Heart and Sol
Julianna Boggs
Half awake, I stared out the window and watched the landscape change from thick jungle to sweet pine as the bus languidly climbed to 7,000 feet above sea level.
The air became cool and crisp, and you could hear birds instead of bugs. I had left all my apprehensions behind with the oppressive humidity and heat of the lowlands when I’d bought my one-way ticket to San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Cracking my window, I took deep breaths of cool air and exhaled all my doubts and fears about having come to Mexico. I felt like I had finally embarked on the great adventure — like this was finally it—and the thought brought on a rush of adrenaline and relief. I turned to the man in the seat next to me and said in a tone of honesty that I think unnerved him, “This is the best day of my life.” He didn’t speak much English, and for the rest of the ride, he wasn’t inclined to say much in Spanish either.
At dusk I hopped off the bus in San Cristóbal and found my way to Real de Mexicanos, a winding cobblestone street lined with tall colonial buildings that appeared to be painted by the Crayola company itself. Elegant stucco giants of sunset orange, razzle dazzle rose, unmello yellow and mauvelous splashed color on the town. Some three blocks beyond the Santa Domingo Plaza, I arrived at The Backpacker’s Hostel. There, a bunk, breakfast, internet access, and salsa lessons were all included for less than it costs to buy coffee and a bagel in L.A. The doors to the hostel were thick oak with years of layered black paint and swung open to reveal a courtyard blossoming with fruit trees and bright flowers. The air was heavy with the smell of papaya, lime, and the musk of cigarettes.
I threw my pack down on an empty bunk and made my way out to the fire pit. There, grinning vagabonds were already claiming their spots in eager anticipation of 7 p.m., when the fire was lit nightly. Most everyone cradled 1.189 liter bottles of Sol cerveza, an alcoholic drink with a label that boasted, “25% más!” And as a 20-something New Zealander told me, they were available just two doors down at the cerca tienda. Over the course of the week I became a regular patron to the shop. Then one evening, drunk, befuddled and desperately scrounging for change to pay for yet another 25% más Sol, my 10- peso piece slipped into the shopkeeper’s bowl of soup beside the register. After an all-for-not apology and attempt at a joke that probably didn’t translate (“I hope that doesn’t make your soup too rich”), I high-tailed it out of there, 1.189 liters in hand, never to return.
Each morning from 8 to 11 was a buffet-style breakfast that most people never woke up for or touched before 10:56 a.m. Like pigs at the trough, every dormer at the hostel would rush for the table at once, despite the fact that it had been waiting for them for hours. They proceeded to grab, smack, spill and squabble in half a dozen languages over who was hoarding the butter knife or drank the last of the creamer.
The fare was the same every morning: coffee, jam, butter, toast (white bread until 10, wheat bread until 11, with no rhyme of reason for it being so), and papayas bigger than footballs that would lend themselves well as lethal weapons in a life-or-death food fight. Most every bleary-eyed traveler was nursing a hangover before noon, but breakfast would set it right. Come 11:30 a.m., the derelicts were sorted from the do-gooders, the former snoozing in hammocks, the latter embarking on some excursion in which they might educate themselves in repentance for the brain cellsSan Cristóbal, (San Crís for short), is located in a historically Mayan area of Chiapas which imbues the city with a large indigenous population and an abundance of traditional Mayan activities. At the recommendation of a street vendor selling ponchos of lana, or wool, I made my way to the Mercado Municipal on the far side of town.ALL PHOTOS IN THIS STORY COURTEST OF Julianna Boggs
Editor: Elizabeth Hilbig Managing Editor:Amar Georgeson Copy Editor: Christian Shields Layout Editor: Jessica Painter Web Editor: Chris Hoff
Humboldt State University- Arcata, CA 95521