It took us a couple days to realize that when we crossed into Mexico, we lost an hour: Guatemala doesn’t bother with that daylight savings horseplay, while Mexico aligns itself with what we’re used to in el Norte. So we’ve traveled west but moved a timezone east. This also means we had checked out of our hostel in Comitan an hour late; in more cash-strapped economies further south, we may have been charged an extra day. Anyways, now that we’ve got our clocks wound correctly, let me tell you about our time in San Cristobal de las Casas.
San Cristobal de las Casas, in the center of the State of Chiapas, is to be our final stop on our Latin American odyssey. Beyond here lies only sweltering jungles; Oaxaca and other worthwhile cities are too far and we’ll have to save them for another year. At first glance, like Comitan, San Cris felt too swank and done-up for my tastes. The central plaza, the zocolo, was well-manicured and calm, but sterile; the pedestrian streets branching off felt cheesy, as much as I love peatonalismo. There were ambling Mexican tourists emerging from tour buses and every business, it seemed, existed to serve them only. It admittedly crossed my mind to cut losses and retreat back to Xela for an extra few days.
But the town very quickly and very surely grew on me. The climate, for one, is just about perfect, with warm and sunny days and comfortably brisk nights. The peatonals hid some cool bohemian hangouts and shops, with great food and cafes showing local movies and documentaries nightly. Live music is everywhere. Surrounding hills are wooded and calm. And most significantly, indigenous culture is breaking into mainstream, thanks in large part to the EZLN.
In the mid-1990s, the Zapatista rebellion began here when disgruntled campesinos donning black ski masks and firearms seized control of San Cristobal. The rebellion was quickly squished by the Mexican military, and the EZLN leaders changed tactics and transformed themselves into a peaceful social movement to promote indigenous rights and culture throughout Mexico and the world. San Cristobal now hosts a number of EZLN-run cafes and artists collectives, all selling colorful folksy artwork showing masked guerrillas dancing among cows and chickens in the green community plazas of hilltop utopias. EZLN fair-trade organic coffee is a big hit here, and the Zapatista cause is beginning to become synonymous with slow food and sustainable living. There are women’s co-ops selling indigenous weavings and helping to combat latino machismo culture. Little masked Zapatista dolls are on sale at the crafts market. While they’ve been dismissed as revolutionary failures, the EZLN stresses long-term goals and gradual, steady progress. At one local EZLN collective, I clunked my spare pesos into a can raising funds for a tractor, which that particular community is hoping to purchase within the next ten years.
For the long week, we planted ourselves at a good deal posada that was in the process of buttering up its decor to transform into a “hotel and spa.” They’ve got some work to do. Might want to add doorknobs to the guest rooms. But the room was cheap and clean, no more expensive than anywhere in Guatemala. There was a great little roof terrace we had to ourselves for sunsets, which were pretty gangbusters every evening. We went for jogs up and around the two different cerros in town, and in the streets we caught some indigenous dance performances, a road race and a parade, where women handed out swigs of mezcal. The most colorful and exciting part of town was the ubiquitous market, packed with carefully stacked fruits and vegetables, stalls of candles, dirt cheap barber shops, stanky meats, heaps of flowers, and traditionally-dressed gold-toofed Mayan men and women reminding us that San Cristobal de las Casas is not so far removed from highland Guatemala, after all.
Tags: chiapas, mexico, san cristobal, san cristobal de las casas
