The Gringo Trail

The trip is winding down these days. Just as Oaxaca City was a great transition into our trip the last few days in Mexico have been great for transitioning out. I´d say we reached our peak of travel ability in San Cristobal de Las Casas. San Cristobal is a great colonial city with a great artist community and we were lucky enough to fall in with the very cool (chido) musician crowd. Of all the places we´ve visited San Cristobal is the town I think we are most likely to return to. The people are great, the climate is pleasantly warm during the day and cool at night, the town is cheap ($1.20 for a full breakfast, art house movies every night for $2, and lots of fun, free cultural activities) and it is strangely missing the seedy neighborhoods and ugly modern buildings we´ve found in most Mexican cities. Unfortunately it has all been downhill from there. Not to say we aren´t having fun but we have stumbled onto the gringo trail and the traveling doesn´t seem so exciting or exotic anymore. The route from the Palenque ruins on through Campeche and ending in Cancun is well established and well traveled. We seem to be traveling in a little tourist pack, we keep on running into the same people on busses or hostels. Here in Merida the first embassaries of spring break can be felt. Young kids approach us and just ask, "Americanos?" and the relief is obvious in their faces when we admit we speak their language. Well, like I said, it is a good transition back to the states. We´re speaking more english, finding more services and really getting into the souvenir shopping (after 5 months of denying ourselves the pleasure of buying things it is a real treat). We haven´t totally abandoned our independent traveler instincts though... today we took a colectivo to the ruins of Dzibilchaltun and hung out with a very cool family that picked us up hitchhiking on the way back. You can take the gringos out of Mexico but you can´t take the Mexico out of these gringos.
-Dirk