Comitan, Chiapas

Comitan is a medium size town in the Mexican state of Chiapas, near the Guatemala border. It's proximity made it the obvious choice for Bruce and me to try when we decided to leave Guatemala for Mexico. I had read about it in a travel blog; it sounded worth a visit. 

A day's bus ride, cross the border, catch a van on the other side, another hour's ride, and we were in Comitan. The full story of our Guatemala/Comitan expat experience is in my book, We Burned Our Boats.

Suffice it to say that we fell in love with Comitan and found our home the next day. It came about through local networking. In this case, we asked a taxi driver about places for rent. We hired him the next day to take us around, and this apartment was perfect. 

Nice neighborhood near a park. Furnished with good furniture and appliances, spotlesly clean with a wall of windows letting in plenty of natural light. And affordable enough for us although high for locals. The landlady shaved a little off the price with a six-month lease.

We loved this apartment, and we loved this town. We made good friends among the local members of our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has a very strong presence all through LATAM. These were our communities both in Panajachel, Guatemala and in Comitan.

We lived in Comitan for nine months, not as long as we had hoped, but we had business to take care of in the States. Little did we know that two years later, Bruce would be gone. And my next flight to Mexico would be as a widow in grief, seeking solace in the country where we had been so happy.

Bruce with two missionary friends on Christmas Eve. The one on the left was from Honduras, the one on the right from Mexico City.