San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico (dpa) – Remember San Cristobal de las Casas? It hit the headlines when on New Year’s Eve 1993 it was stormed by armed Indians, Mexico’s pre-Hispanic inhabitants.
As the world looked towards the Spanish-colonial tourist town in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, self-styled Sub-Comandante Marcos, the charismatic Zapatist leader quickly became a media star.
The guerrillas are still present in San Cristobal today, although less in physical form than in the shape of rag dolls which the Indian women sell to tourists as souvenirs.
The conflict between the Mexican government and the Zapatist National Liberation Army (EZLN), which is fighting for more indigenous rights, is still not over, the number of military checkpoints along the highway are witness to that.
But a ceasefire is holding, and the tourists have returned to Mexico’s poor yet picturesque southeastern corner with its baroque churches and light-bathed courtyards, the constantly changing climatic zones from the hot and steamy rain forest to the cool highlands and, of course, Mexican Indians in their riotously colourful costumes.
From Tuxtla Cutierrez, the capital of the region 550 metres above sea-level, the Panamerican Highway winds and climbs its way up to the mountains, cars shrouded in cloud. The road twists past forests and maize fields before the ascent to the plateau of San Cristobal de las Casas is reached at 2,200 metres.
On a plinth at the town’s entrance stands the statue to its namesake, Bishop Fray Bartolome de Las Casas (1474-1560). Las Casas was a tireless supporter of Indian rights and went down in history as the man who took the Spanish conquistadors to account. In the second half of the 20th century, his spirit was found again in Bishop Samuel Ruiz.
Around Bishop Ruiz’s cathedral the atmosphere of earlier centuries lives on in the narrow alleys between the low houses with their tiled roofs, colourful facades and wrought-iron window grilles. Thanks to its remoteness in the highlands, and because it had already passed over the function of Chiapas’ capital to Tuxtl Gutierrez in the l9th century, the town, founded in 1528, has been able to preserve its colonial charm until the present day.
San Cristobal has been a favourite destination for both travel groups and rucksack tourists over many years. Among its special attractions are the Indian markets around the resplendent church of Santo Domingo, where women from the outlying villages sell their home-made covers, blouses and handicrafts. Since its founding, San Cristobal was a town of whites and mestizos, and today the “indigenas,” the native Indians, still mostly live outside the town.
Only ten kilometres north of San Cristobal is the small town of San Juan Chamula. The Chamulas, who belong to the Tzotzil ethnic Mayan group, are well-known for their unique religious customs. The smart church in the centre of the village, for example, looks like a typical Catholic place of worship on the outside.
Inside, not only the pews are missing, there is also no priest. Instead, the Chamula, murmur their endless prayers in the Tzotzil language crouching in small groups on the floor, which is covered with pine-needles, lighted candles and numerous coca-cola bottles and containers of a local potent brew. Cameras are strictly forbidden in the church.
The Chamula are also known for their annual 15 festivals, which for the male members always ends in a drunken stupour – and their religious intolerance. Over the last decades they have driven out thousands of tribal members who converted to Protestantism.
The people in neighbouring Zinacantan are friendlier. Day and night the women nimbly work the looms so that the supply of colourful cloth for the markets in San Cristobal never runs out. But while Zinacantan is the picture of peace and quiet, a few kilometres north the conflict zone is reached. In bitterly poor San Andres Larrainzar, the population almost exclusively support the Zapatist rebels and has declared the district an “autonomous community.”
For some overseas visitors a trip to Mexico found a sudden end: revolutionary tourists, who sought contact to the rebels in Larrainzar or the rain forest in the eastern highlands have been thrown out of the country by the dozen by the Mexican government in recent years.
On Chiapas’ main roads, tourists are nevertheless quite safe. Departing from San Cristobal, the road descends towards the cattle- breeding town of Ocosingo. Soon deciduous trees, banana trees and coffee plantations replace the pine forests of the highlands, while the temperature rises from kilometre to kilometre.
After three hours between tropical rain forests, the 300-metre- high waterfall of Agua Azul is reached. Its name means Blue Water, and indeed the cool liquid which runs in and out of the natural basins between the waterfalls is clear blue. Thus refreshed, the journey continues to Palenque, the Mayan city in the northern plain of Chiapas state.
At the time of its heyday, between 600 and 700 A.D., it was probably one of the continent’s biggest cities, before it was abandoned for reasons unknown. The ruins of the palaces signify its former glory, along with the pyramid called the Temple of Inscriptions, which visitors are no longer allowed to climb because of structural worries.
For more than 1,000 years, the city was covered in rain forest, before archaeologists started the job of clearing the forests and today the area has many secrets still waiting for discovery.
