I tend to spend at least a week in a city and around: Puebla, Oaxaca, now San Cristobal. Chiapas is the mostly indigenous and the poorest departamento of Mexico. Zapatista movement of mid-90s was born here. Now San Cristobal is a huge tourist attraction with plenty of restaurants, hotels, hostels, street vendors pushing you artesanal textile, amber, fake amber, jade, ceramic jaguars, etc...
San Cristobal
San Cristobal is a pretty town. Met me with a huge crowd cleaning, painting, scrubbing walls of the main street. Apparantely, this is social project and men from poor background are working here from sunset til down with no days off. I have been in San Cristobal and around almost a week, and it seemed like nothing changed during this time, although they were working hard.
The best thing about San Cristobal was the hostel where I've stayed: clean, quiet, with the most amazing breakfast I saw for months. The second best thing was market: cheap, plentyful, with new foods I have not yet tried. Everything else - 2 churches on hills, main plaza, pedestrian streets with their restaurants and bars and expensive artesanal shops, children cleaning shoes and selling dolls of Subcomandante Marco 24 hours a day, old women begging for money or food - I did not like. Felt like fake. Do not remember seeing such a huge difference since Peru. It probably looks worse than it is in realty: peasants just see opportunity of easy money. It is also problem of social services that children are exploited: if you don't buy anything from them, they ask to buy them food! Does it mean that their parents do not feed them and send to tourist instead? Sometime I felt guilty sitting in cafe drinking my 1 dollar coffee, when another beggar would come around looking for opportunities.
Cleaning crown
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San Juan Chamula
Every tourist should go to a nearby village of San Juan Chamula, where chamula people live. This is very independent community, self-governed, with no police allowed in the village. It is patrolled by men wearing furred ponchos. It was probably the only place in Chiapas where men also wear traditional dresses. Every tourist visit a church, where chamulas practive their very unusual mix of Catholicism and local traditions, drinking homemade alcohol and Coca Cola (to belch and free evil spirits). Here traditions and happenings in the Church are described. Chamulas also are very suspicious of cameras: cameras are strictly forbidden in the Church, and almost no local would allow you to make a photo of him/her.
We came to Chamula on the last day of Carnival. The place was full of people, locals and tourists. The main plaza, which is normally market place was covered by dry pine needles and hay and people standing around. We found out that it will be burned soon, so decided to wait. Waited for one hour, while people in traditional and Carnival dresses were running around the plaza. Then children came with some dry twigs. Running continued. Finally they started a fire and started to run over it. Observers steped back because flames came too close. We decided to leave.
Leaving was nott so easy as another bunch of people in traditional suits blocked our way out. Eventually we made it through just to find out that a huge bull is waiting its hours to step on a (stage main plaza). We had to stay close to wall hoping that ropes holding the bull are strong enough and he would not come wondering to our side of the street. After some more running on the plaze the bull finally started moving there. Drunk crowd got excited and ran towards plaza. We ran in opposite direction. This tradition is somehow similar to bull running in the streets of Spain, but just one bull involved at a time and everything is happening on a small overcrowded main plaza. On the way back we met US girls with huge cameras on their necks who just arrived. Hope they were ok leaving the place at the end of their visit, because
- of the bulls
- chamulas really do not like their photos taken. People can be kicked out of the village if they annoy locals.
We happily escaped crazyness of local carnival and cameback to safe San Cristobal.
Palenque
Next day I went to Palenque, town three hours from San Cristobal in the middle of the jungle. San Cristobal is in the mountains. When I arrived it was raining, so my original plan to go and stay close to famous mayan ruins miserably failed. Instead I stayed in the only hostel in town, where I met two authentic Russian girls from Moscow who spent their two weeks vacation running through Mexico, spending days and nights on the road.
Palenque is a quiet urban town with no tourist attractions on its own, except ruins in 5 km from town in the jngle area. It has one short touristy street with restaurants and 5star hotels (and one hostel) and no tamales for breakfast (I was heart broken!). Local archeologists work as tourist guides in numerous agencies, local men sell amber and jade jewellery in the streets.
Next morning I went to my first maya ruins. It was as I expected: pyramids in the jungles, guides offering their services, opportunists selling rain ponchos and fake amber, small museum and not too busy with tourists.
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Coming back from Palenque I decided to visit another ruins half way to San Cristobal in Ocosinge town, one of the centers of Zapatista movement. Well, entrance to the town was blocked by protesters. Hello, again, long time no see! It was teachers protest agains school reform, low wages, etc. It was peaceful and quiet with ice-cream stalls and tacos. However, I had to walk through the town to get another bus. Because of the blockage, I decided, that I do not want to risk it to go to ruins and instead went back to San Cristobal catching another mini van on the other side of the town. It turned to be the right choice taking combi, as people who tried to get from Palenque to San Cristobal that day had to spend hours in the direct bus.
Back to San Cristobal
My last evening in San Cristobal I spent with Tina, Finish woman, and her friends from Australia: Mexican girl living in Australia for seven years now and her boyfriend of Scottinsh decent. Mexican girl comes from rich family who travels to the US for their daughter 15y birthday she works as a chef in a restaurant in Australia and comes back home once in two years to visit her big and loud Maxican family. In a bar where we spent evening we met a waiter from Honduras. First he went to the US as a refugee and lived in the South of Florida for a couple of years. He still does not speak English though: Latinamerican communities are so strong and big in the US that they do not really have any contact with English speakers. He moved to Chiapas where his brother was living, and stayed. It is quieter and life is easier. Because of the current situation, people from Honduras and El Salvador can come to the US and ask for asylum. If they can cross Mexico.
More protests in the streets of SC
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San Cristobal
San Cristobal is a pretty town. Met me with a huge crowd cleaning, painting, scrubbing walls of the main street. Apparantely, this is social project and men from poor background are working here from sunset til down with no days off. I have been in San Cristobal and around almost a week, and it seemed like nothing changed during this time, although they were working hard.
The best thing about San Cristobal was the hostel where I've stayed: clean, quiet, with the most amazing breakfast I saw for months. The second best thing was market: cheap, plentyful, with new foods I have not yet tried. Everything else - 2 churches on hills, main plaza, pedestrian streets with their restaurants and bars and expensive artesanal shops, children cleaning shoes and selling dolls of Subcomandante Marco 24 hours a day, old women begging for money or food - I did not like. Felt like fake. Do not remember seeing such a huge difference since Peru. It probably looks worse than it is in realty: peasants just see opportunity of easy money. It is also problem of social services that children are exploited: if you don't buy anything from them, they ask to buy them food! Does it mean that their parents do not feed them and send to tourist instead? Sometime I felt guilty sitting in cafe drinking my 1 dollar coffee, when another beggar would come around looking for opportunities.
Cleaning crown
San Juan Chamula
Every tourist should go to a nearby village of San Juan Chamula, where chamula people live. This is very independent community, self-governed, with no police allowed in the village. It is patrolled by men wearing furred ponchos. It was probably the only place in Chiapas where men also wear traditional dresses. Every tourist visit a church, where chamulas practive their very unusual mix of Catholicism and local traditions, drinking homemade alcohol and Coca Cola (to belch and free evil spirits). Here traditions and happenings in the Church are described. Chamulas also are very suspicious of cameras: cameras are strictly forbidden in the Church, and almost no local would allow you to make a photo of him/her.
We came to Chamula on the last day of Carnival. The place was full of people, locals and tourists. The main plaza, which is normally market place was covered by dry pine needles and hay and people standing around. We found out that it will be burned soon, so decided to wait. Waited for one hour, while people in traditional and Carnival dresses were running around the plaza. Then children came with some dry twigs. Running continued. Finally they started a fire and started to run over it. Observers steped back because flames came too close. We decided to leave.
Leaving was nott so easy as another bunch of people in traditional suits blocked our way out. Eventually we made it through just to find out that a huge bull is waiting its hours to step on a (stage main plaza). We had to stay close to wall hoping that ropes holding the bull are strong enough and he would not come wondering to our side of the street. After some more running on the plaze the bull finally started moving there. Drunk crowd got excited and ran towards plaza. We ran in opposite direction. This tradition is somehow similar to bull running in the streets of Spain, but just one bull involved at a time and everything is happening on a small overcrowded main plaza. On the way back we met US girls with huge cameras on their necks who just arrived. Hope they were ok leaving the place at the end of their visit, because
- of the bulls
- chamulas really do not like their photos taken. People can be kicked out of the village if they annoy locals.
We happily escaped crazyness of local carnival and cameback to safe San Cristobal.
Palenque
Next day I went to Palenque, town three hours from San Cristobal in the middle of the jungle. San Cristobal is in the mountains. When I arrived it was raining, so my original plan to go and stay close to famous mayan ruins miserably failed. Instead I stayed in the only hostel in town, where I met two authentic Russian girls from Moscow who spent their two weeks vacation running through Mexico, spending days and nights on the road.
Palenque is a quiet urban town with no tourist attractions on its own, except ruins in 5 km from town in the jngle area. It has one short touristy street with restaurants and 5star hotels (and one hostel) and no tamales for breakfast (I was heart broken!). Local archeologists work as tourist guides in numerous agencies, local men sell amber and jade jewellery in the streets.
Next morning I went to my first maya ruins. It was as I expected: pyramids in the jungles, guides offering their services, opportunists selling rain ponchos and fake amber, small museum and not too busy with tourists.
Coming back from Palenque I decided to visit another ruins half way to San Cristobal in Ocosinge town, one of the centers of Zapatista movement. Well, entrance to the town was blocked by protesters. Hello, again, long time no see! It was teachers protest agains school reform, low wages, etc. It was peaceful and quiet with ice-cream stalls and tacos. However, I had to walk through the town to get another bus. Because of the blockage, I decided, that I do not want to risk it to go to ruins and instead went back to San Cristobal catching another mini van on the other side of the town. It turned to be the right choice taking combi, as people who tried to get from Palenque to San Cristobal that day had to spend hours in the direct bus.
Back to San Cristobal
My last evening in San Cristobal I spent with Tina, Finish woman, and her friends from Australia: Mexican girl living in Australia for seven years now and her boyfriend of Scottinsh decent. Mexican girl comes from rich family who travels to the US for their daughter 15y birthday she works as a chef in a restaurant in Australia and comes back home once in two years to visit her big and loud Maxican family. In a bar where we spent evening we met a waiter from Honduras. First he went to the US as a refugee and lived in the South of Florida for a couple of years. He still does not speak English though: Latinamerican communities are so strong and big in the US that they do not really have any contact with English speakers. He moved to Chiapas where his brother was living, and stayed. It is quieter and life is easier. Because of the current situation, people from Honduras and El Salvador can come to the US and ask for asylum. If they can cross Mexico.
More protests in the streets of SC
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