The kids, the campground, the waterfall, it all had to end and we packed our van and took off, out through the village and through the cornfields to the main road. Our next encounter was not photographed for a very good reason so here I have a picture of the cornfield with some fertilizer advertising.
I saw a group of people standing around two vehicles up ahead alongside the stalks of corn just like those above, but they weren’t farmers. The figures were dressed in black and the vehicles were painted in camouflage designs, one a Suburban, the other a pick up with a machine gun and shield on the back similar to, but entirely different from the official Mexican military. One of them started to flag us down and I saw a red skull and crossbones painted on the black machine gun shield above the truck. Zapatistas, known variously as freedom fighters, guerrillas or terrorists take your pick. The guy standing in the road telling us to stop changed his tune suddenly and waved us on. Why? I don't know, perhaps because they realized we were foreigners though Layne thought word of our bicycle buying had made the rounds possibly beyond the village and we were not going to get dinged for more money thanks to our charitable act. I took no pictures as you might imagine. Further up the road we met two more Zapatistas shaking down a truck driver. I saw 50 pesos change hands while the child possibly 14 years of age carrying a machine gun and talking into a radio but wearing no mask apparently got orders to let us through. And that was that. No drama. No shots fired, no shakedown even. We drove on.
Our route for the day was a drive down the Guatemala border, through a valley filled with curves and villages and never ending topes (speed bumps), and traffic that was almost all public transport and thus in a hurry to make money. I like driving but this was a tough day and we (I) did happen to miss a few speed bumps which we jostled over rather horribly. But the scenery was something else.
We twisted and turned for hours, passing over bridges with mountain streams bubbling over rocks far below, there were dramatic peaks and plunging cliffs and canyons for hour after hour. The road itself was actually quite pothole free, except for the damned topes, half a dozen or more at a time in every village, in front of every hovel, all the damned time.
I was exhausted after half a day but I couldn't believe dry season mountains with hardly a drop of rain for months. It put me in mind of Central Asia, a region high on my list for travel by van. And yet this was Mexico, all the way to the top of the mountains on the left where Guatemala begins.
Scenes from the road, Highway 190 from Frontera Comalpa to Huixtla:
Rusty doesn't enjoy van travel too much but he likes arriving, anywhere. As soon the van goes into park and the key goes to off he's at the side door ready to sit outside and watch the world go by.
You can imagine what kind of cell phone signal we got on this part of the trip! Chiapas is a poor state so you'll see lots of dogs in the villages, lots of kids working adult jobs. In the bigger cities there were youngsters in school uniform after they got out of school walking home in groups with backpacks on like students anywhere. The rural kids don't do much school usually too busy helping their families make some money. It doesn't make us feel great to see youngsters helping dad shovel dirt or standing at the roadside selling fruit. "Everything happens for a reason" is a saying you can believe in only if you don't travel outside your first world middle class bubble. In these impoverished areas there is no rhyme or reason for institutionalized lack of opportunity. Crushing poverty is a fact of life. 
We stopped to buy some red fruit that Layne had seen in passing. We have no idea what it's called but it has a big pit and soft flesh that tastes somewhere between a kiwi, a cherry and a plum. You pop the whole thing in your mouth and try to scrape the pit clean before ejecting it. There; now you know as much as I do!
The homes are scattered down the hillsides. Imagine living here, with some running water if the tank (or the bath) on the roof is full, an outside toilet and electricity if you can afford it. Everything happens for a reason and if you get sick there is free health care in Mexico. Doctors pay the government back for their training by working a couple of years in free rural health clinics. People here line up to be vaccinated if Covid vaccines are available and usually they aren’t while vaccines go to waste in the US. Everything happens for a reason.
The poverty in this area is a product no doubt of the lack of soil to farm and no other resources. How do you get a job or make a living? Chiapas is crying out for tourists and the state has incredible scenery, with absolutely no infrastructure. I'm no businessman but I can see too many lost opportunities here and no one is going to invest in a tourist economy if the Zapatistas are causing chaos. They don't blow things up any more but their reputation isn't going draw foreigners to Chiapas.
