Puerto Chiapas

Ater a stormy passage with high winds, lightning and thunder, dawn broke quietly as we passed through recently constructed breakwater into the Port of Puerto Chiapas. The channel had recently been dredged and a new dock constructed so cruise ships would stop by. The State of Chiapas is the most southerly state in Mexico, not far from the Guatemalan border. I believe this is the State Amado and his family came to for a few years in the 70's. Ruth says they returned to San Diego because it was too hot here. When we arrived, it was about 79 degree with a pleasant breeze.

Adjacent to the ship dock they have constructed a rather tall, square thatched building with a small sunken area in which local young people staged some routines to the beat of canned music.Around ths middle square were many little shops selling worthless gadgets.

The literature says this area is an eco-friendly area. I think this is the way of saying there really isn't very much going on here. In contrast to every other port previously visited in Mexico, Puerta Chiapas has no commercial or tourist related development. In order to stir up some excitement, we took a shuttle bus to the town of Tapachula about 12 miles inland. It is a very poor area devoted to production of primarily mangoes, with a smattering of coconuts and sugar cane. Along the way we passed many small dwellings with mostly thatched roofs, some with corrugated steel (rusted).

We were taken to the town square which had a Catholic church on one side and a small park on the other side of the street. There were no tourists other than those carted in from our ship. The square seemed to be equally populated by tourists, local shoppers and policemen (most with automatic weapons). We didn't bother to get off the bus and arrived back safely about two hours later. I'm not sure I heard correctly, but the narrator on the bus said the entire State of Chiapas has a population of 4,000.

While we had lunch in the Lido cafe, we noticed the dredge at work and, since it was low tide, a family was on the far shore wading out with long sticks with which they poked the bottom. Periodically, they would lean over and pick up somethng from the bottom. We assumed they were gathering some type of shell fish.

I notice from our daily poop sheet, we sail at 5:00 PM on our way to Costa Rico. Also at the bottom of the sheet is the following:

The Ship's Clocks Will be Set BACK One Hour tonight
Please set your clocks one hour forward before retiring on Monday night


I'll let you know how this all turned out tomorrow, either at 3:00 PM, or 1:00 PM.