Situated at the highland heart of Mexico’s south eastern state of Chiapas, San Cristobal de Las Casas is bustling, colonial town that has been a magnet for anthropologists, bohemians and ordinary tourists since the 1960s, when it drew the attentions of the California university crowd. Although the town is colonial in appearance and cosmopolitan in feel, the tourism that is its lifeblood focuses primarily on the indigenous peoples living there and in the surrounding villages.

Just under one third of Chiapas state’s 3.6 million inhabitants are of direct Mayan descent, speaking at least nine different languages, the most common being Tzeltal and Tzotzil, which is what you are most likely to hear spoken around San Cristobal.