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Published: March 16th 2009
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Thursday, March 12th. Because there is so much to say and we have so many pretty pictures to share, we decided to divide the San Cristobal section into three parts. We have posted from Palenque to San Cristobal de las Casas. In this section, we’ll cover the city itself and our third part will deal with the surrounding villages.
San Cristobal de las Casas was founded in 1528. It is named for the patron saint who we, in the U.S., call Saint Christopher. San Cristobal is also known here as the patron saint of travelers. The city is also named for Bartolome de las Casas (1484 - 1566) a crusader for indigenous rights for the peoples of Mexico and the Caribbean after he witnessed the atrocities committed by the Spanish Conquistadores. I provided this detail because, to me, the name was confusing, as “casa” is the Spanish word for house or home. The city of San Cristobal sits in the midst of several indigenous villages on the edge of the politically unstable Lacandon rain forest. The city has been designated a national historical site due, I guess, to its age and beautiful colorful buildings and churches. There were no roads
to San Cristobal until the 1950s. Maybe this is why it has retained its charm because it did not “progress” with the rest of the country.
Many of the downtown streets are off limits to vehicle traffic making them very pedestrian friendly. Although, there are well over 100,000 residents, everything a tourist would want to see is within a walkable range. We walked several blocks through the barrios (neighborhoods) to the edge of the city center to visit the former estate of Frans and Trudy Blum. The estate, called Na-Bolom, has since their deaths, been converted to a museum that still helps support the continuance of the couples work among the indigenous Indians along the Guatemalan border.
We visited San Cristobal’s most famous church, Iglesia Y Ex-Convento de Santo Domingo built by the Dominicans from 1547 to 1560 which has both an exceptionally ornate exterior and an inner sanctuary covered in gold leaf. None of our interior photos of Santo Domingo turned out well and are not worth posting. Our exterior pictures are not great either, due to the narrow streets; it is always hard to get far enough away from large structures to get them in frame.
We don’t know why some of the statues are headless or have their head’s tucked under their arms.
We also visited Temple de El Calvario which has a statue representing Jesus Christ in a coffin displayed inside the church along with some very creepy looking statues which we will post hoping somebody can explain them. Somewhere, we read that some of the people here do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, therefore, the coffin, and that John the Baptist was more revered. Wasn’t John the Baptist beheaded? Could that explain the headless statues at Santo Domingo? Although, San Cristobal de las Casas does have quite a number of churches, only these two were open.
We enjoyed a popular local drink called a Mayan Sacrifice at a little bar/restaurant called La Paloma. The Mayan Sacrifice contains tequila, kahlua, anisette and mineral water. The liquors are combined and set afire before being added to the mineral water. Our waiter then slammed the drinks on the table. They were served warm and were quite tasty.
Wednesday, we took AAA’s advice and ate at El Fogon de Joval. Ray had chicken mole. For the un-initiated, mole, made with unsweetened
chocolate and chilies may sound unappetizing but good mole is out of this world and Ray’s meal was muy bien (very good). I had chicken pipian which is made from the same cuts of chicken but served in a sauce spiced with ground pumpkin seeds and chilies. Because we were so pleased, we returned to the restaurant this evening and I had the mole and Ray ordered another dish with chunks of pork. You will notice in our photos that although both meals are served with white rice, neither meal is served with the Spanish rice and refried beans typical of Mexican restaurants in the U.S. In fact, if refried beans appear on the table at all, they will be served as an appetizer usually along with guacamole and coarse white cheese to be made into tacos or eaten with chips.
Because, as I said, we want to break this blog into three sections, I do not want to get ahead of myself but yesterday we took an English language tour of the surrounding area. Today, we ran into a couple, Mike and Maggie from York, England, who had been on the same indigenous village tour with us. Although,
Women from the village of San Lorenzo Zinacantan
These ladies create wonderful crafts which they bring to the city to sell. we had not spoken to them yesterday, seeing them on the street today, it was like meeting up with old friends. They are on an adventure tour with a small English speaking group guided by a twenty-six year old Swiss who speaks excellent English and Spanish and has been conducting this tour for four years. We shared experiences and they told us about a “propaganda” film they had seen last night advocating for the Zapanistas. Although, Ray did not want to go because he thought he knew all he wanted to know about rebels and insurgents, thankfully, I prevailed. What we watched was enlightening. Clearly, Mexico still treats their indigenous people a lot worse than the U.S. is now treating our Native Americans. Exploitation has greatly increased with signing of the NAFTA agreements. It was the signing of the NAFTA agreement in 1994 that inspired the January 1st, Zapanista led rebellion that left over 100 people dead over a period of twelve days. Globalization and the support of large corporations, has had a detrimental effect on the lives of the peasants. For example, with Mexico entering NAFTA the indigenous people, who are farmers, are told what they may charge for
Lady with baskets
See what I mean about Mayans and their decendants being short.
How the heck could this lady hoist herself up temple steps or even over the city's curbs especially with that load. their products. The film talked about the rape of the women by armed soldiers to diminish them and destroy the family structure. During this rebellion, the village people were forced by the Mexican army to flee from their homes because the army was searching for the rebels and their sympathizers. One woman was bathing and was forced to leave naked. Much of the documentary was provided by Americans and all of the productions credits were from American cities, mostly on the west coast but some on the “right” coast too.
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