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Nicole's
Travelogues and Budget Travel Tips..
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SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO
San Cristobal is an old colonial-style city with buildings painted pastel yellow, orange, blue, and purple. It's located 2100 meters above sea level and has many churches and houses that date from the colonial period. San Cristobal is in the highlands, surrounded by mountains and indigenous villages and was once the state capital. It is on the Pan American highway, an hour and a half from Tuxtla and two and a half hours from the Guatemalan border.
San Cristobal is a great town to relax in for a week or several. You can use it as a base for traveling to nearby villages or to ruins in the state (Palenque and Tonina). One cooperative I visited was called the Colectivo de Mujeres (COLEM). It is a non-profit organization serving indigenous women in Chiapas. "COLEM" means free or unfettered in indigenous languages. The organization assists victims of sexual and domestic violence, gives free legal advice, and informs of health and reproductive rights.
Women spend a lot of physical energy cooking, grinding tortillas, washing, and getting water. Water buckets weigh 44 pounds and women must carry 2 buckets, 6 times per day for daily living. Women are sexually active by age 12 and by the age of 25, most women have had 5 births. Many of the children are not registered because parents are illiterate and can not complete forms. Of the 4 million indigenous residents in Chiapas, less than 1% are professional women. There has never been an indigenous woman enrolled in law school. There are only 27 school houses in indigenous Chiapas - with enrollments at less than 100 but some as little as 20. Most of the school children are boys. There are 200 bilingual schools in Chiapas but the education level is very low and schools are almost impossible to get to from isolated communities.
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San Cristobal is about 2 1/2 hours from the airport in Tuxla Gutierrez. Taxis cost about $35 - so find other tourists to share the ride. In some parts of Chiapas there are 2 times - old time and new time. When the clocks are changed for daylight-saving-time, many people do not change their clocks and simply refer to 2 separate times. The clocks may say one time while it is technically another. I HIGHLY recommend staying at the El Cerrillo Hotel on B. Dominguez. Costs start at 15,000 pesos - though our group got a deal for 10,000 per person. San Cristobal has many interesting churches including: Cathedral, Santo Domingo, La Caridad, San Francisco, El Carmen, La Merced, Santa Lucia, Guadalupe, San Cristobolito, Mexicanos, and El Cerrillo. Plaza 31 de Marzo has a two-story kiosk in the middle which serves drinks and snacks. Around the plaza, you will find a bank with ATM, money exchange, a pharmacy, and a number of tourist shops. There are plenty of delicious restaurants to try - and even a number of (ugh) vegetarian restaurants. La Parilla (Belisario Dominguez 32) is a good place for meat-lovers with yummy grilled steaks and chicken. My favorite restaurant was called Casa de Pan. Even though it was a vegetarian restaurant, it was delicious! It had a great bakery in the front and a small crafts store. Many nights were open mic nights - where you could hear local musicians. |
Everyday, there are craft booths set up surrounding Convento de Santo Domingo and Iglesia Santo Domingo, as well as in the main plaza. One of the big craft draws are the Zapatista dolls made by local villagers. They make male and female dolls on foot and on horseback and can tell you which Zapatista leaders the dolls depict. 
You can also visit a number of cooperatives to learn about the conditions of the indigenous populations since the 1994 uprising. 
Women in indigenous Chiapas have only a 50 year life expectancy and have extremely high rates of death during childbirth. There are 1600 indigenous communities in Chiapas with less than 200 residents. Of these, 70% cook over an open fire, 70% don't have drinking water, 65% have no electricity, and almost all have no access to health care. 50% of residents are illiterate and of those 50%, 90% of them are women. 
After the 1994 uprising, rape incidents have risen dramatically due to military presence. Before 1994, only 8-10% of the rapes were committed by strangers. After 1994, this increased by 300% as rapes were (and are) being committed by military, police, and paramilitaries. Victims are adult women involved in the conflict. Many nurses have been raped which stopped the vaccination program (the program is now administered by the military). In addition, women are hired as prostitutes by the military - which is often the only source of income they have for their families. An educated indigenous woman is considered a Zapatista, even if she is not.