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Hound Dog

Mar 31, 2010, 2:30 PM

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Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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Semana Santa, which you all know started this past weekend and continues for two weeks, is a great time to be in San Cristóbal and environs in the high Jovel Valley in Chiapas. There are countless concerts, both free and for pay and colorful religious festivals filling every day with fun events. The town's historic center is filled with tourists (mostly Mexican) and locals strolling the several dedicated pedestrian streets and attending concerts in the town´s principal plaza. The colorful blend of indigenous and mestizo locals and tourists from all over Mexico and elsewhere makes a simple stroll around the colonial center an activity that is great fun in and of itself. Good Friday will see colorful pageantry in various indigenous villages surrounding San Cristóbal. My favorite place for viewing the religious ceremonies is the municipality of Zinacantan and that´s where the Dawg will be hanging out Good Friday. This town is always active and an ongoing party but during this season it outdoes itself. No, Dawg is not trying to rent rooms for the season.

La Isla

Mar 31, 2010, 2:47 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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No, Dawg is not trying to rent rooms for the season.

How about next year? If that's not ever going to happen, can you recommend an inexpensive hotel in San Cristóbal where I could spend Semana Santa in 2011?

Hound Dog

Mar 31, 2010, 4:27 PM

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Re: [La Isla] Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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There are lots of B&B and cheap hotls down here no problems . Send me a pm with the amount you want to spend and I will send you some phone numbers and names.

La Isla

Mar 31, 2010, 5:51 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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Thanks for offer, Hound Dog. You´ll be hearing from me...

Hound Dog

Apr 2, 2010, 2:22 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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Well, here it is, Good Friday, so we walked to San Cristóbal´s main plaza to watch the mid-day marching of Jesus carrying his cross and the crowds were immense and in a festive mood all the way from the ex-convento Santa Domingo to the plaza, a distance of some six or so lengthy city blocks which we walk nearly every day but today was wall-to-wall pedestrians including countless Mexican tourists and local indigenous folks dressed to the nines in traditional garb and that was a festive event. My wife remarked that in Latin countries such as Mexico and France, these community walk-a-thons are the people´s entertainment on days such as Good Friday and the big treat is for families and lovers to stop and buy ice cream and other knick-knacks in local cafes so they can sit and watch the passing parade of colorful celebrants. As it happened, we stopped in front of the local French boulangerie El Horno Magico where the Burgundian baker whom we patronize almost daily when we are here for his wonderful rustic breads, was taking the time to step outside there on closed-off Calle General Utrillo to watch the passing of Jesus who was, of course, carrying his cross and being beaten with whips by locals playing the roles of Roman guards. The guys playing the guards were really getting into the scene and repeatedly beating the character playing Jesus who was whimpering in exaggerated pain with each blow. Our French companion exclaimed, "Those damned Italians; they are really enjoying this!"

Who says San Cristóbal is not a cosmopolitan burg?

Hound Dog

Apr 2, 2010, 2:50 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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During Semana Santa the indigenous vendors who normally throng San Cristóbal's streets in the historic center are really out in force with all sorts of merchandise to sell and the vendors in the indigenous market and the park alongside the Santa Domingo Convent are serving a largely indigenous and tourist clientele selling everything from T-shirts extolling the virtues of heroes from EZLN leaders such as Comandante Marcos (AKA Comandante Zero), Che Guevara and Emiliano Zapata to every conceivable sort of rudimentary geegaw imaginable some clearly marked "Made in China" but mostly of local, if often, cheesy, manufacture. In particular abundance are the ubiquitous chiclet and candy sellers, mostly young children, loaded with all sorts of candies and gums for sale for a pittance and these folks, no matter what age (the rule being they must be old enough to carry the display tray) work the streets of centro and the surrounding area at a minimum of 12 or more hours a day and, must answer to someone, somewhere regarding their sales success or lack of same. Just the other day we were strolling about the new Sam´s Club that just opened here in San Cristóbal (with an adjacent huge Bodega Aurrera, WalMart's discount house, to open in a couple of weeks) and our prediction made to each other that Sam's Club would be hugely popular with the local indigenous folks* seemed at that point to have been prescient as on that day three days after Sam´s Club opened here, the place was jammed with indigenous families many buying chiclets and inexpensive candies in bulk for resale to tourists and locals on the andador and the many barrio plazas during the Easter festivities. These people are not stupid by any means so this phenomenon tells me that when it comes to chiclets at least, Sam´s Club is a good deal.

* Who, no doubt will buy memberships in groups and shop in bulk for extended families and friends.

(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Apr 2, 2010, 2:55 PM)

La Isla

Apr 2, 2010, 5:12 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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I assume this is just one part of your commentary on Semana Santa happenings in San Cristóbal, but you've already convinced me that I should start planning now to spend SS 2011 there!

Hound Dog

Apr 2, 2010, 5:12 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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I got bored with the Semana Santa festivities in San Cristóbal after watching those damn Romans beating up my Jesus so I went home and turned on Megacable so I could watch the famous Iztapalapa Easter ceremonies which are famous throughout Mexico and which draw hundreds of thousands if not millions of the faithful to watch Jesus carry his cross to the mount and I was quite impressed by the huge crosses displayed and the pageantry and then, I swear to God I am not making this up, Jesus, complete with crown of thorns and cross and all the stuff necessary to deliver the message of suffering as salvation including the evil Roman guards dressed in their finest armor, fainted right there on the road to Calvary and was lying there prostrate and dead to the world and all these high church officials in their finest vestments were all hovering over the pretend Christ fanning him with their sacred texts and palm leaves and doing everything in their power to bring Jesus back to life so that the procession could continue because everybody knows that Jesus is not allowed to expire until they hang him on the mount because then we would all be muslims and I don´t know if they ever revived him since I had to leave but I'll bet you they find another, sturdier, Jesus before the next Good Friday celebration in Iztapalapa, by God.

(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Apr 2, 2010, 5:26 PM)

Hound Dog

Apr 2, 2010, 5:21 PM

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Re: [La Isla] Semana Santa in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

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I assume this is just one part of your commentary on Semana Santa happenings in San Cristóbal, but you've already convinced me that I should start planning now to spend SS 2011 there!

Yes, indeed, La Isla, I am just getting started because I love these pompous religious ceremonies which I have never missed since playing the cuckhold Joseph in the manger scene during the Christmas pageant at the First Presbyterian Church in Greenville, Alabama in 1950. I was chosen for this role not because of my piety but because I was really a cute kid now grown so old and fat and decadent that today I would be cast as Pontious Pilate, thrown into the pool of fire and agony and deemed to deserve eternal damnation. At least this time they would get it right.

By the way, with the grace of God, we´ll be here next Easter and look forward to meeting you then if that is in the cards.

(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Apr 2, 2010, 5:35 PM)