# Through The Looking Glass



## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

The community of San Cristóbal de Las Casas sits astride the Jovel Valley at about 7,000 feet above sea level up and at the ostensible end of an autopista climbing the sheer escarpment from Chiapa de Corzo, an exurban and historically important communty across the Grijalva River from Metropolitan Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital of Chiapas and a somewhat rawboned in its present state, city of some 600,000 to 1,000,000 souls constructed fairly recently along a formerly remote railhead which, until the state's capital was moved down from San Cristóbal in the 19th Century, was a village of no consequence except for that rail line in the middle of nowhere. There was no real connection between the former provinces of the then Spanish Guatemalan Regency of Chiapas and Soconusco untill those two provinces of Guatemala separated from that political entity based upon a plebescite undertaken in Chiapas upon Mexico's having achieved Independence from Spain.

Anyway, when Dawg moved to San Cristóbal in 2006, it occurred to me, having been raised in an environment conducive to the development of violent tunderstorms and tornados that the coolish Jovel Valley at 7000 feet with its juxtaposion with the hot and humid valley at 1200 feet just below down the steep escarpment was a perfect breeding ground for tornados as warm and humid air from the lower valley collided with the cold air of the mountain.

So, Dawg inquired locally as to the liklihood of tornadic activity in the hgih mountain Jovel Valley. The response among locals was delivered without hesiation:

Yes, they responded. we experience many tornados hereabouts so many years ago, our ancestors came up with the idea of employing teams of machete wielding tornado watchers and when tornados threaten the valley. the team assaults the tornados cutting thhem to pieces with their machetes before the tornados can destroy the town.

Damn! Why didn't we think of that in Alabama?


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## chicois8 (Aug 8, 2009)

Might be one of the most boring chapters of your book.........LOL


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