Ma'alob K'iin!: November 2008

So, Palenque was fantastic, and on my way there I met Stephanie, a German girl who had recently graduated from university with a degree in art history. We were both traveling alone, so we thought we'd help each other find important things when we arrived in Palenque - like the bank. We ended up traveling together to San Cristobal the next day, and sharing a hotel room there. Did I already write this in my last blog? Well, anyways, she was a great travel partner, and I have her to thank for a lot of these pictures. Maybe I'd gotten too comfortable staying in one place and not having to worry about packing my camera battery charger.....but for this trip I was charger-less AND photo card (SD?)-less. So I ran out of space and energy and Stephanie totally saved my life!

I got to San Cristobal in the evening, and was immediately freezing cold. I had bought a scarf in Palenque, thank god, so I was ok to walk to my hotel. San Cristobal is up in the mountains of Chiapas, kind of in the center of the state. I think that the elevaction is about the same as Boulder (almost 6,000 ft.), and it felt like it! Cool, dry air; sunny, and crisp during the day and downright cold at night. It was a nice change from sweltering humidity and constant rain (and flooding). We stayed in a great old colonial-style hotel downtown, but of course it was very old and there was no heat.....it was frigid at night. My clothing was not really up to the task; I was wearing everything I owned to bed. I did buy a new pair of jeans! That was very exciting. I really was surprised at how sophisticated San Cristobal was - not that I expected it to be otherwise, but there is a lot of culture there - tons of museums, cinema events, art exhibits, language schools, a university. And actual, honest to god, outdoor cafes!! Lots of them! With delicious coffee! It was refreshing in so many ways after being in PG. Since it was freezing and everything is in unheated colonail buildings, everyone is bundled up all the time - indoors and out, waitresses, bartenders, shop owners...everyone.

Here are some scenes of San Cristobal:

Cathedral on the main plaza

Temple de Santo Domingo

Inside the Templo de Santo Domingo

Pedestrian mall with cafes!

Templo del Carmen arch

Temple de Santa Domingo and the market in front of it.

Baroque inside of the cathedral

Enjoying some coffee!

Stephanie and her coffee

Typical street, cute bug

The courtyard at our hotel

San Cristobal has an interesting history that was really fun to explore by walking through the city. After the decline of Classic Maya cities in the lowlands, Maya people increasingly moved into the highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala. In the San Cristobal area live the Tzotzil and Tzeltal speaking Maya, and nearby are the Lacandon, who still live in traditional, isolated communities in the jungle, often performing ritual offerings at the ancient sites of Yaxchilan and Bonampak. The city itself was founded in 1528 by the Spanish as their regional base of operations. It was kind of an outpost of Antigua, Guatemala, the capital of the region (which is really far away) until the Dominicans got there in 1545. Of course, the indigenous people of the region were forced off their land and suffered from disease and heavy taxation by the Spanish. The Dominicans were actually a decent organization of Catholic monks; while others (Fransicans) were burning Maya books and destorying their culture, the Dominicans primarily supported the Maya in their struggle against the Spanish government. San Cristobal is named after the first Dominican bishop of Chiapas, Fray Botolome de las Casas.

More recently, San Cristobal was one of four cities chosen by the Zapatistas (EZLN) from which to launch their revolution agains the Mexican government. They sacked government offices in town and were eventually drive out by the Mexican army. They continue their struggle from smaller towns in Chiapas, mostly through political means. But they've left a lasting legacy; they established indigenous peoples as groups to be dealt with, not exploited. I know that my organization here in Belize that works with Maya land rights certainly sees Chiapas as a model of indigenous action.

So there are lots of museums in San Cristobal and Stephanie and I saw all of them. Literally, I think we did see all of them. First, we have the history museum next to the Templo de Santo Domingo.

History museum courtyard

History museum with a Day of the Dead altar

This is a poster illustrating the different racial combinations possible in the Spanish colonies, and their titles. Zoom in for a closer look at the terms - they're kind of creepy.

Another picture from the museum; with Palenque in the back

This is the courtyard at Na Bolom, a research institute that is the former house of an anthropologist and archaeologist couple. They turned their house into an amazing reserach library/museum from their years of research and life in and around San Cristobal. The woman (whose name I forget) did a lot of work with the Lacandon Maya, so there's lots of information about them. The building has an amazing garden (see below) and guesthouses you can stay in. It also provides free housing and meals to Lacandon people who need to stay in San Cristobal for medical care or other appointments. It is a VERY cool place and I wish I had more pictures! They have a website: http://www.nabolom.org/index_en.html

Garden at Na Bolom

Pretty lilies

Let's see, what else did we do.....we went to the market and explored that area. We bought fruit and Day of the Dead candies!! The Day of the Dead altars were in every hotel, restaurant, museum, shop, house...everywhere. They were all big, elaborate and colorful. We even saw one in the plaza for Che!

Che's altar

I love the way the arrange fruit here

Marigolds were being sold everywhere to be put on graves

Day of the Dead sweets at the market

Front of the market

Market scene

Candy!

Templo de Santo Domingo again, I think

Stephanie and I walked around town all day, everyday, exploring the different neighborhoods and going to different museums. The neighborhoods all have specific identities that have been formed over the last few hundred years, which was interesting. They each have their own beautiful church. Besides the history and anthropology museum, and Na Bolom, we also saw an amber museum (which has been found locally and is made into jewelry), a Maya medicine museum, and a coffee museum. They were all very interesting, except the coffee museum, which left something to be desired. But it was located in a cafe, so that was a good thing!

We did a day trip to the Maya villages of San Juan Chamula and Zinacantan, which I was VERY excited to do. If you ever write anything about the Maya, ancient or modern, you really can't get away without reading and citing one of Evan Z. Vogt's books on Zinacantan. He ran a field school there for decades, and produced some of the most influential studies in Maya ethnography. We thought we were going as part of a group, which we reserved through our hotel, but it turned out that they had just hired us a cab driver for the day. So that was kind of neat. Our first stop was San Juan Chamula, where we walked around the market for awhile, and then went to see the church. Chamula is the main village of the Tzotzil Maya, who number about 80,000.

San Juan Chamula

Marigolds in the Chamula market. I never appreciated how gorgeous they are before.

Chamula market

Trying on a sheep-fur cape at the market. So this is how everyone stays warm up here!

I don't have pictures of the inside of the church because you're not allowed to take any. So I will just have to do my best to describe it to you. The reason people go see this church is because of the way it blends Catholic and indigenous religious practices. The church had been cleaned and its benches removed for the Day of the Dead, and long pine needles had been spread all over the floor. The community saints lined both sides of the church, with several more on the altar. Though the structure was built as a Catholic church, it did not feel like one at all; maybe it was because there were no orderly pews, or an altar, just these rows of saints and pine needles all over the floor. In the center of the church was a Maya shaman lining up candles on the floor (11 of them; I counted) in rows, and whispering prayers. There were Coke bottles lying around him too, which are used for curing. The shaman will drink the Coke, and it makes him burp, which signifies the release of bad spirits. I think he might actually burp on or in the direction of the patient to help rid them of bad spirits. He also does things like rubbing an egg or a live chicken all over the patient's body, which helps absorb their sickness.

The saints were really the most interesting part (besides the use of space). There were about 40 total, and they are all set up in glass boxes, presumably so they can be attached to litters and carried through the streets on their feast days; they also have candles and flowers presented as offerings in front of them. The saints are dressed in what looks like layers and layers of different colored robes. I couldn't tell you how many, but they are totally bundled up. They also have mirrors hanging around their necks. Some had more than others, which I asked our tour guide about. Pictures are thought to steal the spirit of the saint (and of people as well, so you can't directly take pictures of people in Chamula), so the mirrors are there to reflect the image back at the picture taker. I don't know what kind of jerk would still take pictures in a place like that after respectfully being asked not to, but anyhow...Some saints have more mirrors than others - these are the more powerful saints whose spirit would need to be defended by more than just one mirror. It was an amazing place, and I really wanted to just hang out there all afternoon. But I was with other people who are not as nerdy as me, so we continued on our way.

The next stop was the graveyard, which had just been cleaned for the Day of the Dead. It looks like all the graves were freshly dug, but our guide explained that they completely clean the whole place once a year. Then they put the ubiquitous marigolds and pine needles on the graves. It was also pretty interesting, and I wished I could stay longer! The crosses identify the age and sex of the internee (is that a word?!). The black crosses are for those who died in old age, white is for those who died young, and blue is for others (middle-aged I guess?). There was even an example of multiple family members buried together in one grave; multiple individual burials were commonly practiced in ancient times and is the (broad) topic of Anna's dissertation. See why archaeologists and anthropologists have written so much about this area?

Graveyard at Chamula

Decorated grave

Multiple individual burial!!

Then we went to Zinacantan, which frankly was sort of a letdown. We stopped at an amazing textile shop and saw a weaving demostration, and then a food preperation demonstration. It felt a little odd to see something so orchestrated after watching people do these same tasks in Toledo, but it was still fun. We saw the church, of which I have some pictures of the outside. But that was it - we did see the alcalde on his way to a meeting all dressed up. The traditinal dress there is quite fancy.

Making food in Zinacantan

Weaving demonstration

Zinacantan church

After Zinacantan we went back to San Cristobal and tried to warm up!! We had a lovely meal at Madre Tierra, a mostly vegetarian restaurant that I highly recommend if you happen to be in San Cristobal. I had wine and fresh bread with REAL butter, and lentil soup - it was to die for. Then we found this little hole in the wall wine bar that sold hot wine! It was like hot sangria...a dream come true!

Yummy dinner

Hot wine!!

For Halloween we went to check out this party that we'd seen advertised all over town. There were supposed to be DJs and an indigenous dance group. We went, but it was being held in the courtyard of a colonial-style house. Very atmospheric, with ancestor altars in the surrounding rooms. The drawback - it was FREEZING!! And the show didn't start for about an hour so we were just standing outside trying to warm up. The show did finally start, and it was pretty good, but it was also long, so we ended up leaving to go find a salsa bar.

Atmospheric colonial house where the Halloween party was held

Ancestor altars at the Halloween party

Stephanie and I at the top of one of the hills surrounding San Cristobal

View of town from the hill

Maya traditional healing museum; this is an exhibit of what a curing ceremony would look like in a church (the shaman and the patient are kneeling and praying to the saints, I think the shaman is holding an egg to rub on on the patient).

My journey through Guatemala and Mexico was a little like traveling through the Old West - cowboys, immigration posses, indigenous revolts, masked men (ok, children), a ghost town, and even a bank heist. I have a lot to tell you, but this post will just cover the first part of my trip - traveling to Palenque from Flores.

After Tikal, my Mom caught a plane back to Belize City, and I continued on to Mexico. I took about 10 days off so I could travel with my Mom and go to Mexico for Day of the Dead, something I've always wanted to do. The plan was to get to Palenque first, and then take a bus up into the mountains to San Cristobal de las Casas. Luckily, there are tourist shuttles between Palenque and Flores, which is nice because the alternative was a two day trek back through Belize, then north to Chetumal, and finally west across Mexico to Palenque.

So I was picked up at my hotel at 5am by the bus, and we headed out across the Peten. The drive was pretty, but much of the Peten has been severely deforested for cattle ranching and farming (hence the cowboys). There is a stark difference between seeing the preserve around Tikal (towering trees, monkeys, etc.) and the vast stretches of green pastures in other parts of the Peten. It was early morning when I passed through here though, which made it misty and gorgeous.

I always thought this would be a sketchy kind of border crossing - between Chiapas and the Peten, two slightly lawless states (i.e. drug trafficking and immigration issues, political unrest). But it was just a quiet house with two customs guys and a bathroom. The customs officer told me I should get a new passport....and I realized that mine is almost full! How incredible is that! I only have one page left. I never thought that would happen. In order to cross into Mexico, you have to get in a boat and ride up the Usamacinta River for about a half hour, where you go through customs on the Mexican side. The river was absolutely beautiful, but unfortunately, my camera was buried deep in my backpack. On the bus I met a German girl named Stephanie who was also traveling alone. When we got to Palenque we decided to pair up and find a bank and a place to stay. She was very sweet and we ended up traveling to San Cristobal together as well.

On the way from the Usumacinta to Palenque, we stopped in Frontera Corozal to visit customs, but also to pick up two more passengers. These were two kids, a brother and sister, who looked to be about 12 or 13. I figured they were family members or friends with the driver, hitching a ride up north. Well, since Chiapas does share a southern border with Guatemala, there is a strong military presence there. There were two checkpoints within the first 30 minutes of our ride from the border. The first one was an immigration checkpoint. The officers made the two kids get out, and they sort of harrassed the boy. Not physically, but they were interrogating him. He had no papers to prove that he was Mexican (which he wasn't, apparently). Okay, so the military isn't exactly a posse, but it sort of felt that way! The boy and his sister had to get off the bus and into a van heading back down south, which was already full of other people. I don' t know where they were from exactly, but I've heard that the southern Mexican border is almost harder to cross than the southern U.S. border, if you're coming across illegally. Anyways, it was an interesting happening, that made me think about how lucky I am to have an almost full U.S. passport.

My day at Palenque was amazing. Of course I had read about it and seen pictures, but I really didn't realize that it was so beautiful. And the preservation was incredible - stucco and paint still on some of the buildings! I had a great time wandering around. Eventually I'll post a little historical blurb about Palenque for those of you who are interested - stay tuned!

First, a map, I think you an click it to enlarge.

The view when you enter from the front gate - this is the funeral pyramid of a ruler (don't know which one).

Temple of the Inscriptions, where the famous Pakal is buried

Me and the Temple of the Inscriptions

Temple of the Inscriptions from the Temple of the Foliated Cross

Temple of the Foliated Cross - named that for the stucco freize on the inside showing Pakal's son, Pakal, and a world tree (the foliated cross) in between them. It symbolizes the divine nature of the family's lineage.