Chamula y Zincantan

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Well today was quite a day! I´m going to post as many pictures as I can seeing as how we did some really cool stuff and I caught a lot of it with my camera. I woke up at 6am because of someone snoring in the room, which just isn´t cool at all because I´m supposed to be the one keeping everyone awake, not the other way around. Regardless, the snoring and the farting from 8 hungover guys in a hostel room was very disturbing to say the least, and the orchestra of sounds from each bed along with the fireworks starting at sunrise forced me up. Wasn´t as cold as usual so that was good, I sat in a trance on the couch until the others woke up shortly after, we had agreed to some day trip last night at the pub that I had no clue about but we went... grabbed some water and found a guy who was doing this tour to two small village-towns outside of San Cristobal named Chamula and Zincantan.

We went to Chamula first, these are basically the mayan natives of the area, and they have strict rules about stuff, but also some odd contradictions in their ways. No pictures were supposed to be taken without asking first, and because it was the saints day there was a LOT going on. Was odd when we walked through their settlements and nobody was around, but they were all celebrating in the graveyard! Basically they decorate and sit around the graves with candles and grain alcohol (the alcohol helps them burp and that expells bad things form them -more on that later) so in the end there was a beautifully decorated graveyard and lots of people in great moods.

Onto the church, this town expelled the catholic priests and burnt their church, but now installed some liasons that act as representatives of the church who wear these cool costumes. These guys save up their whole lives just so for one year (there´s a huge waiting list) they can be this liason and get all kinds of respect. So the church was packed, lots of pine branches and flowers decorating, fire works galore, and aromas from the church, it was very cool. They gave us this corn/bean concoction which we ate and toured around a bit. Then we went to this guys house who was one of the church liasons, this place was packed with smoke and everyone was drinking and lighting off fireworks, we sat inside and tried some of their grain alcohol, which is distilled from sugar cane... not bad.

So basically this guy stays in his house drinking while people come visit him, which was funny because we found out he isn´t allowed to sleep from 12:00AM Oct 31st to 12:00pm Nov 2. Oh, and he´s not allowed to reject any drinks handed to him, so we figured it was basically just like Canada day where we stayed up all night drinking, thankfully that behaviour isn´t isolated to just us... but guys in Mexico as well.

After that we went to Zincantan and visited this family in a mud hut that made us lunch, awesome black corn tortillas, beans, pumpkin seed dust, this corn milk drink, more grain alcohol but much better in this village as they flavour it with flower petals. We also had this cactus/potatoe/squash stuff that wasn´t bad. Delicious totillas though, they showed us how they´re made form scratch, by hand etc. Was an awesome experience and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

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Photos

Lunch
Black corn tortillas cooked over a fire we enjoyed for lunch.

Valley
Chamula Valley as we walked into the town from the main road.

Kids
The local gang of kids that swarmed us for Candy, but whose soulds I instead stole by taking this picture!

Comments

[Christy Fair (Nick's girlfriend)]

Happy belated Halloween!
Hi guys! Nick and I just spent the last half hour on your blog! We laughed, then laughed ... He loved the pics with the guns at Trents and the Shadow of the "now dead" Samuri. We hope the surfboard worked out well. I had a great time meeting you all and know you three are making a wonderful impact on the world. I look forward to seeing more pics (they're great!) I also want to party in a graveyard someday. :) Enjoy!

[Tara Hatazawa]

Awesome entry and pics Jas! Looks like you guys are really getting around!