Chamula and Zinacantan Indigenous Villages Tour

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.

Nuestro guía fue excelente. Un muy buen conocedor de la cultura local. Sus explicaciones ayudan a comprender a estas comunidades

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.

Ik heb bij een lief oud vrouwtje een zeer mooi wollen wandkleed gekocht en de prijs was prima het hangt nu bij mij aan de muur

Muy buen recorrido, Marina (guía) siempre muy atenta y pendiente de todo el grupo durante todo dl trayecto. Experiencia muy recomendable aunque debería durar un poco más

escursione di un giorno , comunita' indigene a pochi kilometri da San Cristobal , si puo' ammirare il lavoro artigianale degli indigeni locali e delle chiese, lo stile barocco di lussuose ville

200 pesos par personne. La visite du village de Zinacantán se résume à aller dans un magasin touristique (magasin de Paola) pour insister à acheter des vêtements. Un café et une tortilla et direction l’autre village, dommage nous avons cru visiter aussi le village à pied mais non. Le deuxième village San Juan Chamula nous avons visité seulement l’église avec les bougies et sacrifices de poulet impressionnant mais nous avons vu que l’église. Rien d’autre dans ce village. Puis pour terminer ils nous ont posés dans un café pour goûter un mini café et du poshe. Rien de fantastique sauf le guide qui était superbe et parlait français ainsi que les sacrifices maya.

San Juan Chamula y Zinacantán son los dos pueblos Chamulas más emblemáticos de Chiapas, te recomiendo que tomes un tour en San Cristóbal, evita ir sólo a menos que traigas tu propio vehículo y te sugiero muchísimo cuidado con no alterar el orden porque la gente de esos pueblos se rigen por usos y costumbres.