…The Chiapas
Our next destination in Mexico was Palenque – our first stop in the Chiapas region. This region is largely made up of indigenous Mayans, many of whom still hold on to their ancient traditions of things like unique natural medicines, ancient tattoo’s (and tattooing techniques), and most widely seen, their language.
Palenque is a town that seems to have sprung up around the tourism that came about due to the Mayan ruin of Palenque that springs up out of the jungle about 7 or 8 km from town. Palenque town doesn’t offer a visitor a huge amount, however the ruins are absolutely amazing. More on that in another post.
Our last stop in Mexico is the city of San Cristobal de las Casas. Both of us agree, that we could easily live in this city – it is a beautiful place and very cosmopolitan (muy cosmopolitano perhaps). The city is about 2,000 metres above sea level, and set in a valley surrounded by pine forest mountains. The drive from Palenque is only about 100-150kms, however it takes over 5 hours as the roads are ordinary, and extremely windy. Add to this either a large speed bump or deep trench cut into the road, and you get a trip not to be forgotten – particularly if you get car sick.
The city itself is quite small (a quarter of a million people), and is made up of very narrow, very straight streets – many cobblestoned – with lots of markets (fresh food and handicrafts), shops, restaurants, cafés, and beautiful parks. It is also the scene of the beginning of the Zapatista revolution in the mid-1990’s – where thousands of (largely) Mayan famers from the local area demanded their land back from the government following the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). There’s far too much to go into here, but look it up if you’re interested in that sort of thing – it does make for interesting reading.
Since the revolution, two things have boomed here: tourism and crime. There are a lot of shops that sell Zapatista-based “merchandise” (postcards, dolls, books, woven textiles, t-shirts, balaclavas, etc, etc). That in itself is not an issue, however it is ironic that a lot of this tacky stuff is made by the Zapatista’s themselves; for you lefties out there, you wouldn’t be happy (much like Che Guevara must be turning in his mausoleum at the amount of merchandise with his face on it. Talking about that, if you haven’t see it, you should see if you can find the original photograph that was taken and then made into the ‘Che silhouette’…he’s looking very Ziggy Startdust in the jacket that he has on – much ahead of his time). Having said this, the fact remains that these people must make a living. They don’t have their land to work on anymore, they are largely uneducated, and are often discriminated against (like many indigenous people around the world), so few options remain.
The crime aspect is one that is a little more alarming. While we didn’t have any issues whatsoever, there are regular reports of foreigners being targeted while driving on the small country mountain roads in the Chiapas region – and often (incorrectly) these crimes are attributed to the Zapatistas themselves. It is not uncommon to hear of a bus being stopped (particularly at night) by a number of very large rocks on the road, and men coming on board and relieving all foreigners of their cash and valuables. Machetes, I believe, are the weapon of choice for this type of incident.
Having said this, we wouldn’t let these types of stories dissuade you from coming to this part of the world. It is a fantastic place, with fantastic people. There is so much history and culture here it isn’t funny.
Overall, Mexico – and the Chiapas region in particular – have been a definite highlight of the trip so far.
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