Mexico

Over the next week or so, Auryn and I puttered around San Cristobal and enjoy economic living. 😎

We had been sleeping in a bunk bed (sharing a single person bed to keep warm), so we invented a cute little bedroom in our tiny bunk. We wedged my iPad keyboard into a board supporting the top bunk, plugged in our head-phone splitter which, obviously, connected to two sets of headphones. Then we’d relax into our airplane pillows and could enjoy a relaxing space without disturbing our dorm mates! (Although we were giggling to Brooklyn Nine-Nine one night and this really bitchy lady (who caused a lot of grief for everyone) complained and said that she thought we were getting “handsy” which is hilarious 😂, plus it was WAY before quiet time).

A couple other of notes:

We saw the smallest dog I’ve ever seen. I had to use one finger to pet it’s tiny head and then it’s tiny tail starting tinyily wagging! 😭

I worked on my Udemy music course at this amazing local café most days.

I also tried some different local food (see pictures).Read more

We had an absolutely incredible New Years Eve!

We took it easy most of the day to recover from the *previous night* before partying for New Year.

The night started slowly with some drinks and fun with our friends before we moved upstairs to the dining area where our friends prepared an AMAZING dinner for us.

Afterwards we moved down to the common area to dance, and play some games before eventually moving into the street to hit some piñata!

First the children got a turn at smacking the piñata (all while everyone cheered and sung “Dale Dale Dale,” a children’s piñata song. Then the hostel residents were able to take a swing, including me! I was blind folded and spun around before getting to swing at the piñata! I got into the zone with several swings and eventually conquered the piñata! It was so exciting! Right after I broke it open, some of the adults started shooting off fireworks and the kids ran in to grab all the candy.

After one of our friends demolished another piñata, we all went back inside for some more dancing and partying. One of the children was watching me while I was hula-hooping and she and I became friends. Mila is very shy, but she warmed up to me enough to tell me that she loves dancing and singing. 🥰

The festivities continued until we all congregated on the rooftop to watch the fireworks shooting up from all around us. You could see fireworks come from nearby, or you could look up onto the hills and see them shooting off the mountain. It was magical.

We honestly missed the count down, but once we realized that midnight had struck we all started screaming “Happy New Year,” “Feliz Año Nuevo,” and one of my personal favourites “F**k 2020!!!” 😂

Contrary to the social distancing of 2020, we all hugged to celebrate and welcome the long awaited arrival of 2021. Having human contact after a year of extensive social limitations was so therapeutic.

After New Years, Auryn and I went to bed fairly early while the rest of the hostel stayed up until 7 am still partying. When I woke up I found some of our friends huddled around an unlit campfire that had a single lit candle in the centre. 😂

Needless to say, the hostel was very quite during the day of January 1st.

*Previous nights recap*

Three young French guys came to the hostel a few days previous, and honestly, I don’t think I ever saw them without bloodshot eyes and strung out on... something... multiple things? Anyway, they decided to go out on Dec 30th to party. Somewhere along the night they lost their keys and had their phone stolen (which they ended up getting back by chasing down and punching the thief). So they come back to the hostel around 2:30 am when they proceed to start banging and yelling on the hostel door and ringing the door bell. I am not comfortable with answering the door in the middle of the night to three aggressive sounding drunk men so I pretend to be “asleep,” which I guess is what most people decided to do because they kept banging on the door for OVER TWO HOURS before someone let them in. In the periods of time where they weren’t slamming on the door, the silence was soon broken by people talking in their sleep, running out of the room sobbing, looking around the room with their phones lit up, and snoring loudly. This whole night was all hilariously accompanied by our roommates relaxing water-fall noise maker, which we all agreed is peaceful and relaxing, but unfortunately didn’t do us much help during this wild night.

Everyone woke up in the morning and began telling all of their nights stories. One of our friends was throwing up all night (from some unknown illness) and she heard everything from the bathroom, our other friend (and hostel volunteer) had to answer the door and manage the three drunken guys. Another friend had the drunk guys accidentally walk into their private room because they were too drunk to know where their room was. Our other friend was heard sleep talking about a business plan conversation. The stories really go on forever, honestly.

So we all wake up and exchange our version of the story when one of the drunk French guys interrupts us to ask “do any of you know who let me in last night? I need to ask them if I came in with a jacket because I can’t find it and it had 5000 pesos in it.” 🙄 And we are all like “Why. Would. You. Walk. Around. With. That. Much. Money?!?!?” (He’s also walking around with a bum hand from punching out the phone thief). So for the next hour or so we watch him looking around the hostel for his lost belongings until him and his rowdy friends are eventually asked to leave the hostel.

Auryn and I moved into a private room for the next four nights, which we had already planned being that the hostel dorms are likely to be incredibly noisy during New Years Eve. Our private room was especially welcome after this noisy night.Read more