Various Places in Chiapas

I thought that I would just take a few minutes and post some more pictures from my trip to Chiapas. One of my favorite places to visit (other than the archaeological sites) was the indigenous town of Zinacantan (it's the town tucked away in between those mountains in one of my pics below). We were only given an hour here, but we had a guide, Felipa, who joined us for the twenty minute busride from San Cristobal over to her town of Zinacantan. She explained some things to us and taught us some expressions in her language, Tzotzil. I can only remember how to say 'buenos dias' which is "mili oh shike' (I'm just writing it out phonetically because of course I don't know how to spell in Tzotzil- it's mee lee oh shee kay or something like that). I found all of the language lessons to be fascinating. She even sang us a couple of songs in Tzotzil. Anyways, here I am with Felipa's sister whose name escapes me. But these women weave for a living and Felipa was kind enough to invite us (all 46 of us) into her home to see all of the things that she and her family weave. They were also kind enough to let us take some pictures; in many indigenous towns across Mexico (as in the Southwestern US), you aren't allowed to take pictures at all and it's very rude to take pics without asking first (you may be charged to take a picture but for a minimal fee). So I asked a group of women if I could take their picture as they came walking by but only one of them responded in Spanish and the others just smiled and nodded 'yes'. I hope to be able to come back to Chiapas one day and spend a lot more time here. Oh, the last picture in this series of five photos is of Felipa with two of the students from the UDLA dressed in the "traditional" bride and groom outfits for those getting married in Zinacantan.

Then we went to San Juan Chamula (part of the collection of towns that were known simply as Chamula) and got to spend a whopping 45mins here. I had a funny experience here: as soon as we pulled into a parking lot, tons of these indigenous women and children came running over to the bus, even before we got off, to start trying to sell their crafts. I was first approached by a woman named Maria and she tied a cool, well-made bracelet onto my wrist, letting me know that this was a "gift" from her. She asked me my name and then said that she would look for me when we returned to the bus. Well, the 45mins were up and so we went back to the bus and Maria found me, called me by name, and began to try to sell me one of her many items that she had made. I eventually bought two "hand-made" sunglass cases (which look machine-made to me) because Maria informed me that she would have to take back the bracelet that she gave me if I did not buy something from her. It was funny to me; a lot of the indigenous peoples in Chiapas are astute business people and as soon as they see foreigners coming, they turn on that charm. But from my perspective, studying Mexican Anthropology now for over a year, it's difficult for me to say no to them or to haggle with them when I know that the prices that they originally offer are really good (for both the consumer and the producer-maybe not so much for the producer). I just wish that I could have spent more time here in San Juan Chamula. The men that have on the white, fuzzy vests are Tzeltal (I believe). There are lots of indigenous groups in Chiapas, each with their own language, history, and culture.

These are some pics from Agua Azul (and one can definitely observe why this place is called Blue Water). It was beautiful here and I tried to enjoy it as much as I could even though I couldn't breathe very well (due to illness). It did feel nice to be close to the calming effects of the cool, serene water. Some people from our group went swimming here but I try to avoid getting into confined bodies of water with hundreds of other people (this must be not only a touristy kind of place to see but also a local hotspot because there were so many people and only a few large buses but several cars with Chiapas license plates).

Here are a few pictures of Misol-Ha ('Ha' means 'water' in one of the many Mayan languages and 'Misol-Ha' means 'Streaming Water'), a beautiful little spot tucked away in the forest/jungle of Chiapas, not too far from the town of Palenque. We didn't spend too much time here because the site consists of exactly what I have shown in these pictures; but the hour or so that we were here was nice and the climate felt cooler as we stood underneath the waterfall. There were a couple of people swimming but I was so sick that there was no way I was going swimming. Anyways, I truly enjoyed this trip to Chiapas and I only have one more entry left from this adventure: Palenque. And in the very last picture, you can see where people are standing underneath and behind the waterfall.