This month, we justified our Dramamine fix with a 10-day trip to Chiapas. The 12-hour overnight ride wasn’t so bad as far as windiness goes, but was certainly a test of my body’s resilience. Somehow it’s not just the hair that doesn’t bounce right back after a 12-hour trip anymore. Nonetheless, our arrival in San Cristobal de las Casa was a good reminder of why we suffered the ride—a beautiful, high-mountain town, lined with colonial houses and stores and beautiful churches perched atop surrounding hills.
San Cristobal is even higher than Oaxaca, so in addition to the picturesque sights, we also enjoyed some cool mountain weather, marked by brisk mornings and downright chilly eves. In addition to the physical landscape, we were perhaps most struck by the difference between Oaxaca and Chiapas’s tourist demographic. We had pretty much gotten used to the wealthy-babyboomer-artist-retirees that dominate Oaxaca’s artistic community these days. Sure, there are plenty of young travelers, and even many well-geared Europeans there, but nothing to match the continental flair of San Crisotbal. And by continental flair, I’ll admit to being a bit facetious. What I mean, in fact, was the abundance of euro-hippies in San Cristobal, replete with dreadlocks, baggy pants, homemade shoes, and aroma du hemp. 
Now I know, this sounds a bit prejudicial on my part, but the place was really crawling with French and Italian travelers, who it appeared had made their way to San Cristobal purely on the profits reaped off of their macramé jewelry, bike-tire rubber shoes, or homemade brownie sales. No tongue in cheek here. Not even a few hours after our arrival, the girls remarked, “There’s a lot of dreadlocks here!” Maybe it's the mountain scenery, the abundance of marijuana now being grown in what were once flourishing corn or coffee fields, the colorful indigenous culture, or the romantic presence of Zapatista rebel forces nearby (and their images and products on sale in town), but San Cristobal clearly draws a different crowd.
Well, good thing about this particular constituency of traveler is that it tends to bring/attract good bread, so we had more than our share of good bread options in San Cristobal, ranging from some great savory artisan breads to some incredible éclairs. The girls even reveled in their discovery of a bagel store, of all things. What’s more, there was some great wine and Lebanese food in San Cristobal—two things noticeably lacking from Oaxaca. These edible joys were combined with some truly beautiful wool textile handcrafts to make for a wonderful diversion from our now well-entrenched Oaxaca proclivities.
While we were in Chiapas, I spent a lot of my time in sessions with the students (this was one of our program’s official study tours after all), while Josh and the girls did the real sightseeing. 
They did horseback riding to Chamula and took a boat ride down this amazing canyon (del Sumidero), to capture shots of bathing crocodiles, swinging howler monkeys, hidden Virgin shrines, and even standing kayak paddlers.
Clearly, they had all of the fun. Because we wanted to take advantage of Chiapas’ natural beauty, on one our one free “tourist” day we took a hike up the cloud forest of Huitepec for a refreshing romp through the woods and view of the surrounding valleys. The fresh air, amazing greenery, and slippery slope (steep incline, but fun downhill) made for an excellent day—we’d definitely recommend it for anyone headed to the area. 
We finished the day certainly glad not to have joined the students for another long van trip to Palenque.
But wait. I started this post with a confession of addiction, and I’m afraid my tale so far doesn’t paint a clear enough picture of why. Halfway through our stay in Chiapas, we joined the students on a three-day trip to two rural indigenous (Tzotzil) communities outside of San Cristobal. This trip required another three-plus hour trip around windy mountain roads and then across super bumpy dirt roads to arrive at Tzajalchen—a trip well-plied with Dramamine, of course. Beyond the narcotic effect of the drugs, this was a strange trip. 
It was designed to give students a taste of rural indigenous community life and also to allow us to interact with some organized groups in the area; nonetheless, since it is organized and run by another group that we work with, its itinerary and method were out of my hands. Suffice it to say that the visit was a true challenge to my anthropological etiquette (see the picture Josh snapped of the very skeptical anthropologist at work observing, rather than participating)
; instead of being a meaningful engagement with the community, it ended up being a lot more like a voyeuristic stop-over with little opportunity for engaging adults (more on this later and in another venue for those of you who are interested—I won’t bore the rest with my rant). 
Instead, we spent most of the first two days playing with the children of the community. Indeed, the kids LOVED Nayana and Ella, and easily spent the better part of these two days braiding their hair, playing Frisbee, climbing trees, or inspecting their books, sleeping pads, or clothes. Imagine our joy at being awaken at 7:00 each morning with ten smiling young faces peering curiously into the window of the gymnasium (on which floor were all sleeping) to see just how those strange gringos sleep. Once the kids had gotten to know the girls, this peeking was accompanied by not-so-subtle calls through the glass “Ceci” (to Nayana, whose middle name Cecilia was the easier identifier) and “superman” (a referent to the superman t-shirt Ella was wearing). It was really a hoot. Needless to say, the girls left our time there with a strong appreciation for the kids, as well as an intense desire to return to the comforts of their flushable toilets and a non-black bean meal. In that sense, the trip was a success. Hopefully it will last beyond Christmas and provoke a subtle shift in the holiday wish-list, but I’m not sure a dramatic lifestyle change is imminent.
After a few days in Tzajalchen, we took another windy road to visit Acteal, the sight of a horrific massacre of 45 indigenous community members (mostly women and children) at the hands of paramilitary forces in 1997. This was an intense visit, allowing us to see the site and talk to survivors and hear about their efforts to bring the criminals to justice. Their struggle is especially pertinent at the moment, as the government is now releasing many of (few) perpetrators convicted this atrocity, and those criminals (mostly indigenous neighbors who were affiliated with the ruling political party and trained by the military) are returning to their homes in the surrounding communities. Hardly a comforting prospect for survivors, who often share corn fields and coffee fields with these belligerent neighbors. Clearly then, the visit required some intense discussion with the girls about why and how something like this could happen, not just here, but in many places through time and space--again, another great lesson. When we finally got back on the vans and took the curvy trip back to San Cristobal for our last days of processing and meeting with local NGO’s, it was clear that the trip had begun to take a physical and emotional toll on us all.
So, we took the 12-hour trip back to Oaxaca last Saturday, and I’d like to say that all we took with us from this trip was wonderful memories, great photos, and a new understanding of the incredible challenges faced by indigenous communities in Chiapas today; however, I’d be lying if I stopped there. We returned to warm, relatively affluent and peaceful Oaxaca only to find that we’d brought a few friends along—namely, a bacterial infection hitched a ride with Josh and Nayana, provoking our first ever visit to the doctor’s office this trip. Luckily, with a heavy dose of anti-bacterial and anti-biotic prescriptions—or the “gringo cocktail” as I like to call it—everyone has recovered from the throes of their amoebic diet and are on the road to recovery. With that remedy down, we have four more weeks here to break our dependency on travel assistance substances before our return home; otherwise, I’m afraid both my students and we will all be founding a new chapter of DA—Dramaminers Anonymous. Hopefully in three weeks from now, we’ll all be drama-free!
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