3 Days in San Crisobal de Las Casas

This was our third day in San Cristobal de Las Casas. Population is around 100,000. It´s a cool city, literally and figurativly. It has a very distinct arts culture here with a somewhat progressive attitude about the environment, at least that what I got from the hostel I was staying in. It is the only Mexican city so far that has a wine culture, it has a lot of hippies with the dreads, jewlery making and selling, street performers performing in the evening in the main square and cool bars playing live music. We went to a bar last night called Revolution. The second band played a wide range of music, from jazz mixed with tradition mexican bango to what sounded like a Tom Waits influnced sound. It´s also a very laid back place with tourism it´s number one money maker. as for the literal part, It is cold at night. At an altitude of 2100m high in the mountains the temp. drops rapidly at night and is just above freezing by 2am, however during the day it rebounds and by 10am it´s at least 20 degree´s.
History lesson: This region has had some tough times in the last 20 years. In 1994 the Zapatist revolution took place here. This is a group who was fighting for the rights the indiginous Mayan people who are among the poorest. They fought the Mexican government and succeeded in getting the worlds attention which has influnced the Mexican Government into making reforms in the region, though they haven´t done enough and the fight continues.
Just past the main sqaure is a market where you can buy many different types of clothing, toys and jewerly, mostly all handmade by Mayan people who live in the towns and villages around the city.
Today Em and I went for a trip to a few different places. We went to two ecological parks. One with huge under ground caverns and the other we hiked 250 metre up the Silent Volcano to an elevation of 2350m and a distance of 2 km. The latter was tiring and boring, but the caverns were amazing. We then hit a couple of little towns Chamula and Zinacantan only 10 km from the city. These little town have a population of around 60,000 people each. I enjoyed walking around Chamula. It has a beautiful church as does every Mexican town and city and a bustling fresh friut and vegetable market. We only drove around Zinacantan but it was getting late and there wasn´t much action.
Tomorrow we are off to Guatemala at 7:00am we will arrive in Panajachel around 4:30 in the afternoon. It´s going to be a long day.

3 Days in San Crisobal de Las Casas

San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico