Today we had an early start as we headed to a little town outside of San Cristobal called Chamala to visit Iglesia de San Juan Bautista. This is what I thought would be another church visit. I’m all for a good church but I definitely have somewhat of a low tolerance after you’ve seen a few. They all start blurring into one and looking the same after a while.
Thankfully, this is unlike any church I had been to before and I couldn’t have prepared myself for what I was about to witness. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take any pictures inside but inside was a dimly lit room with hundreds of candles lit. There were no seats or aisles but people gathered in small groups on the floor, most of them holding live chickens. Gathered next to these groups were alcohol bottles and coca cola bottles. It was a strange combination.
Our tour guide would soon explain, that the coca cola bottles and chickens were part of ‘healing rituals’ that the people of this town used to make someone that is sick, better. I looked over my shoulder to see a man holding the chicken tightly on the floor. It gripped harder and then in a second snapped the neck of the chicken. The chicken violently convulsed for a few seconds. The man then got the dead chicken and started waving it and touching what I presume was the sick person. He rubs the dead chicken against the persons back and body, it was hard to watch but I also couldn’t look away at the same time. I discretely gazed at the token vegan member of our group in amusement. Her face didn’t disappoint.
Our guide explained that the sick person would drink coca cola to ‘burp out’ evil spirits and that the coca cola would keep evil spirits away. I couldn’t help but think this was some sort of next level marketing ploy from coca-cola to sell more coke. I wandered around the church and witnessed 3 or 4 more chicken sacrifices.
This article I found sums up the process better than I could : https://runawayjuno.com/runaway-tales/entering-iglesia-de-san-juan-bautista-chamula-chiapas-mexico/#:~:text=She%20holds%20it%20out%20toward,The%20sacrifice%20has%20been%20made.&text=This%20small%20Mayan%20church%2C%20Iglesia,Tzotzil%20Maya%20people%20in%20Chamula.
The rest of the afternoon we wandered around San Cristobal and ventured into some very authentic markets. I say authentic because the markets we saw were definitely not catered towards tourists. They were a little outside of the main city and were extremely busy, dirty and with no other tourists around. I grabbed my bag with my phone and wallet in it tighter than I have so far on this trip.
Dinner was at a nice tapas style restaurant close to the hotel that was recommended by our guide. I’m still yet to find a place that has tap beer which I think is strange, but the search goes on.
The next morning we boarded an early bus for our next stop – Palenque! On the way we stopped off at ‘Roberto Barrios Waterfalls’ which are a series of rapids and waterfalls in a forested valley. We had the opportunity to swim and jump off the waterfalls into the water aswell as crawl down through a cave that was full of bats. It was one of the highlights of my trip so far. We then ventured on to Palenque and had a group dinner at one of the restaurants.
Fabulous photos. Would have loved to see the chicken slaughtering!!!!!😜