Tuesday, January 9

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Today we left the very rural town of Cosamalopan and drove to San Cristebal de Las Casas, one of the most beautiful towns I have seen in Mexico.

For almost 100 miles we drove on...no we paid high tolls to drive on one of the worst roads and it was a divided superhighway. It was marked "under construction". That is Mexico's way of saying it has been totally neglected for years!
There is not much traffic on this road but potholes everywhere! All those potholes in Philadelphia...this is where Philadelphia sends them. On this road it is not all all shocking to see the on-coming traffic on the far right shoulder of the road ahead while we are driving on the far left (way left of what was the yellow line) looking for passage. We became accustomed to driving while centered on the yellow line. We became accustomed to driving anyplace we could. Everyone did it.

Few roads in Mexico are bad. This one was the exception.

Still, my overriding impression of Mexico is that of one big, green, throughly middle-class country. Most things in Mexico work just fine and the country is generally lovely.

This night we stayed in San Cristebal de Las Casas way up in the mountains. What a beauty! Located in the state of Chiapas the streets are full of faces from the great Olmec civilization. We had to rush through but I would love to return some day.