A Series of Tubes
Sleeping in a Tube in a Mexican Village

Your trips to Mexico City always begin innocently enough.

But then, one misunderstanding over cerveza later, you find yourself on the run from a tambourine-wielding mariachi. In short, you need a place to lie low.

May we suggest a concrete drainage pipe.

Introducing Tubohotel, a set of rooms inside sections of recycled concrete pipes—in an orchard, in the mystical Mexican village of Tepoztlán—taking reservations now.

This is sort of like a high-design, human-sized hamster house. Except there isn’t a giant running wheel. And there are queen-size beds.

So after you’ve finalized your notes on the Distrito Federal’s street cart huarache industry, board the first VIP-class bus headed south and disembark at Tepoztlán. Your glass-fronted hideaway is nestled in a grove of guayaba trees with views of the Sierra del Tepozteco. The rooms are simple: desk light, fan, towels and a bed spanning the tube’s diameter. And the bathrooms, well, they’re in two separate non-tube buildings nearby. (We suggest bringing a bathrobe and a sturdy pair of slippers.)

If you get tired of exploring the immediate surrounds (there’s only so much guayaba one can gather), arrange a hike to the Tepozteco pyramid, mole-cooking lessons with Ana Garcia (a kind of Mexican Rachael Ray) or a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the Aztec serpent god Quetzalcoatl.

We hear serpent gods bring good luck.