6th December - San Cristobal Del Las Casas – Mexico

This morning was a few day with a choice of activities. We chose to head out to a local township to see how the other half lives so to speak. We got picked up in the main square which had people trying to politely sell you things. I was offered a Zapatista doll (Zapatista’s took over the town in 1994 and still continue to exist – albeit much less quietly). The doll was a little freaky as it had a balaclava and gun (!!). To add to our camera problems we now had a card error which meant we would probably lost our photo’s from the previous couple of days. So we relied on others camera today for photo’s.

He headed out to the first township. In this one you could not come into the town. You must be invited and the people residing in the town themselves speak a local dialect, not Spanish. The town has a number of elected leaders, which can be differentiated by the clothing they wear which is predominately white. Our first stop was to a leaders house where we were told more information about the township and community. Whilst our guide was talking, the leaders wife was conducting a ritual which was done three times a day involving candles (white for tortilla’s) and a smoking cup which proceeded to smoke us out of the room making it difficult to see and our eyes water. We were not allowed to photograph this ritual.

We then had a bit of a walk of the town including the central square markets which sold everything, including chickens! This township has an interesting judicial system. No matter what the crime is, the person spends no more than three days in jail , which the prisoner is on display to the public (we saw the prisoner). After three days, they have served there penance including some community service. If they reoffend, they then have to become police officers. It seems to work in this township.

We then went into the church (again not allowed to photograph). The community has some different beliefs and the church is where many of them are carried out. These include healing ceremonies which involve multiples of three candles in certain colours being burnt in the church, drinks such as coke, fanta or raspberry soda being waved around the person three times, dependent on their ailment and chicken sacrifices, which thankfully we didn’t see. We did see a few very quiet live chickens (we found out later they were given alcohol before being taken to the church to quiet them) and one dead one on the floor. We were asked to be respectful and not stop and stare at the locals in the church. This is when Dan did his rookie error of kicking over a candle on the floor. It was one of those “oh god, what do I do now” moments. He leant down and moved the pine needles (the church uses them for a floor covering) around the candle so we didn’t have an inferno on our hands. Lucky! We then sat out in the market square for a while just taking it all in.

We then headed to the other township where we visited a family. We were explained exactly what some of those rituals in the church meant and how the township practiced what some may feel was alternative medicine. I got to be the guinea pig as the guide demonstrated. We also saw how tortillas are made and how many of the beautiful weavings around the township are made by hand. Of course we had to buy some.

After that we walked to the church in the other township where the guide explained that whilst this community was in close proximity in distance its rituals and beliefs were very different (no candles of chicken sacrifice here!!). The township tour was incredibly interesting.

Back to town where we decided to climb up hill to see the town. We climbed the many stairs to find that the view at the top was mainly obscured by trees and was in fact better half way up. Oh well never mind, we got some good exercise in and still managed a good view of the town and a few photo’s.

We took a long walk down to the other end of town to the Museo De La Medicina Maya (Medicine Museum) where we learnt more about the traditional methods of medicine practiced. We learnt some interesting cures including one for swollen testicles that required the fangs of a black spider!! We bizarrely watched a traditional birthing DVD also and again took some dodgy photo’s. It was an interesting place to spend an hour. The sun had started to set we went back to the hotel where we purchased a program online which allowed us to retrieve our photo’s off the card with the error (hooray – we’re back in business). We just ate at the hotel and spent the evening trying to sort that problem out.