By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez
The tide is visible in the distance on the horizon that opens up at the back of the estuary, among the mangroves of Boca del Cielo. The poetic name of this secluded beach in Chiapas is a prelude to the much-desired rest for the small community of friars, exhausted after forty intense days of religious and cultural activities in the Highlands of Chiapas. This period culminated in the climax of Holy Week, experienced with profound devotion by diverse communities throughout these lands.
The Chiapas coast is still protected by mangroves and estuaries that stretch along its shoreline, from Oaxaca in the northwest to Guatemala in the southeast. Small-scale tourism has not yet disrupted the lives of its inhabitants, mostly Zoque people who have lost their language and customs, but retain a vibrant spirit in their eyes and open smiles. Mariana welcomes us to her palapa with seafood dishes from her coast, such as sea bass, shrimp, and tilapia, accompanied by refreshing drinks of mango, pineapple, melon, and tamarind. She is the heart of the business, along with her teenage son and their pet, Oso, a beautiful white puppy with curly fur and dark circles under his eyes that make him look like a panda in reverse.
Instead of a swimming pool, the small hotel has direct access via a short flight of steps to the estuary's warm, calm waters, occasionally enlivened by a strong current in the farther area, near the sandbar that protects the channel from the open sea. Further out, a few lizards hide, having fled to sparsely populated areas, where some communities—like the Madresal ecotourism complex—preserve them in breeding centers. It must be said, however, that these initiatives are modest compared to the urgent need to protect the estuaries and their endangered wildlife. The turtle hatchery on Boca del Cielo beach, for example, is only operational for a couple of months each year during the summer, neglected by the local population focused on tourism services, and left to languish due to the indifference of the local government.
Due to the melting of the polar ice caps caused by climate change, the scientific community predicts the disappearance of many of the planet's low-lying coastlines, such as mangroves and their estuaries, with the sea invading these areas of biodiversity at the boundary between salt and fresh water as tides rise.
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Two millennia ago, in the mountains bordering these beaches, the Mixe-Zoque culture flourished. The archaeological remains of the sacred site—today known as Old Church The crosses carved into some of the stones on the pyramid slopes are of impressive symbolic richness. A central pyramid represents the body of a turtle, its corners mimicking the flippers of the reptile of longevity. The giant head lies at the foot of the stairway, welcoming the pilgrim in a gesture of cosmic sacredness. Stelae of varying sizes, weathered by relentless time and broken in two by ceiba tree roots, are engraved with polymorphic faces that combine the ears of a bat with the snout of a jaguar and the eyes of a monkey and a snake.
And in the heart of one of the central plazas of the sacred site, which covers more than sixty hectares—located on the plateaus of Tepancuintla Hill, some 700 meters above sea level in what is now the municipality of Tonalá—lies a monumental stone of iconic power similar to the Aztec Sun Stone or the stele of Pakal's tomb in Palenque. The black granite monolith has four faces, each pointing to a cardinal direction: three are human (two men and one woman), and one is zoomorphic, a hallucinatory fusion of sacred animals from the mountains that shelter its inhabitants.
The local guide told us that this jet-black stone takes on blue hues at certain times of day, convinced that it's like a gateway to the world of the ancestors. To honor his word, I approach it with reverence, walk around it, caress it without touching it, and perceive an ancestral memory that dwells within it and welcomes us with force.
Two hundred kilometers to the south, the Mokaya culture sowed the seeds of Mesoamerican cultures four thousand years ago, even before the Olmecs, who are recognized as the cultural matrix of Mesoamerica. I already cherish in my heart a future trip to those lands, near the border with Guatemala, to let myself be touched by their wisdom made of stone and pottery, unknown to us today only in their music and oral traditions.
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I began this story by recounting tales of estuaries and mangroves. But upon rereading it, I realize they were merely a gateway to another world, one inhabited by the Mixe-Zoque and Mokaya peoples who lived in these mountains and navigated these waters millennia ago. Their ancestral memory became a cosmogony carved in stone, pyramids constructed with enormous monoliths of granite and volcanic rock, marked with cosmic and human symbols, such as the sun, the knot, the face, and the hand.
What memory will we leave for future generations two thousand years from now, when someone visits the ruins of our neighborhoods and cities, now dominated by steel and cement? Will they find technological ruins of algorithms and avatars on the internet that can be rescued from oblivion? Perhaps some holograms will be preserved in the cloud, concentrating the wisdom of humanity, lost today in its pursuit of power and money.
For now, the door to other worlds remains open.
Boca del Cielo, April 11, 2026