San Cristobal: Highland retreat at Mexico's foot

By Ilona Biro

San Cristobal de las Casas, MEXICO -- Until recently, tourists discovered San Cristobal de las Casas by accident, planning to pass a night here on their way north from Guatemala to Mexico.

Its remoteness in the highlands of the state of Chiapas had kept it off the average traveler's itinerary, and made it a favorite haunt of backpackers intent on avoiding the Mexico of package tourists.

No operational airport meant that those on a shorter holiday had to drive or take a bus from the closest airport in the state capital Tuxtla Gutierrez, then ascend up a twisty mountain road, as we did recently.

Returning to San Cristobal after a visit five years ago, we were taken aback by the swift changes that had taken place there. Cafes and boutiques have sprung up in many of the fine colonial buildings in the center, playing New Age music and serving up wholefood to the birkenstock set. Converted mansions now house patio bars with video screens and malls full of upscale shops. Yet this recent wave of entrepreneurship has not spoiled this charming city, and getting there is still no easy chore.

The climb up to San Cristobal from Tuxtla Gutierrez is 50 miles of hairpin turns and 5,000 feet of sublime mountain views. From the dusty cactus scrub around Tuxtla, the scenery en route is transformed into misty verdant mountains, often shrouded in cloud. As you wind around breathtaking vistas on the approach to San Cristobal, Tzeltal and Tzotzil Indians appear on ridges and mountain paths above the highway. Pushing carts of firewood along, or sitting roadside waiting for the next bus to town, their brilliant fuscia tunics and rakish straw hats became a dangerous distraction as we spun our rented car around sheer drops and swerved to miss stray cattle.

The feeling that we were in Mexico quickly dropped away, as the Mayan culture overwhelmed us with every turn in the road. Homemade rockets, set off to celebrate one or another saint's day, whooshed out of the forest and exploded overhead, their reports echoing off distant slopes. Soon, as we descended into a sun-drenched valley, San Cristobal appeared, a colonial oasis in the heart of Mexico's Mayan highlands.

Once in San Cristobal, few travellers pass through quickly. Some remain for days or weeks, unable to pull themselves away from this town which seems strangely out of time. Named after Bishop Bartolome de las Casas, a defender of the Indians who arrived here in 1545, San Cristobal is one of the oldest cities in the new world. The houses around its plazas, many of them converted into hotels, date from the 16th century. The narrow streets, built for carriages, and shady patios make it a city best explored on foot.

Churches abound, many with rich facades and and gilded interiors carved in an Indian flavored baroque. Spiralling columns are intertwined with flowers that perfectly echo designs embroidered on the tunics of the nearby Zinacantan villagers.

Santo Domingo church, begun in 1547, is the best example of this style, and is an ideal place to start a visit here. Beside it is an excellent local museum housing church and town relics illustrating the history of San Cristobal, once the capital of Chiapas state.

A main attraction are the hundreds of Indians who come to town each day, spending the day selling amber jewellry, handwoven textiles and crafts. Even more satisfying is to take a local bus or hike to the local villages, (horses can be rented as well), to get a glimpse of local life first hand.

Feeling agonizingly conspicuous but undaunted, we made our way out to San Juan Chamula, a village known to anthropologists for its unusual brand of catholicism. Yet nothing could prepare us for the church we found there. Inside, villagers knelt on the floor, bare but for a carpet of pine needles. Surrounded by candles, each one representing a member of the family, the worshippers addressed themselves to the many saints installed in glass boxes and litters along the walls, blackened with the soot of centuries.

The church at midday was only a third full, but the sound was overpowering; voices rose and fell in a cacophonous chorus of pleas and prayers, echoing off the wooden roof high above. A trio of men came in, apparently still drunk from the night before, and, collapsing to the floor, began to wail in a dialect as old as the hills. It was a place unlike anything we had ever seen, the echoes of pre-Conquest days staying with us for days afterward.

When the missionaries came to Chiapas in the early 16th century, the Indians took what they wanted from Catholicism and combined it with their Mayan religion. Older local gods became synonymous with Catholic saints and churches were built on top of the Mayan shrines. The old calendar, full of feasts and rituals, was soon transformed into the Christian cycle of saints days, and hardly a day passes here without celebrations for one saint or another.

The largest festival, of patron saint San Cristobal, draws people from all over Mexico, who come to listen to mariachi bands, and watch trucks festooned with flowers and ribbons parade around the zocalo before being blessed by the bishop at the church of San Cristobal. During Easter week, effigies of Judas (and professional wrestling villains) are burned in the streets in a spectacle that is beginning to draw visitors from all over the world. Carnival here combines the beginning of Lent with a traditional ritual celebrating the five extra days at the end of the 360-day Mayan calendar. In between there are literally dozens of other colorful fests, accompanied by rockets that whizz overhead throughout the day.

While Indians must often succumb to the lenses of snap-happy tourists while in San Cristobal, they remain fiercely opposed to photography on their home ground. Visitors to nearby villages and festivals are advised to respect local customs and leave their cameras in their hotel rooms. Locals tell of two European women who were stoned to death by Chamula villagers after ignoring their requests to stop taking photographs of their church.

Some people in San Cristobal are disturbed by the impact tourism is already having on the population here, and worry that with an increasing stream of tourists will come unwanted influences on the Indian way of life. Only time will tell what the consequences of a booming tourist trade will have on this area, but an airport and luxury Japanese hotel slated for construction is sure to increase traffic substantially. The Ruta Maya, a four nation plan to promote tourism to the remote archeological zones of Chiapas, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize, will add additional momentum to this trend. Yet, to us, strolling one evening, trying to decide on a restaurant, the recent developments seemed only to have improved our stay. San Cristobal had come along way from the cold water hotels of our first visit.

Cosy family-run posadas are everywhere now, and restaurants boast creative menus that one would be hard pressed to find in Mexico City. For the acquisitive, streets like Real de Guadalupe beckon, lined with shops piled high with Guatemalan and local textiles, and boutiques full of amber jewelry, a speciality of Chiapas.

But our favourite place to browse was Sna Jolobil, Tzotzil for House of Weaving, a cooperative of Indian weavers housed in the ex-convent of Santo Domingo. Here you can see regional textiles and costumes displayed according to village, and can buy works of the highest quality all made using the dying and weaving techniques unique to this region. The patterns, different in each village, trace a lineage back to pre-Columbian times, and use motifs that can be seen on the clothing of figures in friezes at Mayan archeological sites like Yaxchilan and Bonampak.

Another option is to go to Tenejapa, by taxi or bus, to see the local weaving museum and cooperative there. Exquisite tunics called huipiles are woven here on backstrap looms, the brocaded pattern worked in as the piece is being woven. Classes in weaving can be arranged and there is a pension for overnight stays.

Other excursions from San Cristobal are to the Lagos de Montebello, a two hour drive south, and to the Lacandon jungle, which together constitute a national park. While the jungle is difficult to tackle without considerable advance planning, the string of 59 magnificent lakes, reputed to have the best swimming and fishing in Mexico, can easily be reached in a day trip.

All in all, a stay of five days was not enough. Leaving San Cristobal in an early morning mist, we promised to return soon, and silently wished that the next time we come, the deep silence of this place would not be broken by the rumble of airplanes, but only by the occasional hiss of a passing rocket.