Zinacantan

Following the Panamerican highway, 18 kilometers from San Cristobal de las Casas, is the Navenchauc community, dependant on Zinacatan, at the foot of the valley surrounded by a typical calcareous relief. Its houses, its orchards, and its green-houses share the scenery with a plain filled by the rains a good part of the year and at that time converted into a lagoon, because of the drainage difficulties in this carseous valley. From here we return to San Cristobal to take the highway to Zinacantan, which is a Tzotzil town 10 kilometers from the city. The road that takes us there passes through La Labor de Esquipulas, a charming example of the highlands rural architecture, where the peace treaty of the Castas war was signed in 1869. We continue bordering the feet of the Huixtepec hill, where an ecological reserve has been constituted, with pathways to appreciate the flora and fauna proper of the temperate regions of Chiapas. In Zinicantan, the sacred spaces are marked by the hills that surround the small valley and the aggregate formed by the San Lorenzo church, of colonial origin but remodeled at the beginning of the century, in accord with the neoclassic San Cristobal style, and the chapels of Esquipulas and San Sebastian. The Ik’alojov museum, brings together in a traditional house of straw and mud, the cultural richness of Zinicantan. In it, there are samples of former apparel, furniture, musical instruments and utensils. The display of artisan products in tones of all colors and the landscape of the valley, spotted with green-houses for the floral production. The flowers are not only important to the Zinicantecan economy, but also of its rituals.