An Origin Story: Food Poisoning in Mexico Turned Me Nomadic

Bed-ridden and sipping on electrolytes but planning a world tour, of course.

To arrive at San Cristóbal de las Casas, one must fly into the nearest airport in Tuxtla (Ángel Albino Corzo International) and catch a coletivo bus to ascend the mountains, perhaps 2,200 meters above sea level. Aside from catching the national ADO buses from other parts of the country, there is no other way to arrive. Tuxtla is significantly hotter, more humid, and far from sea breeze. It offers instead, the air of bustle and of people accustomed to it. You’ll likely land sweating, removing layers even.

Upon your bumpy upward drive to San Cristóbal de las Casas, you’ll need to add the layers back. In the midst of dressing yourself, the two-hour bus ride will make you want to hide your involuntary child-like gawk at the quiet majesty of the woods and the suggestion of rivers and their omnipresent pines. The wash of green as the bus hurries nimbly around the sinuous roads silences everyone onboard. A chance to detox the city and its air via their nearest window while traversing mountainous Mayan terrain.

And then the road will split in two directions: one for Chiapa de Corzo and the other for San Cristóbal de las Casas. With less forest to distract, the grey presence of clouds will now be noticeable, quite heavy or if not, coming. You’ll arrive and almost immediately regret your footwear choice. The pebbled streets are smooth, too slippery after the rain, which mystifies all and everything in rainy season downpours every afternoon. Sandals leave you grip-less with cold toes exposed. Trainers are comfortable but prone to getting dirty and drenched and you’re usually always at risk of stepping in residue dog poo. Suppose there is sun, you’ll know it by its intensity, how close it feels from up here. Slowly you’ll make your way to your accommodation, a 30 pesos taxi drive normally, and the first thing to do, if not the second, is find somewhere to drink traditional chocolate caliente and let yourself warm to it all.

This is where I lived for 6 months. Everyone who comes to live in San Cristóbal de las Casas does so because it is away from the cities that are so loud and always misunderstanding adulthood. San Cris, as we call it, is very small. You see everyone you do and do not want to see at least once a week unless you stay up in your mountain abode. The town is not quiet, it’s for artists who work with their hands and laugh from the back of their throats; it’s home to rebellion, to historically severed ties with corrupt governments, it’s home still to the indigenous, it always will be, it is certainly gentrified and catering to backpackers, but it is treated as sacred, surrounded entirely by el bosque, there is no way to not feel the magnetic pull and protection of the elements, always a 20 minute walk away if you so need it. It is affordable for all the richness it freely offers and so it feels down-to-earth since it is very hard to be flashy in the mountains and in the rain.

Everyone who leaves San Cris does so because of food poisoning. Or salmonella or not being able to tell the difference, or maybe because they miss the flashy sterile cities and want to put their shoes back on. Midway through my 6 months, the food poisoning caught up to me. My shortcoming was either an indulgent Taco Tuesday spree or a single cube of ice in my drink. Whichever it was, it took me out by January 2nd, my Pinterest mood board a mockery as I sipped, gently, on my suero and ginger tea.

This unexpected but completely inevitable bout of food poisoning actually interrupted a loose plan I made to go to Guatemala by the end of the week. Shuttles run regular enough and my friend was already there. Before I felt that first telling pang of coming trouble, I figured I’d stop by one of the tour companies and book the cheapest one with the quickest travel time.

I believe I woke up and voiced my suspicions to my friend, told him that I could feel in my gut that I wasn’t going to make it. He thought I meant intuition because I usually do, but I told him I’d confirm by the next morning, which was actually spent pretty limply since my entire insides had been emptied and I was not sure if I could sip even on water too confidently.

What people who find themselves inescapably struck by food poisoning in San Cris tend to do first, is take a number of tests, all embarrassing and sampled in the nearest bathrooms, but a necessary rite of passage in the town, it seemed to me, and to everyone who helped bring me water and limes while my stomach recovered. Next, it is customary to buy a 30ml bottle of chilchahua, which they will cling to and sing about every subsequent time they are food-poisoned (but it will never reach San Cris heights); it is strange to be in San Cris without a dominant belief in plant-medicine as the ultimate healer. Some will then convince themselves that they’re cured, full of haste, only to learn just how vicious a comeback dairy or meat served on the street will trigger fresh bouts of what was barely healed.

I am quite risk-averse when it comes to sickness. I assign healing as a full-time job. If I need 10 days of rest to recover, I’ll take 14. Which is exactly what I did. Avoiding spicy condiments (in the Mexico), eating bananas and rice until my dear stomach could hold anything else. In this time, I found my physical energy drained and all I could do was sit with my canceled plans, my pile of banana skins, and my journal and gel pens.

Being a nomad seemed impractical and a little irresponsible to me with my 32kg luggage, my studio and plants, and full jars of locally-made peanut butter and chai tea. I thought I would stay in Chiapas and have it as my base because why not? I knew everyone, everyone knew me as the Jamaican girl from London. People were kind and my friends even more so. I figured I’d test the waters and then go about getting a temporary residency. This was not supposed to happen though. I was supposed to fear for my life because of a taco or an ice cube in order to see the wider picture.

In truth, Chiapas was a beautiful holding space. I felt incredibly held by individuals, by song, by a community of other Black nomads, Black mothers, Black artists who also wanted to live elsewhere. I was taught to eat well, to savor friends and the tables that will hold us, to heal myself, and be careful in my self-mending, that it can be done here, in a mountain town well above the sea and so, it can be done anywhere; I can do it everywhere. Chiapas, San Cristóbal, that sleepless night in my studio apartment while my sporadic shuttle-bus plans faded away, birthed something different. 

People who come to San Cristóbal de las Casas must come with no expectation. You may never want to leave, like I did; you may never think to go and then find yourself in love, like I did. That is how it goes here with varying intensities. The energy of a town engulfed by towering forest is such that you will go to your height and have to journey down. It is the very nature of the place that holds you at the base of the bowl while you adjust to the air pressure, until you’re ready. I was ready by mid-January. Clear that I could, should, see as much of the country, and this section of the Americas while I was healthy and excited and able.

And so, I did. I started with a round-trip to Veracruz. I told everyone I’d be back, stopped in my go-to jewelry store, and at my favorite artist corners, and tamales spot, and asked them about Veracruz. And then I was on the bus. Off for the first solo trip of that year, to a part of Mexico that my curiosity always called me to research. A new cycle began as I journeyed out of the green and mist of the mountains, towards the Caribbean.