The End of The Road, by Accident

Last weekend saw an escape from the rigors of teaching and learning Spanish up into the hills, rattling in a colectivo in the advancing dusk to San Cristobal De Las Casas where the evening was spent in various bars, steeped in live music and a carefully and very effectively cultivated ambiance. I was delighted to find that my Spanish had advanced an inordinate amount since my last outing some weeks ago, and celebrated by gleefully berating anyone who was willing to engage in conversation with me. Waking up the next day with my first sore head in months, I formulated a complete absence of plan with fellow teacher Willow to head to nearby Comitan, following notable recommendations from almost everyone that i´d spoken to about it. Once again, we piled onto an enthusiastically driven colectivo and shot across the rugged landscape, characterized by dry pine forests that were ready to ignite at the strike of a match.

Cometan was a peaceful place, it's subtle demeanor occasionally interrupted by houses of violent colour, or one of the infrequent trees with deep purple blossom that seemed to punch out between the buildings, littering the roads with a carpet of petals. The local market was the expected cacophony of noise, smells and bizarre sights, but with the interesting difference that the people seemed to regard us with a benign interest instead of the pushy entrepreneurial optimism that seemed to be a characteristic of daily life in Chiapa de Corzo.

Recommended by a local Italian resteraunteur who was in posession of one of the most magnificent noses that I`ve ever seen to the nearby national park which contained numerous lakes, we made the decision to leave sleepy Comitan beind and head further away, towards the border of Guatemala. Valleys and hills gave way to sweeping agricultural plains and villages surrounded by corn fields swaying in the breeze as we sank slowly into the feeling of increasing distance and remoteness.

Reaching the park, we were dropped beside a deep green lake in the middle of a silent and dense alpine forest. After refusing offers of horseback and truck tours in favour of stretching our legs, we wandered along roads and tracks through the forest with no particlar plan, occasionally stumbling across lakes of a fantastic range of hues, pinned in by dense woodland. The rustle of the wind through the trees served to exaggerate the quietness that settled over the place, and it made me realise how noisy and relentless life in Chiapa de Corzo is.

After walking for a couple of hours, with tired grumpiness starting to set in, we wandered down a track that suddenly opened out into a lakeside fronted by a range of dusty, dilapidated huts that fortunately included a restaurant of sorts presided over by a woman with a warm smile and incredible food to match, cooked over a wood fire that brought back memories of camping trips and outdoor adventures. With full bellies and hot chocolate in hand we sat by the side of the lake and watched as the wind pushed cloud shadows over the lush shoreline on the distant banks and gusts sent patches of ripples racing across the face of the deep blue water.

Eventually, with growing curiosity we scurried around the edge of the lake investigating the strange and deserted collection of buildings. The desolate feeling of our surroundings and the eerieness of the abandoned buildings did eveything to suggest that, almost entirely by accident, we had somehow reached the end of the road. With a strange heaviness, we turned around and began the walk back up the track, leaving dusty footprints on the first part of the long path back towards Chiapa de Corzo.

Chiapa de Corzo
22nd March 2009