San Cristóbal de las Casas

I'm now in a new State - Chiapas - and in a city called San Cristóbal de las Casas (or San Cris for short). It was a 13h 45m coach ride here and I managed to sleep for most of it thanks to some Nytol and Magnesium! The above picture was what I saw when I was about an hour away - we really are venturing into jungle territory. The city is high, 2000+ metres above sea level, so the air is thin and you get breathless quickly.

San Cris was the no.1 place recommended to me by my Year 9 project students, and they were not wrong to do so. I spent the afternoon exploring the city and then did a 2.5hr walking tour. The population here is mainly indigenous so there are many artisenal markets to explore. The streets also really remind me of what a magic realism setting would be, although that might just be the similarity of the colourful houses and the altitude that Bogotá, Colombia's capital, has to offer.

There is also plenty of Spanish colonial architecture (as with every city) and I paid the Jade museum a visit which was fascinating. Jade, along with Amber, is a precious stone native to this area.

For lunch I finally tried a torta, a Mexican sandwich absolutely brimming with everything you can think of. I ordered chicken and it also had lettuce, tomato, onion, black beans (frijoles) and avocado in it. I then cheated on Mexico and had spaghetti bolognese for tea because honestly my stomach just needs a rest!

I took some money out of the bank and got different $500MXN notes than I've had previously on this trip. For starters they were brown, not blue. These ones had husband and wife Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo on them, the former on the front and the latter on the back. My Year 12 students will hopefully agree, having studied this dysfunctional pair in some detail, that it should be the other way around (in my opinion!) based on who has contributed more to Mexican art, women and indigenous rights and who is more famous internationally. But hey - I'm not the Bank of Mexico, it's not my choice! I'll present the question to next year's Year 12 class to get their opinion!