Fury & Magic in San Cristobal de Las Casas

San Cristobal de Las Casas is a city of both magic and wonder, and fury and anger. A cramped urban grid, the city is bounded on all sides by towering mountains and overlooked by an enormous forested hill in its centre. Atop this hill sits the beautiful temple, Iglesia de San Cristobal.

We arrived in the city after just under two weeks of travelling from Mexico City through Oaxaca, and the 11 hour night bus dropped us off at around 8am, ideal timing for a 3pm hostel check-in...

After basking in the mid-January sunshine for the best part of two weeks, I was immediately aware of the sharp temperature drop in San Cristobal. It was around 10 degrees, but felt absolutely freezing. However, the cold weather was going to be just one reason why San Cristobal has stood out to me as the most curious destination we'd visit.

Some time later, when we arrived at Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, our host spoke to us about our time in Chiapas, our interest in the region's infamous Zapasta movement and even dubbed San Cristobal de Las Casas, "the capital of indigenous oppression".

After spending just under a week in San Cristobal, this branding perfectly captured the mood of the city and the things we learned about it.

In city's central plaza, just a step away from the venerated bust of Benito Jaurez, there is a slightly less heartfelt tribute to another of Mexico's former presidents. A piece of graffiti reading, "Pena Neito Terrorista" is adorned on the wall of the Catedral de San Cristobal. This is alongside another piece of graffiti - "pueblo feminicida" which refers to a popular slogan about combating violence against women in Chiapas. Both pieces of graffiti tell as much of a story about present-day Chiapas as the cathedral on which they are crudely enscribed upon.

As majestic and magical as San Cristobal is, it's also a place of penury and poverty. On countless occasions we were approached by children not even 10 years of age trying to sell us toys, fabrics and pretty much anything under the sun. While other kids attended school, many were clearly forced to pull their weight in a universal attempt to make any and all money possible.

The tragic truth being that the majority of children in the UK are playing with the toy animals that the children of San Cristobal are so desperately trying to sell.

But this grim reality and overriding sense of disenfranchisement is nothing new in Chiapas - a historically impoverished area home to the most indigenous peoples in Mexico. Back in 1994, a perfect storm of regional poverty and indigenous inequality created the ideology of Zapatismo and the The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

Armed with the fury of the injustice and the drive to improve lives across the region, the EZLN strived to promote equal rights for indigenous peoples through the creation of a number of autonomous areas throughout Chiapas.

A movement now 36 years old, the Zapatistas proudly control a host of autonomous areas in Chiapas and number well over 300,000 people in around 55 regional municipalities. Many of these municipalities are found in the Lacandon jungle - the expanse of forest where the EZLN were forced to retreat to following a government crackdown. But in these autonomous villages, the EZLN have their own system of education, health, justice, government and security.

It's generally known that these peoples are still very poor but at the same time train their own teachers and doctors - generally thriving away from Mexican governance. The Zapatismo movement incorporates two different dimensions into its prevailing ideology. The group is founded on its indigenous components; a commitment to improving the lives of Chiapas' indigenous groups and upholding the values of the Mayan tradition. However, Zapatismo is also defined by its belief in libertarian-socialism and the Marxist values of their leader subcomandante Marcos. This Marxist outlook has seen the group express support and comradery with socialist governments in Cuba and Bolivia and is perfectly summarised by the slogan, "Para todos todo, para nosotros nada." (For everyone, everything. For us, nothing).

During our time in San Cristobal, we checked out all the tourist attractions and ventured out to the impressive Sumidero Canyon, but the main thing that caught my eye was the street art, passionately supporting the ideals of Zapatismo and the drive to rebel.

Chiapas is after all one of of Mexico's most impoverished areas, a place where even the water will harm you - conveniently making San Cristobal one of the biggest consumers of Coca-Cola. This fact is particularly concerning considering that the region is home to a Coca-Cola factory that uses much of the area's clean water, making Coca-Cola safer than the water itself.

Much can be said about Chiapas' rebellious energy and the admirable courage of those in the region, but San Cristobal de Las Casas still remains one of the most magical parts of Mexico. The city's name even refers to the Dominican friar Bartolome de Las Casas, the "protector of the Indians", who, during the Conquest, fought for the rights of the region's indigenous peoples. In perspective, not much has changed in half a millennium...

After our time in the city, we left San Cristobal for Lake Atitlan, bidding farewell to our Mexican experiences. At the Mexican side of the Guatemalan border, we were forced to pay 1000 pesos for an impromptu "exit fee" that the UK government claims to be illegal. It's funny that we spent so long worrying about being robbed on the street in Mexico that we forgot how common it is to be robbed by Mexican officials at the border.

Thanks for all the memories & refried beans, Mexico 🇲🇽