Sun spots, light gaps

Shine on: Luck in her many forms has followed us to San Cristobal. Of course, we've already found that free places to stay are easy to come by (over 2 months and haven't paid for a bed yet), especially when it comes to floor space and cramped couches, but now we're staying in a glowing, sunny hotel room smack in the downtown of San Cris. Our (own!) kitchen is constant entertainment for us, first thing we did was stock up the refrigerator and invest in some cooking oil. The feeling of having one's own place is a beautiful one. We invite friends over for dinner, keep our toothbrushes on the sink (rather than in our backpacks), kick off our shoes wherever we want, move around freely in space that, though only very briefly and tentatively, we can call our own. Eternal thanks for this.

Disco ball: Dancing the pasito duranguese is harder than I remember. Kick up your heels and jump, should be easy right? Well, perhaps the bright, flashing lights and smoke were distracting but really I was also nervous and inexperienced. Salsa is feeling more comfortable to me, banda is still pretty new territory but right now I feel that I have a good reason to learn.

Sorpresa: We were able to find and wander through the forest twice already this week. Fresh air and green are still always surprises to me here after spending so much time in cities, despite the fact that even the cities are still not exactly like the cities I know back in the states. Oaks, pines, utterly tall trees that stretch through the remnants of a cloud forest, trees that are not cut into funny shapes, trees that carry entire ecosystems in their lofty branches, trees that deny the presence of picnickers and the military, all of these we walk beneath. There is constant discovery in twisted trunks and cave formations. There is constant beauty in fresh fruit, friendship, and laying on the ground watching the sky. What happened years ago feels like yesterday, what happens today feels like forever. Time moves like the clouds sometimes, wispy and rushing past, and other times like the sway of treetops, slow and steady.