San Juan Chamula

San Juan Chamula is an indigenous village 10km or so outside of San Cristobal in Chiapas. The village maintains pre-hispanic cultures and customs and is one of the most interesting and unusual places I have been.

Our guide instructed us that no photos of people are allowed and photos inside of the church are forbidden, so apart from one photo of the outside of the church I will do my best to describe it all in words.

We arrived at the top of a hill that drops down into the village. The day we arrived there were festivities happening with a fairground and stalls set up all around. The women of the village wear long black sheep's wool skirts (the temperatures are cool there) and then men wear the same as coats. Members of the village government wear white coats instead of black - the village is an autonomous state with no police or military.

We first stopped by a graveyard where the crosses are in different colours depending on the age of the deceased (black for old age, white for the young and blue/green for others). We then walked down the hill to the jewel of the village, the church of San Juan Chamula.

The outside of the church is a pretty white building decorated in banners, flowers and colourful carvings, nothing too out of the ordinary. It's once you step inside that you see the real magic of the place. The inside of the church is full of smoke from thousands of candles. There are no benches or seats, instead numerous rituals are being performed throughout the church. People, in what appears to be family groups, are sat on pine needles, with rows of candles on the floor infront of them. They are chanting or meditating or in one case about to perform the sacrifice of a chicken.

Around the walls of the church are various statues and beautiful flowers. The whole thing is a real experience for the senses, the smells of pine leaves and smoke, the darkness lit by thousands of candles and the peace and spirituality of it all.

As we left the church, musicians from outside began to play and move towards the entrance. Seemingly a part of the day's festivities.

The whole visit felt like stepping into another world. Although they allow visitors and tourism, the locals did not look or interact with us. It felt like being in Dumbledore's pensieve, where we could experience their world but they couldn't see us. There was something comforting about that, that we weren't imposing or disrupting them in any way.Read more