CHIAPAS, MEXICO: Maya, Mother Nature, and More.

3 Ways to Discover Chiapas, Mexico

From a Maya immersion tour deep in the Lacondon jungle to a hacienda-hopping equestrian adventure in the Cintalapa ranchland, discover one of Mexico's most magical and least-known regions with three YourLifeIsATrip.com insiders: editorJudith Fein, photographer Paul Ross, and publisher Ellen Barone.

1. MAYA PAST & PRESENT

by Judith Fein

Searching for Maya history, archeology, cosmology and contemporary life, travel journalist Judith Fein explores Chiapas with archeologist and tour guide Yolanda Ruanova.

© Paul Ross.What lured me to Chiapas? Maya ruins, living Maya and San Cristobal de las Casas. I wanted to be transported back to the Classic Maya period, which began in 200 C.E. and lasted until the empire collapsed six to seven hundred years later. I longed to walk through vast, abandoned cities that were hacked out of the jungle, and gaze up at monumental pyramids, stone palaces, temples, tombs and brilliantly-carved stone stelae.  I wanted to walk along paths once reserved for royalty, and contemplate the cosmology and science of a highly sophisticated, pre-Colombian society. 

Palenque was as huge, impressive and complex as I had imagined.  The murals at Bonampak looked as though they had recently been painted, and the nobility, slaves and priests depicted were still alive. The approach to Yaxchilan was by boat, and, in the high-altitude palaces, I could almost hear the squealing of kids playing and smell the flowers in the gardens. 

I longed to know more about the ancient Maya: what did they eat, how did they dress when they were not attending or performing rituals, what was their magic, what did it feel like to go to a ball game, and did they accept or bristle when they were subjected to their leaders’ rigid hierarchical rule? 

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Roast Chicken in Tuscany

by Elizabeth Weinstein

“If I have to hear one more time about that roast chicken your father had in Tuscany....” my husband says, shaking his head. He feigns disgust, but in truth my husband is amused at the way my family compares every meal we eat to some better meal we had once upon a time. And the best of those meals were always in Italy. The ‘roast chicken in Tuscany’ has become our tagline for the holy grail—the holy food grail.

My parents lived in Italy a generation ago and, culinarily speaking, came of age there.  During our growing-up, my brother and I were lucky enough to spend a year and several seasons in that country of hot, meaty broths that simultaneously console and inspire; fresh spinach with warm, oily garlic; pan-fried steaks bright with lemon and salt; and tortellini alla panna that could make you cry.

But it is indeed the roast chicken that does a Marcel Proust number on me—or rather would, if only I could have a bite of that chicken I ate 45 years ago at a restaurant called Cecco’s in Pescia. Just tonight if I could have a taste of pollo al mattone, a fresh chicken flattened whole between two bricks and roasted crisp and succulent on a spit with—with what seasonings? Was it really only salt?—then I would remember what it was like to be five years old and travelling with my parents and my big brother from Lucca back to our temporary home in Florence. I would be able to feel again the warmth of being safe with my family and at home in a foreign country.

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ASK A TRAVEL AGENT: The Question Every Traveler Wants to Know...

Don't you wish you had a travel expert who could help you plan the experience of lifetime?  Someone who knows the best way to get off the beaten trail, has insider's information on the best places to eat, stay, sail, fly, have adventures, relax?  A pro who can tell you what to miss, skip, what's not worth your time and money?  The most wallet-friendly way to get away from it all?

Get your travel planning questions ready! Answering your queries in our new ASK A TRAVEL AGENT column is, Susan Kelly, a 25-year veteran travel agent, who has spent the better part of her life helping travelers plan memorable journeys and discover the world. 

She has her finger on the pulse of worldwide travel, has access to exclusive deals for our readers, and we are thrilled that Susan is bringing her expertise and passion to our YourLifeIsATrip family.

We’ve experienced first-hand how Susan’s attention to detail, global resources, and industry connections can save you money, time, and emotional distress, but thought we'd start the dialogue with the question everyone is asking these days…

WHY DO I NEED A TRAVEL AGENT? Hasn't the Internet made them obsolete?

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The secret of Taos blue corn

by Eric Lucas

Hardly anything seems secret about a kernel of blue corn. It’s the size and shape of a baby’s tooth, the indigo color of ocean dusk, not rock-hard but sturdy, like old pine.

Such a seed would be a secret, were it a product of American industrial agriculture—patented, engineered at a molecular level, sold under some trade name like Blue 7X-RR. You would pay a large Midwestern company to have some; you’d use huge machines like science fiction robots to lay it in the ground; pour on it chemicals with carbon-chain formulas as long as Finnish words; autoclave it into foods as artificial as plastic. And you’d get your pants sued off if you attempted to replicate it or reproduce it in any way.

Photo by Manya Kaczkowski, 2010But the handful of blue corn seeds I’m holding represent a gift from, first of all, Robert Mirabal, a Taos Pueblo resident; also a gift from two millennia and the ground on which a billion people live. Corn is the bedrock of civilization in the Western Hemisphere. It built a dozen empires in Mexico and South America; helped create two dozen thriving cities in the desert Southwest about which Spanish explorers marveled so much that their colonizer, Don Juan de Oñate, declared his conquest a “kingdom.” Nuevo Mexico; it’s called New Mexico now, but still part of the kingdom of corn. And the seeds Mirabal has given me are no secret, just gifts from that kingdom’s treasure.

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WIN A BOOK: Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet by Gillian Kendall

Book Contest Update: WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Congratulations to Dan Moore (@NationalParkArt) for winning yesterday's FREE BOOK  - Bruar's Rest by Jess Smith.

WIN TODAY'S FEATURED BOOK: Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet: On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas by Gillian Kendall

All you have to do to win is sign up to receive the FREE YourLifeisATrip.com newsletter, 'like' us on facebook, or become a new twitter follower, and you're automatically in the random drawing.

After accepting a job teaching English on a small engineering vessel traveling from Shanghai to Texas, Gillian Kendall embarks on a strange journey with no ports of call but exotic emotional landscapes. She is the only female aboard, surrounded by Chinese men. The cosmopolitan graduate student suddenly has to adjust to an alien world, thick with cigarette smoke, unusual sea creatures, and male sexuality. Kendall invites readers to travel with her across cultural divides as deep and mysterious as the Pacific while she explores her own culture, orientation, and heart.

Excerpt

Too shy to sit next to anyone, I sidled to the end of the nearest table, where Zhao, the chief engineer, and a few others were chewing heartily. A bowl of chicken feet graced the middle of the table, braced by several large bottles of beer and some jars of evil-looking pickles. I pointed to the central dish, saying "I would like to taste this."

Several plates and chopsticks were thrust in my face, the owners cheerfully offering me their uneaten food.

"That's okay." I bent over the communal bowl. The greasy steam made me gag. A dozen or so gray-yellow claws poked up at me. Each foot had four long, skinny toes, and each toe had a tiny, oval nail on the end. The joints, where the skin wrinkled, looked like human knuckles. I picked up the smallest foot, but it looked like the hand of a sick old lady. Shuddering, I dropped it.

–from Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet

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Gillian Kendall is a writer who divides her time between Australia and the USA. She is the editor of SOMETHING TO DECLARE: GOOD LESBIAN TRAVEL WRITING, and author of MR. DING'S CHICKEN FEET, a New York TIMES notable book of the year. Her website is www.gilliankendall.net

WIN A BOOK: Bruar's Rest by Jess Smith

Everyone loves to WIN, and YourLifeIsATrip.com wants to bring the WINNER'S smile to your face. From November 11-21, 2010, we're GIVING AWAY one of our author's books each day. All you have to do to win is sign up to receive the FREE YourLifeisATrip.com newsletter, 'like' us on facebook, or become a new twitter follower, and you're automatically in the random drawing.

Contest Update: WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Congratulations to Roger A. Ward for winning yesterday's FREE BOOK  - Tony Hillerman's Landscapes: On the Road with Chee and Leaphorn by Anne Hillerman and Don Strel.

WIN TODAY'S FEATURED BOOK: Bruar's Rest by Jess Smith

She was part of my upbringing; the Gypsy woman; a silent figure, clad in jet-black, forlorn, abandoned.

“What’s wrong with the old woman?” I asked my mother who closed her fingers tightly around my hand and answered, “Her husband never came back after the war.”

Gypsies move from common to seashore, from woodland to moors. The bearer of grievous tidings searching for the recipient with no address returned the telegram to a desk drawer and there it lay, gathering dust.  

I outgrew my childish fragility and wore another coat; a teenage garment with pocket thoughts, love buttons and soul stitching. It was then she crept into my mind.

I searched fruitlessly until a shopkeeper in a dilapidated curio shop said, “In an old people’s home,” then added, “north west coast, she’ll be long gone though.”

Perched on granite rock, jutting precariously into the Atlantic Ocean, ‘Paradise House’ dominated the skyline. She was still alive. A stiff- lipped matron instructed, “Upstairs Room 7, last door on right.”

I pulled a small stool beneath my legs and sat next to her bed. My presence startled her. “Have you seen my man? Is he home?”

With outstretched hand she felt for a dirty pink hairbrush and began brushing strands of silver hair. I touched her bony shoulder and deep inside I saw a vivacious young woman. I heard her crying in her sleep, I saw her hold an invisible lover and groan as she made love to a ghost.

It was raining; a mist had enveloped my car. I turned to stare for a few minutes up to room 7’s tiny window and promised. “With my pen I shall bring him home!”

‘BRUAR’S REST’ is my gift to the Gypsy woman. I’d love to take you on her perilous journey.

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Author's Note: For centuries Scottish gypsies were known as tinkers or tinsmiths. It refers to a time when they were skilled in the art of blacksmithing or forging tin and made their living this way. They lived in tents, caves, moorlands and mountains were secretive and seldom mixed with the settled population. My lineage is rooted to this culture, which is the whole subject of my books. To learn more about me and what drives my pen, visit www.jesssmith.co.uk