Whilst we were in San Cristobal de las Casas, we were obviously gluttons for punishment. It was cold enough here, but on the Sunday we climbed yet another 300 metres (well in another minibus, not on foot…). To add insult to injury it rained all day as well. But we are nothing if not intrepid and went on the visit to two of the local indigenous villages. Zincantan was fine but a bit boring – they are quite shy people so you could only go to one “house” were surprisingly there was a shop…. But we saw the old backstrap weaving and went in the kitchen where the women were cooking over the open fire – Ant enjoyed the tortillas they cooked. We also tried “Posh” the alcoholic drink used in their Chrisitian/Mayan strange religious world in which they live. Each village also has its own way of dressing, these were in the usual wrap round skirts, floral tops etc all heavily embroidered.
But nothing could have prepared us for the second village – San Juan Chamula, it was either the Planet of the Apes or this blog title- and the rain had made it misty. The men were all dressed in the most strange gorilla like costumes, white or black depending on their position in the hierarchy. The women wore skirts of the same matted fleece but I guess it kept them warm. It was market day and the fruit, veg and flowers all looked amazing – if Ant could have spoken Mayan he would have been asking for tips for the plot! But stranger things were afoot. The Mayan Gods were shining on us yet again and there was a fantastic ceremony going on in the church. It was so unlike any Christian church – even though there were Saints everywhere and Mary’s galore, there was a lot of Mayan going on. At the back of the church were pairs of people kneeling and lighting candles of different heights and colours. One person was the patient, the other the healer. The patient tells the healer what the problem is and then is advised on which candles to light and in what order and a miracle cure is produced. It’s also quite polite to burp lots to get rid of spirits so everyone is carrying and quaffing bottles of coke and fanta….. At the front of the church the big celebration was going on. No idea what it all meant, but involved loads of the men dressed in their “gorilla” suits, the most fantastic bunches of lilies being waved around in homage to the saint who was on the altar. But what they do here is dress their Saints in the local dress so said saint was also is a gorilla outfit, and along with his white turban was a clear double of Osama bin Laden….. And then he was paraded out of the church to the sounds of a brass band and fire crackers…… Another bizarre moment !Next day rather than up we went down through the fog to the Sumidero Canyon – you know the drill, boats, life vests, river, birds, caymans, steep kilometre high cliffs, canyon, blah blah blah…. It was just after this that we were dropped off in a town somewhere in Mexico for a random hour and we realised we had no clue as to where we were – not even the name of the town. So we went to the ATM hoping that our bank statements would tell us where we had been!
