With hurricane season in full swing out in the Pacific, we settle in to a lazy routine in our new temporary home base in Puerto Chiapas. Between boat projects, we relax and enjoy the tropical weather, visit the nearby city of Tapachula and jump through the bureaucratic hurdles necessary to send a package back to the USA.
The most notable difference between our previous ports of call in Mexico and Chiapas is the weather. Equal parts season and latitude lay the groundwork for hot, humid, tropical conditions during the daytime and lots of thunderstorms at night; thunderstorms the like of which we have never experienced before! Lightning flashes are uniquely purple and dance from cloud to cloud while swaths of rain sweep across the harbor in cookie-cutter clean lines. We marvel at the utterly strange phenomenon of being drenched in a downpour while no more than 20 meters across the marina, not a drop of rain falls from the sky.
All of that moisture fosters a unique variety of wildlife here, much of it amphibious by nature. Giant toads have spooked Kiwi many a time on our evening walks and iguanas consistently evade her best efforts to catch them along the banks of the marina basin. All that rain promises a plethora of fungal growth among the tropical plants, though our mycological experience in the Pacific Northwest doesn’t carry over to the vast variety of species we find here.
Though the port itself is quite small and sleepy, the nearby town of Tapachula is a bustling border town and provides us with plenty of supplies and groceries. We’ve ventured there on multiple occasions via taxi or collectivo to procure provisions, and a number of times more in a futile attempt to send a single, small package containing our broken wind meter back to the US for repair. You see, the proximity of Chiapas to the Mexico/Guatemala border leads to extra scrutiny of all outgoing packages, particularly to the USA. The authorities are on the lookout for smuggled items brought across the border and shipped to the USA, presumably drugs. Therefore our simple shipment required written declaration of the purpose and contents, inspection by customs officials, copies of passports and numerous forms (in triplicate) before it could be accepted by DHL and shipped abroad. But with time on our hands, each outing in to the city revealed something new and unique.
