Hitching is a daunting thing both the first time you do it, then again the first time you do it in a country where you don't know anything including the language. When we discovered that a bus from Tulum to San Cristóbal, albeit back through Cancún, was only $540 pesos ($45 USD) we opted for the simplicity and speed of just spending the money and getting there.
It was an all day ride. First going two hours back up north to Cancún, because a bus directly out of Tulum would have been $748 pesos, then 19 hours south and west along the Guatemalan border back to San Cris. I met a guy sitting behind me who was returning home from Cancún, where he was looking for work, to somewhere south of Comítan.
He was a farmer who, like many indigenous farmers in Chiapas, had to abandon this trade to either go north and find work in El Norte (The United States) or, more preferably, in places much closer to home like Cancún. The down side to working in Cancún is that the primarily foreign owned hotels either will sign an employee on under the table, illegally, or have you sign a document waving your rights as a worker. Either way, you become a worker with no rights in your own country.
Once arriving back in San Cris the next day Todd and I met up with a friend of mine, Carrie, who happened to be back in town as well. We had breakfast, then met up with a guy I'd met when I was last there, Jose Luis. I met him through the website Couchsurfing.org where travelers and locals can come together to mutually benefit one another.
Jose Luis is the embodiment of the spirit behind the Couchsurfing project that is very global. He lives on the edge of the city in a collective housing arrangement owned by a guy named Olivier. There are two houses, Jose Luis rents one, Mauricio rents the other, then sublets the rooms within, but everyone on the compound contributes. There are also three horses that live in a stable in the backyard, with an organic garden for food not to far from there.
At Jose Luis' house there is a spare room that the Couchsurfers crash at. Its a beautifully rustic setting. Jose Luis' house is like a log cabin, and the guest room is strewn about with mattresses. During our days staying there we met about 19 other Couchsurfers from all over the globe; Spain, Romania, France, Argentina, England, Estonia, Denmark, other parts of Mexico, and other Americans. Over dinner, depending on who there was more of, the conversations would be in Spanish, English, or French generally.
Jose Luis is a fiesta kind of guy, so through out the week there was generally something going on. I got to take part in a surprise midnight mariachi serenade that was both beautiful and hilariously fun yelling "arriba, arriba" into the night. Another night, Normando, a guy in from Mexico City, broke out his guitar and got us all singing and playing whatever instruments we could find or make to Mexican, American, and Cuban songs. I played along rapping an empty can against a frying pan that went well with the Cuban blues rhythms.
Through out this week I got to know Jose Luis a bit as well and he turned out to have had a fascinating life that he was now retiring from. His life was well lived in high ranks of Mexican politics. He fought both with his words and with weapons at various points in his life against corruption. In the end, the government threw him in jail for several months and his response, in the loss and confusion, was to move here to San Cristóbal and invite anyone from around the world to come and be his guest. He calls it his galactic station. A center, or gathering spot, for travelers from all over to meet one another.
On the occasional night that he's spoken of his political days its been hard to witness, as its easy to see he believed in the fight and now no longer does. This is something I've seen to a much lesser extent in America through my travels there. What I saw in the States was a vestige of what I can see in Jose Luis' disappointment. America has been worked over for so long with corruption, and sedated and distracted so thoroughly with TVs, cars, and mortgage payments that there is a seemingly unrepairable complacency that nothing can be done. Obama won his presidency on this promise that something can be done, yet still has not shown it to be true.
What I've loved most about being in this Casa de Jose Luis is that he continues to profess the simple act of giving, Love, to be the only solution that makes sense to him now. He's told me numerous times that to give without expectation is all we can do to help heal the world, and I believe him.
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