Week 6 Jueves

We celebrate the first of the Days of the Dead by taking a trip to the Guatemalan border with Enrique and Mariet. It’s a curiously English experience. For a start, we’re nearly two hours late setting off and laden down with unnecessary stuff. We’ve also brought a picnic which we don’t eat.


Daisy slumbers in her sling in the car, and when we stop in Comitan for pigskin quesadillas (less English, this bit), and then we arrive at our destination, in the Tierra Caliente or hot lands. Sadly, of course, it’s not actually that hot – so we end up dipping ourselves shiveringly in the water. Daisy takes to paddling like a professional English girl, but Pablo (Junior, not Senior) screeches away because the water is too cold.


Even when Itamar’s teeth are chattering, we struggle to pull her out of the water to go into Comitan for a look around. We buy her a tortoise made of balloons and coke bottle lids, which goes someway to cheering her up. However, it pops on the way home and she gets terribly upset (and blames Paul).


They are collecting clothes and supplies in Comitan for those left homeless by the flooding in Tabasco and Chiapas, which makes me feel a little guilty for minding that the weather in San Cristobal hasn’t been that sunny. At least we’re living high up!

Image from Villahermosa, Tabasco

We stop on the way home to buy Elote, or toasted corn on the cob with chile, in a town called Teopisca, and we’re all knackered by the time we get home at sevenish. Daisy goes out like a light despite the loud marimba music and fireworks from the local church.