San Cristobal de las Casas is a charming Chiapas city known for its international tourism, international cuisine, a variety of hotels and hostels for all budgets, and lots and lots of college kids and grad students visiting from the US, Canada, and Europe. With the largest, heaviest backpacks you will ever see. We visited San…
It had been about five years since we'd last had the chance to visit the Mayan ruins of Palenque, and this time our schedule in Tapachula was open enough that we were able to include visits to the nearby highly-regarded sites of Yaxchilan and Bonampak in our travel plans. We took one of Mexico's fancy…
GB and I spent some time in Marina Chiapas paying attention to The Fox, with general cleaning, replacing the fridge's thermostat, and repairing the toilet in the head. Toilet repairs should always be rewarded with a nice trip, so we planned to end 2014 and ring in 2015 with more tourism: a visit to Guatemala.…
Boy howdy do we love us some Precolumbian ruins. Tony Alfaro delivered us to the Olmec/Mayan ruins of Izapa just a few kilometers outside Tapachula proper (more like in the Tapachula suburbs) and near the Mexico-Guatemala border. It was great. Andrew Coe, in his book Archaeological Mexico, explains that the Izapa ruins comprise about 80…
Dona Josefina might live in Tuxtla Chico, Chiapas, a mountainous Mexican town you may have never heard of, but it seems the international chocolate community knows exactly where it is and who Dona Josefina is. When we met her in late December 2014, she had just returned from Paris and Florence with a bunch of…
For cruisers who don't have enough time for DIY tourism all over the state of Chiapas, consider hiring Tony Alfaro as your guide. He can manage groups of any size, and if you already have something specific in mind to see, Tony will take you there. Marina Chiapas has all Tony's 411 for the discerning…
A cruiser does not have to expend much effort looking for things to do in and around Puerto Chiapas while waiting, one might say, for a weather window to take one's boat south or north. We hung around – intentionally, mind you – for almost 2 months because of the lavish exploration opportunities. Please, I…
We moved aboard The Fox in March, 2003, and by December, 2014 we had spent almost all 11 Christmases aboard. We spent some holidays by ourselves at anchor. Other times, we shared dinner with 1 or 2 other boats. Sometimes there was a typical cruiser potluck-style event. But that Christmas in Marina Chiapas in 2014…
Marina Chiapas has a lot going for it, including a small habitat around back of the restaurant, in which volunteers rehabilitate and then release back in to the wild the 2 species of turtles found in the estuary. Here we see (1) their fenced enclosure on the marina grounds – complete with its very own…
Our placing of The Fox back in the water – our reverse haulout, if you will – occurred in December, 2014, in Puerto Chiapas, Mexico. I was gratified to overhear a Mexican national on our incoming flight complain about "being back in the Tapachula sauna." At least I know it wasn't just Menopausal Me who…