Emilie’s Mexico guidebook is the 1994, edition number 7, version of the Lonely Planet. Her version details many more camping locales than our more recent addition, version 10. Version 11 came out in October of this year. The construction of a more comfortable Mexican tourist infrastructure has the Lonely Plant team replacing the lower dollar camping spots and hostels with hotels and ecotourism complexes. Rancho San Nicholas in San Cristobal de las Casas made it into the 94 edition but was no where to be found 15 years later. Its hospitality towards the RV scene warranted its inclusion in the Mexico Camping book, which was the sole reason we ended up there.
You can’t travel through Chiapas without seeing the EZLN signs announcing the autonomy of Zapatista sympathetic villagers claiming autonomy from the federal Mexican government. For those of you unfamiliar with the Zapatista rebellion, read up here, and for the latest from EZLN and Subcomandante Marcos check this out. While it is not uncommon to pass through rebel communities the tourist track rarely enters the heart of the guerilla territory. The 1994 occupation of San Cristobal and the surrounding towns most likely altered many lives and changed the course of Chiapas forever. Two such victims were most likely an American couple that had purchased a ranch half way between the Mayan ruins of Tonina and Mexico highway 199. The Americans had selected this particular plot of fertile Chiapan valley as the perfect climate for the Macadamia plantation that they had always dreamed of. The picturesque valley ranch, named Esmeralda, employed many local townspeople and laborers from nearby Ocosingo (whom we met and gave rides to) while providing supplemental income through camping and cabañas for self styled amateur archaeologists.
The reason that Rancho Esmeralda wasn’t in our guidebook isn’t because Lonely Planet is abandoning the camping and hostel circuit. The real reason is that Rancho Esmeralda has been closed for at least 10 years; the owners either scared off or run off by the Zapatista uprising. Either way our venture down a dirt road to the now rebel encampment was met by more than a few curious stares from local villagers who haven’t seen a rig like ours in a decade, if ever.
Hola, tu sitio esta genia, gracias por compartir esto