This is the church in Amatenango del Valle a town famous for its pottery, particularly a type of clay chicken. Be very afraid Marlene! Mimi keeps telling me you don't want any more chickens but... these are famous chickens!

We are leaving San Cristóbal this morning, we've been here for 10 days. It was 37°F this morning at 8am, there is frost on the grass here behind the Hotel Bonampak where we are parked.

This is a view towards the pueblo of Aguacatenango across the lake.

In the past week we've spent our time driving out to outlying villages to look and buy indigenous weaving and pottery, wandering the markets of San Cristóbal, eating at some wonderful and some not so wonderful restaurants, and soaking up the beauty and diversity of this area. I found some soft and succulent vanilla beans at an herbal store, kilos of my favorite incense, Copal, which is the gum of a highland tree. We tasted lots of coffee and bought some beans we like. Everywhere on the drive up here there are coffee beans laid out on the road to dry. It is an area famous for its coffee and yet it is very difficult to find beans that are up to our standards. Most of the good beans are exported and until recently there wasn't a market within Mexico for really good coffee. I'm glad to hear that is changing and this trip I enjoyed coffee drinks at several places that were as good as any in Seattle or San Francisco.

This is the church in Aguacatenango, I wish I could have taken more pictures with people in them but the Maya are touchy about having their pictures taken and I'm too respectful of their wishes to get the sneak shot. I do have some postcards I will scan later and put up, I assume the photographers paid to take the pictures.

Having Sub Commandante Marcos, who now wishes to be called Delegate Zero, march into town with thousands of Zapatistas was a unique experience. I'm not a fan of his, I think he had good intentions in the beginning but has wandered off into ideology and communist lingo. I did enjoy this story. He apparently has a pet chicken with mutilated feet that is unable to walk well and is named Penguin. He has had a special box built on his motorcycle for Penguin, which he intends to ride throughout Mexico on his 6 month trip to achieve solidarity or whatever. He told a story about Penguin in the rally at the centro that involved Penguins attempts to mate with the other chickens and how he would fall over each time. Somehow he related this to Mexican politics, I didn't get it exactly but I like the idea.

This is one of the most intriguing, unique, beautiful and diverse areas in Mexico. It is difficult to describe and sometimes the images are almost surreal. Women in traditional outfits walking their young sons to school who are in the latest hip hop gear and are already in pre-adolesence taller than their mothers. A man in a traditional long haired black wool jacket with a ribboned hat sitting in an internet cafe online. There are a lot of images that stick in your mind.

We are off to Palenque today, Bobby and Patti left yesterday and we will meet them there. I'll post when we have internet access again, probably in Chetumal.