My Nomad Diary, Week 9: I’m A Damn Fraud
Moments from the week:
Enduring my longest ever bus journey, 12-hours 🤢
Boarding a Colectivo with the locals, soy Méxicano
What I’m reading this week:
Still on it (admittedly not actively reading atm): The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel
Welcome to week nine and I’m having a tantrum.
My first day of the week and I’ve had enough of this Airbnb. It’s not *that* bad, but when it’s rated 4.91/5, you expect it’s gonna be pretty decent, right?
Just stay with me a moment whilst I kick off for a hundred words (or skip to the next paragraph), whilst you play the role of unpaid therapist for me today.
But please, if you use Airbnb and your experience sucks. Write a review saying it sucks. Do not leave a 5-star review when the wifi is crap or the place has terrible damp problems. Yes the host is a nice person, but they are running a business, if you leave butt-kissing reviews all the time, they won’t see what the problem is.
Right… OK, moving on. Not much on the agenda for Monday to be honest, just making some fine tweaks to my blog, met my friend, walked around the city, went to a bang average restaurant and called it a day.
Underwhelming right? Well… that’s the reality of this lifestyle is that, for the most part, it’s the same as yours. I just change my house, like, all the time 😂 oh and I go and see super cool things on my lunch break. But, yeah.
Tuesday – Oh dear lord, I am a fraud. So, I’m navigating my way out of my current Airbnb a few days early, I’ve had enough of broken sleep and the dampness in this place. I spoke to Airbnb to discuss my options in confidence and I think they have ratted me out to the host!? Anybody that knows me knows I cannot deal with confrontation. F*** my life 😅
So what did I do? I lied through my teeth. Great place, loved every minute, but unfortunately I need to move on as my travel plans have changed.
Am I going to leave a scathing review of this place? Absolutely.
I know, I’m a bad person. But a bad person with a justice complex. In my defence, I have toned it down a little and said how lovely the host is, but this place is still insanely overrated and the review section needs a generous helping of my famous honesty.
In more positive news, I discovered the local town library today and I spent a few hours there with my laptop, some French Toast and a coupla cups of coffee – bliss.
Tomorrow is moving day, wish me luck!
It’s Wednesday and we are on the road again, I checked out of my Airbnb this morning at 11am and I’m on the hunt for a coworking space, as my bus isn’t until 8pm tonight. I went to the usual library spot, but there’s a class in there, so I took a twenty-minute walk to the barrio of Jalatlaco to a coworking space there. In a baggy jumper and jeans in 27°C. Lovely.
The coworking space was great, there was only one other person in there, I had my own desk in a shared space and it was £7 for the entire day with free coffee and water, bargain. I used the time to publish my postcards from Oaxaca and start on my in-depth trip report.
I finished the day with a meal at a restaurant and boarded my 12 hour bus at 20.30.
It’s 4am on Thursday morning and what fresh hell is this!? I slept with my contact lenses in and everything is so blurry. I think this bus driver has been on the Bolivian marching powder, he’s on a mission. On the plus side, I’ll be into San Cristobal on time, if I survive this.
I waltzed into my hostel at around 9am, had some breakfast, explored the city a little and managed to get an early check-in. Today, in all honesty was a complete write-off, I did a grand sum of diddly squat and hit the hay.
Feeling refreshed for Friday, I had a Spanish lesson at 9am, a call with a new contact at 10am and shortly after, I went for a big old walk, 15K steps to be precise. I can tell my operation has worked, because I would have had a terrible limp after this, still a few weeks away from being able to run though, maybe longer.
I went scouting for a co-working space but didn’t have any luck.
I parked myself at a cafe on the side of the road outside of the city and had a coffee, within two minutes a local chap called Tony asked if he could join and practice his English with me. A random encounter and typical of life on the road, it was great!
Finishing up the day I headed back to the hostel to complete my Oaxaca Trip Report and then watched movies in my room, wild Friday night I know but I’m up at 7am tomorrow!
Up bright and early on Saturday as I’m on a full day tour to Sumidero Canyon, a 20km long canyon with 1km high walls in parts. It was a great day out all-in-all and I was so happy to be experiencing a bit of nature after two months of city life.
Fast-forwarding to the end of the day and I’m having a bit of a conundrum… I’m immensely bored in this town. I can see the appeal but it’s a massive hippy vibe here and that’s just not my cup of tea.
I did look at bringing my next stop forward but it ended up requiring changing 5 or 6 other reservations, all to leave two days early, so I’ll just stick it out.
Final day of the week and I’m headed to a little eco-park up the road called El Arcotete. You can go via taxi but I decided to take a local Colectivo. These are, normally, privately owned vans that will take you to certain locations around towns in Mexico for a small fee. I hopped in and 45-mins and 15 pesos later I had arrived at El Arcotete.
It’s a great little park with a large stream, trails and a little cave network too!
It was well worth the journey, I spent about two hours there and then headed back to the centre via a Colectivo. Me and about 15 others crammed into this old van, magical.
When I got back to the hostel, I then hear somebody shout out “look who it is” and I look up and it was my two Kiwi friends from CDMX, completely by surprise. I was really starting to resent staying in San Cristobal, it’s a bit too hippy-dippy for me, so it was a great end to the week to see some like-minded friends.
That’s it for the week! Lots going on next week, two new locations on the agenda, more to come.
