San Cristobal de las Casas

---

My favorite place for part 1 of the journey. We spent 3 weeks here. It is a tiny little colonial town in the midst of the mountains smack in the middle of no-where. The streets are cobblestone and there were many beautiful churches, and an amazing daily market. We took some Spanish lessons here and I volunteered at a women’s clinic with a Mexican obstetrician who spoke no English. Dana and I learned lots of Spanish quite quickly as we had to use it all the time.

It was here where we met are musically inclined friends from the UK. Tom had played in a band for 10 years and Greig was just beginning, putting himself out there, and trying to make it happen. Both had left England, a girl and their old lives and came to San Cristobal to start a new path. We had lots of fun “shooting the shit” and because of Greig’s good looks we had a trail of gay men to hang out with too. We spent our evenings at Greig’s place on top of our Spanish school, which was halfway up a mountain and overlooks the city. Over wine or beer Greig would play his newest songs and Nate would freestyle some lyrics, it was a very surreal time.

Spanish was overwhelming at first but after the second week there was a click and I started thinking and writing in my journal in Spanish. It was very exciting and I absolutely loved this new language and was eager to learn more. It opened so many doors, suddenly we were able to communicate with all these local Mexican people.

---