A COLONIAL CITY TUCKED IN THE HIGHLANDS OF CHIAPAS IN southern Mexico, San Cristobal de las Casas leaped into the international spotlight on New Year’s Day in 1994, when an army of Mayan Indians called the Zapatistas marched in with machetes and AK-47 rifles, announcing it was payback time for 500 years of exploitation. The Mexican Army quickly overcame the uprising, but not before their ski-masked spokesperson, Subcomandante Marcos, became a poster child of the anti-globalization movement. Today, San Cristobal is a pilgrimage site for activists, artists, and travelers who enjoy its organic cafes,
fair-trade crafts shops, and political consciousness. Be sure to hit the following:
• Every Mayan is said to have “an ancient library in their heart.” Even those who cannot read can recite stories that predate the Spanish conquest. In 1975,> American Ambar Past founded Taller Leñateros, a cooperative artist workshop dedicated to the preservation of traditional Mayan bookmaking. Stop by Flavio Paniagua 54 to watch the artists (nearly all of whom are indigenous women) create paper out of everything from old cardboard and palm fronds to coffee, corn silk, and pansy petals. Journals, cards, and silk-screen calendars are for sale in the connecting gift shop. Ask for a copy of Incantations, the wondrous collection of translated Mayan prayers, spells, poems, and stories that the cooperative published in 2005. The three-dimensional front cover features a haunting bas-relief mask of Kaxail, the Mayan goddess of the wilderness. Proceeds go directly back into the cooperative, which supports 150 members of thirty local families.
• For the past forty-five years, Sergio Castro (a.k.a. Mexico’s Mother Teresa) has worked with Indians in almost every capacity—sanitation engineer, farmer, teacher, construction worker—always for free and often at great risk to his personal safety. Along the way, he gathered hundreds of traditional costumes, art work, tools, and instruments. Every week night at six, he gives tours of his collection in Spanish, English, French, and Italian at the Museo Trajes Regionales de Sergio Castro at Calle Guadalupe Victoria 6. This hour-long presentation and slideshow is free, but donations go toward his work as a burn healer in the rural countryside. (Indigenous Chiapanecos always keep their cooking fires burning in their cramped huts, and young children, drunken men, and people with epileptic seizures tend to fall in.) Visitors can also donate medical supplies, such as bandages and ointments.
• Madre Tierra at Avenida Insurgentes 19 has it all: a nightclub featuring live Mexican ska and reggae music until the early hours of the morning, an excellent vegetarian restaurant, a bakery specializing in whole-grain pastries and bread, a travel agency, and a theater with nightly screenings of Zapatistaoriented documentaries and the latest in Mexican cinema. Another great center is La Casa de Luna Creciente, a restaurant and bookstore run by a collective of Mexican female artists, whose artwork adorns the walls. Their food is organic, delicious, and cheap ($3.50 for a soup, main course, freshly-squeezed fruit drink, and dessert). Find them in the courtyard at Chiapa de Corzo 19.
• Before leaving Chiapas, explore the primeval Mayan city of Palenque, magnificently set in a jungle inhabited by howler monkeys. Travel agencies in San Cristobal offer day-trips to the ruins that include pit stops at the waterfalls of Misol-Ha and Agua Azul as well. Check in with Zapata Tours in Madre Tierra for details.