Month in Mexico: Part 4

Writing about San Cristobal has already been so hard. With all the other days, the words were just flowing as I was dying to tell you about each tiny incident when I wished you were there. But with San Cristobal, my mind keeps going in circles with the many many memories and it's been so hard for me to know where to start.

Gorgeous highland views from bus

Jess leading the way

I remember the minute I got off the bus at San Cristobal, I got this strong rush that felt like I've finally found what I came to find in Mexico. I didn't want the dusty roads of Cancun but I wanted this adorable little city with rows of colorful houses, cobblestone streets and Volkswagon bugs everywhere. Jess looked up some hostel and we headed there through a lonnggg, rainy, cold and slippery walk through the city. I almost fell so many times on the slick stones that I finally took my flip-flops off and dragged my luggage barefoot. We reached the hostel and like all other places in the city, it was a giant wooden door which opened into an indoor courtyard. Everything was super colorful and Jess and I snagged a colorful private room because they were out of dorms.

Cozy private room

Inner courtyard of the first hostel

Unlike all the other places in Mexico so far, San Cristobal is on a high altitude so it was freezing cold through the night. I was kinda grateful that Jess was constantly complaining about the cold because usually everyone looks warm and comfortable and my teeth are constantly chattering away. I personally loved the hostel. I met this 40 something year old German gentleman, Siggi, who was a silver craftsman. He was such a great conversationalist. We talked for a long time and he invited me to join his big gang of friends who were celebrating a birthday. However, they all spoke Spanish and I have only too often been in this situation where I am the only one who doesn't know a language. One of two things happen, either people keep chattering in Spanish and I am completely lost or people are nice enough to include me but have to go out of their way to speak a language they aren't comfortable with. I wanted to avoid both situations so I just snuggled in bed reading Harry Potter.

We decided to switch hostels the next morning because Jess was traumatized by the bathroom. The fact that I wasn't, showed how much I had already changed on this trip. I looked up this sick deal in another hostel and we trudged there. Rossco Backpackers Hostel was everything I ever wanted in hostel. We got a 4 bed dorm that we shared with an older gentleman Al.The bathrooms were perfectly clean and there was actually liquid hand soap on the sink.  I have so much to say about our roommate Al. He's a 60 something year old Canadian guy who has lived the craziest life. He's driven a motorcycle in so many different parts of the world and on this trip, he actually sold all his possessions, apparently burned all his pictures and just took off to spend the rest of his life exploring the world. He had given himself 10-12 years to cover as much of the world he could on his motorcycle. His story was mad inspiring and very sad at the same time. Jess and I always looked at the people at the hostels and evaluated which kind of person we wanted to be. We both admitted being terrified when we saw a 40 year old lady traveling alone at the hostel in Tulum. For the first time it seemed like the price for loving the adventure and instability might be ending up alone. Seeing Al, I was reminded of the same thing. And I honestly don't know which part is worth it. Ideally it would be great to find someone who can remain as adventurous as you and agree to trade the nicer house for an adventure in South America. I feel like many people I know, think they are like this. But when it comes down to doing it, life always gets in the way. And that would be scarier than not wanting it at all. Wanting it and living in regret. But then I also don't know if I'll change when I'm older and would prefer to live a quiet and comfortable life without stressing about money all the time. Ah this is getting too depressing for a beautiful place like San Cristobal. Moving on.

Rossco - my favorite and cheapest hostel on the trip

kickass movie room

My bed for 3 nights

San Cristobal is like this tiny European town bang in the middle of Mexico. The town center, called a "Zocalo", was a gazebo in the town square where musicians actually play every evening. People just sit around and watch and sip coffee. Right next to the Zocalo was this market that seemed to be selling Mexican desserts. A lot of these desserts seemed close to Indian sweets that I am used to. I didn't try any however because there were a whole bunch of bees swarming around the sweets and I was also scared about the fact that the sweets were kept in the open all day.  One of my favorite memories in San Cristobal was to just be sitting in the Zocalo and watching this little Mexican boy pretending to talk on the public phone. It was so adorable. He was barely 3 years old and hardly managed to reach the handset. He kept pressing buttons and acting like he was having a serious conversation. Unfortunately I scared him off when he saw me trying to take a video :( Damn tourists.

Zocalo

Another really nice part of San Cristobal was the huggee handicraft market which sold clothes, trinkets, all sorts of cool stuff. I went to town on the woolen clothes here because they use a completely different kind of wool which is much warmer than the wool in the US. I bought a hat.. booties.. long socks.. a shawl. This was pretty much where the luggage increased considerably. I had initially left half my luggage at the hostel in Cancun (mostly textbooks). Two weeks in California before Mexico had given me a pretty clear picture that I wasn't gonna get any work done. Also I have no idea why I thought heels and a hair dryer were essentials :P So now with the new shopping, I was again back to barely managed heavy luggage.

Most of the 4 days in San Cristobal were just spent being so lazy and unfortunately the weather had made me kinda sick. I spent most mornings in bed and then left in the afternoon to try to find some food. Thankfully the hostel had a decent breakfast of fruit and toast so this pretty much required just one more meal each day. One of the interesting foods I tried here was Pozole. It has corn puffs in soup with a lot of ingredients that you can add according to your preference. Mainly stuff like onions, jalapenos, cheese, cilantro. All the good stuff. I didn't fall madly in love with Pozole but I didn't hate it either.

Pozole with all the trimmings

One thing I did fall madly in love with was the boiled corn they give you on the carts. I saw this cart on the way from the bus when I first arrived and then I spent the next 3 days looking for it. Thankfully I found it on the last day. It's boiled corn with mayonnaise, salsa, and lemon. Yummmmm. The salsa on the corn was so perfect. I kept telling him not to put any since it's always too hot for me, but the guy pretty much overruled my preference giving me looks to butt out. I am so glad he did cos I fell in love with the sauce. I then checked the sauce that he used and spent the rest of the day looking for the sauce. What's crazy is that after checking out all the big places in the city (including where the guy told me HE bought the sauce), I finally saw this little boy sitting in the corner of the market with 4 bottles at that sauce. That was absolutely insane. I bought two bottles with each big bottle being 8 pesos. That's right.. close to 50 cents! Another yummy food adventure I had in SC, was the local hamburger. I am getting so hungry as I type this. There were these hamburger stalls in the market and I just sat down not knowing what to expect. This lady takes a fat chunk of butter on the skillet and deep fries a thin patty and strips of ham. I can't emphasize what a beef patty cooked in butter tastes like but hopefully you can imagine it. She also cooks the giant bun on the skillet. She then adds the patty.. strips of buttery dripping ham.. slice of cheese.. lots of salad.. pieces of quac...and some sauce.. oooohh. It was so giant that I asked her to cut it in half and save the rest in foil. I then sat and ate both halves with her laughing at my gluttony. Another nice enough and very cheap meal was this stall that sold taquitos. So I could buy 4 different types with 20 pesos or something. It wasn't amazing but decent.

"Hamburger" from heaven 

Deep fried average goodness

 One not so amazing meal I had, was at this pizza place. I decided that I needed a break from Mexican and I really wanted to treat myself. So I went to one of the fancy Italian places where you can sit on the sidewalk, eat expensive food and just feel super great about being in such a cool place. I ordered a pizza with tomatoes, mushrooms and olives. The pizza tasted great enough. It came with this pesto dipping sauce and anyone pretty much has me at pesto. The pizza was HUGE and every now and then street kids would stop by and ask for a slice. This is the heartbreaking part of Mexico. There are so many street kids everywhere who are always trying to get money or sell you stuff and it really makes you feel so guilty to be basking in luxury and luck when they have nothing. However, past 2-3 times, I gave up on whatever food I was eating at the time, or gave the kid some coins, only to realize that he cheerfully ran to his friends to tell them of the sucker he found. So in spite of the constant bees and constant kids, I trudged through this meal determined to enjoy it cos I paid a shit ton for it. The pizza had 8 slices and I ate the smallest 4, pretty sure I could make 2 more meals out of the rest. He offered to pack it for me which basically included throwing them together in foil. When he brings it back, I am sure it's lighter than it should be and I open it and count it. Sure enough.. 3 slices! I walk back into the restaurant only to see the cheeky waiter feasting on my slice. I think I was kinda bugged cos my perfect meal was already troubled by the bees, so I insisted he make me another slice. The guy actually tried to give me the slice from his plate! I gave him the most scathing look I could muster and they threw together another shitty piece of pizza really quick to make me disappear. So yeah.. that wasn't a great meal. Another let-down food wise was this unbelievable candy cart I saw on the street. It looked like every kids dream come true. But when I bought some candy, it all tasted weird, like oil or something. I think I may have been scarred off fake Gummy Bears for life.

Very misleading candy cart

City center

As you can probably tell... time in San Cristobal was simply eating.. chilling and walking around the city. I spend one whole day at a somewhat-spa going all out on getting everything possible done. That was freaking awesome. I met this lady there and we chatted over pedicures about how she moved to Oaxaca from Michigan some 30 years ago and hasn't regretted it since. Thanks to her I was able to communicate with the hair dresser about what I wanted. Googling "Spanish facial" was absolutely no help. In fact, I recommend you never try to Google that. The hostel at San Cristobal was super great to meet people. They had this unbelievably cool movie room which I discovered a few hours before I had to leave :( They also had bonfires every night. The first night I pretty much was the only one really interested in sitting by it.. but the next day a bunch of us were chilling by the fire and talking about what each of us were up to. Among the people I met at the hostel was this really sweet German girl, this nice Aussie girl Jess, German Chris, Aussies Ben & Marek and English Gary. I talked to Gary mostly cos I happened to be sitting next to him and that guy has the memory of an elephant. I'll explain later. Anyway, leaving Rossco was super difficult. I remember slowly inching towards the door with all my luggage in tow and this really seemingly cool English group just kept talking to me about cricket! I loved it.. they remembered all the milestones for the different cricketers and even names of Indian cricketers. It was great to see Sachin's name getting the reverence it deserves. Anyway, I finally dragged all my luggage to a huge rickety collectivo and headed out to our next destination, Zipolite. It's really funny how through out the trip, the next destination was decided by a conversation at the current destination. I decided on Zipolite just because Siggi kept talking about it and the tickets were cheap enough to take the risk. I came to Palenque just because someone at Tulum mentioned that the ruins at Palenque were much nicer. And I came to San Cristobal only because the tickets directly to Oaxaca were way too expensive. Funny how things work out.

The scariest thing happened to me on the night bus ride to Zipolite. Now, on many online forums, I had read about  these "check-points" where either the cops or highway robbers stop the bus. The forums made it sound like both were equally dangerous. In fact, many people mentioned people who got off the bus with the cops and didn't come back on. So it was 2 am and the bus was stopped by the cops. They come inside the bus with all this assault gear and are looking at everyone. Out of the whole giant bus, they just zero in on me and ask for my passport. I give it to them and they all get off the bus with my passport and go into this small police checkpoint building. They didn't come back for the next 15 mins and I was getting super concerned. It also didn't help that the whole bus was pretty much waiting on me. Then two cops come back with my passport and I am relieved to see it safe but then they ask me to get off the bus. For all the people who keep telling me I am brave, I can tell you that I didn't feel too brave at this point. I was the only one being led off the bus and I was scared as hell. However, I think it's kinda disturbing that I was most scared about the fact that the bus might leave with my luggage and not that I might spend time in Mexican prison. They led me into this room, while still holding my passport and started questioning me about everything. They were very polite but having a whole room of guys staring at me was kinda unnerving. They mostly were fixated on the fact that it was totally abnormal for an Indian girl to be traveling alone and they pretty much wanted me to bust that myth. I was completely torn between mentioning Jess who was with me on the bus or not getting her involved. After they wouldn't back down, I kinda took a middle ground and told them that I know a girl whom I just met on the bus and that I had left my other friends back in San Cristobal. This way I haven't technically being traveling alone while Jess still wasn't associated with me. Thankfully this seemed to work and after 15-20 mins of questioning and making copies of my passport, I was allowed to get back on the bus. I still hated how it felt to board the bus after a long delay and I dunno if I imagined it but everyone seemed to be staring at me cos I was the cause of all this mayhem.

 I know some people will heartily disagree with all this praise about San Cristobal. San Cristobal is super touristy in the sense that you have expensive restaurants dotting every street. It also has a touristy vibe in general. The bars are so expensive and you'd rarely find interaction with locals if you just saunter into the bar.  But it depends on where you look. I went into this Mexican food place which didn't look pretty at all but I had the cheapest and awesome meal ever. I had Horchata which is a sweet drink made of rice and I ordered beef that was cooked on skewers shawarma style.

Beefy cheesy tortilla goodness

The spices were perfect and there was tons of cilantro with it. They also give you 3-4 types of sauces and tortillas to go with the meat. So unless I purposely wanted to eat in the touristy places, I still had other options. So in my opinion, San Cristobal was still pretty. Kinda like Singapore. You know it's fake, it's catered to what you want, but then it's still quaintly amazing in it's own way. So anyways, I left San Cristobal absolutely sure that the trip cannot get any better than this, and then I reached Zipolite.