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From Chiapas To The Coast With A Touch Of Tuxtla
Usually the first one we hear is just before 7am, though occasionally we hear an earlier one and sometimes a handful just after midnight. And then at regular intervals throughout the day. We didn’t know what they were at first – somebody shooting rabbits, perhaps, but then, could the louder ones be cannons? They’re sky rockets, of course they are. It turns out that in the provincial towns of Mexico (the pueblas), there is an obsession with buying or making fireworks and then lighting them outside the church. Apparently intended to “amplify” prayers and take them closer to God, these rockets don’t light up the sky or provide colourful shows,…
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Into A Spiritual World….And Out Again
Alighting from the collectivo in front of the church in the village of San Juan Chamula is to enter a different world, higher still up the mountains from San Cristobal and deeper still into the world of the indigenous tribes of Chiapas. This is the village we referred to in our previous post, the spiritual and material home of the tzotzil people and on first viewing alone is still clearly dominated by tradition; the village where ancient beliefs are still held by all, where tribal teachings merge effortlessly with modern society, and the village where Coca-Cola has infiltrated life to the point where it has religious and spiritual significance. You…
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Breakfast With Peacocks, Coca-Cola Burps & Drinking Pox: Tales From San Cristobal
Emerging somewhat bleary eyed from the overnight bus journey – although we both slept better than we thought we would – and blinking in the morning sun, the crisp freshness of the mountain air strikes us immediately. After several stays in humid locations over the last few weeks, culminating in the cloying air of Palenque, it feels like a completely different climate here. We are some 2,100 metres higher above sea level than we were in Palenque and it is instantly noticeably different. This is San Cristobal de las Casas, where evenings will be chilly and, if all goes according to plan, virtually the last point at which we feel…
