San Cristobal is a beautiful little town in the mountains hust a few hours from the Guatemalan border. It is most famous for the Zapatista revolution in the 90's so I was expecting it to be pretty badass, but in actual fact it was a very chilled out town. The other thing San Cristobal is known for is Mezcal {ie, that drink with the worm in it.} Apparently tequila is just one of over 100 types of Mezcal, each made from a different species of cactii. I can speak with such authority on the subject since my extremely friendly hotel owner, Juan, used to work in a mezcal factory so took great pleasure in explaining every fine detail of the process and telling us the best way to eat the poor worm soaking at the bottom.

It wasn't all party central in San Cristobal however, during the days I went on some nice walks and visited a really impressive mural museum which was supposed to contain murals spanning the whole of Mexican history. I do have my doubts about this claim though since I looked for a long time but couldn't see one mention of zorro! And each night I got back Juan would have a few new bottles of Mezcal ready to continue our studies.

It was the last day in San Cristobal though that really got funky. Me and a few others from the hostel escaped Juan's clutchesto visit a village about 20 km's from town called San Juan Chamula. This region in Mexico has the largest indigenous population in the country and Chamula is one of the many Mayan villages nearby. The ancient Mayan beliefs have fused with modern religion and life to create something extremely bizarre. For a start the villagers speak a completely different language and all wear their traditional sheepskin jackets and trousers. First stop was the museum of Mayan medicine, where we learnt how the village healers crack raw eggs on asthma sufferers in order to cure them amongst many other things. It wasn't until we got into the church however that things got really messed up.

The villagers call themselves Catholic but it's fused with the old Mayan beliefs to such an extent that it's barely recognizable. There were a few small statues of Jesus but it is John the Baptist who is the main man around these parts and who gets centre stage. The floor was covered in pine needles and 100's of candles and clouds of incence filled the air. There were no chairs, instead worshippers sat amongst the candles, chanting, waving and rocking back and forth. In the centre of the Church, a man was kneeling next to a woman, {pretty sure I recognized her from the video in the museum as the village healer from the egg cracking incident} She started rubbing a live chicken all over the man before taking a gulp of Sprite and spraying it onto the chicken and the poor kneeling chap. The chickens neck was then cut in such a way it flailed around for a good few minutes while its blood was mixed with some more sprite on the ground. After the unfortunate chicken had finally died there was a bit more chanting and faffing around with soft drinks {next it was coke} before it all died down. It was all extremely off and didn't manage to find out what was wrong with the guy {some cramp probably, or a staved finger.} Got to give it to the coke marketing team for managing to muscle in on the act! As we left we were told we could be 'healed' for about 3 quid but we all decided against getting chicken and sprite rubbed over us.

Unfortunately we couldn't take any photos inside the church since the villagers believe it steals the souls of the saints, and apparently one of the last tourists who bent this rule was knocked out where he stood. So we made a swift exit back for one final night with Juan before leaving the next day to Palenque, a big bunch of Mayan temples in the middle of the jungle.