Chiapas is Mexico's southernmost state, a highland-and-jungle frontier on the Guatemalan border where colonial San Cristóbal de las Casas sits at 2,200 metres above sea level, the Maya city of Palenque rises out of rainforest, and the Grijalva River cuts the thousand-metre walls of the Sumidero Canyon. It is the most indigenous state in the country: Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch'ol, Tojolabal and Zoque communities keep their languages, markets and ceremonies as living practice rather than performance. Waterfalls at Agua Azul, Misol-Ha and El Chiflón, the turquoise lakes of Montebello, the coffee fincas of the Soconusco and the empty Pacific beaches at Puerto Arista round out a state that rewards slow, careful travel.
Cultural orientation
Essential context for travellers.
Chiapas is one of Mexico's most indigenous states: Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch'ol, Tojolabal, Zoque, Mam and Lacandon peoples together make up roughly a third of the population, and in the highland villages around San Cristóbal de las Casas the first language of daily life is not Spanish
Photography inside the Templo de San Juan Bautista at San Juan Chamula is strictly forbidden and the ban is actively enforced; cameras and phones must stay put away in the churchyard and inside, and visitors who ignore this are removed and can have equipment taken
Entry to the Chamula church is by a small ticket bought at the municipal office (Oficina de Turismo) on the plaza beside the church, around MXN 40-50 per person (approx USD 2-3); pay there rather than to anyone approaching in the square
In highland villages, ask before photographing any person, especially women, children, and anyone in ceremonial dress; a refusal is common and should be accepted without argument or payment offers
Marimba is the state instrument and public marimba playing is a civic ritual rather than a tourist show, above all at the Parque de la Marimba in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, where couples dance nightly from about 6PM
Greet people with 'buenos días' or 'buenas tardes' on entering shops, markets and workshops; in Tzotzil-speaking villages 'k'usi elan' (how are you) or a simple nod is warmly received
Highland Chiapas sits between 2,100m and 2,300m and is genuinely cold after dark, so the woollen shawls, ponchos and chamarras worn by locals are practical clothing rather than costume
Cash in small notes is essential outside the cities: village cooperatives, Chamula and Zinacantán, colectivo vans, and the Amatenango pottery stands rarely take cards, and ATMs in San Cristóbal cluster around the Plaza 31 de Marzo and Av. Insurgentes
Do's and don'ts
Quick guide to local norms.
Do
- Buy the entry ticket for the Templo de San Juan Bautista at the municipal office on the Chamula plaza, keep phones and cameras stowed inside, and stay to the sides of the nave while families are praying
- Ask permission before photographing people anywhere in the highlands, and accept a refusal without pressing or offering money
- Buy textiles directly from weaving cooperatives such as Sna Jolobil and Jolom Mayaetik or from households in Zinacantán and San Andrés Larráinzar, so that payment reaches the weaver
- Dress for altitude in San Cristóbal: layers, a warm jacket for evenings, and rain protection from June to October
- Say 'buenos días' before asking a price, and use 'usted' with elders and officials
- Try the state's signature foods: tamales de chipilín, sopa de pan coleta, cochito horneado, chiapaneco cheeses, cacao-based tascalate and pozol, and coffee from the Soconusco and Jaltenango highlands
- Carry small peso notes for village markets, colectivos, church entry tickets and weaving demonstrations
- Tip roughly 10-15 percent in restaurants and MXN 20-50 (approx USD 1-3) for a weaving or lacquer demonstration
Don't
- Don't photograph, film or record audio inside the church at San Juan Chamula, at the Romerillo cemetery, or during any village ritual; this is the single most serious offence a visitor can commit in the highlands
- Don't wander into the ceremonial areas of Chamula or Zinacantán during Carnaval or a saint's fiesta, and never step over candles, pine needles or offerings laid on a church floor
- Don't photograph Zapatista murals, checkpoints or people at a caracol, and don't enter an autonomous community's grounds without being invited through the Junta de Buen Gobierno
- Don't treat indigenous dress as a costume or handle a person's clothing or headwear without being asked to
- Don't drink pox in large measures; it is strong, the altitude compounds it, and heavy public drunkenness is judged harshly in the villages
- Don't drive highland or jungle roads after dark, where fog, unlit topes, livestock, landslides in the rainy season and occasional roadblocks are real hazards
- Don't assume Spanish is understood everywhere; older villagers may speak only Tzotzil or Tzeltal, and patience and gestures work better than volume
- Don't drink tap water; purified bottled water is the norm statewide
Local customs
Traditions and practices you'll encounter.
Fiesta Grande de Chiapa de Corzo and the Parachicos
Held every year from 8 to 23 January in Chiapa de Corzo, this is the state's defining festival and was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010. Dancers called Parachicos wear carved and lacquered wooden masks with pale European features, montera headdresses of ixtle fibre, and embroidered shawls, and process through the streets to flute and drum honouring San Antonio Abad, the Señor de Esquipulas and San Sebastián. The Chuntá dancers, men dressed as women, dance on their own nights, and the Combate Naval on the Grijalva river closes the fiesta on 21 January with fireworks.
Carnaval at San Juan Chamula
The five-day K'in Tajimoltik carnival before Ash Wednesday marks the five 'lost days' of the Maya solar calendar, when religious officials called pasiones lead processions with bull-horn rattles, flags and burning torches, and men run barefoot across a bed of burning grass in the plaza. It is a religious observance, not a spectacle: visitors watch from the edge of the square, do not photograph, and stay clear of the processional lines.
Syncretic worship at the Templo de San Juan Bautista, Chamula
Inside the whitewashed church at San Juan Chamula there are no pews and no resident Catholic priest. The floor is spread with pine needles, thousands of candles burn in rows before saints dressed in mirrors and ribbons, and healers work with eggs, bones, posh cane liquor and bottled soft drinks whose belching is understood to expel illness. Entry is by ticket from the municipal office on the plaza, photography and filming inside are absolutely prohibited, and visitors keep to the walls and speak quietly.
Zinacantán flowers and backstrap weaving
Zinacantán, 11km from San Cristóbal, grows flowers under greenhouses that cover the valley and dresses its people in unmistakable purple, pink and turquoise floral embroidery. Weaving households receive visitors, demonstrate the backstrap loom on which cloth is woven against the weaver's own body, serve handmade tortillas with beans and pox from the comal, and sell directly. A small tip of MXN 20-50 (approx USD 1-3) for a demonstration is customary, and the church of San Lorenzo also bars photography inside.
Semana Santa and Day of the Dead
Holy Week brings processions, Passion plays and a heavy build-up of visitors to San Cristóbal, Chiapa de Corzo and the highland villages, with hotels booked out months ahead. On 1 and 2 November families spend the day in the cemeteries, above all the hillside pantheons of Romerillo near Chamula, where tall wooden crosses painted turquoise are decorated with pine and marigolds; this is family remembrance and is watched from a respectful distance without cameras.
Marimba and the evening plaza
The marimba, a large wooden xylophone played by four or more musicians at once, is the state's musical signature and a Chiapaneco identity marker. Tuxtla Gutiérrez maintains free nightly marimba concerts with open-air dancing at the Parque de la Marimba, and the kiosk on San Cristóbal's Plaza 31 de Marzo hosts marimba and municipal band evenings, especially at weekends.
Pox, the highland cane spirit
Pox (pronounced 'posh') is a distilled sugarcane and maize spirit with ceremonial standing in Tzotzil ritual, used in healing rites and offerings before it was ever a bar drink. It is served neat in small measures and increasingly flavoured with honey, coffee, hibiscus and herbs for visitors. Treat it with the seriousness locals give it: small pours, not shots.
Amber with denomination of origin
Chiapas amber, fossil resin roughly 22-26 million years old mined around Simojovel de Allende, carries a Mexican denominación de origen granted in 2000. It is worked into jewellery and religious carvings in Simojovel and San Cristóbal, and the ámbar rojo and rare blue-tinted stones are the most prized. Genuine amber is warm and very light in the hand, floats in strongly salted water, and gives off a faint pine smell when rubbed hard.
Laca de Chiapa de Corzo
A pre-Hispanic lacquer technique in which gourds, trays, chests and masks are coated with a paste of aje insect fat, chia oil and mineral pigments, then burnished and painted with flowers by hand. The craft is taught and displayed at the Museo de la Laca in Chiapa de Corzo and remains the finish used on Parachico masks.
Etiquette by setting
How to navigate everyday situations.
- Greetings
- A soft handshake, sometimes barely a touch of the fingers, is the highland norm rather than a firm grip; between women and close friends a single kiss on the right cheek is used in the cities. Use 'usted' with older people and municipal officials and switch to 'tú' only when invited
- Dining
- Wait for 'provecho' before starting and say it to other diners when passing a table. Tortillas are used as the utensil for beans and stews, sharing from a common basket is normal, and comida corrida lunch is served from about 2PM while dinner runs from 8PM
- Dress
- Layered warm clothing for the highlands and light cotton for the lowlands and Palenque. Cover shoulders and knees in churches, remove hats indoors, and avoid wearing traditional village huipiles into the village they come from unless invited to
- Gifts
- Coffee from a village cooperative, cacao, amber jewellery or an embroidered textile are appreciated gifts. In villages, bringing bread, fruit or soft drinks when visiting a household is a courteous gesture, and gifts are usually set aside and opened later
- Business
- Meetings open with unhurried small talk about family, weather and the road; decisions in community and cooperative settings are collective and slow, and pressing for an immediate answer is counterproductive. Punctuality is expected of visitors even when hosts arrive late
- Tipping
- Restaurants 10-15 percent, hotel housekeeping MXN 30-50 per night (approx USD 2-3), weaving or lacquer demonstrations MXN 20-50 per person (approx USD 1-3), and MXN 100-200 per person for a half-day walking guide (approx USD 6-12)
Useful phrases
A few words go a long way.
Buenos días
Good morning
BWAY-nos DEE-as
Buenas tardes / Buenas noches
Good afternoon / good evening
BWAY-nas TAR-des / BWAY-nas NO-ches
Muchas gracias
Thank you very much
MOO-chas GRA-syas
Por favor
Please
por fa-BOR
Con permiso
Excuse me / may I pass
kon per-MEE-so
¿Puedo tomar una foto?
May I take a photograph?
PWE-do to-MAR OO-na FO-to
¿Cuánto cuesta?
How much does it cost?
KWAN-toh KWES-ta
¿Dónde está el colectivo a Chamula?
Where is the shared van to Chamula?
DON-de es-TA el ko-lek-TEE-bo a cha-MOO-la
¿Esto es tejido a mano?
This is hand-woven, isn't it?
ES-to es te-HEE-do a MA-no
K'usi elan
Hello / how are you (Tzotzil)
KOO-see e-LAN
Kolaval
Thank you (Tzotzil)
ko-la-VAL
Lek
Good, fine (Tzotzil)
LEK
Wokolawal
Thank you (Tzeltal)
wo-ko-la-WAL
Religion & spirituality
Understanding faith in Chiapas.
Main: Roman Catholicism remains the largest faith but Chiapas has the lowest Catholic share of any Mexican state, with very large Presbyterian, Pentecostal and other evangelical congregations, especially in the highlands, the Selva and the Soconusco. Alongside both sits costumbre, the Maya-Catholic ritual system of San Juan Chamula and neighbouring Tzotzil communities, in which saints, candles, healers, pine needles and posh cane liquor are central and the local religious hierarchy of mayordomos and pasiones governs worship. Religious affiliation carries political weight in the highlands, and thousands of evangelical converts were expelled from Chamula from the 1970s onward and founded the Colonia Nueva Esperanza and other settlements on the edge of San Cristóbal
Sites: Templo de San Juan Bautista at San Juan Chamula (photography inside strictly forbidden, ticket from the municipal office on the plaza); the Templo and Ex Convento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán in San Cristóbal with its baroque pink-stone façade; the Catedral de San Cristóbal Mártir on the Plaza 31 de Marzo; the Templo de San Lorenzo at Zinacantán; the hilltop churches of Guadalupe and San Cristóbalito above San Cristóbal; the Templo de Santo Domingo and the Museo de la Laca in Chiapa de Corzo; the Catedral de San Marcos in Tuxtla Gutiérrez with its carillon of moving apostles
Holy Days: Fiesta Grande de Chiapa de Corzo 8-23 January; Carnaval in Chamula and other Tzotzil villages in the five days before Ash Wednesday; Semana Santa in March or April; the fiesta of San Juan Bautista at Chamula on 24 June; San Lorenzo at Zinacantán on 10 August; Day of the Dead on 1-2 November; the Virgin of Guadalupe on 12 December, when pilgrims run to the Guadalupe church in San Cristóbal
Conversations: Faith is discussed openly, but the balance between Catholic, evangelical and traditionalist communities is a live and sometimes painful subject in the highlands, so listening is wiser than opining. Visitors should remove hats in churches, keep to the edges during ritual, never step over candles or offerings, and above all honour the photography ban inside Chamula and Zinacantán churches