Chiapas
We're now in San Christobal de las casas, I've been sick for the past 2 days it`s so great to be feeling better again so I can enjoy this place. The mayan culture is still alive and well in Chiapas and the women go about their everyday life in colourfull traditional costumes with children strapped to their backs and large bundles on their heads. We`re meeting lots of great people at the hostel and really enjoying the pace of life here. Today we got a bus ( volkswagen combi van crammed full of indigenous people and livestock driven by suicidal, homicidal, mexican wannabe rally driver) to San Juan chamula, which is an Indian village in the mountains, well higher up in the mountains then. It`s a really strange place where the ancient Mayan culture and beliefs and the enforced catholicism merge with popular culture to result in something very unique. There were healings taking place in the 'church' and coca cola is held sacred 'cause the burp releases the evil spirits from within you. We`re going into the jungle tomorrow for a 5 day trek, I`m pretty sure I can`t update my blog from there so I'll let you know how it was when I get back.

Still in Oaxaca!
we're getting the night bus out of here tonight. I forgot to say how great Mazunte was the other day ´cause I was so tired. We went for only one day 'cause it was only 20 mins from Puerto Angel, if we didn´t have to get the bus back to Oaxaca to meet Claire we could have stayed there for ever. The place was so chilled out and everyone was so friendly, they were mostly backpakers like us who came for the day but never got around to leaving. A guy called Juan brought us along the cliffs to a place where everyone goes to watch the sunset over the pacific, he was right when he said we couldn't leave Mazunte without seeing it. We met up with Claire in Oaxaca on Sunday so now we have three in our little travelling group which is really nice. Last night we met two more Irish IT refugees Liam and Ivan (not the ones from SF). I think the economic down turn of 2002 has created a large community of Irish world travellers with a redundancy package in their back pockets. We went back to the bar where the great music was playing and it sort of became our local, everyone in there knew our names and we were even at a lock in there last night.
Well I'd better go and prepare myself for the 12 hour bus journey to Chiapas tonight.

This`ll be really quick `cause I`m wrecked tired after my first overnight bus trip. We got the bus back to Oaxaca last night, it looked like a cool retro 50`s bus like in American movies so we were thrilled. The novelty wore off after about 20 mins when it became obvious we weren`t going to get any sleep over the roaring engine, screaming kids, constantly chatting Mexicans (you`d think they`d get the day bus if they wanted to talk) and the bumpy windy road which had us thrown around like ragdolls. well we`re here now and I already miss the beach, at least I had a chance to work on my tan for a few days.