The nights, and therefore mornings as well, are quite cold in San Cristóbal so getting out of bed in the morning took some time. The days, however, warm up quite nicely. Up in the mountains here the temperatures range from 30° during the day down to 0° at night. Of course, this is in Celsius. That translates to Fahrenheit as anywhere between 80°-85° in the day to around 30° at night.
I instantly fell in love with the city in the daylight, surrounded by the tops of high mountains in every direction and the architecture harkens back to the old Spanish colonial days. Cobbled roads, churches strewn about everywhere, and Mayans in traditional dress hawking wears in the Zócalo, or Main Square. We spent a nice lazy morning winding our way through the market place finding mango on a stick for $5 pesos, which is about 30 cents in USD. Later we were told that that was a high price due to the season.
Over this first week it would soon become quite clear to me that San Cristóbal is an extremely international and diverse town. The languages overheard in the streets ranged from English and Spanish to Tsotsil (one of the main Mayan languages), French, German, Dutch, Chinese, Indian, everything. Being a small town of about 86,000 people, I was surprised at how thick with culture the place is.
One thing that is unignorable is the abundance of Zapatista and Che Gueverra iconography there is. Chiapas is known in Mexico as a rebel state due to the Zapatista, or EZLN, movement, but the interesting thing about the EZLN is that there is no wish to over throw the government. They are an armed group that exist to keep the government out of the hair of indigenous people and enable them to retain their land for themselves. This is what draws so many internationals to this city, so it has a palpable feeling of genuine civil justice.
Bo and I spent the day in a coffee shop that was rather touristy, but it served our needs of having Wi-Fi and cheesecake. In the evening I met with the director of my school, Jose Luis, in the school/his home which has a balcony beholding an amazing view of the city and mountains behind it. I was going to stay with an all Spanish speaking family, but since the school was so gorgeous and had several rooms to rent, I changed my mind and got place there for the first week.
After some visiting and getting to know one another Bo had to meet up with the Couchsurfer she was going to be staying with, so I dropped my bag in my new room and wandered across town with her. She was staying with a kid named Jorge who was studying English to teach it, but spoke very little of it at the moment. When we got there it also turned out he wasn't feeling too well either. We visited briefly, mostly with me straining to understand what was being said, then retired quickly for the evening.
Returning to my new home I decided to check out a hostel I knew a friend of mine from Canada, Jocelyn, was staying at. I met her through Couchsurfing when looking for a sail boat to hitch to Mexico on off the US west coast somewhere. I'd put a post up for the request and Joce was the only one to respond saying she was looking too and could we share leads if either of us got one. That had been back in November, so over the following two months neither of us caught a boat, but we did swap insights we gathered along the way of cheap hostels, ease and safety of hitching in areas, etc. We talked for about an hour before I went home to rest before classes the next day.
Classes start at 9am, but are right down the stairs from my room. That morning people only spoke Spanish in the school, though they knew to be patient with us beginners as we struggled through finding words and sentence structure. Primarily, the other students were American as well, though older in their sixties or so. A British girl from London was also studying there. We all would gather in the cocina (kitchen) making coffee before heading to our one on one classes.
My teacher is a guy about my age called Cristian. The teaching gig seemed to be one of the many ways he made an income with. The class was essentially just talking in Spanish with me asking all kinds of questions like "how do you say 'hitch hiker'?" or "how do you say 'Can I catch a ride?'". Practical questions tailored just for me, and he was more than happy to answer them. My other teacher, Rosa, was the same. Although after she heard about my travels and how short amount of time I live in any one place she told me what the Mexicans call someone like me. Pata de Perro means Paw of the Dog literally, but is what Mexicans call one who wanders about all the time.
My week unfolded quickly between my classes in the morning trying to sort things out in the afternoon. That Monday night Bo switched Couchsurfing homes to a place a little further outside with a guy also called Jose Luis. He turned out to be a central figure to know in San Cristóbal as he has Surfers there all the time.
That night I learned many of the grittier words I'd need for traveling and was introduced to some good friends who I'd run into through out my time in San Cristóbal. It was from this night that later I would find free housing for myself, and would soon walk down the streets in town and run into friends almost every time I went out.
While moving around the Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala Bo and I had tried Couchsurfing with no success, but San Cristóbal is the perfect town for this site. It emphasizes the open mindness I've found tucked away here.
After that night out with Jose Luis and his gang I wouldn't see Bo anymore. She headed back to Guadalajara the next day and we weren't able to coordinate meeting up one more time before she left. I bought a phone with a SIM card for $200 pesos ($17 USD) which will enable me to switch cards and keep my phone local when I move from one country to another.
For the most part, the rest of my week consisted of classes, wandering through the streets a little, then writing people back home, figuring out how to talk to my Mom and sister through Skype, and just resting. Learning a new language while immersed in it is a great, but exhausting, way to learn.
Over the weekend I decided I needed to get out of the city. I'd heard about Las Grutas de Rancho Nuevo which is 12km outside of town. I was curious to know about hitching back as well, so I spent the afternoon walking there. Heading out of town is the intersection going to Comitán or Tuxtla, the capital of the state. Directing traffic there was a squad or two of military soldiers pulling over cars at random to search. Later down the road I saw two truck loads of them drive off toward Comitán.
Las Grutas means the caves in Spanish. The attraction seemed to be a perfect Sunday afternoon picnicking area for the locals. When I got to the park I passed many families out for the afternoon picnicking, sliding down a giant slide that was there, and paying the $10 pesos to wander into the cave and take a look. I didn't stay long, maybe an hour. Long enough to meander through the cave and slide down the giant slide with the kids.
The thing I thought was funny about the slide was that to slide better the kids would bring up a piece of cardboard to sit on, or a crushed 2 liter bottle of soda. All around the rest of the site were little marketing stalls and ads for horseback rides. After my slide and the cave I started to walk home, and to check out hitching in Mexico. I was pleased to find after walking for maybe 5 minutes a pick up pulled over and offered to drop me in El Centro, the center of San Cristóbal.
When we got into town the driver was taking a route I thought was going out of his way, so at a red light I jumped out of the back and looked into through the window to thank him for the ride. He looked at me and yelled "El Centro!" with a big grin on his face, so I hopped back into the back. Sure enough, he turned and dropped me dead in the center of town. Again, I leaned in the window to thank him, and this time tried to give him $5 pesos, but he refused it and waved me on with a big grin.
In this first week here, I quickly came to love the town and I would find I hadn't even gotten into it yet. Mostly I spent the week eating out in restaurants because the food is so filling and cheap. My average meal out was around $30 pesos ($2.50 USD). I saw two movies in cultural centers that are strewn about everywhere in town, one in Tsotsil with Spanish subtitles, and another (thankfully) in Spanish with English subtitles. Both of these movies, and it seems every other movie being shown here at the cultural centers are either about the Zapatistas or Che.
Over this first week, just getting around town, hanging out with friends, and living here my Spanish improved immensely. I even ventured to apply for a job working in a coffee shop, thought that was probably a little over zealous of me. My teacher introduced me to a collective group working on teaching the neighborhood about environmental energy technology which was open for me to volunteer at. This sort of progressive interest is quite common here in San Cris. Its one of the things I really love about the city. Its very historical and quaint, yet it almost seems because of that it has an easier time going directly to new forms of energy rather than weeding through getting out the modern way of doing things.
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