St Cristobal

Marco leader of the Zapatistas (thanks for the photo world wide web )

St Crisobel is the vibrant cultural capital of the Chiapas area of Southern Mexico. It is the home of the famous Zapatistas uprising against the government, more about them later. We have come here for all these reasons and to try and invest in a laptop as all the Mexican cafes have WI FI and we are bored of internet cafes.



It’s a very pretty town, with charming streets of brightly painted houses. We stayed in a classey hotel using the excuse we may need a Mac delivering to room number 23.



Our room opened out onto the roof terrace overlooking the mountains & courtyard of the hotel.


Heres our David outside our room in the sunshine doodling.

The town is renowned for its pure mountain light and the buildings glow magnificently. As does our lady of guadalupe, Marys fabulous icon is everywhere in Mexico and has symbolised the nation since independence.


jackies tea towl lady & the churches lady


We spent about 10 days here getting the computer, I wouldn’t advise anyone try it, and no it isn’t cheaper than at home this side of the US boarder.

The first morning with the laptop it miraculously told me in its odd electronic voice I looked beautiful, what a machine!!!!!



The town radiates out from 2 main squares, one with a circular café bandstand, the other with its open plaza, white arched government buildings and a very typical fine mustard cathedral.

Chiapas mountains surround the town making it an easy spot to storm in decent. The indiginous farmers sick of the poverty due to new legislation by the NAFTA formed a peaceful masked protest group the zapatistas.



No longer allowed to set their own prices for their produce coupled with a land grab induced by US loans, they followed the enigmatic Marcus into the streets in non violent protest. They had amazing local and international support from downtrodden farmers everywhere, they were treated like rock stars and supported by them; Tom Morello of 'Rage Against the Machine' spoke very inteligently on the subject, (thats the power of a cool attention grabbing image).

All this but still the army & government cheated them and perpetrated targeted violence against their women to demoralise unity. So the zapatistas stormed villages and took over the government building in the centre of st cristobal. Unfortunatly they didnt get anywhere with the government who quickly made promises only to break them later on.

They are quiet for the time being but will rise again when the government isn’t so right wing apparently. There cause is wanting; “a world in which many worlds fit not just a mono world with no space for them”. Sounds fair enough really, up the revolution!

St cristobal is rich, the whole of Chiapas is, lots of natural resources making the indigenous street sellers that have had to come into the towns to survive an even sadder sight. Theres a road around the outside of st cristobal, where many indigenous from the hills now live, they call it the circle of misery.



The Indigenous women wear purple embroiderd shawls and thick black felt like skirts, which they fold around their waists so they hang down in a cone shape. The wool stands out in peaks like fake gorilla fur.
Their children sell peanuts in the day and at night quirky ceramic animals their mothers have made, we have about 20 of them and enough protein for a few weeks.

So the comparitively rich kids wander about (camera in hand) on the very slippy (polished by many feet) paving stones exploring the city.

Each end of the town has a hill and mirador views.

half way up one with a view of the other

We visit 3 museums…..

The first is very amusing, lots of really bad mannequins depicting rural activities.

The second is out of town and out of the comfort zone. The pavements crumble as we cross a dirty river. Clean colonial buildings are replaced with dusty makeshift markets josseling for space. The street widens out in that 'nowhere edge of cowboy town' kind of way. Its dusty and slightly edgy. You could so easily miss this side of the city and be none the wiser to its existence.

These Tin ovens are the only thing we photographed in this area it just didnt feel appropriate.

The indigenous medicine museum is interesting, though it was a shame to be using humming bird blood. Funnily they adapt to include modern ingredients, coca cola is now used in ceremonies to ward off evil sprits.

very tiny original Chiapas indians

Our 3rd museum was the house of Na Bolom (a famous anthrapologist) whos rooms and gardens teemed with artifacts (perhaps too many were taken?). His wife was an amazing photographer and her work is a great historical document.

Back to town and the place I love to photograph, the market, excellent displays….

One indoor market particularly blew us away with its juxtaposition of pink meat and kitch godliness.

and then this grassy altar.

A true artist

Our fixation with graffiti and painted out graffiti continues....

hot dogs

nazi bush

We spent a lot of time in the cultural café, open to the sky with indigenous shops & Zapatista stuff round the edge. They hold photography exhibitions and music events, oh and of course they have free WI FI, here’s our little laptop. I lovingly made it a case out of denim coverd cardboard with a padded pink lining.

We also ate in a vegetarian center with free cinema attached. Great place, though the serene smiling yoga students who floated by regularly did make us want to embrace the dark side, so we went to see a Joy Division documentary to balance out the ying. Poor Ian, the rest of the band were proper lads and didnt have a clue about the extent of his inner turmoil, unbelievably none of them had even read the lyrics he wrote for their last album (Closer) released just before he died. Tony Wilson of factory records, what a dude though.

Bamboo yoga student transport

local embodery

Night out at the Da Da club with a jazzy funk band. We were sitting way too near for the faces the lead guitarist was making, It was a relief when a drunk local decided to join in.

We stayed on 2 extra days to see some documentaries about the Zapatista movement at a delightfully tiny cinema. It had 4 intimate velvety screening rooms with boxes and seating for 10.

Then made our move out of Mexico and on our way to Nicaragua.