Simojovel

I came to Simojovel on a colectivo that seemed to be held together by optimism and a single bungee cord. The road climbs out of the Grijalva valley in long switchbacks, coffee farms terracing the hillsides below and cloud forest pressing in from above, and by the time the driver dropped me at the central plaza I had the disoriented altitude feeling you get in highland Chiapas towns that do not expect visitors and do not particularly organize themselves around receiving them. That suited me fine.

Amber, Unmediated

The thing nobody tells you about Simojovel is that the amber trade here has no tourism layer. There are no boutiques with soft lighting and laminated price lists. Instead, you follow the side streets off the plaza — Calle Libertad, the block behind the market — and find workshops where artisans are bent over hand-held rotary tools, shaping raw amber nodules directly into pendants and earrings. A man named Rodrigo let me stand in his doorway for twenty minutes while he polished a piece the color of dark honey. His operation was entirely personal — he digs the amber himself in the hills above town, cuts it himself, sells it himself. A pendant with a trapped insect inside, a small fly held mid-flight for twenty-five million years, cost me two hundred pesos. I turned it in the light for a long time before I put it in my pocket.

The Market and the Food

The mercado municipal runs every day but has a proper tianguis on Sundays when Tzotzil vendors come down from the surrounding villages. I arrived on a Thursday and it was still lively enough — stalls selling dried chiles, fresh cheese, plastic buckets, and, at the back near the kitchen row, women serving caldos over portable gas burners. I ate a caldo de res at a folding table, the broth dark and deeply seasoned, a chunk of bone with good marrow at the bottom of the bowl. Corn tortillas arrived in a cloth-wrapped stack. The woman who served me did not speak Spanish and I do not speak Tzotzil, which meant we communicated entirely through the universal language of nodding and pointing at the pot when I wanted more.

The Road In

I want to say something specifically about the drive, because it is worth treating as part of the destination rather than just transit. The route from Bochil or from Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacán climbs through a landscape that changes character every few kilometers — open pasture, then dense cloud forest dripping with bromeliads, then a ridge where you can see the Grijalva canyon opening in both directions below. If you have any flexibility, take the morning colectivo so the light is still soft on the hills. Arriving in good light makes Simojovel feel like a discovery rather than an errand.

Getting There

Colectivos run from San Cristóbal de las Casas with a change at Bochil, total journey roughly three to four hours depending on connections. The Bochil junction is straightforward — ask for the Simojovel van, it departs when full. There is no direct bus from Tuxtla. Return colectivos to Bochil leave from Simojovel’s main plaza through mid-afternoon; do not count on finding one after four.