What feels like a million years ago (actually in the beginning of February) I headed out to San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas for a work trip to follow up on work in the tourism and coffee sectors there. Side note...flying anywhere in Southern Mexico is kind of a pain in the butt. There are very few if any direct flights between cities. It is like the whole of Southern Mexico has been forgotten, sigh.Anyway, for those of you travel buffs...GO TO CHIAPAS. The city of 
San Cristobal de las Casas is amazing in its self and then you throw in archeological ruins, amazing birding, rafting, indigenous culture out the wazooo, and some real Zapatistas...what more could anyone want? Well since you asked, I want to go back on a pure vacation so I can actually see a few non-work related things. If anyone goes, please book your tours with SendaSur...this is a group of indigenous communities and tour operators that we helped to organize under our project and they are always looking for more sales...check them out at http://www.sendasur.com/.
San Cristobal de las Casas is amazing in its self and then you throw in archeological ruins, amazing birding, rafting, indigenous culture out the wazooo, and some real Zapatistas...what more could anyone want? Well since you asked, I want to go back on a pure vacation so I can actually see a few non-work related things. If anyone goes, please book your tours with SendaSur...this is a group of indigenous communities and tour operators that we helped to organize under our project and they are always looking for more sales...check them out at http://www.sendasur.com/. 
All complaining aside, this trip was great. After many headaches for our main coffee tech, Ramon, and a few for me as well, we were finally inaugurating after about 2 years of work a coffee wet mill in Yetzucum and a coffee cupping lab in Yoshib. We also toured around a bit with some USAID folks to show them the coffee collection centers we financed. Yes it was a show for the client, but it was a damn good show!!!! There was dancing, 
there was a homebrew firewater made from sugar cane, there was meat, what more could you want from your tax payer dollars. (side bar, no alcohol was purchased with government money, that´s a big time no-no).
Sorry for the very delayed post but now that I've found facebook, I've been a bit distracted. I know, lame-o spending all of her time on the internet. Trust me, when you live abroad small distractions like Superpoke and goodreads are sanity-savers. You can find both me and Mike on facebook, if you are into that sort of thing.
there was a homebrew firewater made from sugar cane, there was meat, what more could you want from your tax payer dollars. (side bar, no alcohol was purchased with government money, that´s a big time no-no). Sorry for the very delayed post but now that I've found facebook, I've been a bit distracted. I know, lame-o spending all of her time on the internet. Trust me, when you live abroad small distractions like Superpoke and goodreads are sanity-savers. You can find both me and Mike on facebook, if you are into that sort of thing.
Other updates:
1. Mike got a job!!! Yippee.
2. Norm and Aud bought tickets and are coming to visit April 2 -9.
3. We bought our tickets to go to Brandon and Elizabeth's wedding in Guatemala in May, woo hoo!
4. Our friend Ben is interviewing for a job at the University of London and our fingers are crossed so we have someone in London to visit. 
5. We joined a gym this week and are trying to lose about 50 comfort pounds that have accumulated between the two of us. My legs are still sore from Monday's workout with Gabriel. I never knew that your hamstrings could be that tight without snapping.
2 comments:
We wonder every day if she is a red head... her grandma is! We filled out her passport application and they asked: Hair Color - Unknown, Height - 2 ft... Alias - Cutie Patootie
You look so professional! What a great experience. What are your next plans?
Chiapas is one of my favorite places! Glad that you were able to go. By the way, that wedding in Guatemala better not be at the end of May, since we will be trekking our butts from Peru to DC around that time and expect you to be there.
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