The Lacantún River, seen from the restaurant at the Las Guacamayas ecolodge.

Early one humid morning in October, I stood with a guide named César on a muddy path surrounded by thick, damp foliage. Mahogany, cedar and fig trees shot up and out, their tops invisible, while twisted, rope-like liana dangled down. Small mushrooms grew like pink suction cups on branches, and orchids clung to trunks. Birdsong, the chirring of insects and the rush of nearby water blended into a white noise that was broken on occasion by the saraguatos, or howler monkeys, high above us, whose deep, haunting cries echoed throughout the rain forest.

“Es como la ciudad,” César said nonchalantly. It’s just like the city, complete with streets, neighborhoods and billboards — if you know how to look for them.

My guide César.

To César, this “city” was home. To me, it was alien, unlike any place I’d been in Chiapas. And that was my goal: to see one of Mexico’s threatened biospheres. These parks contain some of the most awe-inspiring sights in Chiapas: mountains and ravines, rivers and lakes, cloud forests and rain forests, rare orchids, medicinal plants, valuable timber and endangered jaguars. I had a single day to see everything — hardly enough time, especially during the rainy season, when downpours made travel a challenge — but I had to try.

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The market in San Cristóbal de las Casas is, like other markets in Mexico (and, indeed, throughout the developing world), a colorful place. The stalls are filled with bright red dried chilies, pyramids of melons and tomatoes and fresh animal carcasses. Adding to the color as well are the indigenous people of the region, whose indigo cloaks and pink blouses made my rainy-day trip to the market that much brighter.

It can, however, be tricky to shoot video and take photos there. People in Chiapas are very sensitive about being photographed, so whenever I could, I asked permission or simply made it obvious that I was using the video camera. I hope what I was able to capture gives a sense of how it felt to be there.

The ancient city of Palenque dates back to 100 B.C. and bears witness to the region’s Indian heritage.

It was difficult to know what time I arrived in Palenque, a small town 118 miles northeast of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. The evening ride in the big bus (122 pesos, about $9.40 at 13 pesos to the dollar)had been scheduled at five hours, but as we ascended farther into the hills of Chiapas and the sky dimmed over rough valleys and recently cleared pastures, I lost track of time. I fell asleep in my seat, awoke to a monitor playing “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (in Spanish), then promptly passed out again.

When the bus finally rolled out of the mountains and into humid Palenque, it was very dark, and while my cellphone told me it was after midnight, other clocks put the hour past 1. I adjusted my phone accordingly, but for the next few days I always seemed to be ahead or behind what I saw at hotels, restaurants and bus stations. It was only much later, when I inquired about colectivo schedules, that a woman explained the discrepancy: Chiapas functions on both New Time and Old Time. New Time predominates in cities like San Cristóbal, while the countryside uses the one-hour-earlier Old Time. Except, of course, when the countryside uses New Time. How to tell which is in effect? Just ask — and cross your fingers the person you’ve asked actually knows.

This odd temporal rift, however, was probably just the right atmosphere in which to visit Palenque — not the gritty modern town but rather the Maya ruins of Palenque, a 15-minute, 10- peso colectivo ride outside town. This Unesco World Heritage site is one of Chiapas’s gems, a well-preserved collection of palaces, temples and tombs that, more than 1,000 years ago, ruled much of Chiapas and neighboring Tabasco state.

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Into all lives, they say, a little rain must fall. Yet for the most part, in the last few years of roaming the world as the Frugal Traveler, from Buenos Aires to Bulgaria, I’ve rarely fallen prey to the elements. The storm clouds, however, finally caught up to me in—of all places—the rain forest.

In the small village of Lacanjá, I’d hoped to learn about its population, the Lacandon Maya, whose lifestyle and religious beliefs, I’d heard, had been mostly unaffected by encounters with Europeans. Instead, the rain kept me—and everyone else in the village—indoors, so my interactions were, unfortunately, minimal. Occasionally, the rain would let up, and I’d walk half a mile down the road, toward a trio of supposedly unexplored pyramids, and then it would return, sending me to the nearest tree for cover.

For one whole day, I read and relaxed at the Campamento Top Che while the drops fell all around me. It wasn’t what I’d wanted, but it wasn’t too bad, either.

A woman toasts tortillas in Zinacantán.

Inside the church of San Juan de Chamula, a fine cloud of smoke filled the air. It rose in wisps from hundreds of thin, white candles, perched delicately on the floor in ranks of 5, 10, 20, 40. Scattered around them lay a loose carpet of pine needles, the green arcs overlapping in dizzying patterns. The scents of pine resin, melted wax and burning wick mingled in my nose, and the chanted prayers of the indigenous Chamulans — who knelt before the candles, with bottles of Coca-Cola and pox, a homemade sugar-cane liquor pronounced posh, at their sides — made me feel as if I’d entered another, more mysterious universe.

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In last Sunday’s story on San Cristóbal de las Casas, I devoted a lot of attention to the vivid colors of the buildings, but I didn’t mention at all the patchwork of sounds and music that echoed through the streets.

First up in this video, a truck playing “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” Why that tune? The truck is delivering water, of course! (Which doesn’t quite explain the “Armagedon” banner in the window, but anyway.)

Then comes a truck delivering canisters of natural gas, from whose rear bumper dangle metal chains. In the narrow, crowded streets of San Cristóbal, this is a necessity—other drivers don’t always heed stop signs, but if they hear that signature jangle of metal on stone, they will—one hopes—be cautious.

A street vendor sells corn, a favorite snack in Chiapas, outside the club Revolución in San Cristóbal de las Casas. Slide Show »

Correction Appended

In Chiapas, the southernmost state in Mexico, green is never simply green. From the air, green rolls over the unending mountains, intense and damp where there are forests and nubbly like rough felt when the trees end. In the streets of San Cristóbal de las Casas, the hill town in the middle of Chiapas’s central plateau, it’s a shiny layer of Kelly spread thickly across the facade of a Spanish colonial home. In the church of San Juan de Chamula, it’s the toasted green of pine needles strewn across the floor, and it’s the thin threads woven almost invisibly into the white wool tunics of indigenous Chamulan men.

Map of Chiapas. Click to Enlarge »

Chiapas green is the golden green of fair-trade coffee beans ready for roasting, and the translucent olive drab of banana leaves wrapped around steaming tamales, and a Day-Glo pear growing in a backyard orchard. Nowhere have I seen so many variations of Kermit the Frog’s uneasy color, and yet there was one place in Chiapas, which I visited over 10 days in October, where green served little to no purpose: my wallet.

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