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Published: September 17th 2008
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San Cristobal de las Casas
San Cristobal de las casas was founded by captain Don Diego De Mazariegos on the 31st of March of the year 1528 with the name Villa Real Twelve hours on three different buses from Guatemala City and I finally arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico. I had planned to meet up with Stephanie, a friend of mine from New Zealand that I met in Rio Dulce, so I headed straight for the
Posada Ganesha, the hostal she was staying in. Even from that first stroll through the town I could see it was amazingly beautiful everywhere and I knew I was going to like it.
For anyone that doesn't know, Chiapas is the south westerly state of Mexico that has been fighting for independance or at least human rights for the native Mayans, since 1994 when the EZLN
(Ejército Zapatista para la Liberación Nacional, The Zapatista Army for National Liberation) was formed and came to light rather violently. Since then the Mexican goverment has sent armies to try wipe out all the natives, but failed due to most of the territory being in high mountains and a good defence by the EZLN. In more recent years, the Mexican people joined forces with the EZLN and the native
indios in marches and demonstrations in the city and the
Mexican goverment finally agreed to talk to these people and try to resolve the situation peacefully. Of course all agreements made have been silently swept under the rug and the situation has remained the same. Nowadays, the EZLN has set up their own government in this region, where the governers are all locals and elected by locals. The EZLN now takes nothing to do with the political and democratical matters, and leaves it completely to their elected governers. Over the years the Zapatista movement has grown rapidly and now has wide spread support, not only in Chiapas but in most of Mexico.
There are also a lot of similarities with Guatemala as Chiapas was formerly goverened by Guatemala. The native people are also of Mayan decent and speak various dialogues of the Mayan language, as in Guatemala. A lot of their
artesanias and materials are very similar to Guatemala. The main difference is the quality of life from what I can see, although I never made it out to any of the smaller villages here so I can't be 100%!s(MISSING)ure of that.
I spent most of the first night in a reggae bar called
Mama Africa as Stephanie was out when I arrived and it was the first bar I came to walking down our street. It was quiet, almost empty except for two Mexican guys on stage doing reggae and rock covers. I later found out they called themselves Timone and Pumba. They have to be the most original cover band I have ever seen, every song had their own little twist or mix to it. My favourite had to be their cover of Tracey Chapman/Jimi Hendrix.
I later caught up with Stephanie and we spent most of the next day walking about the town and checking out their various markets and seven churhes. She had planned to head on up to
Oaxaca the same day, but I decided I hadn't seen enough of San Cristobal and said I would meet up with her in two days time in
Oaxaca. So that night I went back to
Mama Africa where Timone and Pumba were set to play again. I had a great night and would highly recommend it to anyone in the area.
The next day while walking through the town I met Mauricio, one
of the barstaff from
Mama Africa, who was sat waiting on a girl that had just stood him up. I told him I was trying to get up the hill to a big church I had seen and he told me I was going the wrong way, so he kindly took me the right way and climbed the steps to the church with me. He's a really good guy and we got on great. We ended up spending most of the day together and he took me on a guided tour of the town. He was a local who was born and raised here so not only did he know everywhere, he also knew everyone and must have introduced me to at least 100 people. We went round a few of the Zapatista shops, where I picked up a copy of the EZLN sixth declaration, and then had lunch in a Zapatista café. All very interesting.
We later picked up a stray Japanese guy called Mitch who tagged along with us for a couple of hours. Mauricio brought us to a few churches and explained that they were all connected underground by a network of tunnels. He
then took us to a bar/hostal of a friend of his, where we went in and sat talking to three old local men, one of whom had just been attacked by a pitbull and had his hand in bits. It was very intersting talking to them about how Chiapas used to be and their roles in the armed struggle. After a drink or two we headed back out into the town and decided it was time for dinner. On the way up the street however our new friend Mitch dissapeared. We turned and started back down the straight only to see him walk out of a shop with his head in a guidebook pretending he couldn't see us. I had to laugh, he must have thought we were going to rob him or something. So on we went for dinner anyway and had another walk around the town later.
On the way through the square where we tried some local delicacies, we saw a group of young people in balaclavas blasting anti-govermental rap tunes out of a huge stereo. On the way back through the square about half an hour later the youths were gone and the placed was
filled with armed police.
After that we went for a couple of beers in a locals bar called
Malquerida that had a two for one offer on the beers. We sat there until it was time for me to catch my bus, listening to a suprisingly very European selection of music, strange compared to Guatemala which could almost pass as another American state. The bar was great, and we met some more of Mauricios friends there, including the girl that had stood him up that morning. I thanked her, as if it had not been for that I wouldn't have gotten my guided tour of the town. At 10.30pm I boarded my bus for the 11 hour ride to
Oaxaca, a little drunk, very tired and ready for a long sleep.
I'm now down to my last two days in Mexico, unfortunatly. Next installment, independance day celebrations in Oaxaca. BTW, if you like the blog, hit recommend in the top corner. More people get to hear about it that way. Gracias y adios amigos.
P.S. Can't seem to upload any photos here for some reason and I'm about to go to the airport
for my plane now (wrote most of this the other day), so I'll finish it off as soon as I get home. ¡Hasta pronto Belfast!
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Cindy
non-member comment
Where is it?
I LOVE your blogs! But I can't see the ¨recommend¨ option anywhere :(