Slacking Off in San Cristobal de las Casas (Mexico)

Our last San Cristobal de las Casas post was almost two weeks ago, and we admit that we’ve been complete slackers. No tours. No day trips. No overtly touristy stuff. No posts. We haven’t done anything of real substance at all!

And it’s been pretty great.

For the most part, this means we’ve been absorbing the local scene in San Cristobal de las Casas, as well as indulging in our own preferred personal time-wasting activities. I guess you could say that we’ve been having a “staycation”, although the fact that we are doing it while traveling internationally is pretty odd.

So what does almost two weeks of slacking look like in San Cristobal de las Casas?

We’ll show you.

General Impressions of San Cristobal de Las Casas

San Cristobal de las Casas is a pretty cool place.

The entire town oozes with Spanish-colonial character and it seems like each street, neighborhood, and park has something fun to explore. Even the local neighborhoods have interesting markets, restaurants, and street food opportunities.

And since San Cristobal de las Casas appears to be safe during daylight hours, wandering around in unknown areas isn’t a scary proposition at all. That said, we still follow common sense best practices when it comes to safety.

In a way, San Cristobal de las Casas combines the best features of Izamal (Mexico), Banos de Agua Santa (Ecuador), and Antigua Guatemala (Guatemala) into a slightly larger package. And for those who don’t remember how much we liked those places, that is high praise!

Getting Around in San Cristobal de las Casas

We have three options.

(1) Walk – San Cristobal de las Casas is very walkable overall. That said, it isn’t exactly small! If you wanted to get from one end of town to the other, you’d probably want a taxi to spare you a 1-hour walk.

(2) Taxi – Generally not needed, unless you are carrying lots of luggage, groceries, or are going all of the way across town. Taxi rates during the day are $50 MEX ($2.92 USD) and slightly more at night. We haven’t used taxis much, but they were easy to get at the large supermarket chains when we had perishables that needed immediate refrigeration. NOTE: ride-sharing apps don’t seem to work in San Cristobal de las Casas.

(3) Collectivo – Collectivo vans are everywhere in San Cristobal de las Casas, and you can pick them up at bus stops all over town (including the large supermarket chains). Figuring out where a collectivo is going is easy, as destinations are written on their front windshields. We haven’t needed to use collectivos yet, but we know we will soon once we get our day trips planned to towns outside of San Cristobal de las Casas.

Shopping For Our Daily Needs

Generally, we meet our day-to-day shopping needs in 4 ways:

(1) We go to local neighborhood produce and meat markets.

We live in a non-touristy neighborhood, so we have some nice tiendas selling quality produce and meats at competitive prices nearby. This is great because all the other shopping options require at least a 20-minute walk to reach!

(2) We go to Mercado Municipal José Castillo Tielemans.

This is a MASSIVE local market filled with vendors selling produce, meat, clothes, souvenirs, and household items.

To our surprise, it is even larger than the main market in Merida! Prices are decent, but honestly not all that much better than the markets near our Airbnb.

You can’t beat the selection though! As an aside, shopping inside the market is a hazard for anyone tall, as you will hit your head on all sorts of things hanging from the rafters if you aren’t careful!

(3) We go to the large supermarket chains.

As in Merida, San Cristobal de las Casas has Chedraui, Hipermarket Soriana, and WalMart locations at the western edge of town. And they are nice to shop at when you can’t find exactly what you are looking for through local outlets. Unfortunately, only the Chedraui is within reasonable walking distance (30 minutes) from our Airbnb! There are collectivos that go to the Soriana and WalMart, but we haven’t felt that it is worth the bother.

(4) We use WalMart home delivery!

This is a game-changer for us in Mexico!

If you go to super.walmart.com.mx you can set up a profile for home delivery using your current street address. You then select the items you want in your cart, choose a delivery time, select the “pay-on-delivery” option, and submit your order.

And when the driver comes, you pay them directly by cash or credit card. Even better is that the delivery fee is less than the cost of a taxi ride, so it is the best way to load up on heavy or large grocery items or supplies that would be challenging to carry.

A pretty sweet option, especially when we are feeling lazy.

Killing Time in San Cristobal de las Casas

Pretty much every day we get out for a few hours to stretch our legs and do something.

We might shop for supplies, make a potable water run, go to a laundromat, get a haircut, try out a new local joint for lunch, visit a park, explore the gorgeous pedestrian-only streets, visit a mirador, or go to a lookout to watch the sunset.

Here are some photos from our outings.

Or we might just wander the streets checking out the street art!

San Cristobal de las Casas also has a number of little museums that are cheap and interesting. None of them take more than 1 hour to visit though.

One day we visited Museo del Ambar, a museum housed in a 16th-century convent that showcases amber jewelry, art & fossils. Admission is $50 MEX ($2.92 USD) per person.

We also visited Museo Mesoamericano del Jade, a museum that houses replicas of significant jade archeological finds in Mexico. Admission is $50 MEX ($2.92 USD) per person.

There is also a cacao museum that we hear gives out lots of free samples! So we’ll have to do that one soon.

Killing Time at Home

Most days we finish exploring by 2 pm and then settle in at home.

That means we finish our daily Spanish Language studies, catch up on TV, read, touch base with family, watch the NFL American football playoffs, strength train, pay bills, travel plan, cook dinner, and clean.

And before we know it, the day is over!

It sounds boring, but believe it or not it’s been nice for us.

Rhonda and I weren’t feeling 100% when we got to San Cristobal de las Casas (minor cold and general fatigue stuff), so slacking for a couple of weeks has been pretty great.

But now that we are getting our groove back, we are putting plans together for our future short and long-term travel.

The second half of 2024 is going to be fun! We’ll talk more about that soon.

Until next time…

Thanks for reading!

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