped themselves to it and now I am on the lookout for another but I don’t want one of these coarse knit ones. They one Anna gave me was tight knit and I think out of Llama fiber.

I took the motorcycle out this afternoon to see if I could see any other motorcyclists out and about. I didn’t have any luck with that but did see that this is a rather large town and there are very small streets going everywhere. I found it hard to get back to my hotel but was saved by the many churches around here that are distinctive looking.