La Posada 5

After a long day of travel (of which our trip through the metro took almost half as long as the flight itself), we arrived in San Cristóbal, Chiapas at a tiny little hostel called La Posada 5. Not listed in any guidebooks, it was found by my friend Britta (who is currently living and studying in the town) and boasts a wonderful mixture of American ex-pats, European travelers, families with young children, and even a Dutch girl writing her graduate thesis on Mormons in the area. The water either came out nice and hot or not at all, and the mural-painted back yard sloped down to a beautiful view of the city where you could smoke a joint, play on the swing set, have a bonfire or beat bongo drums. At night, we would all gather around the kitchen table eating posole, playing cards, watching dubbed versions of the X-Files movie and hearing Walter, a former taxi driver from San Francisco, tell us stories of his travels. We slept very little but in the mornings we were always up early (some had never gone to bed at all) for the next day's adventures.