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San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas
By Larry Freeman
© 2004 L. Freeman
High in the mountain cloud forest of Chiapas, nestled within a bowl of hills, lies the ancient Colonial city of San Cristobal de Las Casas. For some 500 years it has pursued its own destiny, isolated from the world as if on a different planet.
Through the ages, it has retained its distinctive Spanish Colonial ambiance, a small sleepy town moving at the pace of the donkeys that deliver fresh milk from canisters slung on their sides, or piled high with firewood bundles. They plod down the narrow cobblestone streets, the width determined to allow two armored Conquistadores to pass abreast. The staccato click of their hooves against the stones echoes down from the past.
The powder-blue of the sky is the color of a baby boy's blanket, and the billowing fleece of the clouds collides with the surrounding foothills. The encompassing peaks are mostly denuded of the native forests, victims of the cities' appetite for the warmth that the firewood delivers there in the coldness of the night.
That also accounts for the smell of burning wood that overlays the city. While burning is the smell of the city, the ubiquitous explosion of rockets is very much a part of the sound of the city. Rockets are used here for every occasion, and often when there is no real occasion. The multiple explosions often terrify skittish tourists, those who are always expecting an attack by the Zapatistas.
It is a little difficult to estimate the population of the town and its surrounds, and approximates running from 35,000 to 250,000 are seen because of the fluid population, but 250,000 feels about right.
There are three cities here, barely co-existing side-by-side. There is the tourist city with all its attractions. There is the daily monotony of the everyday life of the townspeople, and then there is the grinding poverty of Los Indios, who live on the outskirts, surrounding the city as if on the attack.
The tourist San Cristobal is only a small part of the town, running from the central town square south to the bus station, north to the Church, and then east along the Real de Guadelupe to the Templo of The Virgen de Guadalupe. There is so much more that they miss.
The tourist San Cristobal de Las Casas includes the majestic Cathedral on the square, and it is an impressive gilded achievement dating from the fortified beginnings of the garrison town.The Cathedral is occupied 24/7 by pious parched and shriveled Indian women, barefoot and wrapped in threadbare Indian cloths, crawling the length of the nave on their knees, pleading with the larger than life suffering gesso Jesus hanging above the baroque red velvet elegance of the raised altar platform. Picturesque beyond belief.
But they would miss the real story.
Read the complete article . . .
Larry Freeman's articles . . .
Published monthly. ISSN #1028-9089
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