Sanjai Rocks Chiapas

If I had written this blog an hour ago, I would have started with, "A quiet day." But in the time since, Sanjai used his iPod to bring music to the town plaza here in Chiapa de Como. People gathered to watch and listen as he transmitted songs through a boombox owned by a music vendor on the plaza sidewalk. The vendor himself was fascinated, and several folks wanted to take the iPod home. I'm not an Apple fanatic (whenever I use one, the operating system confuses me and I keep trying to click the missing mouse button) but even I have to grudgingly admit they have an amazing product here.

My favorite song of those Sanjai played: Bizarre Love Triangle, by New Order, though I prefer the Frente cover.

Quick notes, as there's only eight minutes till this Internet center closes. It's running ten computers on a shared modem connection, so it's a bit like trying to surf today's web with my Commodore 64 and a 300 baud modem. Sanjai gave up and already went back to our posada (a.k.a. hotel).

In today's incontrovertible highlight, we rode a motorboat through a spectacular "canyon del sumidero"--a deep fissure running twenty miles long and with cliffs like rocky skyscrapers. We also came across a boat floating along in the national park and offering refreshments. It had a red Coca-Cola roof.

In the last two days, I've seen both sweaters and bracelets with llamas on them, but when I ask, no one here can identify them as llamas. This leads me to wonder whether the Mayans had already heard of the llama from way down in the Andes, integrating it into their art, or if their presence is a product of more recent globalization.

The taco count: two more apiece, but these had double shells and avocado slices. We also had taquitos later in the afternoon. Since they came in a choice of chicken, beef or "al pastor", we tried to order a combo platter. This puzzled the cooks, who eventually created ten taquitos, each containing all three ingredients. Overall, not bad, though the flavors were hard to tell apart. For dessert we munched on dried mangos covered in chili powder. That flavor was very distinct.

To distract one persistent street vendor I tried speaking Chinese, but this worked about as well as when I tried to speak Chinese in China.

What we talked about at dinner: hard to say, as we ate dinner twice.

What I'm reading: The Prometheus Deception, by Robert Ludlum. It doesn't hold a candle to Middlesex, but it's had at least one good battle scene so far and the inevitable abdominal injury. Anyone see Wesley die (uselessly) in the last episode of Angel? That's what I'm talking about.

Plans for tomorrow: first we'll take a minibus to Tuxtla Gutierrez, and in the afternoon we'll fly to Cancun, where Sanjai has suggested we go "parasailing". I'm still not really sure what that means, but I understand it involves a parachute and with a parachute I don't think I could hit the ground very hard, so I'm probably game.