The cottage in the sky

From the land of the water in Mazunte, where we learnt to flow together again, we have moved to the land of the air. A time of thinking and of learning.



They call this town San Jose del Pacifico, because some days you can see the Pacific; a thin glint on a laminated horizon.

We are living in a bubble 2000 feet up, shrouded in nature's cocoon. The clouds rise and fall, an elevator between the valley floor far below and the comforting peak behind.

Our home for now is Casa de Dona Catalina. 200 pesos for a double bed in the dormitory at the top of the log cabin as well as whatever meals or drinks come our way during the day. 200 pesos for the two of us wanderers to become a valued part of the fizzing household, made up of a few long term residents and assorted drifters, who come here to socialise - in the most laid-back of senses - whilst sampling the botanical delights of the ethereal pine forests.


Each day the group changes, morphing its way through a rainbow of atmospheres. Each day brings more points of view, more shades of social interaction.

Dona Catalina is a witch. She understands plants and spirits. She is conspicuous in her absence - for the last month, watch over the land has been held by the residents.

When we walk in on the first day, fresh from a cloud-forest journey from Mazunte, the first person we find is Shaman Marcos. We sit down underneath a floripondio tree, otherwise known as angel's trumpet, with large orange flowers hanging from it like gramophone horns.

Marcos tells me the flowers are the dark side of hallucinogenics; without care, one can drive you mad. My eyes widen and I ask him if he'd ever taken them. "I had three this morning!" he cackles, and looks at me with kaleidoscope eyes.


The dark side indeed. Shaman Marcos has a wonderful heart, but his 'shamanic practises' have taken him so far beyond this world that I doubt he will ever return. 

I wonder what his coincidental appearance means for our experience here.