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Agua Azul, Chiapas, Mexico

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Agua Azul Waterfalls

The Cataratas de Agua Azul ( Spanish for "Waterfalls of Blue Water") are found in the Mexican state of Chiapas . They are located 69 kilometers from Palenque by the road that leads towards San Cristóbal de las Casas .

This waterfall consists of many cataracts following one after another as can be seen in the first photo in the picture gallery, taken from near the top of the sequence of cascades. The larger cataracts may be as high as 6 meters (20 feet) or so. The one pictured to the right is next to the bottom of the sequence.

The water is as blue as it looks in the pictures, and has a high mineral content. Where it falls on rocks or fallen trees it encases them in a thick shell-like coating of limestone.

During much of the distance the water descends in two streams, with small islands in the middle.

From Wikipedia

Lacandon Jungle

The Lacandón are one of the Maya peoples who live in the jungles of the Mexican state of Chiapas , near the southern border with Guatemala. Their homeland, La Selva Lacandona ("The Lacandon Jungle"), lies along the Mexican side of the Usumacinta River and its tributaries. The Lacandón, who number only a few hundred today, are one of the most isolated and culturally conservative of Mexico's native peoples .

The Lacandón were the only Native Americans in New Spain never conquered by Europeans. They escaped Spanish control throughout the colonial era by living in small, remote farming communities in the jungles of what is now Chiapas and the Guatemalan department of El Petén , avoiding contact with whites and Ladinos . Lacandón customs remain close to those of their pre-Columbian Mesoamerican ancestors. As recently as the late 19th century some bound the heads of infants, resulting in the distinctively shaped foreheads seen in Classic Maya art. And well into the 20th century, they continued using bows and arrows and making arrowheads from flint they quarried in the forest. Today they sell versions of these to tourists.

The Lacandóns' interaction with the outside world accelerated, though, during the past 30 years. In the 1970s, the Mexican government began paying them for rights to log timber in their forests, bringing them into closer contact with the national economy. At the same time, the government built roads into the area, establishing new villages of Tseltal and Ch'ol Indians who were far more exposed to the outside world than the Lacandón. The roads helped expand farming and logging, and severe deforestation occurred. Then, in the early 1990s, the Lacandon witnessed acts of violence during the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas led by Subcomandante Marcos . The Zapatistas issued a series of statements of their revolutionary principles, each called a "Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle ."

Casa Na Bolom in San Cristóbal de las Casas is devoted to helping the Lacandons cope with the changes imposed on them in recent decades. A scientific and cultural institute, it was founded in 1951 by archaeologist Frans Blom and his wife, photographer Gertrude Duby Blom. Casa Na Bolom ("House of the Jaguar") does advocacy work for the Lacandón, sponsors research on their history and culture, returns to them copies of photographs and other cultural documentation done by scholars over the years, and addresses environmental threats to the Lacandón Jungle, such as deforestation. Among its many projects, Casa Na Bolom has collaborated with a group of Swedish ethnomusicology students who recorded traditional Lacandón songs. A publication of those recordings in CD form is now planned.

Several linguists and anthropologists have done extensive studies of Lacandon language and culture, including Christian Rätsch who spent three years living with the Lacandón while studying their spells and incantations .

From Wikipedia

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