Lovely San Cristobal de las Casas, an important Spanish city in colonial days, and a wonderful place to visit now. It is high in the mountains - around 7000 feet above sea level - and nestled in a bowl.
San Cristobal has lovely pedestrian streets, mobbed with people, and is surrounded by steep, green hills.
San Cristobal's cathedral. On Saturday there was a rap/ rock concert held on the porch, and on Sunday another smaller concert held in the plaza. Last July my driver told me that in the 1970s a nearby indigenous village, San Juan Chamula (see below), is reported to have expelled residents who were insufficiently indigenous or who practiced a different religion. The internally displaced people flooded San Cristobal, and the diocese of San Cristobal broadened its tenets to incorporate and welcome the refugees.
The del Carmen arch, built in 1677, marks the end of one of the pedestrian streets.
Detail of the underside of the del Carmen arch.
A festive climb up a steep, tiered staircase to a nice view of San Cristobal!
This little church has a good view of San Cristobal and an outdoor exercise facility at the top of the stairs.
The ubiquitous balloon seller. This individual is cloned for every city plaza in Mexico!
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On Sunday we hired a taxi and driver and headed out into the villages around San Cristobal. Sunday is market day, and the villages have strong indigenous traditions. Our driver was a great balance of information and reticence: he answered all the questions but didn't chatter at us all day long. The countryside around San Cristobal is quite poor, but it is also very beautiful. This is a village cemetery. Apparently there had recently been a fiesta that involved setting up tables in the graveyard, hence the mounds of fresh earth and planks. They are not fresh graves, despite appearances. Also stunning are the crosses in the trees.
On the way in to Tenejapa we passed this interesting saddle mountain.
In contrast with the photo below, these houses are clinging to a fairly steep slope. The poor in Chiapas have been pushed into these areas, though, to be fair, many have an ancestral tie with the land. The pushing was done centuries ago.
Chiapas is a topographically difficult state. The areas around San Cristobal are deep, narrow valleys and steep hills.
Our first stop was Tenejapa (ten-eh-HOP-ah), about 30 minutes northeast of San Cristobal. The food market was hopping, and there were about 60 people queued up in front of an administration building to receive their subsidies from a highly controversial agricultural support program. This is the church, but inside it is under repairs and didn't look too good. Note the man in traditional dress in the corner of the photo: they wore bright red shorts and white cotton blouses covered by great felted (?) black wool tunics. The felting process makes the wool look like bearskin. Women's skirts are often made of the same material in other parts of the region.
The cliffs around Tenejapa were striking.
Our second stop was Amatenango, about an hour southeast of San Cristobal. Amatenango specializes in pottery. On the highway there is a pull-out with about a dozen sidewalk type shops selling the wares. All the shops were attended by women; men were very seldom around the tourist industry sites (Migration? Field work? Hard to say, but there were very few boys either.)
Amatenango has all the bird- and animal-themed kitsch you never knew you needed. Note especially the napkin holders. I was sorely tempted. Ian got a very cool jaguar mask to go on our mask wall.
Lots of doves and pigeons! We bought a pair of peacocks that were clearly conceived by the same potter....
Our third village was Zinacantan. Like its neighbor, San Juan Chamula (see below), Zinacantan is very traditional. Unlike San Juan Chamula, however, Zinacantan embraced government development programs and is considerably wealthier than other villages. It produces flowers and is recognizable by the greenhouses filling its valleys and climbing its hillsides like reverse glaciers. We only visited one shop in Zinacantan, and it had a bit of everything. My mother is checking a skirt and deciding to use it as a tablecloth. The traditional women's dress in this area is a skirt (about two yards of fabric in a solid loop, doubled over in front to make the right size, and held up with a wide cloth belt), a blouse with embroidery, and a shawl like the one in the photo below. Most of the skirts are cotton and finely embroidered like these, but some women wear the traditional loosely felted (?) wool skirts. They look like bear skins and must be extremely itchy.
I love these shawls! I tried one on in July and decided it was too elegant for me. As soon as I turned away from the young woman selling them, I was mobbed by little girls in traditional wear selling gum and candy. Guess what, they were all wearing the shawls and skirts and running around barefoot. I doubt I wear it with a fleece and cargo pants, but it might be perfect over a little black dress somewhere!
San Juan Chamula is a village about 30 minutes out of San Cristobal with a very strong indigenous culture. Residents cannot be photographed, and many wear traditional garb. Ironically, to help combat serious problems with alcohol abuse, Coke and Pepsi were introduced to the culture in recent years and now feature prominently in local culture and traditions. The church looks Catholic from the outside but is actually an uneasy blend of Catholic and pre-Catholic traditions. The floor is thick with fresh pine needles, there are no pews or seats, patron saints of the surrounding villages line the walls, and shamans (for lack of a better word) sway over groups of candles on the floor, chanting and intoning. The saints all live in glass containers, ready to be carried in processionals, and they all wear mirrors around their necks. A previous guide claimed that was to "reflect the clarity." Possibly because it was Sunday, the church was alive with candles, and several family groups were engaged in private ceremonies, blessing new babies and the like. The last time I was there (July 2010), two chickens were sacrificed while I was in the church (maybe within 10 minutes). A couple of chickens were headed in as we headed out. Photos are not allowed in the church.
The famous church, as seen from the outside. The three colors around the door and upper window represent San Juan, San Pedro, and San Jose Chamula, the three most important communities.
Hi Molly - about the grave yard with the planks set up on the mounds. Those are purposely placed there and are called 'doors'. When the family visits the grave of a loved one - which is done every year after the death - they gather around the grave mound and talk under the door to the spirit of the dead person. Strange but true.
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