The House of the Friends

5-15-07

Free continental breakfast (cereal, yogurt, bananas, toast and instant coffee) offers a smorgasbord of languages spoken by international travelers (along with plenty of the English from the current continent’s residents).

Over the bland breakfast, the scent of Cool Water cologne lingers on surrounding conversations: Bragging about backpacking. “Dude, that’s totally awesome.” Advice about the city, “Yesterday I did Frida’s house and Trotsky’s House, and today I’m gunna check out the markets.” Etc.

The hostel is a dream of an international hostel, but it’s too big for me. With the rooftop bar’s spectacular view of the zocalo, it would make an ideal resting place between excursions to the city’s innumerable sights, clubs and bars. Not looking to experience the nightlife, we move on to someplace more low-key. We leave for La Casa de los Amigos.

Let’s Go described La Casa de los Amigos: “accommodations for “backpackers, graduate school students and eco-warriors from around the world.” The intrigue of ecological warfare along with the building’s historic significance - the former studio of Mexico’s renowned Jose Orozco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Clemente_Orozco) - provided an attractive lure.

On a side-note, this is possibly the only good info we found in the Let’s Go guide, a generally below-satisfactory guidebook. In comparison to the Lonely Planet guide we used in Cuba, or the Lonely Planet guides for Mexico, there is no comparison.

The Quaker-run facility provided a base for the quasi-hostel’s philanthropic activities and a residence of numerous volunteers. Those who volunteer for a minimum of three months with the house receive free lodging.

We arrived a few months after the 50th anniversary of the La Casa. A poster hung in the lobby advertising Economia Solidaridad, an organization of collectives working for fair trade. The collectives represent impoverished indigenous peoples living around Mexico. La Casa de los Amigos also recently hosted the annual meeting for Economia Solidaridad. The involvement is part of the buildings refocusing of its social activism, which has waned in recent years as the building became more focused on the hostelling.

La Casa de los Amigos began as an outreach for indigenous peoples, said the receptionist, Jenny, an American volunteer. Jenny showed us around the building In the meeting room, we read more about the history. In the common area, a recent news article in a local English newspaper provided contemporary context.

Lots of good stuff, but no eco-warriors. Maybe they were hiding. We show the Let's Go description to Jenny. She laughs. “That doesn’t make sense,” she says. “Quakers are non-violent,”