Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
I left the finca now and am currently staying in San Cristobal. My plans changed again, I will stay for a couple weeks of holidays in Mexico and then return to good old Europe. I had a great time in paradise but then I got sick, which didn't help and so I enjoyed my last days there but it is also good to be here now. San Cristobal is a very beautiful little town in the mountains, which is very cheap but also has a lot of experience with tourists, which is a combination that is generally hard to find and while I generally like to avoid tourist places, it is certainly nice to enjoy all the advantages for once.
I loved paradise, even though I didn't have all that much time to enjoy it, but I also realized that not everybody feels the same. Paradise can be like hell to some people, strangely. Another foreigner arrived a couple weeks after me, and he didn't seem to like it at all. First he stayed in the part of the village where there is no running water. Honestly, "showering" without running water, after you've done it once, is the easiest thing in the world, and having running water in the shower is really one of the least needed luxuries in this world. Washing long hair without running water is somewhat more tricky but not really a problem either, and certainly not a problem for that guy as his hair was very short. Anyways, so they moved him to live in the place that does have running water, and his next problem was, that there was no hot water. Again, hot water for showering in a place as warm as the lowlands of Chiapas is a very unnecessary luxury but apparently not for everybody. I would have liked some warm water while I was sick but I survived even so. Also there are mosquitos, which are a minor problem, and black flies, which are a big problem. On my first day at the finca, my legs were swollen as a whole because I was not used to the poison of the black flies. I got used to it very quickly but they still were very annoying, especially since I didn't have pants, so I was always in shorts with bare legs which they black flies, obviously loved. And you can usually find all kinds of animals in your room. They usually don't do anything, so it's not a problem but it is a good idea to lift your blanket and pillow before you lie down to sleep because scorpions can hide under there and while they don't attack humans normally, they will sting you if you sit or lie on them - understandably. They are also not dangerous in the woods here, so it's not a problem, but I've been told it hurts a lot - I haven't tried it myself.
The one thing that I also had my problems with, was the food. Since I was working for food and lodging, I had to eat the food they gave me there, and obviously they didn't have vegetarian options. So I ate meat two to three times a day, which, in the beginning, upset my stomach very much. But I got used to it and survived. I am also glad that now I can eat what I want. Honestly, the food they gave us there was really good, but it was very Mexican and very rich in meat so not quite what I like to eat. Well, and we only got food twice a day and especially in the high season, when the kitchen was very busy, we sometimes had to wait forever to get something, which was not so nice. At night we went to the village, that is part of the finca - where the workers live - and one of the ladies there would cook us dinner. She also earns some money by selling things like cookies and chips. And she charged less than 1 Euro for a decent dinner - which is a normal price there. Well, daily wages are around 5 Euro on average so everything is relative after all. The good thing was that you could order what you liked and I could eat dinner without meat when I wanted to. And it was also kind of a meeting place for all the people who were at the finca alone - without their family.
It was also fun to discover more and more the village. As I said, the village is, where the workers live, so basically you technically know everyone but it takes a while to discover where everybody lives. And even though we were really eating inside her house, it took me to the very last to learn that one of the cooks working in the kitchen was that lady's son and her husband was one of the drivers. He suddenly emerged from the bedroom, having overheard our conversation, to offer me a ride to Tapachula when I left. It was really strange, as I had no clue that he was her husband. After all those times we had had our dinner there… Well, there is also a downside to work providing you with a space to live: every now and again someone would get woken up in the middle of the night for work. For example if guests arrived in the middle of the night, they would wake up a driver to take them to their rooms. Or they woke me several times when guests wanted sunrise tours, which we offered - usually guests had to book the tour the night before but sometimes they just showed up at the reception at 5am and the night guard woke me up to tell me, that I needed to guide them. The truth is, I loved the sunrise tours and didn't mind too much but I much preferred to have some advance notice.
Well, in my last few days at the finca I didn't work so I got more time to hike around. I did so with a couple friends I made at work - well, the people who work there are really the only people there, so either you get on well with them or you leave. I am glad I got on very well with most of them and I am very sorry to leave them there. Hope to see them again sometime! Anyways we managed to hike to another finca, which is left but which belongs to the same owners, so we were allowed to go visit. Everything is still there, including a beautiful house and even a swimming pool. All of it has been left more than 20 years ago and is not used since then. Which is a shame because the area is so poor and then they just leave part of a village to fall to ruins. In my opinion this just shows how you should not let rich foreigners control over your land. Which is rather obvious, but it happens way too much and it happens in way too many places. It is sad to see really!
On my last night in the finca we were playing Jungle Speed all night long and had so much fun! Well, we never really had time to play but why is it really, that last nights in every place make you want to stay longer?! Well, at least this means I always leave with the best impression J
One more quick word on the climate, mainly because I don't think I wrote about it before and it is quite different where I am now. Well, to be honest, in many parts of Mexico making a weather forecast is the easiest thing in the world. I can tell you now that on September 1st 2020 at the Finca Argovia it will be sunny, hot and humid in the morning and some time in the afternoon there will be a thunderstorm with a lot of rain, which will last for maybe 1 or 2 hours and after that the clouds will stay for a while before the sun returns and the weather will be back to hot and humid and a little bit less hot and humid at night. This is, what the weather is like literally every day during the rainy season which lasts from about April to October. This is also the season where your clothes never dry, even if you put them out in the sun, because it is just so humid, and fungi will start to grow everywhere - including on your clothes. The not-so-rainy season (i.e. now) is much easier to cope with: humidity is not so high, clothes actually dry and it rains on average about once every four or five days. The rain is also very different than in the rainy season. It's just rain like it rains a little for a few hours. The rain in the rainy season is quite different: it never lasts very long but within minutes everything is soaked and flooded - which is one of the reasons why the government takes so long to put in proper roads to the fincas: they are being flushed away almost at the same speed they are built. They had to come up with special roads that survive the heavy rains a little better. The temperature now was usually around 27 degrees Celsius during the day and around 13 at night. Every day. Which is quite ok really. Here in San Cristobal, about 1500 meters closer to heaven it is quite a bit cooler. People think it is cold here, but compared to Austria it is merely fresh. Compared to Tapachula it is really nice and cool.
Well, I left the finca now. It is still amazingly beautiful and despite the hard work and being sick, I loved it very much there. I still think it is paradise, even without running or hot water. I saw so many beautiful birds and just being able to get up and swim in the river and all the friends I made there made it all so worth! Now I am here to enjoy a touristy life in San Cristobal and later in the Yucatán. I have never really done that for more than a day or two so let's see how I can cope!
- comments
Edeltraud Na, du Wandertaube - leidest du schon unter Urlaub? Ich hoffe, du erholst dich gut von whatever hit you at the finca. Wie ich dich inzwischen zu kennen meine, hast du dein Ziel in good old Europe schon ausgewählt - verrätst du es auch? Tja, unsere zivilisierten Ansprüche entfernen uns schon sehr von unseren wirklichen Bedürfnissen. Aber davon lebt eben die Wirtschaft. Wobei sie auch anders leben würde, wenn wir es einfordern würden. In diesem Sinne - alles Gute bis zum Wiederschreiben/-lesen!