A Day in Chenalo

Last Sunday I was invited to visit Chenalo with Tom and his friends.  Tomas (Tom) is staying at Coco's house too, and is pictured below with the flags.  It was a festival to celebrate St. Peter.  Many of the towns people were dressed in special clothing for the day, and many of the men wore hats covered with brightly colored ribbons.  In front of the church they had musicians playing and children dressed up in costumes dancing.  At one point, a older woman joined them for a dance before she entered the church.  That was fun to watch.  She had a good time.  Also during the music, a man ran around carrying a costume that was supposed to look like a bull.  The interesting part though was that the bull shot of fireworks as he ran around.  He ran fairly close to the crowd at times, so close in fact that the man next to me had a hole burned through his clothing.  You had to be on your guard!  It was fun to experience a local celebration and local comida (food).  We enjoyed chicken mole for lunch.   In addition to it being my first local festival, I also took my first taxi ride.    On the way there, our group of six squeezed into the taxi, but it was a bit cozy.  Poor Tom had his head nearly out the window most of the time.  So... we split up the group on the way home.  It is a very good way to travel and affordable too.  It was only 20 pesos each way, and Chenalo is about an hour outside of San Cristobal.