Last Chapter: San Cris-TO-bal

The last part of our trip was to the colonial town of San Cristobal de las Casas, perched high in the mountains in the center of the State. The most amazing thing about Chiapas is that it has such a wide variety of climate and terrain for such a small place. San Cristobal is dry and downright chilly at night. But less than 200 miles away is pure jungle where howler monkeys roam. And in between is about every type of land you could imagine: rolling hills, rocky mountains, green pastures, etc. It's simply beautiful.

But of course, there's also a lot of this:

And before we got into town, we took a strange detour through the little village of Amatenango del Valle. About the size of a standard Home Depot, Amatenango is famous in the region for their "animalitos:" miniature earthen-ware animal figurines that are sold all over the State but which all are made by local women here. It's oft-mentioned in the guidebooks and it was on the way so we decided to stop in.

What we had forgotten was that last Tuesday was carnival day (i.e. mardi gras) all over the Catholic world. So when we rolled into the town square, we happened upon this scene, happening right in front of the Church:

And they were all dancing to this band, whose music we swear sounded exactly like the the trio from the cantina scene in Star Wars:

Not a single stringed instrument.

We were fascinated by this curious scene, and took a seat to one side to quietly observe. Very quickly, however, we began to notice a few things:

1. All of the dancers, including those dressed as women, were men.
2. Except for Sasha, there was not a single female within 50 yards of this "party."
3. None of the other bystanders seemed to be amused by any of this. Most were old farmer men, watching quietly, speaking to no one.
4. Several of the dancers were carrying something on a string:

It's hard to tell from the photo, but that's a dead coyote. On a string. This reveler was making the carcass dance to the music.

We decided at that point to leave Amatenango del Valle. For good measure, we bought some animalitos on our way out. We were both raised Catholic, and neither one of us can explain the first thing about what we saw there.

Moving along, San Cristobal is a beautiful town, and we stayed in a lovely B&B run by an American ex-pat. This was the view from our window in the morning:



Our place was also super close to a Church market where we could shop for the textiles that Sasha by now had so begun to covet. In addition to the standard crafts market in the plaza, there was an amazing Cooperative selling really high quality textiles from representative indigenous groups. (After a lot of hemming and hawing, we went home with a fabulous marigold-colored bedspread. Now we just need to buy a bed worth of the thing. Government-issued beds---not that hot.)

We snapped this photo as much as for the fact that it is the historic town gate as for the local woman in the foreground:

Her black, furry skirt (wool?) is a signature garment of the region. We were impressed at how many women and girls still wear very traditional indigenous clothing on a daily basis, even in the cities. And as noted earlier, many of the vendors spoke Spanish that was just as broken as ours, opting instead for their indigenous dialects, which could be heard throughout the markets.

The weather was mild, even by local standards, and the sunlight reflected off the colorful buildings throughout town was gorgeous. And sunset wasn't too shabby either.

Check out that baby bump!

Our last agenda item was to pick up some good local coffee for Sergio and as gifts for our dog-sitting friends. We visited a coffee museum/coffee shop that smelled amazing. And so here's one last bit of arcania: Chiapas, despite being the smallest state in the country, makes fully 60% of the coffee produced in Mexico. And the vast majority of that is parceled together from crops grown by individual producers on farms less than 10 acres in size. We don't generally like to proselytize here, but if you have the choice to buy "certified fair-trade" coffee instead of your standard store-bought joe, you should really consider it. It means a hell of a lot to a lot of very poor people. Tastes better, too.

Off my soapbox now.

Anyway, that's the end of our long Chiapas adventure. Thanks for taking the time to read about it. We look forward to the day when we can bore you again with another long series of bad vacation shots and semi-educated travel guidance. We're always planning the next adventure...

And oh yeah, Sasha's feeling good and we're diving into the 6th month of pregnancy now. Besides Sasha's ever-expanding belly, her other major symptom appears to be a compulsive case of Nesting. Which means lots of paint chips around the house and furniture rearranging.

Stay tuned this week for Luis Moreno's arrival in Mexico City and another long holiday weekend here in vacationland!