CHIAPAS

4 August · Tuxtla de Gutiérrez to San Cristóbal de las Casas

The airport's a military base. Black & olive helicopter gunships out at the runway. Everyone's relaxed though, and after negotiations we get a swift little Nissan car and head towards the mountains. Dusk, dramatic pine hills uplifted like camel humps. Mist rising from tiny creeks make the forests vague and enticing. Feathery pines. Splendid flowers, whose names I don't know, spill down torn-up embankments onto the road. We notice red dirt eroding in sludge rivulets along the twisty road as we rise. Little homesites everywhere cut from the hillside, stacks of firewood–and rain washes the soil out.

Men wear pink flowery shirts and turn away from our headlights.

At San Cristóbal
the road in from Tuxtla patrolled by big grey trucks

the Pemex Station particularly guarded
where Zapatistas gave the gov't a particular slap–
    taking over Mexican oil
    even if it's just a few pumps