Authentic Maya Heartlands: Chamula & Zinacantan Revealed

Short and sweet trip with an excellent guide; Miriam who explained everything thoroughly and answered all out questions!

We booked this tour in the belief and promise that it would be in English - it wasn't - only Spanish! If it weren't for another person on the tour who spoke a bit of English and did a bit of translating, we would have missed the lot - not good and we weren't happy. First stop was Chamula at a very strange church. Strange by the fact that it was almost voodoo like, very spiritual and like nothing I have ever seen. Essentially there are families there with a sick relative and by performing a ritual which involves passing a live chicken over the sick person and then wringing the chicken's neck the person is said to have passed on their sickness to the chicken! OMG. At Zinacantan we visited a house to see local textiles for sale - a bit touristy. Also in an original earth floor kitchen watching a woman cook tortialls over an open fire. All in all, if you only have a couple of days in San Cristobal don't bother with this tour.

This can be an interesting tour of two indigenous communities, Zinacatan and San Juan Chamula, however my personal experience was not positive. The Zinacatan part of the tour is a standard "shopping tour" in which you get to see the way the local people work the textiles, and you have the chance to buy their products. I don't mind this, as that's the standard way of operation in Mexico, China, Morocco and everywhere else. At this point, I had my first negative impression of the tour, and in particular, the tour guide: Alex/Alejandro. After the explanation and shopping time was over he said "wait here for a few minutes". I guess this is the time he settles his commissions from the shop owner, and, again, I don't have issues with that: that's the way the guides make a living. But this time he took a long time, while the tour group just waited there. In the next stop, the exotic town of San Juan Chamula, you get to visit the main church in town. That was the high point for me as it is a truly out-of-ordinary place. After the visit, and before returning to San Cristobal, I had a personal issue with the guide: I was asking questions regarding daily life of these towns, and I guess he took offense in what I was asking (or he was just fed-up with tourists), and his response was something like: "People from Northern Mexico are just a bad copy of people from the US". He knew fully well I am from Northern Mexico so there is no place for confusion here. So, I guess, the tour is ok if you have an interest in these towns, and you don't ask the wrong questions, like I, apparently, did.

Our guide was excellent. A very good connoisseur of the local culture. Their explanations help to understand these communities

Une expérience à part entière. Je conseille a tous les visiteurs de faire cette excursion. Elle permet d’en apprendre davantage sur la culture locale et d’avoir une réelle immersion pour mieux la comprendre. Au cours de ce tour, vous allez être surpris, choqués, émerveillés mais surtout enrichis. Je recommande.

I bought a very nice wool tapestry from a sweet old lady and the price was fine it is now hanging on my wall

Very good route, Marina (guide) always very attentive and attentive to the whole group throughout the journey. Experience highly recommended although it should last a little longer

day trip , indigenous communities a few kilometers from San Cristobal , you can admire the craftsmanship of local indigenous people and churches, the Baroque style of luxurious villas

200 pesos per person. The visit to the village of Zinacantán comes down to going to a tourist shop (Paola shop) to insist on buying clothes. A coffee and a tortilla and head to the other village, too bad we thought we visited the village on foot but not. The second village San Juan Chamula we visited only the church with the candles and sacrifices of impressive chicken but we saw only the church. Nothing else in this village. Then to finish they put us in a cafe to taste a mini coffee and poshe. Nothing fantastic except the guide who was superb and spoke French and the Mayan sacrifices.

San Juan Chamula and Zinacantán are the two most emblematic Chamula villages in Chiapas, I recommend you take a tour in San Cristobal, avoid going alone unless you bring your own vehicle and I suggest you very careful not to disturb the order because the people of those villages are governed by customs and customs.