Hotel Victoria Oaxaca

... has been moved to gate 70.  Good to know. 

 

At this point our time was coming to an end, so I was dragging Jurni by the arm as she protested incessantly that she doesn’t “actually like to run”.  We followed arrows to gates ’65 through 75’ only to reach a dead end, home to gates ‘68’, ‘69’, ‘72’, and ‘73’.  What?  An off-duty pilot informed me that gate 70 is the unmarked gate in the ...

... Moll - aye). Mole is actually a sauce which is served on Chicken or Beef, and is made of chocolate and 8 types of chile among other ingredients. We also had a chance to test our haggling skills as we hit the markets, speaking and bargaining with the vendors in spanish, or asking about an item we particularly liked. We left for Oaxaca in the afternoon. After spending four hours of singalong, I spy and sleeping on the bus we arrived at our ...

New Year's Eve was very tame, just the usual Weds night dance and naturally, people letting off fireworks all through the night - many people have a family dinner, at home or in a restaurant and at midnight the tradition is to eat 12 grapes.

By now, what with all the above and the museums & art galleries (though ...

... share shuttle / collectivo from the airport and we arrived to the hotel without a problem. We spent our evening walking around town trying to find some action. We found our first open market that was offering free taste tests of the little worm that is at the bottom of the tequila bottle, minus the tequila. Smoky and crunchy were her exact words. Luckily we were in search of an ATM which brought us ...

... about our age, Ken and Carol, sat in front of us. After life as a businessman, he retired early and took a four year lay seminary course at the Episcopalian Seminary of the South. His wife was a community organizer. (Yes, there were comments about that). They are fascinated with the Day of the Dead celebration and they will be here just for the next two weeks. When we told them about our trip yesterday and what the ...

... and it was too late to book on any of the tours, as what we wanted to do was go on a Mezcal tour at one of the factories as rumour has it Oaxaca is one of the places that produce the best Mezcal in the world. Following the advice from one of the guys in the tour offices, we caught a taxi to Restaurante Zapata where, on request, they also give guided tours of how they make Mezcal. However, here I made an expensive mistake asking the taxi what the price was, and ...

... trying to sell the textiles they had so preciously spent hours on, women were wandering with ease carrying baskets on their heads and young kids of about 7 in some cases were weaving in and out of the tables with hundreds of beads on their arms to sell..... As the night turned the lights just added to the atmosphere and we headed up to Oaxaca's most famous church, the 'Santa Domingo.' On nearing a guy was playing some bagpipes, which just added to the stunning building in ...

... to quit school though and do fun things every day, it is very intense! After school I went to the supermarket to buy some snacks but they didn't have any like I wanted so instead I tried on clothes at this boutique, I almost bought a shirt but it was $35, that is expensive for here. But it was very cute. On the walk to school today Rhonda was telling me scary things about the 06 riot here, just Americans killed, kidnapped, etc. I didn't know Oaxaca hated Americans til ...

... delicate carved piece, then the painstaking painting completes the piece. With our selections of Alebrijes finally made we headed back to Oaxaca and into what seemed like "rush hour". The highway goes right past the very large Abastos market, a large shopping mall and an industrial area. The streets were packed with cars, busses and people. Again we missed the turn and took a circuitous route through the city back to our campgrounds.

... rush? The weather is perfect every day. It´s the dry season, so no rain for a few more months. Every single morning when I get up it is about 80-85 degrees, sunny and dry. At night it cools off quite a bit (we are at an altitude of about 5000 feet), but cold is not a word I would use to describe it. Pleasant for sleeping. I have found an English lending library and have been tearing though books at the rate of one ...