Road to Revolution... and the Japanese.

From Tuxtla we headed to San Cristobal de las Casas, another important place of resistance within Mexican history, and even in recent years.

The bus ride to San Cristobal was AMAZING. Although I was sick for most of it, the parts I did see where beautiful. The road was winding up and down the hills and we could see amazing scenery. We passed a million small towns where people were working in their yards, or chasing their animals around the fields. It was the best bus ride I had ever taken.

When we got to San Cristobal, we walked from the bus station into the city centre. We had planned on going to language school there, but when we arrived at the addresss, they were (as our luck would have it) closed. So, we thought about what to do and decided to skip language school and just try our best to try and commit those damn verbs to memory and put them into practice in our daily interactions. We settled into a hostel and went out to explore.

The town of San Cristobal is a strange mixture of colonial architecture, traditional mayan people, and hippy backpackers (basically everything that makes an awesome town…). San Cristobal de las Casas is named after a Catholic priest who, surprisingly, defended the rights of the aboriginals. His name was Bartolome de las Casas and he was the first bishop of Chiapas (the southern most state of Mexico). San Cristobal was named a “pueblo mágico” (magical village) in 2003. A pueblo mágico is “a place with symbolism, legends, history, important events, day-to-day life –in other words, "magic" in its social and cultural manifestations, with great opportunities for tourism” (as named by the Mexican government).

It is also the main city sitting in Zapatista territory. The Zapatistas are a revolutionary group consisting of mainly indigenous people who are in conflict with the Mexican government. Their ideologies combine socialism, anarchy, and feminism (awesome.). Most recently, on Jan 1, 1994 they occupied San Cristobal in protest because it was the day that NAFTA went into effect. Within days of the anniversary of this event, we were even fortunate enough to witness some fresh Zapatista graffiti on the government buildings of the plaza protesting imperialism. (this is just a brief introduction, and the Zapatistas are definitely a group that deserve further study, so…. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation)

We also got the chance to go to the Mayan Medicine Centre. This museum was right at the edge of town, and we had to walk there through all the busy markets (where tourists obviously rarely go). We passed over a river where the smell was so horrid that I almost vomited. One thing that is very hard to get used to outside of Canada is the intense pollution. Everything and anything is thrown into the river, and there are horrible consequences to this. Anyways, we got the Mayan Medicine Centre and explored the museum. There were pictures of medicinal plants and animals and it explained their important uses. They had recreated a mayan church (a syncretistic mix of catholic and mayan beliefs), a traditional home, and even a model of how women position themselves while giving birth. We then got to watch a video about a traditional midwife and her role in the community. This included seeing a baby being born – mayan style. You can see the picture in our albums, but it basically involves the mother being on her knees and the midwife standing behind to apply pressure and… to catch. I really enjoyed the video because you could tell it was done by a female anthropologist (with definite feminist anthropological undertones).

On one of our days in San Cristobal, we went out on a boat ride to see the Cañon del Sumidero. It is a canyon with kilometer high cliffs, and tons of birds, monkeys, and crocodiles. We ended up going with some people from our hostel who all happened to be Japanese. I think this made the experience much more interesting. We saw the beautiful scenery, witnessed the amazing animals, and got to jet down the river, but the most interesting part was how these particular Japanese people reacted to everything. They were very angry that the tour was in Spanish, even though there were tons of people able to translate into English for them. They also refused to eat local food and had brought all their own instant Japanese meals. We really couldn’t figure out how they had managed to get this far into Mexico, but they were hilarious none-the-less.

For our last evening in San Cristobal, we went out to get some iced coffee and watch Jazz musicians play on the street. A few of the streets are pedestrian only and so they are open for café’s and music. It was a great way to end our stay!