Getting to Hierve el Agua was actually a bit more difficult than I expected. The fancier minibuses that took me to Monte Alban only took people there who wanted to rent a guide and a round trip. I wanted to spend the night, and wasn´t having any of that. So I made my way to the periferico where taxi compartidos and buses honk and literally are on top of each other, and you can just fight your way through 3-4 lines of traffic and hop on. The bus to Mitla was late (no wonder, I could have walked faster in that chaos) so I waited around. Some locals, true to form, this happens almost everywhere, advised me to keep an eye on my stuff, because there are a lot of scumbags around. As my feet touched the ground in Mitla I got yelled at ´Hierve el Agua?´, it was a guy hunting for tourists. He told me that so far I am the only one, but because he usually takes up 6 people and makes 300 pesos he´ll take me for 200. Needless to say I wasn´t gonna eat this up, so we waited around and eventually I hunted for him two german girls. So I paid 50 pesos, which was still the double of what local buses ask for, but I was getting anxious as it was nearing 4 and we still had 20 kilometers of mountain road to get through. When I finally settled in the cabaña where I was to spend the night, I went outside to the patio, where the whole mountain range was laid out underneath my feet. Hierve el

Agua means the ´boil of the water´, or something along those lines.

Well, there wasn´t much boiling going on, nor it was very hot (although after it turned out that there is no water in the room, I considered some splashing around) it contains some heavy minerals, which, dripping down on the side of the mountain produce something that can only be described as a frozen waterfall. Sitting on the top, I looked around, feeling nature´s every heartbeat yet when I looked to my right the waterfall looked like as if one of these heartbeats just froze in time. It was one of the most magnificent and humbling experiences of my life. I went to bed around 8, exhausted, but not before the guy-at-the-gate came around to hit on me a little bit. The night was more than eerie. The strong wind made not only my terrace and entrance door creek and thump like crazy, but the chair inside was also shreeking in the dark, like someone was shifting around on it to get comfortable. I killed a spider before going to bed, I know it´s bad luck, but I can´t have that thing climb in my mouth or something. A Mexican grasshopper (by this I mean it was big, brown and making drilling noises) scared 

the living shit out of me as it hopped on my bed just as I opened my eyes at half 5. What was, I presume, a breathtaking sunrise, unfortunately was more or less covered up by clouds. As I made my way through the small paths to discover and see more, and besides encountering numerous large bees that were defending their territorry and admiring the colibris and, what I suppose were eagles, I also got completely terrified by the death fight of a bird who was dragged away by god knows what. Had a strong coffee at the village (of about 15 houses) which was to the

 brim of its absorption level with sugar. I think it will never fail to surprise me when my coffee is made with real fire in a large tin pot, and when drinking it I have as many chickens and dogs running around under the table as children. Three to be exact. The chickens may have been more, I can´t distinguish them. Got on the first bus, which was for the locals, no tourists arrive at 8.30 in the morning. Six people in the front, in the actual car, and seven of us at the back of the pick up, and one hanging off the back. The little girl was wretching in front of me. Thinking that when I was a kid I would vomit in the car, on an asphalted highway, for me she was a hero. No surprise she couldn´t hold it on a 2-meter wide dirt road, U-turns, in the back of a pick-up car (because it definitely wasn´t a truck). Caught the bus from Mitla, and on the way I realized that I had forgotten to pay for my ride down. This is how much this trust-based manner of handling things hasn´t sunk in yet. Of course it also could be the fact that sometimes I fail to pay any attention. To anything. Nevertheless, I felt so ashamed! Now I´m back in Oaxaca, I have four hours until catching my lovely 14-hour ride to Palenque, Chiapas. So I am off to see this city a bit.