Once again we find ourselves in Mexico for El Dia de los Muertos.
This time we're celebrating in a part of Mexico we've never visited before--Chiapas. It's Mexico's poorest and southernmost state, the heart of Mayan country, bordering Guatemala. There are rainforests and rugged mountains and an always-simmering conflict with the federal government.
How we got here is a bit of a story. In 2019, we flew to Guadalajara with the Pereiras for Dia de los Muertos. We had a great time, but on our last day, I got violently sick with a very high fever. I was pretty incoherent for a couple days, and so we missed our flight back to the States. We ended up buying new tickets to get home, but the lovely people at Viva Aerobus gave us a credit for the flight we missed.
We used the credit to book a flight to Michoacan for the spring of 2020, and I guess you can see where that went. Every few months we would rebook our flight, hoping that Covid would be over by the time we wanted to travel. Finally, after cancelling our January 2022 reservations, we decided to rebook for October.
Looking on the State Department website, however, we saw that the advisory for Michoacan had been raised to "Do Not Travel." We're fairly careful travelers. We don't mind taking some risk, and we have gone to some sketchy areas in the past, but when the State Department warns about risk of kidnapping, we're out.
So we went down the list of Mexican states rated "Take Precautions" rather than "Do Not Travel" and the one place we hadn't been was Chiapas. So we booked again, and this time it stuck.
Our tickets with Viva Aerobus were out of Tijuana International, so we drove from Boise to Escondido and spent a couple lovely days with Matthew and Teresa.
The flight from Tijuana was at 8:30am, which sounds reasonable until you factor in the time to drive to the border and negotiate the Mexican immigration process. T bravely got up in time to drive us to the border at 5am. Even with online preprocessing it took us almost two hours to get through immigration and check in.
The flight itself was uneventful--a short three hours to Mexico City. We then endured a six-and-a-half hour layover at the notoriously-expensive Mexico City airport before our flight (1.5 hours) to Tuxtla Gutitérrez, the capital of Chiapas.
We arrived at 10:30pm and finally got to our hotel just before midnight. Whew!
The next morning we took a taxi into the mountains to the beautiful town of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Tuxtla Gutiérrez is located at 1,200', so it's very hot and humid. San Cristóbal is at 7,100 feet and the weather this time of year is perfect--low 70s during the day, low 50s at night.
On our drive up the mountain, we watched the landscape change from tropical jungle to cloud forest, then subtropical pine forest.
Corn is grown everywhere.
San Cristóbal is a colonial town, designated as one of Mexico's "Pueblas Magicas." In fact, in 2010, it was named as the "most magical" of them all.
Our hotel is right downtown in an unprepossessing building.
Inside, though, you begin to feel the magic.
Our room is charmingly appointed, large and comfortable.
And the lobby is well-decorated for the holiday.
And to add to the spooky vibe, right across the street is the Bruja (witch) Hostel. We have yet to see any witches emerge, but the piles of chewed bones around the entrance keep us on our toes.
Naturally, we had to celebrate our arrival with a drink--a mezcal margarita and a cocktail of maracuya and mezcal. Both delicious.
Then it was time to explore. The town's doorways are festooned with flowers, especially marigolds, the traditional flower of Dia de los Muertos.
In the zocalo, the locals are busy erecting altars to their departed relatives.
Photos of the muertos, momentos, and their favorite food and drink are placed on the altars.
Local groups gather to dance and sing.
Altogether, the festivities will last five full days. Today was just the first.
In our wandering we discovered the local drink, pox. Pronounced POH-sh, it's a potent liquor distilled from corn and sugarcane. The basic recipe derives from an ancient Mayan beverage fermented from corn. The Spanish, looking for a bigger kick, introduced the distillation process and the result is pretty tasty and very potent.
This local distiller retails many different flavors of pox--mango, jamaica (hibiscus), even chocolate--every day from 9am until after midnight.
O liked the jamaica flavor. I preferred the unflavored ceremonial strength (53% alcohol).
San Cristóbal is a little jewel of a city in a valley surrounded by pine-covered mountains. Unfortunately, logging and poor management have destroyed much of the forest around the town.
Starting in 1994, the Zapatista movement has radicalized much of the population. Currently, much of the agitation is against Coca-Cola, which is sucking 1.4 million liters of fresh water a day out of the area's aquifer to sell as bottled water. Water wars are only going to get worse.
The street art here is next-level.
Much of it is political, inspired by the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) particularly liked this take on the three monkeys, encouraging citizens to listen to what's going on, look at what's happening, and speak out. Much needed advice for all of us these days.
The image of a Maya as a space jaguar is pretty cool, too.
Local heros also embody the jaguar spirit.
This artist's work is on walls all over town. We were told he takes mushrooms to come up with these wild designs.
In contrast, there are the many churches that the city boasts, including this baroque gem.
The gold walls were once actually gold-plated, but in the 1800s an earthquake damaged the church and the gold was sold to pay for the repairs. The precious metal was replaced with gold paint.
I swear I'm not making this up. The height of fashion among the indigenous women is the goat-hair skirt. They can run as much as $100 (not pesos) per skirt, which is a lot of money here.
If you've got it, flaunt it. Goat-hair bling.
The markets are crowded. With people and a wide variety of goods.
The dapper gentleman figurine is the patron saint of drug dealers.
Santa Muerte is the saint you pray to for a good death for yourself and your loved ones.
Back on the streets, the decorations continue to proliferate.
At night, there are parades.
And general carrying-on.
Spider-man and El Muerte rock the house.
Even the nights are a riot of color.
And merch.
La Lupe is our favorite eatery. We've had three meals there, and they've all been great.
Their pox margarita is delicious. They put ground roasted pumpkin seeds around the rim instead of salt. 
San Cristóbal de las Casas is now one of our favorite places in Mexico.
P.
