This write-up is about two distinctly diverse trips. The very first to Costa Rica, and the 2nd to Mexico.
It truly is a clear, moonless evening when we assemble for our pilgrimage to the seaside. I can not comprehend how we are going to see anything in the blackness, but the guide's eyes look to penetrate even the darkest shadows. We start strolling, our vision adjusting slowly.
We have come to Tortuguero National Park, in northeast Costa Rica, to witness sea turtles nesting. Once the domain of only biologists and locals, turtle-watching is now one of the a lot more common actions in ecotourism pleasant Costa Rica. As the most critical nesting web site in the western Caribbean, Tortuguero sees a lot more than its honest share of guests. In fact since 1980, the yearly number of observers has gone from 240 to 50,000.
The guidebook stops, factors out two deep furrows in the sand - the sign of a turtle's presence - and places a finger to his lips, making the 'shhh' gesture. The nesting females can be spooked by the slightest noise or light. He gathers us around a crater in the seashore inside it is an massive creature. We hear her rasp and sigh as she brushes aside sand for her nest.
In whispers, we comment on her plight and the solitude of her task, the lower survival fee of her hatchlings because only one particular of each 5000 will make it previous the birds, crabs, sharks, seaweed and human pollution to adulthood.
We are all mesmerized by the turtle's bulk. Though we are not allowed to get also close, we can catch the glint of her eyes. She does not seem to be to register our presence at all. The whirring sound of discharged sand continues. Soon after a bit the guide moves us away. My eyes have adapted to the darkness now, and I can make out other gigantic oblong types labouring slowly up the beach in a silent, purposeful armada.
As the chanting reached a crescendo and the incense thickened to a fog, the chicken's neck snapped like a pencil. The seemingly ageless executioner sat on a carpet of pine needles, surrounded by hundreds of candles, his eyes fixed upon a brightly painted saintly icon, The guy took a swig from a Coca-Cola bottle, a indicator not of globalization, but of the expurgating power of soda because the Tzotzil people feel that evil spirits can be expulsed by means of a robust burp. Here, within the church of San Juan de Chamula, this kind of faith doesn't seern all that far-fetched.
This is the Zapatista heartland of Chiapas, a misplaced planet of dense jungle and indigenous villages exactly where descendants of the Maya cling to the rituals of their ancestors. Throughout the area, the iconography of Subcomandante Marcos, guerrilla leader and poster little one of the struggle for indigenous rights, reveals a continuing undercurrent of rebellion. San Cristobal : de las Casas, one particular of Mexico's most alluring towns, was round the world trip planner web site of an armed Zapatista revolt in 1994.
Outside San Cristobal, the village of San Juan de Chamula is literally a law unto itself, with its very own judges, jail and council. Timeless rituals are unveiled right here, the place ladies promote brightly coloured, hand-woven garments in the major square, returning house at midday to put together a meal for their husbands, numerous of whom are shared. Men can have up to three wives at a time, and I am not specific to be envious or not!! Each and every yr in the course of the pre Lenten festival, probably the most thrilling time to visit, the village's males run barefoot via blazing wheat.
Four kilometres from Chamula, San Lorenzo Zinacantan is equally fascinating. Here, the men, in red-and-white ponchos and flat hats strewn with ribbons, which are tied if they are married, loose if not, launch rockets skyward to stir the gods into sending rain. The females pummel tortillas and weave textiles, often with a watchful eye on the sky due to the fact several homes have gone up in smoke as a result of rogue fireworks.