San Cristobal De Las Casas
We start at an altitude of 500 m and reach 2220 m within one hour.
Temperatures are cooler ( 25° during the day and 17° at night). Pine trees are everywhere.
We park our camper and start wandering in this colonial town.
Today is Sunday and mexican families enjoy the historical center.
It’s a spectacular show offered by the local women wearing embroided clothes, mostly with flower designs.
Each surrounding village has got it’s own traditional design as a distinctive sign. So you know who comes from where.
La « Villa Real de San Cristobal » was founded in 1528 by Diego de Mazariegos.
It became the capital city of Chiapas in 1824, before giving up its title to Tuxtla Gutierrez in 1892.
As in most places, the september 2017 earthquake damaged most of the monuments and there is hardly anything left to visit.
* Na-Bolom : Assiciation founded in 1951 by the danish archeologist Frans Blom and his wife Gertrude Duby, swiss photographer, great friend of « the Lacandons » ( a Maya tribe). This association is located in a spendid house (The house of the jaguar) and hosts various artefacts related to the history and culture of the region. Very nice museum.
* Museo Del Ambre : Located in the convent « De La Merced », that’s the right place to learn more about this fossil resin dating from 20 millions years, its extraction, its use throughout the years, its transformation and its trade all over the world. Great museum.
Chiapa de Corzo
We now leave the coast to climb up into the « Chiapas » mountains.
After 3 hours we reach « Chiapa De Corzo » under a burning sun although we were expecting cooler temperatures…
That’s here that the excursion boats leave to explore « El Canyon Del Sumidero », an extraordinary canyon, 1000 m deep and 14 km long, digged during millions of years by the « Grijalva » river.
We join a group of tourists on a « Lanchero » for a 2 hours tour on the river and enjoy a fantastic scenery including caves and chalk concretions.
We’re lucky enough to see crocodiles, monkeys, pelicanoes and other birds. Very dramatic.
The Maya Civilization
We enter the Maya country, a vast region which counts four states : Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo.
Unlike all the other Meso-american civilizations, the Maya didn’t build a central grand empire, but several independant « State towns ».
They however reached a high level in astronomy, and developped sophisticated systems in writing, arithmetic and invented their own calendar.
*Their writing ( Glyph) : 800 hieroglyphs represent the Maya writing. Each one represents either a whole name, or just a sound.
*Their arithmetic : their system is called « vigesimal » which means a based on our number 20. To write the numbers they use the point (units) and the line (5 units).
*Their calendar : they have a calendary cycle of 52 years…very difficult to understand.
*Astrology : Observing the stars, they could predict the moon phases, the solstices and the equinoxes.
This people were first thought pacifist, but historians and ethnologists now agree to point their evident taste for war and human sacrifices just as the other pre-colombian cicilizations.
The Golfe of Tehuantepec
We slowly drive along the Pacific coast towards the « Chiapas » region.
Our first stop is «San Agustin » described as a paradise by some travellers : we didn’t like it.
The bay itself is beautiful but is spoiled by horrible « unfit huts »…A disaster !
In addition to that , one needs to drive on a 12 km unpaved road in a very bad condition to join the place.
We however spend one night there ( don’t want to drive back on the track tonight…) and leave early the next morning to go to Playa San Diego, a superb beach, famous for the surfers.
Our friends Miriam and Fabio join us there, and we spend four days watching the surfers fighting with the huge waves. It’s a fantastic isolated beach.
Our next stop is Playa Azul ( no interest) and then Puerto Arista where we stay 3 days.
That’s the opportunity for cleaning and washing the camper which is covered by a « salted crust » after all these days on the beach.
ROAD BOOK 054
MAVROS ODYSSEE