San Cristobal de las Casas

The elaborately named San Cristobal de las Casas is the jewel in the crown of southern Mexico. It is one of those places I just had a good feeling about as soon as I read about it, and I'm pleased to report it has lived up to expectations.

Encircled by forested emerald green mountains, San Cristobal is cradled in the highlands not far from the Guatemalan border. It shares many features with other colonial towns we have visited, such as brightly painted shops, old-fashioned lamp posts and paved streets, but San Cristobal possesses an offbeat, slightly low key character that other towns lack.

While places like Oaxaca seem almost put on for the hoardes of tourists that descend on it constantly and look as if they are spit-and-polished for the occasion, San Cristobal actually feels lived in, and a little rougher around the edges in parts.

Two steep hills in the centre of town provide beautiful spots to grab an aerial vista of the town. From up here, its quickly apparent that the wealthy well-kept centre isn't reflective of most of the town. Beyond the ring road known as the periferico the treelined streets and painted buildings abruptly stop and everything turns the same shade of grey. The town's outlying areas are known as the cinturon de la miseria, or the belt of misery, and are mainly inhabited by indigenous people who have fled their land in other parts of the region in search of work and food.

Compared to most Mexican towns, San Cristobal has a lot of indigenous residents living in it or nearby. In the 90s, poor living conditions and marginalisation prompted a civil uprising, the work of a movement known as the zapatistas. They are named for freedom fighter Emiliano Zapata who helped kick off the Mexican revolution, an uprising of landless peasants, in 1910.

The Zapatistas, under the command of subcommandante Marcos - who always appears with a balaclava in photos - occupied the streets of San Cristobal, demanding an improvement in the living situation in the lives of indigenous people. The uprising prompted action in the federal parliament, but not many policies ended up being enacted.

The Zapatista spirit lives on strong in San Cristobal. Although the movement is not officially active, it is still a tense part of the country, in part also due to religious tensions between catholics and indigenous Maya, many of whom still have animistic beliefs.

Many indigenous Maya come into town to sell their produce or bail up tourists with their handicrafts. They carry babies on their backs in brightly coloured slings and wear black fur skirts and scarves to keep out the chilly mountain air.

Most of the people selling fresh produce, meats and grains at the market belong on one indigenous group or the other. A handful are camped out front, selling whatever bits and pieces they have managed to grow or acquire, unable to access the prime real esate of one of the inside stalls.

The meat section was the most striking thing about San Cristobal's markets as opposed to others I'd visited in Mexico. I saw some of the grossest stuff I have ever seen - my only regret was not whipping out my camera. Otherwise I'd be able to show you cow's hooves and trotters, skin and fur still on and also lurid greeny-grey cow's stomachs spread out on butcher counters. There were piles and piles of smelly dried fish and curious blue-coloured sausages that I assume must be a relative of black pudding.

The grains and beans sellers were impressive - apparently there are up to eight different varieties of black beans, as well as red, brown, speckled and several kinds of white beans available, all neatly presented to the consumer in open sacks. Most looked pretty similar to me but the customers were extremely discerning. They would run their hands through several identical-looking bags of beans before deciding which ones to buy.

San Cristobal and the surrounding state of Chiapas are big coffee-producing regions, thanks to the high altitude and plentiful rainfall the area receives. Coffee was introduced by the Europeans in the 15th century, but the real movement took off much later, when German settlers set up fincas or plantations. Chiapas is now Mexico's biggest coffee producer, with the lion's share coming from independent growers on two hectares or less of land.

San Cristobal probably has more nice cafes with great coffee than the rest of Mexico put together. For a country that grows so much coffee, its a shame that for the most part they follow the American model of serving it black and disgustingly weak. We visited a coffee museum in town and sampled the brew at a couple of the cafes, and it lived up to expectations.