Oaxaca

  Oaxaca, Central Mexico and Gulf Coast, Mexico
Monday, November 10, 2008

Week 2
Monday, arrived into Oaxaca on the nightbus from Mexico city about an hour ahead of schedule. All in all a strange experience.  Alot of people travel by night in Mexico as it saves time and accomodation and the service is a slick operation. There are different classes of service (2nd,1st and 1st plus) and getting a bus is like catching flight without the waiting around. You need to check you luggage in and hope it gets to the other side, get assigned a seat , have to go through security and even get fed, though no food appeared on this trip. All of this I deduced by observing those around me. (Really need to crack on with my Spanish as I have been quite lazy until now and will need it more and more from here on in.). The journey was quite bumpy and I woke on average every half hour, so was feeling pretty jaded by the time I reached the hostel.

Oaxaca Zocalo By Night

Oaxaca from what I have seen so far is a far cry from Mexico city. It has the feel of a very small town, (although it is a reasonable size with about 260,000 people) narrow streets, quite untidy outside of the central few streets and a big change from the grandeur, scale and cosmopolitan feel of Mexico city. The short taxi ride in from the bus station was a bit unnerving as everywhere appeared quite rough (a little like driving through parts of Mullingar!). The hostel itself is nice, quaint but seemed short of life and not what I needed right then, therefore I decided to immediately take a tour to the main attraction in the area, Monte Alban, leaving about an hour after I arrived.

Monte Alban

Monte Alban is an ancient Zapotec city that at it's height had an estimated population of 100,000 covered 20 sq km and fell around 800A.D., similar timing to the fall of Teotichaun. The site is perched on top of a mountain with stunning views of the valley floor all around. Some interesting facts I learned about these people where, that they lived in very large houses as they did not have the concept of family but rather a clan or tribe. They had their own form of cement and used this for their constructions as well as plastering. This gives their constructions a quite precise and modern look. (A testament to how good this is is that this area experiences on average 200 eathquakes per day and yet many of their structures are still standing 2/3000 years on!). The city was buried by the time the Spanish arrived and so they missed their chance to destroy it like they seem to have done to most other sites and aspects of indigenous culture.

Later in the day we visited a wood crafting shop and a pottery factory. These were situated in very small villages and for once I felt like a true tourist and that I was invading these people lives. I felt sorry for these people, particularly the wood crafting shop, where the workers were teenagers and it felt like they were being exploited. That said they were incredibly talented and produced incredible pieces of work!

Young boys carving with knives

Young girls painting

Some of the impressive carvings

Pottery Factory Demonstration

Tuesday I will wander around the city squares, markets and sites before taking the infamous night bus to San Cristobal De Las Casas. 14 hours of narrow twisting mountainous roads. At least this time I will know what I am doing!