Hot Nuts for Breakfast

On Saturday, I did not in fact have hot nuts for breakfast, but my erstwhile travel companion Jon (aka Don Juan) did. Our first stop for the day was a neighborhood called El Refugio, which means the refuge. This is a poor community that is built up the hillside in Tuxtla (the kind of hillside that you wonder how your car will make it up). After visiting the church hosting the water project, we visited Maria-Daisy, one of the church members. She is technically a squatter. Her house didn't use to have a floor or much of a roof, but over time they have made it more permanent. The electricity is pirated. There is no running water.

In fact the house is right by a water plant and one of her neighbors, who works at the plant, turns on the water every evening and they fill their water jugs from a hole in the pipe that is stopped up with a stick. But due to ADU she and her family are able to get safe drinking water. Daisy exhibited the ultimate in hospitality, providing an unexpected meal of chicken mole to our group at her dining room table.

After leaving Maria-Daisy's house we went to Chiapa de Corzo to take a boat tour in the Sumidero Canyon. This is another ecotourism destination, but primarily for Mexicans. The canyon is beautiful and we saw monkeys, crocodiles and almost got nailed by pelicans on our way. As always Greg is making friends (and jokes) with the others on our boat. Needless to say, at one point Shane was a pirate and at another we were singing "row row row your boat" in a round.