San Christobal

Chiapas-7, a photo by thebaconfairy on Flickr.
So I have returned to the mountains. I am currently on a bus leaving San Cristobal and am headed to Palenque. Both of these places were suggested to me by Jesus, my CS host in Oaxaca. This route will take me further east and I will end up with a grueling 3 day cycle through Belize and end up in Tikal National Park in Guatemala. Tikal was recommended to me by Jesus and highly rated by Ginny one of my hosts here. From Tikal, I will take a bus to Guatemala city, then to the coast to start cycling again, almost immediately in El Salvador. I have very little time left and lots of places to go, but I am determined to make it.

I was just about to tell about my adventures here, when I was by some children who were interested in my iPad. The girl who is about three wanted my valentine, a blue heart with a cat given to me by a CS hosts's daughter. So of course I gave it to her. The older one who is nine wanted to hear music, her name is Elisa Leanna. They are headed to Cancun to the beach. It seems I have some friends for the ride. The older two are behind and the younger one next to me, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing. Cheap buses are the best way to travel! As I pass Forrest's of ponderosa pines, I will recount my incredible day yesterday.

On the advise of Mark, one of my hosts I headed to two indigenous towns 7-9 km outside of town. Up & down some good hills, but no panniers, so the ride was pretty easy. The first town I went to was called Chemul. When the Spanish came, they fought them and have retained this sort of stance to this day. The main attraction is the church, where oreif you take pictures you can be sent to jail. There was a lot of tourists in town, one bus full entered the church not long before I left. But the church is what I need to try and describe.

Of course descriptions are impossible. I was told prior to going there was pine needles on the floor. I was also told they practice animalistic rituals and live squirrels waved in the face is a cure for something. I did not see any squirrels, though I did discover a lady with a chicken. But let us start at the beginning. Walking in the door, the visitor is immediately accosted with smoke from maybe 1000 candles. There are no pews in this church. Instead on the tiled floor is sections of rows of candles and pine needles around this. Kneeling on the floor are the villages, way more then any church I have happened to enter yet, maybe 20 or 30. What I realized when I entered is that this was an extremely holy place. One of the more spiritual places I have ever visited. It is certain that whatever form of Catholicism they practice they are extremely devout and earnest n their prayers. They all enter and rather then pray towards one of the sainting, they kneel in front of a set of candles. They mostly appealed to be in groups. Their worship included drinking, mostly pop, though I did see one bottle of tequila. I am uncertain if this was a form of communion or not. As I was leaving there was a local procession of about six guys, who were following a guy with a guitar. They were followed by a bus of tourists. After about one song they stopped, then joined the kneeing group.

After the church, I went for a quick cycle around the town, may as well see some more then is usually seen. Then I went to check out the artist/tourist market. I went up a side street rather then going along the main tourist drag. I managed to get a great deal on a shirt, the lady asked half of what the others were asking (my hosts agreed). I also bought a little purse, grey with red pom-poms. I had been needing one most of the time because only my skirt and not my dress has pockets (I always keep my wallet & passport on me). The last thing I bought were three very cute tiny stuffed animals out of wool. I then headed up hill to the next village, Zinacatan.

Well it turned out to be uphill, then back down hill again, because of course! I rode around town a little. I had been told that this village had the most colourful clothing to be seen. Mostly seen in the young girls, though some of the men also sported great outfits. I was checking out the stalls here, they were fairly different. I almost made it out of the town without buying anything, but then I was accosted by two young girls. They were maybe eight and ten, they asked me if I had seen, I had no clue what, but of course the answer was no. Because who can resist two very cute little girls? So I let them take me to what turned out to be their mother's store. I had three problems, one I liked the shawls a lot, two I had very little money on me and three, I really has no space in my bag. But who cares for space? Anyhow, I was checking out the wool shawl/capes, but the ones in ladies sizzles were mostly in pink or black. But then I saw a great one, with avocado and a red stripe in the warp, the embroidery was a slightly less colourful, but very lovely-not that I didn't want colour, the turquoise and the bright red ones were for young girls. The young girls stayed around and helped their mother selling me stuff. It was so cute. The price was the exact amount of money I had left, minus the small change. After I had purchased it, the lady Marie Santiago, I believe it was, took me back to her house for lunch. It consisted of the most delicious corn tortillias, black beans, a goat cheese that tasted like feta and hibiscus juice. It was brilliant! I was also told I got a good deal, but of course the hearty welcome and incredible hospitality would have made a not great bargain a good deal anyhow.
When I returned to my host that night, I was told that fashion in Zinacatan is very unusual for indigenous people. Most of the groups have worn the same outsit time out of mind, not so for Zinacatan. In Zinacatan the outfits chance every six months. There is a coming out, everyone shows off their best designs and the winner is copied by the whole village and this is worn for the next 6 months every day. So what is sold to tourists is the old outfits. I was told mine was an old one, from about 6 years ago. this is the time span where they stopped doing the embrodery entirely by hand and started using a sewing machine (still what we would call hand made) it looks like it is possible mine is both machine and hand-done. All the young girls are certain to chnage and I am told that you can tell the older women´s ages by the outfit style they have got stuck in.