The van from San José to Pochutla took 3.5hours after encountering roadwork on the winding mountain roads. In Pochutla I caught a cab outside the van depot for a 20-minute ride to Puerto Angel and arrived at my Airbnb at 1:30pm.
Puerto Angel is a small fishing town. Rock formations outline a small bay that provides safe harbor for the village’s many fishing boats. On the main street, there is one main hotel, two or three small hostels, and a couple small restaurants. Travelers generally stay for a day or two to completely disconnect and recharge.
After procuring some lunch and food for dinner, I took a dip in the pool, and then set in for a Sunday afternoon grind session. I was doing well in a big tournament, but unfortunately the power went out for 30 minutes at about 8:30pm. By time the power had come back, my stack had dwindled and I busted in shortly in 20th place. I will have to look into getting a USB wifi stick for a backup to prevent this in the future. I ended up losing about $500 on the day.
Monday, I woke early and walked down to the main strip in town. I had breakfast overlooking the beach while watching fishermen prepare and set out for the day at sea. After a long walk on the beach, I went for a swim. Nobody was around, so I took off my bathing suit while in the water to truly enjoy the warm Pacific.
At noon, I took a 25-minute taxi northwest up the coast to Mazunte. Several people in Oaxaca had recommended Mazunte as a nice spot to relax on the coast. I didn’t know what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised to find a super chilled-out, laid back beach town. Unlike many other party-centric coastal destinations, there isn’t much in Mazunte, so the town has a quiet, secluded feel. There are several yoga centers in town, several of which regularly host month+ long yoga teacher training courses. Thus, the town is a haven for dedicated yogis. Many of the shops and cafes in town cater to the yogi crowd offering all sorts of natural, organic, free trade products. You will find people on the beach meditating, practicing tai chi, or yoga at almost any time of day, especially sun rise. People seem to float around, carefree. Did I mention the town has a chilled-out vibe?
I found a private room in a hostel right on Playa Rinconcito. The accommodations weren’t much, but ten steps from my room and my feet were in the sand.
The Pacific coast, San Angel included, but specifically Mazunte is hot. Oppressively hot. From 11am to 4pm, the heat makes it tough to do anything but lay around while occasionally taking a dip in the ocean to cool off. I spent the afternoon doing just that, and was sure to stay hydrated with many mojitos.
At sundown, I smoked a joint with weed from Yoshi. While I had been avoiding the Maryjane since the Amazon, I couldn’t help but smoke a little with Yoshi in San Jose. I found his Mexican weed, grown in the mountains, to give a clean, clearheaded high, sans the negative effects of strong weed that I was previously trying to avoid. Just what is called for at the beach.
In the evening, my hostel was deserted, so I headed out to find some action. Unfortunately, nearly all the bars and restaurants in town were deserted as well. I ended up at a outdoor pizzeria that consisted of a brick oven, pizza making table, bar, and two picnic tables under a tent. An extremely tan guy with long hair and beard, wearing a tank top and board shorts, swigging beer was the only employee. We bullshitted while he made my pizza. Turns out he was the owner, originally from Italy. And it showed. The pizza was amazing. The crust was perfect with delicious, gourmet toppings to match.
I ate the entire 18inch pizza, and waddled home with a beer in tow. The town was eerily quiet. I went for a moonlight walk on the beach.
I woke early and headed to the beach for a morning meditation while the sun rose. Afterwards I went to a beachside café for breakfast, had a swim, and headed to another café to write all day and avoid the midday heat. After lunch, I went back to the beach in the late afternoon.
At sundown, I again smoked a joint, and then went to beachside cantina for happy hour cocktails. I headed out to watch the first game of the World Series, but unfortunately couldn’t find a bar or restaurant with a television. Instead, I grabbed a club sandwich to go and streamed the game at my hostel. The internet quality was horrendous, but the Cubs got whooped, so I didn’t miss much.
The next morning, I again headed to the beach for sunrise meditation. I went for a swim, followed by breakfast at a beachside café. A nice rhythm was developing here. I went to a different café and wrote and lunched during the midday heat. Afterwards I went swimming until sundown.
Back at the hostel, I chatted with a German girl and learned there is an overnight bus from Pochutla to San Cristobal. I intended to visit Puerto Escondido on the coast after Mazunte, but after just three days, had already grown tired of lying lazily on the beach. I decided to pack up and try and make the 8pm bus to San Cristobal.
I hopped in a cab and told the driver to step on it. He got me to Pochutla in time and dropped me at the bus station at 7:45. I booked one of the last few seats on the bus, and was on my way.
In the haste after making the spontaneous decision to head to San Cristobal, I forgot about the Cubs game. Shit! Guess I would have to miss Game 2. The Mexican lady sitting next to me was kind enough to look up the score, and Cubs were up 5-0. That’ll work.
After a winding bus ride, which I was thankfully able to sleep through, we arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas at 8:30am. I had been recommended Rossco’s Backpacker hostel, so found it on my phone and walked 15 minutes while admiring the city.
San Cristobal de las Casas is a small mountain city located in the far southeast Chiapas provenance of Mexico. With rolling hills and dense green forests, the Chiapas region is extremely pleasing to the eye, reminiscent of the Pacific Northwest in the US. San Cristobal is surrounded by picturesque pine forested hills, crisp, clean air, and skies that always seem to be crystal clear. The sun shines during the day, but the temperature drops precipitously at night. Like Oaxaca, San Cristobal retains its Spanish colonial charm, with cobblestone streets, terracotta tile roofs, and earth colored buildings. The main tourist streets in town are lovely, with never-ending restaurants, bars, and cafes, all of which feature outdoor seating, great for people watching. Interestingly, the city is home to many supporters of the Zapatistas, a militant, agrarian, revolutionary group who live in the nearby mountains, and thus has a decidedly anti-government, self-sufficient culture.
After dropping my bags, I learned of a free walking tour of the city at 10am. I headed out for breakfast, then made my way to the main square for the tour. There I met Ana from Switzerland and Andrea from Spain, who were also staying at Rossco’s. No other tourists showed up, so the three of us had a cozy and fun tour with our guide Temo. We visited a church, market, café, restaurant, art gallery, lookout, and finished the tour with shots of Pox, a clear liquor popular in the region, similar to mescal.
After the tour, Andrea, Ana, and I went for lunch at El Caldero. I had a caldo de conejo (rabbit soup), which was incredibly rich and delicious, along with the cocktail of the day. We did some more wandering around the city and artisinal market before heading back to the hostel for siestas.
In the evening there was a bonfire at the hostel, which was inviting and pleasant in the cool mountain air. Beers and mescal started flowing, and before long, a big group found ourselves at Revolución, a popular bar featuring live music. A lot of drinking, dancing, and great fun ensued, and eventually I left with Ana at about 3am.
Finally rising at about 10:30 the next morning, I brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face, trying to revive myself enough to venture out for breakfast. I emerged from my room and ran into Andrea who was also suffering a bit. We headed out to Frontera Café, a gourmet style place that Temo showed us the day before.
During breakfast, Andrea asked me about my Bitcoin T-shirt. I explained it and blew her mind. Being from Spain, where the economic situation has been abhorrent over the last 5+ years, she immediately recognized the importance and value of Bitcoin. I set Andrea up with a Bitcoin wallet and sent her $20, and for the next week she was my Bitcoin disciple, asking everyone she encountered, “Do you know about Bitcoin?”
That evening I went out to dinner with Andrea, Ana, and Chris from Wyoming. Chris was riding a motorcycle through Central and South America, and had some interesting stories to tell from his journey.
Afterwards, I broke off from the group to watch the Cubs game. I was at a place called Tequila Zoo, then they turned off the tied game in the seventh inning in favor of a regional soccer match. Luckily, I was watching the game with two other Cubs fans who lived in San Cris, and knew a nearby place, to which we all sprinted. Cubs ended up losing 1-0 after leaving about a dozen RISP stranded, including in the bottom of the 9th inning. What a letdown.
After leaving the bar, I ran into Andrea and a group of people from the hostel who were buying beers for the nightly bonfire at the hostel. I joined in and we all had a fun night hanging around the fire.
The next day I hung out all morning and afternoon at various cafes and bars along Calle Real Guadalupe, the main tourist drag in town. I sat out front writing and people watching while sucking down a combination of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and beers.
In the evening, I again turned down going out with a group from the hostel in favor of watching the Cubs game, which none of them were interested in. I found a bar showing the game and watched it with two Germans that were strangely Cubs fans. We drank a lot as the Cubs got blasted 7-2 to go down three games to one in the World Series. Depressing.
The next morning was Sunday. I headed to the Mercado to get some food to cook for a long day of poker. While there, I found a lady selling pure hand-churned butter from grass fed cows. I was proud of this find as all the butter I encountered in the city was a crappy butter/margarine hybrid.
In the late morning, I moved to an Airbnb, and made some eggs and Bulletproof coffee with the butter. It was a big poker Sunday with three larger than normal tournaments with buy-ins of $300-$500. I was psyched, and planned to play about $2000-$2500 worth of tournaments on the day. Around 4pm, I started feeling bad, and had to run to the bathroom a couple times. By 5pm I had a fever, and was feeling really bad, with $1700 worth of tournaments on my screen. By 7pm I was laying on the couch moaning, and had busted from all but a couple tournaments with only a few small cashes, and dumped about $1400 on the day. At least the Cubs won to force Game 6. I wasn’t sure what made me sick, but thought it was the chicken I had at the bar the previous night.
The next morning, I felt better. I made eggs again, but 45 minutes later I was in the bathroom. It was the butter! From the sweet old lady, that I was so proud of finding. It looked and tasted fine, but had a faint, pungent odor, that I could only smell close-up. Fuck! I need to be more careful with food. Food poisoning sucks.
I moved into a private room at a new hostel, El Nagual. I went to a homeopathy shop and the lady working there instructed me to take colloidal silver diluted in water. I took a small dose every four hours and was right as rain the next day. I spent the rest of the afternoon at a café having hot chocolate, and in the early evening hiked to the top of a nearby mirador (lookout).
In the evening, I met Ana at El Caldero for dinner. It was her last day before heading to Oaxaca for day Day of the Dead. We had a nice little dinner (I had a caldo de barbacoa, fantastic!), and then said our goodbyes in the setting dusk.
I stopped at a café and ordered a hot chocolate to go and headed back to the hostel. It was Halloween, but I was not feeling well enough to go out. Kids were trick-or-treating as I walked home. In Mexico, the kids sing songs to receive candy when trick-or-treating. Usually three or four go to a house or into a shop and sing in unison for a minute or two, sometimes longer. It’s about the cutest thing ever.
At home, I played a few poker tournaments, and had an $1100 score to recoup most of my losses from the prior day.
After breakfast the next day, I went for a walk. I found a tourist agency and asked how to get to the graveyard for Día de los Inocentes. The lady gave me direction and told me it was a 15 minute walk. It was outside of town and turned out to be a 45-minute walk in midday heat, but I eventually made it.
In Mexico, Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a three-day celebration commencing on Halloween, followed by Día de los Inocentes (Day of the Innocents, a day to remember children who passed before their time), and ending with Día de los Muertos (a day to remember all friends and family who have passed).
The entire Día de los Muertos celebration is something to behold. The belief is that during these three days, the spirits of loved ones return to earth to visit and support those left behind. While they are here they partake in all the earthly indulgences they enjoyed while living. In their homes and/or businesses, everyone builds an altar or shrine dedicated to someone who has passed, decorating it with candles, incense, pictures, objects of significance, and earthly offerings to the deceased. On these altars you’ll see offerings like an opened beer, a full shot glass, a lit cigarette or joint burning in an ashtray, a bowl of chili, an orange, a favorite book, etc.
In the graveyards, friends and family gather to clean and decorate graves of their loved ones. Nearly every grave in the cemetery is covered with pine needles and marigolds (traditional, Aztec, symbols for honoring the dead), as well as offerings and indulgences like what you see on the altars. Often the people will clean and decorate nearby abandoned graves as well. The friends and family sit at the grave all day, partying. They drink, eat, and sing songs (often with mariachi bands), while talking to the deceased as if they are there with them. Often they’ll catch the deceased up on all that has transpired over the past year. While you’ll occasionally see tears, generally it is a happy celebration of the life and spirit of those who have passed. It’s quite touching. I saw some people celebrating at a grave that was 30 years old, and they had gathered there every year since. Quite the contrast to America where, aside from discrete, passing moments, the dead are often remembered for a short time before fading away from memory.
I wandered the cemetery observing and trying to take it all in. I must admit, the scene impacted me and I became quite emotional thinking of the people I knew who had passed, particularly Phil and Grandpa Ralph. I sat on a bench reflecting, then laughed out loud. Death is just so perfect—the perfect dualism to life. And necessary. Without death, life would have no importance or meaning.
That night I met Andrea and her friend Kim in the plaza. We watched a demonstration in remembrance of the missing 43 and a small, ad hoc parade. People with their faces painted like a skull or wearing masks were out in force. Later we went to Andrea’s hostel, Puerto Viaje, and spent the night around the campfire. I watched a stream of the Cubs game on my phone, and they won with gusto to force Game 7… Wow.
The next morning, I met Andrea and Kim, and we caught a colectivo van to Chamula, a nearby town famous for its church and animal sacrifices that take place at the church, at 8am. Upon arriving in Chamula, we passed a house and stopped to look at the altar in front. We were invited inside by Eduardo and his wife to see the even larger, more elaborate altar inside, dedicated to his grandparents.
At the church, we were greeted by several men wearing white wool ponchos. They offered us a traditional fermented corn drink and homemade mescal. Shots of mescal at 9am? Why the fuck not?
Men were manually ringing the church bells by pulling ropes from the plaza below. They explained the bells are rung constantly, all day from 6am to 6pm, on Day of the Dead. They asked me to help ring the bells, and I obliged.
Later we went to the cemetery, which is sprawled around the ruins of an old church. The place was packed with people celebrating at the graves of loved ones. We wandered around observing, before meeting a man and his family at the grave of his father. He offered us shots of pox while explaining the history and traditions of Día de los Muertos.
Afterwards, we went to another cemetery just outside of town. There we met Emilio and his family who were at the grave of his brother, who had died unexpectedly in his sleep two months prior. The family welcomed us to their celebration. Due to how recently his brother died, it was simultaneously a heavy affair, with his mother sitting by the grave weeping for a couple hours straight, and a fiesta, with a mariachi band singing songs. We were offered many beers and endless pox and it turned into a bit of an Irish (Mexican?) Funeral. In the late afternoon, we said our thanks and goodbyes to the Emilio y familia before returning to San Cristobal.
That night I went out to watch Game 7 of the World Series. Being Day of the Dead, not many places were open or showing the game. I wound up at a small café bar, and watched the game with four people, two Americans. What a rollercoaster of a game. Cubs nation could not have asked for a more thrilling, storybook way to end the curse and win the World Series. It was by far the best baseball game I’ve ever seen.
After the final out, I was elated. Everyone at the bar, even the girl who didn’t give a shit about baseball, was enthused after the dramatic, hair-raising final three innings. The bartender gave me a free beer, and afterwards an older gentleman from Oregon bought a round for everyone in celebration.
Afterwards, I continued the party and went to meet Andrea, Kim, and a group of people at Puerto Viaje for drinks before hitting the town. We wound up at Revolución dancing until 4am.
I spent the next day chilling in cafes. The highlight of the day was some amazing duck tacos for dinner. In the evening, I watched a couple movies before hitting the hay early.
I rose at 6am the next morning. I had booked a shuttle to take me over the Guatemalan border to Antigua. The shuttle arrived at 7am, and I settled in for the 10+ hour journey. After having stayed in Mexico for far longer than I originally intended (Viva Mexico!), I was excited to finally be moving on to the next country.