This post is about two distinctly diverse journeys. The very first to Costa Rica, and the 2nd to Mexico.
It's a clear, moonless night when we assemble for our pilgrimage to the seaside. I can't realize how we are going to see anything at all in the blackness, but the guide's eyes look to penetrate even the darkest shadows. We begin strolling, our vision adjusting slowly.
We have come to Tortuguero Nationwide Park, in northeast Costa Rica, to witness sea turtles nesting. After the domain of only biologists and locals, turtle-watching is now one particular of the far more popular 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 annual number of observers has gone from 240 to 50,000.
The guide stops, points out two deep furrows in the sand - the sign of a turtle's presence - and places a finger to his lips, producing the 'shhh' gesture. The nesting females can be spooked by the slightest noise or light. He gathers us vacation spots (http://felixcouch.blog.com) all around a crater in the seaside within it is an enormous 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 process, the lower survival rate of her hatchlings simply because only one particular of each 5000 will make it past the birds, crabs, sharks, seaweed and human pollution to adulthood.
We are all mesmerized by the turtle's bulk. Even though we are not permitted to get as well close, we can catch the glint of her eyes. She does not look to register our presence at all. The whirring sound of discharged sand continues. Right after a bit the guidebook moves us away. My eyes have adapted to the darkness now, and I can make out other gigantic oblong types labouring gradually up the seashore 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 on a brightly painted saintly icon, The guy took a swig from a Coca-Cola bottle, a signal not of globalization, but of the expurgating power of soda since the Tzotzil people feel that evil spirits can be expulsed through a robust burp. Right here, within the church of San Juan de Chamula, this kind of faith does not 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 of Mexico's most alluring towns, was the web site of an armed Zapatista revolt in 1994.
Outdoors San Cristobal, the village of San Juan de Chamula is practically a law unto itself, with its personal judges, jail and council. Timeless rituals are uncovered right here, exactly where women sell brightly coloured, hand-woven garments in the primary square, returning residence at midday to put together a meal for their husbands, a lot of of whom are shared. Men can have up to three wives at a time, and I am not specific to be envious or not!! Every 12 months throughout the pre Lenten festival, possibly the most exciting time to check out, the village's males run barefoot by way of blazing wheat.
4 kilometres from Chamula, San Lorenzo Zinacantan is equally fascinating. Here, the guys, 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, usually with a watchful eye on the sky because many houses have gone up in smoke as a result of rogue fireworks.