Chiapas
San Cristobal de Las Casas
I finally boarded my bus to San Cristobal and prepared myself for a 14-hour ride. I did my best to sleep, but we stopped every hour which would wake me up as soon as I’d get relaxed enough to finally doze off. After a very long night, I arrived in San Cristobal around 7:30am the next morning. I was delighted to see that I had phone service again and called an Uber to take me to the Airbnb I had booked a few days prior. I checked into my Airbnb and began to get settled. I was exhausted but also hungry, so I headed out to get some breakfast and supplies before lying down for a nap. San Cristobal is a special place, and I instantly felt a sense of ease. It had a different vibe than the other places I’d visited in Mexico. It felt authentic and there was a pleasant mix of locals and expats but wasn’t overrun by tourists. Because of the expat community, there were a lot of things that helped me to feel at home. Vegan restaurants, organic food and product shops, yoga classes, meditation and spiritual workshops and gatherings, and hippies from different parts of the globe selling handmade jewelry and other items on the streets. The buildings are vibrant and colorful, and the city center is filled with cobblestone pedestrian streets that are lined with restaurants, shops, and street vendors. The population is around 215,000, and the center of town is the safest and most populated part of the city. My Airbnb was located right in the middle of town and everything I needed was within walking distance. I quickly knew this would be my home for the next several months.
San Cristobal is in the mountains at an elevation of 6,900 feet, so it was a bit cold in mid-January. During the day it would get into the high 50’s or low 60’s, but at night it would dip down into the 40’s. I learned the hard way that most accommodations in Mexico are not heated, and space heaters run up electricity bills very quickly. I couldn’t warm up in the Airbnb unless I was in bed fully clothed, under several comforters. The water in the shower was barely lukewarm, and I could see my breath in the bathroom when I would shower. I had rented the Airbnb for 2 weeks, but realized after a day or two that I would never make it that long. I joined a couple Facebook groups for expats in San Cristobal and put up a post looking for accommodations for the next couple months. I got a reply from another traveler who was staying at a villa nearby that he said he was very happy with and was affordable. We talked, and he told me the villas had previously been fully booked, but one of the villas had opened up unexpectedly because the previous tenants had been evicted a couple days prior. He put me in contact with the landlady, and I set up a time the next day to look at it. The villa was a couple blocks away from my Airbnb, in a gated community staffed by 24-hour security. The villa was beautiful and spacious. It had three levels, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full kitchen and living room, and a fireplace. It wasn’t heated but felt much warmer during the day than my Airbnb, and I felt reassured by the wood stove. I was shocked when I found out the rent was $400 per month. I worked it out with my Airbnb host so that I could cancel the remainder of my reservation and get a partial refund, and a couple days later moved into my villa. I committed to three months upfront, with the option to extend for longer if I decided.
One weekend a couple weeks into my stay in San Cristobal, I met a couple other travelers at an ecstatic dance event, and we ended up spending the evening hanging out. Hardly anyone was dancing at the event, so we left and went to a nearby restaurant for snacks and drinks. While I was talking to them, a girl brought up that her tourist visa was expiring because she wasn’t given the full six months when she arrived in Mexico. Americans and foreigners from many other countries can typically stay in Mexico for six months at a time on a tourist visa, which I was aware of from my previous visits. Upon arrival in the country, you are given a sheet of paper to fill out, and your “visa” is the small stub at the bottom of the form which is stamped at immigration and given back to you and must be returned to immigration upon leaving the country. I was under the understanding that the six months was automatic, but after talking with this girl I learned that some immigration officers had recently started giving random amounts of time that were less than six months. And if you stayed beyond the allotted time on your visa, you could be arrested and thrown in Mexican jail.
When I got home that night, I checked my visa and noticed that I was only given 90 days. I remembered being asked when I arrived how long I was staying. I wasn’t sure at the time, and just told them three months not thinking it mattered. I started researching whether it was possible to extend the visa and ended up coming across recent stories of other travelers who had ended up in jail because they were given less than the standard 180 days and like me, weren’t aware that was even a possibility. The police and immigrations officers in Mexico are corrupt to say the least, and some of the stories I read were terrifying. Immigration offers were targeting tourist buses around touristy areas like Cancun, Tulum, etc. and pulling them over to check visas. If any of the tourists were discovered with an expired visa, they were immediately arrested and put in jail. Their personal belongings were taken, and they were not given a phone call. The only way to get out is to pay the officers with bribe money. Those who didn’t have money ended up in jail for months or even years.
I contacted my landlady to let her know that I would have to shorten my stay, and she told me that I could go to the local immigration office to request an extension on my visa. I researched this but couldn’t find any definitive answers. A few days later I headed to the immigration office in San Cristobal, where I was told that there was no option to extend a tourist visa. My only option would be to cross the border and go to Guatemala, Belize, or the US for 72 hours and return to Mexico and obtain a new visa. I investigated doing this, and ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the hassle because I only really wanted an additional month. I was working a lot of hours and didn’t have the extra time to take a trip to the border. I found out later though, that there were ways around this (more bribes) and ultimately did end up extending my stay – which I’ll get to later.
Chiapas is a unique state in Mexico, for a few reasons. In the past it was a part of Guatemala, until 1824 when Mexico “took” Chiapas from Guatemala. Chiapas is still currently considered somewhat of an independent state, because of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, known as the Zapatistas, a far left political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas. The Zapatistas are primarily made up of rural indigenous people, who have been “at war” with the Mexican state since 1994. If the Mexican government attempts to assert too much control over the state of Chiapas, the group will retaliate with violent protests that regularly result in road closures, armed takeovers, and even shootings. Because the Mexican government does not have much control or influence, the state has many issues beyond the violence. Chiapas is also one of the poorest states in Mexico. The water is highly contaminated, and isn’t safe to use the water to cook with, wash vegetables, brush your teeth with, etc. The contaminated water source and poverty has also led to a diabetes epidemic because Coca-Cola is cheaper than filtered water, so much of the population drinks coke instead of water. It is common for travelers to get water poisoning when visiting Chiapas, and I had the unfortunate luck of experiencing it more than once. I later learned that the best way to clean fresh fruits and vegetables is to soak them in a mixture of filtered water, apple cider vinegar, and baking soda.
The poverty also meant that things were very cheap, especially in comparison to prices in the United States, which was the reason for my cheap rent. Meals, groceries, and entertainment were also very cheap, which was a nice benefit for me since I was still paying rent and other bills back at home. I stayed busy working during the weekdays, but prioritized getting out for meals once a day, and as often as possible on the weekends for yoga classes, sound healings, and other wellness workshops. I also had the opportunity to take a couple day trips.
San Juan Chamula
The first day trip I took was to the indigenous village of San Juan Chamula, which is just outside of San Cris. While there are organized tours to Chamula, I didn’t end up taking one, but instead visited the village with Edwinn, the traveler who had connected me with the villa. Edwinn is a Mexican native but is an avid traveler and has spent many years living and working in the United States. He was on his second or third visit to San Cris and had been to Chamula in the past, so I had my own personal tour guide. We took a collectivo, a public van transportation service that Mexican locals use to get around, to a hiking point just outside of Chamula. We went on a short hike before making our way to the village. Once we arrived, we explored the local market, and eventually made our way into the Church of St. Juan Bautista, which is one of the main attractions of the village. Edwinn told me that the indigenous people of Chamula allow tourists to enter the village only during the daytime because they need the tourism to survive, but foreigners are not welcome to stay overnight and Chamula can be a dangerous place after daylight hours. Visiting the church was a surreal experience. Their religion is said to be a Catholic institution; however, this was unlike any church I have ever experienced. We spent about an hour inside, observing the rituals. There were massive amounts of incense burning inside the church, filling it with smoke. Hay covered the cement floors, and the walls were lined with glass cases that held statues of saints and other religious figures. We watched while a group of people removed a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe and changed her clothes, a ritual that took 20 or 30 minutes. Other families were huddled together performing interesting rituals where they would brush away the hay to expose the cement floor, and line up several tall thin candles and adhere them to the floor with wax. They would then fill two small glasses with Coca-Cola and Posh, a homemade corn liquor, and set the glasses near the candles. At the start of the ritual, they lit all the candles and chanted a specific chant repeatedly until the candles burned all the way to the floor. Once the candles were gone, the wax was scraped from the floor and the leader of the ritual would drink the shots of Coca-Cola and Posh. He then grabbed a live chicken, which was being held by another member of the group, and sacrificed it. I couldn’t believe my eyes – he used his bare hands to remove its head. We made our way out of the church shortly after the sacrifice, shocked at what we had witnessed. We spent a bit more time exploring the village and the expansive cemetery before heading back to San Cris.
Sumidero Canyon & Chiapa de Corzo
The second day trip I took was a guided tour to Sumidero Canyon, with a stop in the town of Chiapa de Corzo. Sumidero Canyon is a beautiful national park a couple hours outside of San Cris. They offer boat tours along the river inside large, impressive canyons, where spider monkeys and river crocs can be seen. I didn’t realize I booked the tour with a Spanish speaking driver and guide, which made for an uncomfortable and stressful day. I knew some Spanish, but spent much of the day confused and almost lost my group twice. The other people on the tour were Spanish speakers as well, but during our lunch stop in Chiapa de Corzo, a couple who spoke some English talked with me a bit and we walked around together and listened to live instrumental music and shopped at the local market.
Palenque
One of the highlights of my excursions was an overnight trip to Palenque. Palenque is a city located in the southern part of the state and the home of a well-known archeological site that houses the ruins of an expansive ancient Mayan city. I hired a private driver to take me on the overnight trip, and the drive from San Cristobal was around six hours. We stopped for a couple hours in Agua Azul, a small village with a cluster of beautiful turquoise waterfalls, where I had lunch and walked around the town and did some shopping. We also stopped along the way to see huge waterfall called Misol-Ha. We arrived in Palenque around dusk, and I spent the evening on the grounds of my hotel, which was beautiful. There was a large pool, lush gardens, and cabanas for guestrooms. In the morning, we left early to spend a couple hours at the ruins before starting our drive back to San Cris. I decided to hire a guide while at the ruins, who walked around with me for about an hour and excitedly explained the history of the ruins. They were some of the most impressive ruins I’ve seen in my life, right up there with Macchu Picchu. After my guide left, I spent about another hour exploring the ruins and the adjacent jungle. The ruins in the park have been restored, but it is speculated that more than a thousand structures are still covered by the jungle. In hindsight, I wish I had spent more time in Palenque – it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve visited in Mexico.
An Unexpected Love Affair
A few weeks into my stay in San Cristobal, I went to a vegan restaurant for lunch and the owner of the restaurant approached me to ask about my meal. At first she spoke to me in Spanish, but when I told her I my Spanish wasn’t good, she started talking with me in English. There was something about her that stuck in my mind. I ended up returning to the restaurant the following week, and we talked more. I decided to ask her to join me for dinner or a drink sometime, and to my surprise she accepted. Now, this is a very long story that has a separate blog entry of its own, so I won’t go into much detail here. But in a nutshell, Yajaira and I fell in love more quickly than I had ever before experienced. I had dated women in the past, but I had never fallen this deeply in love with another woman. Unfortunately, it was complicated. She was married and had a 7-year-old daughter at the time. Her marriage had been on the rocks for many years, but she stayed for her daughter. There were many obstacles standing in the way of us being together, but love is not logical, and we made the choice to make the most of our limited time together.
Every moment Yajaira and I could see each other, we did. We spent much of the next month in my villa in a bubble of love. We knew my visa expiration was approaching, but being a Mexican native she knew how to work the system and had some ideas up her sleeve. Before moving to San Cris six months earlier, Yajaira had lived for many years on the island of Carmen, Campeche on the Yucatan peninsula. She had to make a trip back there for a couple days, and she invited me along. Those four days were some of the most fun times I’ve experienced. We took collectivos, taxis, and buses across several Mexican states, ate authentic Mexican food, and I got to experience it all with the guidance of a native. While we were in Carmen, we enjoyed drinks on the beach, went on a boat ride and saw dolphins, and spent time with some of Yajaira’s family and friends. She treated me like a princess. She also happened to have a friend who worked closely with the immigration office in Carmen, and he was able to work his magic to get me a new FMM card (tourist visa), but for a price. I can’t remember now how much I paid, but I believe it ended up being around $300 USD.
When we returned to San Cris, I made arrangements to extend my stay at the villa for an additional month so Yajaira and I could have more time together. Unfortunately the villa I had been staying in was already booked, but I was able to move into a smaller studio apartment across from the villa. At that point it didn’t matter where I was as long as I was with her. I wished our time together could have lasted forever, and I still sometimes wish I could return to those magical days, but all good things must come to an end. Although the relationship didn’t exactly end well after I departed San Cris, I will always look back on those couple months with warmth and fondness.
