I think everyone who has traveled through Chiapas has definitely left with an impression. I went to San Cristobal de Las Casas when I was in Mexico, which is an old colonial city high up in the mountains. The city is well-lined with short, colorful buildings and cobblestone streets, and this structure makes its way up several tall hills at which you can get a crazy view of the roads and structures and beyond.
San Cristobal is populated mostly by Mayans who speak their native language instead of Spanish. Many of the women make money by walking around town and carrying about 20 scarves on their shoulders, 50 necklaces wrapped around one hand, and hand-crafted skirts stacked on top of the other, all while carrying an infant in a sling on their backs. The other major demographic of this town was clusters of foreign hippies, sporting their rainbow hemp wear and dreadlocks, who looked like they were likely of American or European origin.
We took a shared minibus out to some interesting church a few miles outside of San Cristobal to a little city. On the drive there, we would pick up people off the side of the streets who were flagging down the vans, and then drop other people off at their respective rural residencies while they would take live chickens out of the van’s trunk during their departure. We went to the little town and saw the famous strange church from the outside. We entered the hyped- up madness, and there were pine branches and needles scattered all over the floor, along with a few people crouched down on the ground either lighting small, white several candles or drinking Coca Cola and going into some inverted prayer trance. All the while, some plastic children’s toys were playing single-key Christmas songs and there were even some electric Christmas lights lit up. Apparently they sacrifice chickens at this church, but fortunately we missed that.
While I was staying around Palenque, another part of Chiapas, we also had a shared bus excursion to some waterfalls. On the way, the locals stop you and little children press their faces up against the glass and try to sell you their bananas. The waterfalls represented what I’ve seen in the Columbia Gorge in Oregon, except in hot and humid jungle settings rather than cloudy temperate rainforest settings.