Parador San Andres Oaxaca

... our return to la Villada.  Everyone is happy to see us here an unexpected day early.

 

The girls who work in the kitchen, Rebecca and Deborah, took tomorrow off in advance in honor of a fiesta (again?) that takes place in town tomorrow.  They were excited when they saw we’d returned in time to accompany them.  They spoke excitedly in Spanish about how they had picked out a dress for me in hopes that I would be able to go.  I couldn’t understand much, but ...

... and stuffed cauliflower fried in an egg batter and stewed in tomato sauce not to mention the melon water and dessert. All this for 35 pesos?! Crazy.

We heard of the infamous grasshoppers of Oaxaca and tried to order it for dinner at La Olla. Unfortunate for us the restaurant was all out of grasshoppers that day. After a quick shower, we were off to the bus station for the evening drive to San Cristobal de las Casas.

... Como me siento. El Tule, Guinness Book of World Records´ largest tree in the world, 14 meters in diameter. El Tule, el árbol más grande del mundo según el Libro Guiness de los Records, 14 metros de diámetro. Hierve el Agua, or "The water boils", are natural pools of COLD water, despite the name. They are right on the edge of a cliff, overlooking ...

... quite a few tourists here but evidently the strikes and bombings a couple years ago cut most of the tourist trade way down. Rachel at ICO mentioned that they are only now beginning to build up a clientele of students again. Our time here has been perfect so far. However, one more day - and then school. Actually, we both are looking forward to it. Hope you all remembered to turn your clocks back tonight! (This is the weekend they do it in Mexico.)

... say no, but it's the fact that they almost queue behind eachother awaiting their turn to ask the gringos to buy their merchandise. The best and most comedic hawkers, though, were in Mexico city on the metro system. Here they would get on at the end of the train and slowly make their way up through the carriages stopping in each to relay their big memorised speech about the merits of owning tissues, or batteries, or novelty hairbands with spiders on in time for halloween. The ...

... city of San Cristobal de las Casas! - - the heart of Mayan civilization as well as the left-wing Zapatista movement. That would have us crossing the mighty Sierra Nevada three times in two days! Okay...this is going to take some planning...and like Hannibal Smith from the A-Team..."I love it when a plan comes together". But then that begs the question, if I'm Hannibal, then who is Malin??...Murdoch?, Face Man?...B.A. Baracas maybe?...comments welcome.

... going on in front of Santo Domingo it was crazy! We saw some guy like fall down/knocked out and hit his face on the pavement and blood was everywhere! Then some weird hippie dredlock guy was trying to ask me to dance and then inviting me to some party that starts at one in the morning, whatever! I think I'm attracting the creepies here in Mexico! Then we went to dinner, they were looking for one place but couldn't find it, so we ended up eating at a place that just smelled really ...

... beaches. We drove to Puebla (South of Mexico city) for an overnite stay in order to make Oaxaca the next day. A wonderful evening in Puebla including a lovely Italian dinner and then we left early for Oaxaca. It is a 5-6 hour drive over very high mountains and the road is generally wide but still 2 lanes. 2 hours of slow traffic later and we knew we were in for a long day. Finally on the move we shared the road with 1000´s of people trying to get to Oaxaca NOW. The ...

... cultural and architectural sites of interest. Surrounding the city are many small villages and towns each with it's own special area of interest. We spent several days exploring the centre of Oaxaca. Around the shady Zocalo are patio cafes, the Cathederal other Churches, unique Markets inculuding one totally devoted to food and another the Mercado de Artesanias(handcraft markets). A few ...

... of space, he took off at about 80km per hour and then stopped right on the rear bumper of the car. He actually clipped a Merc at one stage. This went on for about half an hour, along with random lane changes without any indicators, so we were feeling a little sick from all the speed changes. He wasn't a fan of using his hand brake either so with all the weight in the car, so he was constantly rolling back into the car behind. He then decided to take a short ...