Chiapas, Without Reservations

It's not an area where I cared to linger, so I was glad when a Benemerito combi driver announced an unscheduled run south. Laura and I tossed our packs on the luggage rack and were off.

Life rolled past. Women washed clothes in a stream, two boys rode bareback on a horse, and gas stations disappeared, replaced by ramshackle homes with signs reading "Gas sold here." At one, the owner used a two-liter Coke bottle to funnel a jug of unleaded into our tank.

It was getting dark by the time the road made a sharp turn west, following the border into the mountains. When the driver finally let us off at a group of cabins just outside the national park, it was night and a light rain was falling.

All I knew about our last stop was that it was wonderfully, blissfully cool.

Hitchhikers' Karma

Lagos de Montebello looked like the Rockies, but with banana trees.

The park comprises 59 sun-flecked lakes strung across piney mountains, about a quarter of them accessible by gravel side roads. These access routes branch off the main highway at long intervals, then forge deeper into the mountains. Seeing the lakes without a car didn't look easy.

By now we knew the game. First, we would hop highway combis between side roads. Then we'd walk to the lakes. Finally, we'd trust to chance.

Of course, not everything went perfectly.

Since banana trees grew everywhere, we'd planned to snack on bananas. Oddly, we couldn't find one for sale anywhere. We stopped at a "vegetariant" restaurant, but its entrees consisted of nothing but meat. Then things looked up.

At shimmering La Cañada Lake, we paid $20 for an hour's ride on a raft made of six logs and three crossbeams, lashed together with rope, Huck Finn-style. Perch swam beneath us; orchids hugged the limestone cliffs overhead.

As we left the lake, we met a Mexican man who wanted to practice his English. He and his wife gave us a ride to the next set of lakes. When we started walking back in the evening, another Mexican family picked us up and ferried us to our cabin. We hadn't even stuck our thumbs out.

Call it luck or karma or grace: The laws of our new dimension were mysterious. We were just glad to roll with them.

Ben Brazil last wrote for Travel on seeing Tokyo on a budget.