Chapter Three: Parador Means "Awesome Place to Stay"

For the second and third nights of our stay in Chiapas, we traded up from palapa to parador. It was an extremely good move.

Our hotel was in the farmland south of Comitan and strategically located next to the Lakes district and an off-the-beaten path set of ruins; it was originally a 19th Century hacienda and coffee plantation.

Real coffee beans grown on-site!

The current owners of the property are antiques dealers or hobbyists or some such thing, and they have transformed the old farm's chapel into a tiny but impressive religious art museum.


The main building on the property houses the half dozen hotel rooms.


The porch was the perfect spot for surveying the property and soaking up lots of quiet.


And we were both delighted with the room. It had a great fireplace, a funky enormous bathtub tiled in talavera tile and these great timbered ceilings.



And the country was just perfectly peaceful---dairy cows grazing just beyond the farmhouse walls, an overgown thicket of citrus trees and coffee plants and the most beautiful old shade tree on the perimeter of the lawn. Every morning the valley was covered with spooky Wuthering Heights mist, which would later burn off in the glorious sunshine. Just smashing every way you turned.

Heathcliff?

A local resident, clearly unimpressed with us.

Hey I think that's an UGLI. He's holding a grapefruit.

The roots have actually grown into and through the stone wall.

Sasha is hopeful that the experience has convinced Sergio that living in a place in the country in striking distance of inland lakes is a fantastic idea! If only she could think of a place like that in the USA...

Sergio drives, and I'm in charge of this.