San Cristóbal de las Casas

San Cristóbal sits at over two thousand metres in the Chiapas highlands, which makes it cold at night and startlingly clear by day, and its centre is a grid of low colonial houses in ochre and blue with two pedestrian streets, a market and a great many cafés serving Chiapas coffee. It is the base for the surrounding Tzotzil and Tzeltal Maya villages, where traditional dress is everyday wear and communities run their own affairs; San Juan Chamula's church, with its pine-needle floor, candles and no pews, is unlike any other and photography inside is strictly forbidden. Beyond the highlands lie the Sumidero canyon, the blue cascades of Agua Azul and El Chiflón, and the road east towards Palenque.

History

Diego de Mazariegos founded the town as Villa Real de Chiapa in 1528, and it was renamed Villa Viciosa in 1529, Villa de San Cristóbal de los Llanos in 1531, Ciudad Real in 1536 and Ciudad de San Cristóbal in 1829; "de las Casas" was added in 1848 in honour of Bartolomé de las Casas. In Tzotzil and Tzeltal the place is Jovel, "the place in the clouds", and it was the state capital until 1892 (Wikipedia, San Cristóbal de las Casas).

What you'll find

• The colonial centre - cobbled pedestrian streets, the market and the cathedral.
• San Juan Chamula - the extraordinary church, visited with a guide and no camera.
• Chiapas coffee and amber - the highland products sold in the town.
• The waterfalls - Agua Azul and El Chiflón on the roads out.

When to go

November to April is the dry season; the highlands are cool year-round and genuinely cold at night, so warm clothes are needed whatever the month. The waterfalls run bluest in the dry season and turn brown after heavy rain.

Before you go

The Maya villages are living communities, not attractions: go with a local guide, follow their instructions exactly, and understand that photographing people or the inside of the Chamula church is forbidden and taken very seriously. The altitude and cold surprise people arriving from the coast.

Nearby

The Sumidero canyon is an hour west; Palenque is five hours northeast.

Key facts