Our New Home (for now)!

Let me just start by saying that we're safe and healthy. Neither one of us are currently carrying the Swine flu, although Michelle thinks (jokingly) that I may have been the first person to carry the disease! Many people were in San Cristobal on vacation from Mexico City during Semana Santa and I did get really sick around that time. Factoring in the incubation period, and my symptoms matching the description of the virus, Michelle may be right! In reality though, most flu symptoms match the description of this flu virus. For my flu, after 1 week of feeling like garbage, I finally went and saw a homeopatica doctor who was highly recommended by a local Real Estate Agent. This man fit the description of some sort of true medicine man. He was so calm and collected and, I guess you had to be there, but I thought he was such an interesting person that after the initial consultation, I asked for a picture with him. By the way, the two medicines that he gave me totally worked and NO ANTIBIOTICS! That's the best part. Thanks Doc!

So much has happened since our last post so I'll try to bring you up to speed. We decided to hold off on our journey to Guatemala right now, and instead rented an apartment in San Cristobal de Las Casas. We just love this town so much that we decided to stop fighting it and embrace our life here. Our new apartment is more like a little house, and it will be hard to describe how perfect it is for us, but I'll give you the details. Its a 2 story loft with a perfect living room for studying including rustic furniture, a fireplace, lots of windows that open, and a beatiful kitchen with tons of light and a fridge and stove! Michelle's excited because she can try some new recipes that she's discovered on the trip, and I get to make cowboy coffee in the morning! There are beautiful flowering vines all over the property including several right outside our windows. We even get a little view out of

More Tidbits

Last week was Semana Santa, holy week, and it is a big vacation time for all Mexicans. San Cristobal is a tourist town, and so many natives flocked here to celebrate the holidays. On Friday, Sat, and Sun, there were large events around town that were part of the festivities. Friday featured the Crucifiction of Christ and procession through town which I covered in the previous post. Saturday featured the a display of the "Judases", which were basically artist representations of people or events that have either done the world wrong, or specific segments of society wrong. Saturday night featured

Viacruces passion y muerte de Cristo (The Crucifiction)

What a procession! It took us awhile to find the genesis of this event. In our quest, we asked many people on the street and everyone seemed really vague, or just said the name of a particular avenue. While looking, we ran into our friend Nancy from the school who was also looking for the event, and with her help, we were able to narrow down the exact location. With some luck, we caught the event right when it began, and followed it all the way through town. This took several hours. It was difficult to hold our positions in front, and a few times I was shoved by the Roman soldiers with spears, but overall we were able to stay

Around San Cristobal

This is a photo of Michelle near the zocalo which I understand to be the central square. Most cities that we have visited have a zocalo, it´s a typical city structure. The woman walking in the other direction has a baby wrapped in a shawl behind her. This is a very common way of carrying babies in this area. Indiginous women especially, will carry a baby while carrying out their work, sometimes strenous work, as if the baby was not on them at all. Also it seems like the babies love it. I have not heard a baby cry yet! Additionally, women carry enourmous loads here on their backs to get their goods to the marketplace. (I´ll try to get some pictures this). It puts anything a man would want to do to shame.....seriously, in fact, I have not seen a man yet carry loads like these women do. Sometimes, they wrap rope around

Escuela en Espanol

Today we began our formal schooling in a local language school here in San Cristobal called La Casa en el Arbol (house in the tree) www.lacasaenelarbol.org . There is actually a tree house on the property which apparently was built with no nails into the tree itself. There was lots of symbolism with the support beams being mankind, and the tree being nature, the ground being the earth, etc, etc, but due to the translation, I didn't get the complete concept.

I was told that if we don't do our homework tonight, this crazy Mayan warrior will sacrifice me to the gods, so we gotta go....

Chow for now.

Through Palenque to San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, MX

We took an overnight bus to Palenque and almost immediately caught another bus to Ocosingo, thereby bypassing much of the treasures of the state of Chiapas, but you can't do everything! Upon arriving in Ocsingo, we wound our way through the market place where the indigenous and local peoples sold their goods, eventually making our way to a VW bus colectivo which took us out to the Mayan ruins of Tocina. It was a hot day, and the sun felt like it was piercing our skin. Notice how I am ducking out of the sun, behind the shade of this ancient column. Michelle is on her way down a staircase on the backside of this temple (these are just a hair steeper than stairs in your average townhouse).

We are currently in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, MX. We will likely be here for the next several days to a week. We will hopefully start some schooling tomorrow in Espanol. More to follow.

Love,
Mark & Michelle

We Made it!

I´m happy to say that this is my first official post on our blog. Thanks Michelle for all the hard work you´ve put into this over the past year.

So, we´re finally here. It´s funny how an idea can feel so different when you actually put it into action, and also how you don´t realize what it will take to accomplish it. Selling things, moving essentials into a storage unit, and travelling to central America didn´t sound that challenging. Our move out of the house and into the storage unit proved to be more than we expected. We had more items than we thought and even though we kept selling and selling on Craigs list, our house didn´t seem any less cluttered. It finally came down to the wire and we were able to sell just enough to where our necessary items fit in the storage unit.

All of our friends helped us so