After discussing potential excursions with the hostel hosts, we set off to try doing laundry again. This time was significantly easier. We dropped it off around 11 and they weighed it, gave us a receipt and said it would be done at 6. Not expecting to be so long without clothes, we went back t othe hostel to change into the reject clothes that weren't selected for cleaning (rather than wear pajamas as I had done to go to the laundromat).
We walked to the Zocalo, stopping at the "Expo Ambar," a large white tent in front of the cathedral in which a few dozen amber jewelers were exhibiting their wares. In the end, I found a beautiful earring and pendant set, selling for only 200 pesos. Unfortunately I stuck to my policy of seeing all the options before making a purchase and my favorite set was gone when I returned to the booth! I was only a minute too late; the woman in front of the desk was paying for it as I got there. Disappointed but determined to find another piece later, we continued our exploration of the city and found a paper workshop that I had read about. It is run by a Mayan woman who made beautiful artisan recycled paper with plant based dyes and various flowers. They also do printing, and even press 3-D designs into the paper. We luckily arrived just behind a family that had come for a tour, so we joined them. I bought two pieces of brightly colored flower paper, a little journal, and a print of a monkey, which we chose after looking through every one of the small prints.
We then set off to find food, as Frank's hunger was not going to withstand much more of my looking through every piece of art in the shop. We went to a vegetarian restaurant I had read about, La Casa del Pan. They indeed served us delicious bread, and I had a mango lassi and tofu vegetable fajitas. Frank ordered a pizza. It was quite delicious and made me feel like I was at home as it was similar to how we cook Mexican food. Then we walked past some stores and I spent some time in one selecting from their posters with revolutionary designs and messages. It seemed to be a kind of EZLN gift shop, with paintings of Zapatistas and other memorabilia.
Next we visited La Casa en El Arbol, a language school that we had found online. After much deliberation, we decided to sign up for four 2 hour Spanish lessons, foregoing Mayan lessons and a day long cooking class. We then had to take a placement exam. The whole process took several hours, but it was really fun. The people were extremely nice here. After the exam, we walked through the crafts market a bit and then had food at yet another vegetarian restaurant where we tried a veggie club sandwich. San Cristobal seems to be very vegetarian friendly. We then picked up our laundry, which was nicely folded.
Having showered at the hostel, we went back out to La Casa del Pan where we had found a theater showing a documentary on the Zapatista movement. It was two hour long segments, and by the end we were much too tired to do anything but sleep (after eating some pastries of course).
Lauren