San Cristobal de las casas

After 8 long hours with the bus we reach San Cristobal de las casas. The town is located at 2200 meters and it is a bit colder here in the evening compared to where we were before. It is a colonial town, all houses are quite short and there are the usual churches which you can see in Portugal or Spain. It is surprisingly very clean and people are extremely nice. Eating in the restaurants it’s quite cheap compared to Playa. The artisanal market is very famous here: leather bags, leather sandals and textiles of various colours can be found. I buy a very nice drape with a Jaguar sewed on it, two t-shirts, a leather bag (for Analia), leather sandals and other gifts. We also find many a shop who sells stickers, t-shirts and books related to the zapatistas revolution. I bought a book since I am very interested in knowing much more about it. The city is quite small and after one day, you see much of it. On the last day there we meet Mike, a US citizen, 70 years old, gay, leftists, veteran who started randomly talking to us in a park. He told us so many different stories of his life, his travels and we discussed about the current situation in the US. He told us that now everything in Mexico is so expensive compared to what it was many years ago when he started travelling. He apparently travelled all south America, hitchhiking alone as well when it was not so touristic as it is now so chapeau to him for having such a courage. We talked for 3 hours and really the time passed by very quick listening to his stories. Ah one more thing he was in Heidelberg in one of the different US bases that were/are in Germany. I have added some photos of the colourful Murales that I found in the city and one with the sentence “quien nos cuida de la policia (who is protecting us from the police)”. We will take the bus in the night to go to Oaxaca (12h ride). Overall Chiapas was very nice (at least from the experience I had). There a huge left-wing sentiment here and Indigenous communities are trying to not be dismantled by gentrification and westernisation. I would have loved to discuss more with locals about it but unfortunately we don’t have much time left.Read more