From Chiapas To The Coast With A Touch Of Tuxtla 

Usually the first one we hear is just before 7am, though occasionally we hear an earlier one and sometimes a handful just after midnight. And then at regular intervals throughout the day. We didn’t know what they were at first – somebody shooting rabbits, perhaps, but then, could the louder ones be cannons? 

They’re sky rockets, of course they are. It turns out that in the provincial towns of Mexico (the pueblas), there is an obsession with buying or making fireworks and then lighting them outside the church. Apparently intended to “amplify” prayers and take them closer to God, these rockets don’t light up the sky or provide colourful shows, they simply explode with a bang – the louder the better. Every year dozens die either in individual accidents or fires at factories both legal and illicit, but nothing deters this obsessive ritual which reportedly reaches frenzy point on fiesta days and saints’ days.

As if to taunt us as we say farewell to rainy San Cristobal, we leave on the brightest, warmest morning of our six days here, amid the bluest skies and clearest views. But we needn’t worry, our next destination of Tuxtla Gutierrez is considerably hotter, and just as sunny, as we wander down its main street for the first time.

Our journey from San Cristobal to here is by collectivo, boarding one where only the front seats beside the driver are left and seeing our backpacks rammed inside the footwell of the sliding door. If you know how collectivo drivers drive, then you will know why the front seats are always the last to be taken, but we survive the white knuckle ride and congratulate ourselves on paying only £4 for the whole journey, bags and all.

The main street here, unsurprisingly named Avenida Central, links, amongst other things, Tuxtla’s two main attractions: the gleaming white cathedral in its own plaza and the leafy, cafe lined Jardin de Marimba where ornate benches face the central bandstand. Marimba is to Tuxtla what mariachi was to Guadalajara, its symbolic heritage music, proudly played by its proponents and much loved by all. Based around percussion and the glockenspiel-like marimba itself, it is, inevitably, as joyous and playful as all other Mexican music.

Marimba bands feature a brass section, bongos, and more often than not a bass guitar, but the star of the show is always the marimba, a keyboard so large that it sometimes takes a four, even sometimes as many as six, musicians to play it, standing side by side as they chong out its distinctive sound.

Successive bands fill the bandstand and, as they do so, the plaza fills with dancing couples, swirling and moving with rhythm, loving their tradition. At first glance it’s the older generation, but as we look more closely and scan this open air dance floor, we spy the younger couples, finding romance in just the way that their parents and grandparents did.

Young boys are taught moves by their mothers, teenage romeos watch the experts to learn the steps – there is something so utterly endearing about this, seeing custom and tradition being passed on to the younger generations. By these processes tradition is upheld, and the lines continue. We rue the fact that we come from a country where such things have been lost, long ago.

As the marimba ends for the night, the air is filled with the sound of rock and blues bands in the surrounding bars. Down in the square, well after dark, families chatter, children play, young lovers caress. The dancing is done but the night goes on. Jardin de Marimba is wonderful, so full of life, colour…and love. Anyone who wanders into Marimba and leaves without a smile must have no soul: this place is the definition of the word vibrant.

Sometimes when we read other travel posts we note that people will occasionally mention things they didn’t do – you know, “it was closed”, “it was too expensive”, “we ran out of time”. We tend not to do that and we concentrate on what we DID do, but in the case of Tuxtla Gutierrez we’ll make an exception, because….

The gleaming white cathedral with its 48 – yes, 48 – bells, not only chimes every hour but also has a kitsch display of apostles appearing from behind shutter doors up on the cathedral front and passing by on a revolving platform. We sit in the square as the top of the hour approaches, the bells tinkle and chime and then…nothing else happens. No apostles, no kitsch. But never mind, on weekend nights there’s a spectacular sound and light show projected on to the cathedral facade, like in Guadalajara. So Sunday at 8pm, we sit in the square with bated breath, the bells tinkle and chime and then….nothing else happens.

We could also mention that the “Calzada de las Personas Ilustres” (“corridor of illustrious people”) has no statues of famous people OR fountains, even though our guide book says it has both, and that the top recommended Chiapas restaurant which we head for, is only open during the day and therefore is closed when we bowl up for dinner. But we won’t mention those because that would just be too predictable.

And so inevitably we end our second night in Tuxtla where we ended our first, in the wonderfully vibrant Jardin de Marimba, although it’s considerably quieter on a Monday night than it was the first time. The square is so full of joy that it seems almost churlish to mention its one downside: child labour here is even more evident than in our previous domiciles. 

Youngsters of incredibly tender age roam the square and the streets, selling trinkets, toys, food, clothing, accessories…anything, often carrying heavy loads of goods for sale. Sometimes with pitiful, pleading faces, sometimes smiling, but mostly in a businesslike fashion which is actually even more disconcerting. This is simply their life, part of their responsibility to the family. 

Here’s some examples which probably need few words….

It’s a little hard to witness, but we console ourselves with the thought that at least nobody is exploiting these children for profit, it is just simply a way of family life which is very different from our home. And therefore it’s not our place to be judgmental. 

Tuxtla Gutierrez is by all accounts a fairly ordinary city and, apart from the wonderful Jardin de Marimba we don’t really see anything to contradict that view in our short time here, but have enormous fun nonetheless.

Having seen such a cross section of Mexico and experienced different cultures and history on our current journey, our next stop is to take a peek at another side of this vibrant country’s character. Taking a domestic flight from Tuxtla to Cancun, we head south of the well known overblown resorts and settle in Puerto Morelos, a former fishing village where the seafood is reputed to be among the best in the whole country.

And so again we land in another new kind of place, nothing like our previous calls in Mexico on this trip. The white sand is incredibly soft beneath our feet, there’s a beach bar roughly every one hundred yards or so, fish restaurants cluster around the square where a stage and a mini amphitheatre await the next fiesta. 

Our first ceviche and fish taco lunch is sumptuous; later the sound of a live rock band draws us into a terrace bar above the square. There is absolutely no doubting that Puerto Morelos is a beach town, no doubting that it gets much busier in high season, but it’s tucked away from the bigger, regimented resorts and our first impressions are good.

Temperatures are high here, even after dark. The Caribbean laps quietly on to the white sand, slowed by the reef just offshore, as palm trees sway in the warm breeze. This is a much more peaceful place than we imagine its more famous neighbours to be.