Tope or To Pay?

Our inland travel adventure began with a rental car and a loose plan to head North to San Cristobal de las Casas, a colonial city perched in the high pine forests of southern Mexico. We left the cats in the care of another sailor in the marina who was hauling out her boat to put on the hard the day after our departure, so it worked out well for both if us. Our plan was to travel to the city via the mountainous route of backroads which hug the Guatemalan border. Unbeknownst to us that road is not only curvy and rough but also mined with what the locals call TOPEs or speed bumps.  Every time we reached a comfortable speed of 30 MPH or so we would encounter these speed bumps at irregular intervals. Sometimes they were marked, but often hey were not, so both of us had to keep a sharp lookout for them or risk losing the undercarriage of the rental car. Thank goodness we decided to purchase all of the available insurance! After several hours of travel our voyage had become a laughing series of shouts, "TOPE! TOPE!" as we encountered one group of bumps after another.

TOPE - slow down or lose your wheels!

The GPS said it would take us 6 hours to reach San Cristobal, but after 7 hours of driving we realized they had not taken the Topes into account. It was not until much later that we would find out there was a toll road to San Cristobal, a new highway of sorts which looped around on the western side of the mountains. Our return trip on that route took us only 5 hours total and was well worth the toll price! But at the time we were less than half way to our destination and night as fast approaching.

Diverting to a lovely town named Comitan we ended up staying in the same hotel as our friends from S/V Savanna. We enjoyed the lovely town square and cobblestone streets where locals gathered to play music, dine and enjoy the cool mountain weather.  Our meal was excellent, the hotel room was clean and comfortable even lacking air conditioning, but the noise of the cars and local bands kept us up well into the night.

Next morning we were back on the road for another five hours to continue our journey to San Cristobal. Along the curing roads we saw farms and ranches interspaced with Tzotzil and Tzeltal settlements where the indigenous villagers sold fruit along the roadside. Here the native women wore a traditional dress of long haired black goatskin tied at the waist with a wide belt and colorful top. They seemed to wear this garb both in the town as well as while herding their livestock in the hot sun.

Native villagers wear goat skinned skirts in 80 degree heat!

Eventually we arrived at our destination, a quaint hotel in the city center surrounded by block after block of shops selling garments, chocolate, tequila, and amber.

Hotel Mansion Del Valle in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico

This area is famous for their amber and jade mines, and we visited museums which featured both of these unique stones.

Shawna at Jade Museum

Cathedral dedicated to Saint Christopher in the center of the city. A church originally built at this site in 1528 and dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption was later torn down to build the cathedral. It was completed in 1721 and rededicated to the city's patron saint.

Facade of a building along one of the narrow cobblestone streets.

As previously mentioned, we did find a faster route back to the marina which took us on a toll road without any Topes to slow us down. We wound through mountains and descended to sea level watching the trees change from tall pines to scrub and eventually majestic lowland deciduous shade trees. Fewer villages crouched along this stretch of highway, replaced instead by isolated cattle ranches dotting the hillsides. In retrospect a week would have been a more appropriate amount of time to explore this area, basing day trips from San Cristobal. But it was nice to see the countryside and the cool mountain air was certainly a welcome break from the humidity and heat of the shoreline.