On the way to San Cristobal, we ran into two roadblocks. The first was only a kilometer away from Ocosingo, where I would catch my connection, so I just walked. I never did find out what the roadblock was about, but I would soon enough hit another one that was better explained. On the way from Ocosingo to San Cristobal, we came to a stop behind a long line of cars. As we stood around waiting, another driver explained that the locals were upset about a government zoning decision that had affected the school system in the town. Although I didn't understand all of the details, the fact of the matter was that they weren't happy, and that in order to make that point clear they stopped traffic every hour, on the hour, and charged 50 pesos per vehicle. Once you paid, you had to wait until the next hour, on the hour, where they would let all of the paid vehicles through, and repeat the process again. Because these towns are in the heart of the Zapatista stronghold, a lot of them are run independently of the government, so the police sort of just keep their noses out of it. These guys don't joke around either - when one of the Mexican tourists in my shuttle was caught taking pictures, they quite strongly told him to delete them, and waited there until he did. I saw one guy being dragged back to the town center by three of the local authorities. He was not happy.
I eventually arrived in San Cristobal, where I would stay for a week and do pretty much nothing until I forced myself to play tourist on the last two days. My days pretty much consisted of the following: wake up, eat breakfast, go to the cafe with the newspaper, go to the market, go to the bookstore, read several hours, watch a documentary, eat dinner, read, sleep, repeat. This routine was interrupted on a few occasions by yoga, shopping, walks through the city, and a horseback ride to nearby San Juan Chamula were the locals use chickens and Coca Cola as part of their religious rituals - which are all conducted in a "Catholic" church. You're not allowed to take pictures in the church though, they don't really like white folk gawking at them and all, which is understandable. Apparently you get tossed in jail and they wreck your camera if you do. I didn't take any chances.
The 200th anniversary of independence celebration were ramping up while I was in San Cristobal, and a bunch of tough looking army dudes handed out packages with a Mexican flag and the national anthem at the center of town one day.
GPK represent.
San Cristobal is probably my favorite place visited on this trip so far. It has a colonial look and feel like Antigua, but without all of the drunken foreigners everywhere. Sure, there are tons of tourists, but most of them are Mexican nationals, so it gives the town a very authentic feel. I could have spent every day walking through the market, which is full of every artisanal gift you can think of, as well as the food market, with piles of dried shrimp, salted cod, pig heads and questionable sausages. Everything is a visual feast for the eyes, sensory overload.
Another great part about the city are the people. Everywhere you go, there's someone interesting, and I eventually wouldn't leave the hostel unless I made sure I had my camera in hand.
At this point, I will jump into a somewhat politically charged issue in Mexican history. This is my op-ed piece on the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas and the effect it has on foreign tourists ready to run to the hillsides to fight with Commander Marcos and his balaclava-clad crew.
There are two local cinemas in town that screen films every night, usually documentaries. I caught a few while I was there, the most interesting one being a short history on the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. Although I am no expert on the situaiton, the gist of it goes as follows: On January 1, 1994, a group of armed indigenous people marched to San Cristobal and took over the town center, sending a message to the government that they were sick and tired of being politically excluded and neglected - in essence, not considered part of Mexican society. What followed (and to an extent still goes on to this day) was a series of battles between the army and the armed Zapatistas, leaving mountains of dead bodies on both sides, as well as even more innocent ones. It's sort of easy to sympathize with the Zapatistas at first, in the same way that loads of kids in Canada and the U.S walk around with Che Guevara shirts without really knowing who he was or what he did. The romanticization of the Zapatista rebellion is an easy one to fall for - a group of underdogs fighting for their political inclusion, and for the rights that have been denied of them for so long. They have a cool leader, known as Commander Marcos, who wears one of those black robber ski masks and everything, and Zapatista-run stores in the area sell an assortment of gifts from t-shirts, to dolls and posters. Before I really knew that much about the situation, I was also drawn to the plight of the Zapatistas, wanting to visit one of their villages during my trip. It wasn't until my Mexican-born friend Francisco enlightened me to some of the realities of the situation that I realized maybe I needed to take a closer look. Again, I far from consider myself an expert on the rebellion, but after some reading, and attending that documentary at the cinema, it became clear that there is more to it than meets the eye. The Zapatistas have done a lot of great things for indigenous rights, but they have also gotten a lot of people killed - both innocent and not so innocent. The army also plays a big role in this, but at the same time, the Zapatistas themselves were (from my perspective) the main catalyst that caused thousands of innocent indigenous people (many of whom were not involved, or at least not voluntarily, in the Zapatista movement) to be forced to leave their homes and seek refuge in the mountains in order to avoid harrassment and possible human rights violations by the military. A ton of developments have happened since the initial uprise, some violent and others not, but all of which fall into the same pattern of both sides being wrong to one extent or another.
Even after my limited research on the subject, it was clear that the rebellion in Chiapas was more than a "you're right and they're wrong" situation. Who's right when everyone seems to be wrong? Nonetheless, the romanticization of the Zapatista movement was ever present in San Cristobal, even when I wasn't visiting their shops (which I admitedly made a few purchases at). A French girl that was at dinner with our group was chatting with another guy about the situation, and after he explained the basic history she was already ready to go. A bunch of Europeans are supposedly in the area working with the Zapatistas now to keep the issues relevant and in the global news. The French girl wanted to meet them, to go to the village, basically to join the Zapatistas. Although I can't remember her exact words, she basically said, "As soon as I meet them I know that I will want to be a Zapatista follower". Follower indeed.
One way or another, the history of San Cristobal and the Zapatistas is important to not only Mexican history, but also any group of people fighting for indigenous rights (or any human rights for that matter really). At the same time though, its hard to see the whole issue from the outside, especially as a jaded white tourist (which although I like not to consider myself, I obviously am) who only sees the romantic side of a David and Goliath battle, where the underdogs are in the right and The Man is in the wrong. When you look at all the lost and displaced lives that are attributed to the rebellion in the last 16 years, the issue suddenly becomes somewhat less clear. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even jaded white foreigners. All I say is that it should be an informed opinion. And even at that, I'll probably still think you're wrong unless you agree with me...
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