Getting to Know San Cristobal

Tomorrow we will have been in San Cristobal a week.  Except for the trip to Chamula, what have we done? Well, nothing, but that was the point, to do the every-day things, just in a new and different place and culture.  We have set up housekeeping, which seems to involve trips every day to the market and grocery store.  We'll talk about that in more detail in another blog.  Every day we go out in the morning and again in the evening to get to know our new home town.  We rest, do emails and sometimes read in the afternoon.  I connect to my computer at the office and do Dennis Uniform stuff.  I even Skype with the office occasionally.  At night, before going to bed, we usually have a fire and watch something on Netflix.  It gets cool here in the evening.  We even had a little rain yesterday afternoon.   Mornings are clear and sunny, quite warm in the sun at mid-day today, but then thunder in the afternoon, no rain though, chilly this evening.

We love San Christobal!  It is more than we expected.  It is a city of around 200,000 people.  It is surrounded by numerous villages of Maya people and their presence is certainly visible in the city. Nevertheless, this is a cosmopolitan town.  There are three streets turned into pedestrian malls that run for several blocks out from the central plaza.  These car-less streets are lined with restaurants and shops.  The feel is very European.  We have seen restaurants of all cuisines, even a sushi place.  We have heard various languages from around the world being spoken, not just Spanish, Mayan and English.  Sara spoke with some people from Denmark yesterday.

The old center of town where we live is beautiful with colorful mostly one and two-story buildings with red-tile roofs.  We are just five blocks from the central plaza and four blocks from the market.  Here are some photos of our town.