We spent about three weeks in Chiapas, basing ourselves in San Cristobal de las Casas, which included a visit from our friends the Johnstons from Lake Oswego. Unfortunately, I got pretty sick - not las turistas, but bronchitis or worse, so I did not partake of some of the activities that the others did.
Below are a few shots from San Cristobal de las Casas, a very pretty, hilly, green and chilly (7000 feet) small city.
We also made visits to the nearby indigenous villages. San Juan Chamula is ever popular with tourists because it is so weird. These are the folks whose local Catholic church long ago went off the deep end and reverted to a solid mix of paganism and Catholicism. (Protestant missionaries have converted around 40% of the local indigenous population, but that's another story). Tourists are not allowed to take photographs inside the Chamulan church, but are allowed to watch the various rituals taking place on the pine boughs scattered on the floor. One can see curanderos (healers or shamans), assisted by chickens, eggs, Coca-Cola and pox (the local home-brew), exorcising the evil spirits from those who are ailing. Narrow flickering tapers are affixed to the floor and the perimeter of the church contains hundreds of other lit candles. Below are some other photos of the town.
San Juan Chamula pictures: clockwise starting from top left:
. Bringing out the pox (traditional home brew) at a street funeral
. Too much pox
. Women carding wool in market place
. The bural at the local cemeter; burned-out church in background
A nearby rival village is Zinacantán. When driving into this municipality, one sees hundreds of greenhouses scattered over the rolling hills. The Zinacantánians have prospered by growing flowers commercially for export. They like to flaunt their relative wealth with their fine embroidered costumes and they stand out when visiting a Chamulan festival or marketplace.
Below: The finery of the Zinacántanians - huipiles for men and shawls, huipiles and skirts for women.
Chamula and Tenejape (the latter located outside San Cristobal in a different direction) like to celebrate carnival, as seen in the photos below.
Top row: Carnival in Chamula. Note the Napoleonic foot-soldier inspired costumes. I'm not sure why that is.
Bottom grouping: Carnival in Tenejapa. Note in both sets of photos, the men wearing black or white belted sheepskin tunics are performing their "cargo." A cargo is a community obligation of one sort or another structured into a hierarchy of prestige and personal expense to the individual. A typical obligation is to take charge of a favored saint, which includes the responsibility for the saint's festival. Lower-ranking cargos include simply keeping order at the fiestas. In the Tenejapa grouping, the third picture from the left contains an example of their traditional weaving pattern, often seen in huipiles. The lower left photos is of a backstrap loom.
We took a five-day jungle-archeological drive in the camper with the Johnstons, exploring some new territory for us. We first headed south towards the Guatemala border and the very pretty Lagos de Montebello area. We overnighted in an old hacienda cum hotel (Parador Santa Maria), where the Johnstons got a room and we camped in the parking lot. We then took a secondary road to an eco-tourists lodge, called Las Guacamayas, run by a transplanted Oaxacan village. Guacamayas are scarlet macaws and the lodge is located on a nature preserve for these birds. One of our group spotted one, but we couldn't help but hearing the loud screaming (sort of a cross between an elephant and a lion's roar) of the numerous howler monkeys in the area.
The next day was an intense one involving visits to two Mayan ruins, Bonampak and Yaxilán. To access the latter, one has to take half hour boat ride down the Usumacinta River that separates Mexico from Guatemala. Yaxilán is very much in a jungle setting and has a real Indiana Jones feel to it. Vistors to Bonamapak are required to take a collective over the last five kilometers of the road. The only apparent reason for this is to provide additional employment (as drivers and ticket takers) for the local Lacandón community. The Lacandóns were, until relatively recently, a fairly primitive indigenous group and the last to be assimilated. Our final nights were spent at Palenque, the crown jewel of the classic Maya. The drive back to Palenque was about 120 miles and took a grueling six hours, plus a two-hour stop at the Toniná ruins. We were greeted with winding roads, a big elevation gain, lots of topes (speedbumps), and about an hour-long traffic jam caused by a group of Zapatistas who put a board containing nails across the highway. They would not let a vehicle pass until they received some sort of monetary contribution. By the time we reached the roadblock, they had taken the board away so we lumbered on without making a "donation." .
· Top row: Parador Santa Maria, one of the Lagos de Montebello, Las Guacamayas Lodge
· Second row: Usumacinta River and boats awaiting tourists to Yaxilán, the steps of the Grand Acropolis at Yaxilán.
· Bottom row: Palenque, Palenque and Toniná.
