Juan Carlos from Queretaro, Mexico

Juan was a different breed of couchsurfer than what we have experienced thus far for a few reasons.  One, while so far we have only hosted pairs, he was traveling solo.  Two, while so far everyone we have hosted has been first-timers, Juan is a veteran.  And three, while most travelers are here to… well, travel… he was here for the second time in a month to learn about career opportunities in post production.  Because of this his schedule was pretty full already and he had rented a car so we actually didn’t see much of him.  He arrived a little before 9pm on a Tuesday night, and as is happened with every couchsufer, we sat up talking for a couple of hours.  But this time instead of just talking about travel and our home countries, we also got to spend some time talking about post-production, which is what both my boyfriend and I do for a living.  And in exchange for us telling him all about that, he told us stories of couchsurfing “back in the day” which we greatly enjoyed.  Couchsurfing took off in 2004 and Juan has been actively involved since 2005, back when there was just a core group of them, not the one million plus members that there are now.

The next morning Jaun insisted I let him drive me to work, even though I kept telling him it was not necessary and completely out of his way, and that I was fine taking the metro.  I eventually caved however and we got to enjoy LA traffic together as we talked even more and continued to get to know each other better.  After work the three of us went out for sushi and he couldn’t believe how much better it was compared to what he gets back in central Mexico.  LA likes sushi, and while it can’t compare to what I ate in Japan (even though I disliked seafood when I went back in 2002), it has got to make the top ten list of best sushi cities outside of Japan.  There is a sushi restaurant on every block here, the trick is knowing the good ones.

Anyway, the next morning he departed.  He stayed in LA for a couple more days, but had previously decided to split his time between us and another local host he wanted to meet.  That is one of the things so great about Juan, he uses the site the way it was intended to be used, to meet people you can have a connection with and not just for a free place to crash.  So far we have been lucky and all of our surfers have been that way.  And now that we know Juan, we have a friend in a gorgeous and not well-known part of Mexico that we have now added to our list of travel destinatations.  Whether there or here, I have no doubt we will be seeing him again.