Thinking Allowed: San Cristobal de las Casas

Late post written mid-January

We spent the last two weeks of our Mexican month in the mountains in Chiapas. San Cristobal de las Casas is a place numerous people have mentioned for its culture, scenery, and cute mountain vibe. We can confirm that the town possesses all of these traits. While we were all ready to be done with the Yucatan the Chiapas mountains were not a place we grew tired of and showed us a side of Mexico that we liked more. We couldn’t get over how peaceful the relaxed the city was despite its population of 200,000. The population of the town is largely made up of the Tzotil tribe. Known for their stand against their Spanish and the then Mexican governments their culture has remained largely intact. The women wear characteristic black animal fur skirts and hand embroidered blouses and invariable have a baby snuggled up in a hand woven carrier. Though they have churches, their religion is largely still their own and to the best of our observation involves lots of burning of candles, chanting, soda and local alcohol (pox), and the sacrificing of chickens. San Cristobal was an easy place to to go on excursions into nature and after urban Medellin, and flat Yucatan we were happy for some uphill walks and exploration of caves. The kids were all very excited to spend an afternoon sliding down extremely long hillside polished concrete slides and to get to go on a canyon boat ride where we saw crocodiles and monkeys. They were a little less excited that I made them visit every church in town (many!) but I think they secretly enjoyed that too.

Our friend cam up and stayed with us which made our stay even more amazing as we had a ready made social scene that we missed. So many fun days exploring and cooking together and playing games in cafes. Max you are the best and we all miss you! Thanks for being there both in person and for your much appreciated comments to this blog!

Was having too much fun to take decent photos but here are a few...