Meow, meow, meow

Pencil, white gel pen, Finetec watercolor on Winsor&Newton CP 6" x 8"

Three cats were our companion during our stay in San Cristobal de las Casas. Although I'm a dog person, having them to come to meow to our back door made me think of them as cute creatures, not a thought I had before. At the beginning they came frequently at dusk and dawn, specially in cold days, sometimes the three of them came, sometimes only two, sometimes just one. It seemed that past guests have let them into the house so they got use to it. Not me. It's not that I am cruel person, but I'am allergic to cats. Overtime  they visited us less often. It seemed like they understood they were not welcome inside the  house. I felt remorse at the beginning but then one day I saw them in other’s house roof, at that moment I thought these animals manage to take care of themselves very well. One morning we were sat on a bench in the garden and one of them came by, made a whole in the dirt with the paw, pooed (I got to say it was a small one, you see, I'm used to see the dogs') and it covered it with the same paw. I wish dogs would do the same. Ha! So cats scored in my view. I still have my reservations but I started to like them. A cat in San Cristobal de las Casas would do that to me. I had to remember it, so I sketched at least one of them in my sketchbook before leaving this city.

Around the main plaza.

Pen&Ink and watercolor on Moleskine Watercolor Journal 3.5" x 5.5"

With few days left in San Cristobal de las Casas, my husband and I want to enjoy this Pueblo Magico as relaxed as possible before hitting the chaos of having to take two airplanes back to San Luis Potosi city.  The weather is still fresh, not cold, not hot and is perfect to sit down in the main square 31 de Marzo. Hours passed watching lots of people from all sort of cities walking by, but I thought I would not only post the sketch of the kiosk I did this afternoon after breakfast but pictures of the women from Chiapas who walked by. I kind of feel good for being able to know what community they belong to! Their cloth is very distinctive and easily identifiable once your eye is trained, then you see the difference. I wish I have more photos of women's cloth of many more communities, villages and hamlets I've seen like Magdalena, San Andres, Carranza, Chenalho, Tenejapa, Pantelho, Chenalho, Tenango, Bochil, Bachajon, Chilon, Amatenango and Chiapa de Corzo. These pics were taking just in the main plaza in one afternoon!

Lacandon area

Aguacatenango

Zinacantan

Chalchihuitan

Cancuc

Chamula

Chamula

Chamula

Oxchuc

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Old doors of El Cerrillo neighborhood.

Fineliner and watercolor on Handbook watercolor Journal 8" x 8"

El Cerrillo neighborhood is one of the oldest if not the oldest in San Cristobal de las Casas. I always wonder what is behind all of those old doors. I like to image there is a big patio or garden surrounded by old stuff. For some reason this comes to my mind and even more strange, this thought gives me joy.

Fineliner and watercolor on Handbook watercolor Journal 8" x 8"

This door is certainly not a window, since the window is next to the door and they look completely different. Some doors in Mexico have a permanent step over to prevent the rain from coming inside, although I think this owner went way to far high.
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Sumidero Canyon.

This

 versus this

Fineliner and watercolor on Moleskine watercolor journal 3.5" x 11"

Where did all those hours  of sketching practice go? Not fair.

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The Pila of Chiapa de Corzo

Fineliner and watercolor on Moleskine watercolor journal 3.5" x 5.5"

A rare and unique Mudejar architectural style building, an octagonal fountain is located in Chiapa de Corzo, the first city founded in the state of Chiapas by the Spanish in the mid 1500's. I couldn't sketch this view under the cool shade of the structure, so I walked away from this precious shelter to sketch it. At roaring 96 F degrees (36 C) heat of the afternoon, I did probably the fastest decent sketch I've done. I needed to get out of the heat and return to the cooler area under the dome, where the fountain is and have an ice cream. What a relief!
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The two statues.

Sepia fineliner and watercolor on Pentalic watercolor Journal 7" x 10"

Another one done while my husband got his shave at the barbershop. The corner of this hotel in downtown has two statues. I read about it but I can't remember what was about and I cannot find it! Ugh. The lower statue is an indigenous and other one above, can you believe I didn't even look the front side? So I don't know. This post is so incomplete, the worst post ever. I will come to me or I will find out and update this post. If you know please share!
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Marimba Chiapaneca

Fineliner and watercolor on Moleskine watercolor journal 3.5" x 5.5"

I didn't know what to do, sketching or dancing to the rhythm of the marimba played by the municipal orchestra. I did both! The more I stayed the more people came to listening to them, some young backpackers danced also and one of them,  a girl was so excited that the removed her shoes, I don't know what she intended to do but she went straight to mirror of shallow water, what she did't expect was that the bottom was slippery and fell on the water. She caused an spectacle that even the musicians broke the line to see what was going on when they saw our reaction. Minutes later we continue dancing. Oh well. It was a nice thing to do on a rainy day. 
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Flowers in a hand painted vase.

Fineliner sepia, Finetec watercolor y gouache on Pentalic watercolor journal 7" x 10"

It was hard to stop the impulse to buy flowers from an indigenous woman carrying an amount of flowers that took both her arms to hold. The sweat in her face and the wide open eyes looking to make eye contact with potential buyers among people in the chaotic morning of the municipal market, was enough to approach her and buy some. The search all over our place to find a proper vase was unsuccessful at the beginning. My first try was a wide mouth pot made of clay which I suspected could leak water because of its porosity, so I placed a plate under it to hold the leaked water just in case. The fresh smell of  wet clay perfumed the whole place (yes that odor is perfume to me), I like it even better than flowers, I'm honest, I was in heaven. The next morning though, my suspicion was confirmed. So I changed the clay pot for this big hand painted vase, well it's big for the flowers I got, but at least it had a glass layer than prevented the water from leaking. I always say than nothing can beat the beauty of nature but in this case, this colorful vase, which took me more time to draw than the actual flowers, may make me think otherwise.
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Chamula. Part 2/2 A visit to Posheria and the Cemetery

After agreeing to spend a day together with local friends M&M and C, they promised they would take us to a posheria. Posheria is a bar where they sell posh (pox in tzotzil dialect). Posh is a traditional liquor from the highlands of Chiapas made of corn, sugar cane and water. 

Never make assumptions. On the day we agreed, I thought we would go to one of the posherias within the city of San Cristobal de las Casas. Instead they took us to Cruzton, Chamula. The place we went to, turned out to be one of the best posh makers in the area and a favorite of our friends. Inside the room there were plastic barrels, each one of them containing a different flavor. 

Ink&Pen, watercolor and color pencil on Pentalic watercolor journal 7" x 10"

Of course part of the shopping is the tasting. I think we tried every flavor! Including the Primera, or first destilled, super strong but very good actually. I couldn't hide my excitement.

During the tasting a bunch of people came to buy posh here, including a North Korean, it made me laugh seeing him make a facial expression when he tasted Primera posh, he looked like when a baby tries lime for the first time. Ha! 
We couldn't see how they make it. For we needed to go into the woods, on a gravel road and we didn't had the proper vehicle. Why deep in the woods? Well it made sense to me when they told me the wood is there, it's easier to carry the containers with posh than the wood they use to cook it. 

Pen&Ink and watercolor on Pentalic watercolor journal 7" x 10"

After the posh experience, M took us to Chamula's main cemetery in El Romerillo. There, the graves is the first thing you notice. The earthen mounds are covered with wood boards, which means a door, and also protects the mounds from erosion when it rains. 
The cemetery is guarded at the crest by maya crosses, beautifully painted in shades of blue and green. On the Day of Dead, the relatives of the dead bring offerings, flowers and branches of the sacred pine tree. Marcelino has two relatives buried here. On November 1st they clean the graves and make the mounds look like fresh, they play live music and dance around the graves, it's a happy day not a sad one. 

That is how we spent the day with them. We were lucky they took us to their favorite places and shared personal thoughts with us, that made the experience rich and unforgettable.
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San Juan Chamula. Part 1/2 The ch'ulna.

To begin with, the town of San Juan Chamula is one of the towns closer to San Cristobal de las Casas and I neglected to go until yesterday. The ride in the van they call colectivo, is just 20 minutes long and very reasonable priced, just 1 USD ppx one way. The church is in the central plaza. 

Pen&Ink and Watercolor on Pentalic Watercolor Journal 7" x 10"

The Chamulans practice the Catholicism but in their own way. You have to pay a ticket to enter the church. It is prohibited to take photos inside. I asked the men that collect the tickets (sketched to the right of the door) if I could sketch inside and they denied the permission with an absolute no. There's no benches inside. The floor is covered with needles of pine trees, a sacred tree. Around the walls there are tables with hundreds, if not thousands of burning veladoras (candles in glass cups), this makes the place so mystical. The candles are offerings to the saints, which are in glass boxes to protect them from people who grab them and remove them or even remove parts of the statue, a practice that fulfilled the believers. The locals pray seated on the floor. They bring a bunch of slim candles or veladoras. They submerge the base of the slim candles in the melted wax of the veladora to stick them to the floor cleared of pine needles and form lines of candles. Then they turn them on and pray chanting. They also bring pubs or soda. They believe that burping release bad spirits. When they discovered the gas of sodas produces a stronger burp, which is better, they adopted this practice and replaced other drinks. I saw a man who brought two white chickens, he offered them to different saints and killed them on the spot. That was shocking to me, but of course I didn't say anything, I was a visitor, a respectful observant of their traditions. When they are done praying, someone comes and peels the wax off the floor so it is constantly cleaned. The church is opened 24 hours, there is no priest in charge of the church and the municipality is responsible for maintenance. 

Once outside, I sketched the front of the church, or as a Chamulan guide corrected me, it is a ch'ulna, a sacred place. Minutes later three Chamulan girls came to watch me sketch. They asked a bunch of questions, they were very curious and incredulous of the sketches I've done and showed them. This was part of our conversation.

Girl: I can't draw.

I: Of course you can.

-No I can't.

-Yes you do. Do you know how to bike?

-Yes I do.

-How did you learn? 

Silence.

-Practicing!

-Oh yes.

-Do you know how to read?

-Yes!

-How did you learn? Practicing too, right? It is the same for drawing. I didn't know how to draw but now I do, because I practiced!

This was my effort to encourage the girls to believe in themselves.

-Why aren't you at school?

-They close the school because someone died (That's true, when I came out of the church there was a procession of people walking behind a coffin in the street).

-Was it someone important?

-No, he had a 4th grader in the school. 

That communal example let me speechless.

-Do you like your church?

-It's not mine, it belongs to everybody.

That answer let speechless again. Outsmarted by a kid.

Later one of the guides, Raymundo, came to me and asked me if he could watch me sketch to which I answered yes. When he was done he browsed my sketchbook, here he is wearing a typical Chamulan black sheep wool jacket. It was getting cold and windy, it was time to catch a colectivo and return to San Cristobal.

Raymundo.

Click here for part 2 in Chamula, Chiapas.

The Coffee of Chiapas.

Pen&ink and watercolor on Moleskine 3.5" x 5.5"

I love coffee but that doesn't make me an expert. Chiapas is an internationally renown producer of high quality organic coffee, it's exported world wide. There's also a blend of coffee for national consumption which quality is ok. I learned that if you want to have an exceptionally good coffee, I have to make sure that the menu shows the coffee is organic in the menu description.  Another way to make sure you are drinking good coffee is to buy the beans of coffee and make it yourself.  That is the best bet. We have gone to a fair amount of cafes and we've disappointed sometimes. One of those places is the sketch above. We saw a good crowd, we thought coffee and food was good but it wasn't, it has however an attractive outdoors space with tables and I sketched it.  Fortunately, it is easy to find the international quality in the form of bean and it is absolutely delicious. The sketch below, shows the place where we buy it. I sketched the "Expendio de Cafe Molido" from the steps of the barbershop across the street, while my husband got his shave done.

Pen&ink and watercolor on Moleskine 3.5" x 5.5"

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The hummingbirds in our backyard.

Pencil and watercolor on Pentalic Watercolor Journal 7" x 10"

There was confusion trying to identify the birds in the garden of our rental. Considering that we don't have binoculars, we think we were successful due to the fact that we identified 3 species of hummingbirds in the garden full of flowers, I found 32 flowers!

Of course, not all of them serve for feeding the hummingbirds. Their favorites are the two flowers on the top right of the group above, and the flower on the top left of the group below.

Everything started when we listened to the chirping. That was the first time we noticed a hummingbird was in our backyard.  Please notice we thought there was only one at that time. After several days we got used to that sound but then we started to observe. For some reason I wanted to identify it and that is when all the confusion and frustration at times started.  I'm not a bird watcher but I was curious. "It's a red peak, no it's black; it's black with green, no it's blue and green. It has a big white spot in the head, not it's small, no it doesn't have one at all". We went through all the "it's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman"

One morning, out the window, the smallest of all was feeding in flight just 3 feet from me. There, suspended in the air, I was in first row mesmerized by it's beauty. It was the blue throated golden tail also call blue throated sapphire. Small, no white spot on the head, golden tail, red peak and a black spot just in the tip. Eureka!

Another day, from the distance I could see the large white spot in the head, a mark hard to miss, blue-green plumage and also a red peak with a black tip, only the black tip goes almost half way of the peak. It was the white eared hummingbird. A small one but larger that the goldentail. Eureka!

Finally, this one was the last and hardest to identify. Just 2 days ago, I saw one of the small hummingbirds feeding when suddenly a large hummingbird came to chase it away. It was a hummingbird with a long black peak, almost black plumage with a small white dot behind the eye. I remember I saw this black peak hummingbird before but it had green and blue shades in the head! Well it turned out that this hummingbird is the Rivoli's or Magnificent hummingbird, and sometimes it flashes the feathers of the crown and the throat showing off it's iridescent blue and teal colors respectively. Eureka.... damn bird.

Yeah, the story doesn't finish here yet, sorry. I have nick names for them, after so many days of effort, they deserve it.

Mr. T
a.k.a. Mr. Territorial "I'm aggressive, don't mess with my food"

Mr. F
a.k.a Mr. Fearless. "I don't give a damn about Mr. T and I also feed in his territory"

Mr. S.
a.k.a. Mr. Shy. "I'm the smallest and I'm afraid of the pair above, but also I'm the most beautiful and that makes me happy"

I sketched the hummingbirds from photos online. I also made an experiment mixing pearl (metallic) watercolor with other colors to try to reproduce the flashy plumage, did I succeed? I offer an apology if any ornithologist or serious birdwatchers are reading this post. The colors might no be exact but were illustrated to note the differences among these birds.

And this is how the humans and birds in this property coexist in the beautiful town of San Cristobal de las Casas.

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Polyglot grandpa

Sepia fineliner and watercolor on HandBook Watercolor Journal 8" x 8"

I found this view walking the streets of San Cristobal de las Casas.  I stopped here for a second time to sketch all those red tile roofs. I was told by a tourist guide, that San Cristobal de las Casas is the colonial town with the greatest percentage of red tile roofs in all Mexico. I don't know if this is a fact, but based on my experience, I haven't seen so many of these roofs in one Mexican town and in such a great number. I noticed the two times I was in this place, the same man was sit on one of the benches taking the sun. He looked like a local grandpa. While sketching many passerby seemed to know him and greeted him. Sometimes he started conversations with young backpackers. He spoke English. Nice! Then another couple passed by and he spoke French, wow! Even the Canadians were surprised. Then he spoke German! My goodness, I felt so ignorant...I'm just bilingual. I overheard him saying he spoke 5 languages. Out of curiosity I started a conversation with him telling him he seems to be a celebrity, everybody knows him! He told me he worked in Germany, Belgium and France as a waiter. He liked traveling so much, and that was what he did all his life. The last country he visited was Saudi Arabia, before he had a stroke. Since then, he came back to San Cristobal de las Casas and sits on the bench in front of his house. When he is not  talking to passerby in five languages, he is enjoying this view.
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Maya heritage in textiles of Chiapas today.

Fineliner sepia and watercolor on Handbook Watercolor Journal 8" x 8"

This is a tzute, a ceremonial cloth for men. It is just one example of the many gorgeous pieces exhibited at the Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya here in San Cristobal de las Casas. The museum has a great collection of colorful samples of Maya wardrobe from Chiapas and Guatemala. Some examples of Guatemala are included in this collection to represent the whole Maya area, you see, Chiapas belonged to Guatemala before joining the Mexican Republic, twice (1842 & 1882)!

The line work of this sketch was made on location and watercolor later. 

I love the textiles of the state of Chiapas. They are incredibly beautiful and colorful. The heritage from Maya is so embedded in the patterns and symbols of textiles today. It's fascinating. The store of the  museum is a dangerous place for the pocket. It's like another museum but you can actually own one or some, do you see my state of mind? I ended up buying a book about the textiles of Chiapas, which I finally found after looking for a good one at several book stores. I wanted to know more about it. That made me happy since I don't think I can sketch or make justice to so many different outfits from the many communities and villages in the state. I love textiles from Chiapas. Please excuse me for being so repetitive, it's just that all this cultural diversity in one state is fas.ci.na.ting. 
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