Modern Mayan culture thrives in the markets and museums of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

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"América? Horrible!" The ponytailed guy fixing my coffee seemed serious. Before I could get out an "um," he pointed to my shirt and smiled. Gold letters spelled "CA: América" — a Mexico City soccer team I was unwittingly endorsing. "The Chivas are the best team, man. All the players are Mexican."

Soccer rivalries aside, Mexico offers a striking assortment of travel destinations. To the south, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas' remote hill town of 70,000, is becoming the quieter alternative for those seeking Spanish Colonial beauty and peeks at traditional life.

This is a surprising turnaround, as Chiapas (Mexico's poorest state) is normally associated with turmoil. In 1994, armed Zapatista rebels, a mostly Mayan group, stormed the town to protest the North American Free Trade Agreement. It's been an atypical revolution. Led by an unusual cigar-smoking Mexico City professor called Subcomandante Marcos, Zapatistas have since demonstrated with paper airplanes and wooden rifles with screwdrivers attached; all wear masks. After many stormy years, the Zapatistas now quietly maintain seven rural autonomous zones (called caracoles, or snails). Many coletos (San Cristóbal inhabitants) told me that the tension has simmered way down.

The traveler-oriented street Real de Guadalupe (mostly catering to European visitors) leads up to Cerro de Guadalupe, a church-topped hill with views back across the town. Four-hundred-year-old Spanish Colonial churches pepper the vista, but down deeper are unmistakable signs of the modern Mayan world.

A few blocks north of the main plaza is a popular Mayan market selling colorful tunics and Zapatista dolls. A mile north is the fascinating museum at the Mayan Medicine Development Center, which has a small pharmacy.

Considering the surrounding attractions — the crocodile-filled Sumidero Canyon, the emerald-colored Montebello Lakes, the rarely visited Chinkultic Mayan ruin — it's hard to stay less than a week in San Cristóbal. The most popular day trip is a visit to the Mayan village San Juan Chamula, six miles from San Cristóbal.

"They have their own rules here," a guide named Cesar told me of Chamula, where polygamy is still practiced and votes are tallied by raised cowboy hats (of men only). Villagers are Catholics, though they sent the last Vatican-appointed priest packing in 1969.

Few experiences prepare you for the main church. Saints line the walls, but pews are cleared out, fresh pine needles cover the floor, and Tzotzil-speaking worshippers carry in Coca-Cola and live chickens to help usurp evil spirits (Coke by burping; chickens by more mysterious means). On occasion, a shaman cries out "Artillery!" and a guy in a cowboy hat rushes out to fire a bottle rocket the size of a dynamite stick from Road Runner cartoons — all part of the nonstop ceremony.

Outside, I spoke with 45-year-old Pedro, who wore one of Chamula's distinctive white sheep-wool vests. I wondered what he thought of tourism here ("It's good . . . as long as visitors don't take photos in the church") and whether he wants to travel. "Yes," he said. "I want to go to America, just to see it. Can you take me?"