Chiapas Textile Study Tour 2026: Deep Into Textiles
Dates are set and registration is now open — March 3-11, 2026 At Oaxaca Cultural Navigator, we aim to give you an unparalleled and in-depth travel experience to participate and delve deeply into indigenous culture, folk art, and celebrations. The Maya World of Chiapas, Mexico, spans centuries and borders. Maya people weave their complex universe […]
Chiapas in Pictures
Spaces open in Chiapas Textile Study Tour, February 2024. Click here for more! We will not be offering this tour in 2025. Come with us for an extraordinary textile adventure! Included: embroidery workshop with master Francesca, from Aguacatenango. We go deep into Maya culture, visiting remote villages in the Chiapas Highlands. Click here. Chiapas is […]
Chiapas, Too: Round Two
We are mid-way through our second Chiapas tour. I always say, The right people always show up! and they do. We saw the same things, made the same stops, met the same people and each tour is different based on interests, questions, experience and personalities. We have four weavers and two three textile designers on […]
Last Day in Chiapas: Expoventa and Regrets Sale
First thing in the morning after breakfast on the day before departure, we line up for a covid antigen test. Most of us in our textile study tour are returning to the USA the next day. So, we arranged for a laboratory to come to the hotel. Even though I’m staying on, I decided to […]
Second Section: Chiapas Textile Study Tour–Deep Into the Maya World, March 2022
March 8 -16, 2022 – 8 nights and 9 days, starting at $2,795 Email me to ask about registration. http://mail to:[email protected] At Oaxaca Cultural Navigator, we aim to give you an unparalleled in-depth travel experience to participate and delve deeply into indigenous culture, folk art and celebrations. Our hope, too, is that we will all […]
Defense Fund for Cristobal Santiz Jimenez, Chiapas Friend
Our friend, Cristobal Santiz Jimenez, is a community leader in the Tzotzil Chiapas village of Magdalena Aldama, Chiapas. He was arrested on March 14, 2020, and imprisoned on false charges, according to the Fray Bartolome de Las Casa Human Rights Center and our friend Alejandro Alarcon Zapata. Cristobal is still in prison, and may be […]
Chiapas Textile Study Tour 2021: Deep Into the Maya World
The Maya World of Chiapas, Mexico, spans centuries and borders. Maya people weave their complex universe into beautiful cloth. Symbols are part of an ancient pre-Hispanic animist belief system. In the cloth we see frogs, the plumed serpent, woman and man, earth and sky, the four cardinal points, moon and sun, plus more, depending on […]
Chiapas Women’s Textile Cooperative Jolom Mayaetik
The textile cooperative Jolom Mayaetik is one of the oldest and most successful in and around San Cristobal de Las Casas, founded in 1980. This is the 5th year we have visited them and they continue to improve processes, increase production, build capacity and create highest quality weavings. They have over 200 cooperative members in […]
Sophisticated San Cristobal de Las Casas: A Changing Scene
It’s different this year in San Cristobal de Las Casas. There are more upscale shops and sophisticated clothing designs using indigenous textiles. Just meandering the three andadors — cobblestone walking streets here — I see remarkable differences. There are more visitors coming who are interested in textiles and the Maya culture. There is a greater […]
Far and Away: Maya Weaving Village Magdalena Aldama
The locals call it Aldama, preferring to honor the 1810 Mexican Revolutionary War hero Juan Aldama, rather than the saint name imposed by Spanish conquerors. They are revolutionaries themselves here with most of the village sympathizing with the Zapatista movement. They are also extraordinary weavers of traditional huipiles and finely woven agave bags. The largest […]
Making PomPoms in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas
Wandering around San Cristobal de Las Casas last week I discovered Punto y Trama, on Belisario Dominguez #13b, just two blocks off the Andador Real de Guadalupe walking street. What drew me in was the sign on the door that announced PomPom workshops. Then, once inside I immediately noticed the furry wool Chamula woven shawls adorned […]
Textile Flower Bouquets of San Lorenzo Zinacantan, Chiapas
Zinacantan is about thirty minutes by taxi from the center of San Cristobal de Las Casas. They grow flowers here. Large greenhouses dominate the landscape like a checkerboard rising from the valley to the hillsides. This is a prosperous community that exports this produce throughout Mexico, as far as Mexico City and Merida. Local dress […]
Chiapas Textile Study Tour Snapshot: Saturday Serendipity in Aguacatenango
The idea was to drive to Aguacatenango which is about thirty minutes beyond the pottery village of Amantenango del Valle. We were a good hour or so beyond San Cristobal de Las Casas. Few tourists come in this direction. The idea was to pull up at the church, park the van, gather under the big […]
Chiapas Textile Study Tour Snapshot: Thursday In and Around Tenejapa
On Thursday, we spent the day outside of San Cristobal de Las Casas, on the road to Tenejapa village, Romerillo Maya cemetery and then to the home of Maruch and her son Tesh in the Chamula district of Chiapas. Taking registrations now for 2019 Chiapas Textile Study Tour. Small doorways open from the street into […]
2018 Chiapas Textile Study Tour: Deep Into the Maya World
We have THREE spaces open for February 13-22, 2018. We have ONE space open for February 27-March 8, 2018 for a shared room at $2,495. Send me an email. Here is the program description: Chiapas Textiles + Folk Art Study Tour: Deep Into the Maya World — 2018 We are based in the historic Chiapas […]
Post-Earthquake Report for San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas: Rumor or Fact
The 8.2 magnitude earthquake shook southern Oaxaca state and Chiapas a month ago on September 7, 2017. What’s the situation in Chiapas now? I asked my friends Ann Conway, owner of La Joya Hotel, and Bela Wood, owner of Bela’s B&B, for an on-the-ground report about the state of things in and around San Cristobal […]
Chiapas Notebook: Magdalena Aldama Weavers
Our recent textile study tour took place over nine days. We were based in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, with so much to see and do, and no time to write!. I’m going to start now with one highlight that happened in the middle: a visit to Magdalena Aldama, Chiapas. Some of us know […]
Chiapas Textiles + Folk Art Study Tour: Deep Into the Maya World
We are based in the historic Chiapas mountain town of San Cristobal de las Casas, the center of the Maya world in Mexico. Here we will explore the textile traditions of ancient people who weave on back strap looms. Women made cloth on simple looms here long before the Spanish conquest in 1521 and their techniques […]
CANCELLED–Chiapas Festivals and Faces: Photography Workshop
THIS WORKSHOP IS CANCELLED! Arrive January 18 and depart January 25, 2016. To make this workshop tour affordable, we are organizing it to include only instruction, on-the-hoof, coaching, feedback and photo review sessions, bi-lingual tour guide and all transportation. It does not include lodging or meals. Cost is $1,295 per person. We need 6 people […]
Tonina, Hidden Chiapas Archeology Gem: The Road Less Traveled
Few people make Tonina, the classic Maya archeological site just beyond Ocosingo, Chiapas, a travel destination. Instead, they choose to go between San Cristobal de Las Casas and Palenque directly, bypassing the most vertical site of the ancient Maya world. It’s another three hours by road to reach Palenque, which demands at least one overnight […]
Chiapas Textile Museum: Maya Art on Cloth
The contemporary Maya world spans political boundaries and crosses southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and El Salvador. Here in Chiapas there is a rich textile tradition that endures as cultural identity and pride. The Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya, The Textile Center of the Maya World, is the place to begin to see the […]
Zinacantan Textile Flowers, San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas
They speak Tzotzil here in the Maya highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. San Lorenzo Zinacantan is a village nestled in a beautiful valley about thirty minutes from San San Cristobal de Las Casas. It is a popular Sunday tourist destination combined with a visit to the mystical church at San Juan Chamula (which I will write about […]
The Journey Begins: San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
Most of our Penland School of Crafts travelers continued on with me from Oaxaca to explore Chiapas. Our journey began at the ADO bus station where we boarded an overnight luxury bus called the Platino with twenty-five reclining seats, leaving at 8:30 p.m. and arriving in San Cristobal de Las Casas at 7:30 a.m. the […]
Adventure Travel Photography with Luxe Lodging in Chiapas, Mexico
For the complete program description CLICK HERE. November 9-17, 2013. Remarkable archeological sites, living Maya villages, ancient customs and rituals, international cuisine, luxury accommodations at La Joya Hotel in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Questions? Contact Norma Hawthorne.
Luxury Travel Photography Workshop: Chiapas and the Maya World
8 nights, 9 days. Arrive November 9 and leave November 17, 2013, starting from $2,545 per person. See with inspired clarity! Chiapas and the Maya World photography workshop will tantalize your senses as you travel to one of the most magical places on earth – San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico – a cultural crossroads […]
Curandero Sergio Castro Preserves Chiapas Textile Traditions
Behind a tall wooden gate about six blocks from the Zocalo at #38 Guadalupe Victoria is the Museo de Trajes Regionales. The private collection of traditional indigenous dress is an inspiration of Sergio Castro Martinez, a former Chiapas state senator (2000-2003), engineer and lay healer. Señor Castro gives personal guided visits in French, English, Spanish […]
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas: First Impressions
San Cristobal de las Casas is a compact, walkable mountain town filled with energy, cafes that seat 10 or 15 people at most, coffee and wine bars, and villagers from indigenous pueblos selling crafts in markets, street corners and along the foot-traffic-only promenades that criss-cross the center. Textile cooperatives abound and the city attracts […]
The Improvised Life
This morning I landed in San Cristobal de las Casas via overnight bus, aided by doses of ginger drops as an antedote to the winding mountain road for much of the trip. We showed up at Posada Ganesh which was not accurately described in Lonely Planet and decided not to stay. A friend turned me […]
From Oaxaca to San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas: Preview
On Tuesday night January 31, I will be on the ADO-GL overnight bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, set to arrive mid-morning on Wednesday, February 1. This is at least a 12-hour bus trip, and I’ll be traveling with Fay, a Canadian woman from an island off the coast of Vancouver. Since this is […]