Beautiful San Cristobal

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We stepped off the bus and were shocked- it was freezing. People were wearing scarves and winter jackets. When we had got on the bus it was sweltering outside; we had climbed up the mountains and here we were in minus figures (well not quite but it felt like it).

It was close to midnight and we had no reservation. Fortunately, the local hoteliers turned out for us and were in their element flicking through their A4 folders showing us their accommodations in which we could stay. As it was dark we didn't want to take any chances; we turned down a lift from a friendly Mexican (whose hostel we weren't staying at) and attempted to catch a taxi to Rossco Hostel, which was part of a group of hostels of which we had already stayed at two.

Being less prepared than usual, we had not written down the address of Rossco. None of the taxi drivers seemed to know where it was, despite us writing down the name for them. Fortunately the helpful Mexican man who had offered us the lift knew where it was, and provided the address to a taxi driver who agreed to drive us. We arrived at Rossco which was a pleasant hostel, and booked a double room as we were so tired. We had travelled on a bus for 21.5 hours out of the last 30- all the way from the Caribbean coast to the middle of Mexico. When you look at it like that it seems crazy that we've even had anything to write about!

We were BEYOND STARVING as we had not had a proper meal since we don't know when, not even the previous day in Playa. However, the street outside was dark and quiet with no street food, and we had no idea where to go. We stood outside in our woolly hats looking lost for a while, then decided to call it a night. We asked the receptionist about take-away but he told us it was closed. Damn. So we ended up going to bed starving, but very excited for the first night that we would not wake up in a sweat.

The following morning we were told that we were not able to stay another night at Rossco as it was fully booked. We had to move to another hostel, so decided to go to Iguana, the hostel where the friendly man worked. We headed out on foot, not knowing how hilly San Cristobal was. We were glad we did though as we were able to see some of the lively city, and decided straight away that we loved it. San Cristobal is lovely and quaint and pretty, but it has so much going on at the same time. We quickly checked into our new hostel which was a complete bargain at 70 pesos each (around £3.50) including breakfast. It was just as good as Rossco, but Rossco had been 350 pesos for a double room. We had found a good bargain. We dropped off our bags and headed out armed with our city map.

As it was the weekend before Day of the Dead, there were are kinds of festivities going on in San Cristobal. There was live music and dancing going on in the Zocalo (the central square) on a stage as big as those that we have at festivals in the UK. All over the city there were little bandstands set up with wooden seats surrounding them. Locals were all sat around eating and drinking, with their children playing. The atmosphere was really nice and there was a real feeling of the community coming together all over the city.

We decided to first look around one of the craft markets. We were looking for some bracelets as we had wanted to buy a little souvenir from Mexico. The prices were quite high so wanted to use some haggling skills as we knew we were going to be ripped off. We were actually quite rubbish at this as one woman offered us three bracelets for 10 pesos which we thought was a good deal. We only wanted two however so we gave her 10 pesos for the two bracelets, which possibly makes us the worst hagglers in the world. But she had the cutest son who loved our camera, we took his picture then showed him and he loved it, he had the biggest smile.

While we were walking around the market we saw a box of baby turtles. They were so tiny and cute, so we asked the stall owner if we could hold them. We got one out and let it walk on our hands, like a hamster. Except it didn't move very much. They were for sale at 3 pesos each (about 18p) we just wanted to buy one and carry him around. But we decided this would be cruel. We had heard that farming turle eggs had been made illegal in certain places in Mexico, we were unsure whether these were black market turtles.

We met a long haired Mexican man in the market who could speak English!! This was a rarity so we stopped to chat to him for a while. He used his advantage over the other market sellers to try and encourage us to buy his wares, but we were not really interested in overpriced coffee been necklaces. Instead we asked him about the best places to see around the city; he told us about a church on a hill, and recommended some cheap restaurants with big portions. He told us that his love for rock bands was how he had learnt to speak English, as he had learnt song lyrics and began to understand the language. He had been inspired by the likes of Led Zepelin and Green Day.

After the market we headed towards the bus station to buy our ticket for Oaxaca the following evening. It was on the other side of town, so along the way we were able to see a lot of the churches and cathederals which we had wanted to look at. We found a number of panaderias on the walk, and decided it would be rude not to sample their fineries in a country that seems to consume pan with every single meal. We actually bought cakes, and they were amazing. In fact they were so good that we stopped at a second panaderia for Luke to buy two more as a mid-morning snack. Lots of the little shops had cute storybook windows filled with a mixture of Christmas decorations and Halloween decorations. There were flag banners suspended across the streets which were really pretty and gave a festive feel.

We made it to the bus station and booked our bus journey, deciding to take the executive class bus which provides free drinks and has separate male and female toilets. Check that out. After also finding out where we could book a trip into the Sumidero Canyon the following day, we went for lunch. We found a lovely 'international cuisine' restaurant where we both had pasta and two Sols for about £3 each. Not bad. After dinner, we were ready for our walk up to the church on the hill to get a view over the whole of San Cristobal. At the beginning of our ascent we heard a lot of yapping, and spotted shelves of dog food behind a doorway. We stuck our heads round and it was a puppy shop, so of course we harassed the owner to bring a puppy through from the back yard so we could look at it. It was a big cute lumberous ball of fluff and we spend a few minutes making noises at it while the owner struggled to hold it.

We finally made it to the top of the hill to see the church. When we got to the top we were a a bit disappointed to see that that the views had been obstructed by trees, however it was still nice to be at the top. After, we decided to make our way back to the hostel to see what was going on that evening.

At the hostel we played some ping pong- Katie put Luke to shame as she had never played before and was whooping Luke's ass with some pretty good back hander serves. After, we decided to go for another wander and found ourselves in a local food market. It was really smelly as people were selling all sorts of things; we even saw a woman with a giant pig's head in a bucket. There was loud English music pumping out from everywhere as people were selling copied CDs which gave us a strange sense of comfort. We strolled around watching people buy thousands of flowers for Day of the Dead whilst tapping our feet to the likes of Rihanna and Lady Gaga.
We decided to head back into town to get something to eat. As we were walking down the main street we saw our Swedish friend Daniel who we were going to meet up with in Oaxaca. We sat down with him in the bar and got some cocktails. We spent the rest of the evening drinking with him and an English guy who was a health and safely co-ordinator in Trinidad, and four Israelis. Some of the people we have met on this trip have such interesting lives. We headed over to the Zocalo to see some of the live bands which were performing which was pretty cool, but then went for more drinks. As we were sitting in the bar we were approached by many kids trick-or-treating which was really cute. We got back to the hostel around 11.30 hoping to get an early night for our trip the following morning. We were able to sleep as pretty much the whole hostel was headed out to a party which they didn't get back from until about 6am. Too hardcore for us.

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Comments

[Leah]

sweeets
those sweets look yummy!n those lil turtles-cute! x