City of Chocolate
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2010
1
315
366
Trip End
Jul 13, 2012
Where I stayed
Oaxaca, Central Mexico and Gulf Coast, Mexico
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
This bus driver seemed to like British intro compilations and after a dance music start, we ended up with a 70's and 80's revival, which had us singing and trying to guess the artist and song. We arrived into Oaxaca around 5.50pm and loaded our bags onto our backs as the hostel wasn't "too far" away. Well if we had had a map and knew where we were coming from, it would have been easier! It wasn't that bad really, we asked a few times and only turned around once thinking we were going the wrong way and soon thankfully found the hostel. So far we've been staying in HI (Hostelling International) hostels and as the cost gets lower, so do the standards. The room is nice enough though and there seems to be a bit more on offer for breakfast which is a bonus. After dumping our bags in our room, we headed into town and got some dinner in the recommended market. Feeling brave we went for a tlayuda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlayuda which is a huge tortilla with a brown sauce on the base covered with, lettuce, tomatoes and a strip of chilli encrusted pork (cecina enchilada puerco). It was interesting as puerco translates to porcupine but we confirmed that it was indeed pork using the good old fashioned method of farm yard impressions which got quite a laugh, especially when I demonstrated the curly tail! After that we bought a short bread biscuit for dessert and headed back to the hostel to shower, have tea, a glass of milk and the last malteser bunny (thanks mum & dad) then got off to bed.
Thurs 8th Mar.
After a bit of a rough night (as I've caught a cold, or is it man flu!) and hearing fireworks going off at 5am, we got up at 8am for breakfast. Here we had a choice of 10 items, but were only allowed to order 5. So I chose, cereal, fruit, eggs (for the first time), toast and juice, Cat ordered, cereal, milk (yes the milk for the cereal counted as 1 of the 5), eggs, toast and juice. The eggs were scrambled and very nice, but I think we'll skip the fruit tomorrow as it was not to our taste and we bought some very nice braeburn apples to have instead. After breakfast, we headed to the Boletol office near the zocalo and booked our bus tickets to San Christobel de las Casas for tomorrow night and got some money from the cash machine. Once we'd hidden the money up back in our room, we caught a bus to Walmart to do some grocery shopping. The lady at the hostel was so helpful that she even came out to wave the bus down for us, as it stops just outside the hostel. That's more than can be said for the driver, who wouldn´t even listen to our requests to let us know when we'd get there! So we ended up getting off a little early and had a 10 minute walk round the corner where (after asking a few people) we found the store. When we'd bought our shopping we caught the next bus back (Cat had the foresight to ask which bus we needed) and put all our groceries away back at the hostel. After a rest for an hour and a bite to eat for lunch on the roof terrace, we set off once again and caught a caminetta to the Monte Alban ruins just outside the city. We reached the ruins around 2pm and thankfully it was fairly quiet and spent the next 2hrs looking around another amazing site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Alb%C3%A1n It was originally the holy city of the Zapotecs. Much later it was adopted by the Mixtecs and then finally the Spanish. Having had enough of the heat, we caught the caminetta back to town and went in search of a much needed ice cream, for medicinal purposes, of course, to sooth my sore throat, you understand. As far as we could tell, there wasn't a McD's around but we did find an ice cream seller in the square that had the most amazingly moose like vanilla and strawberry ice cream. After that delight, we headed back to the hostel for a much needed siesta. We woke up around 6.15pm and made some good old english chicken, potatoes, carrots, beans and the nearest I could find to gravy, chicken stock. It's so nice to be able to cook a meal we know now and then. After dinner, we made a few more plans for the trip and then settled in for the night, watching an episode or two of Merlin.
Fri 9th Mar.
Had a bit of a lie in this morning as we didn´t need to be anywhere in a hurry, so we had a leisurely breakfast and then finished packing. Packed and ready, we left the room at 11am and stored our bags in the hostels storage room after paying the MXN20 fee. Then we had a walk to find the bus station to choose a route for tonight as we´d have our heavy bags to carry. It was a good job we did as we were sent to the wrong bus station and needed the one the other end of town. So we walked up to the other bus station and confirmed inside that it was the correct one. Once that was confirmed, we headed back to the hostel to cook lunch and have a rest for a while. Around 4pm, we headed back to the markets to try some chocloate grasshoppers, but they only had them with chilies so we gave that a miss. Back at the main square we enjoyed another nice ice cream from our favourite ice cream vender. She got the giggles when we told her that she had the best ice cream in Mexico and I wanted a photo. Photo achieved, we had a proper look around the square and then went in search of a cafe recommended by Edwardo at the hostel, but as it was nearly twice the price of the shops that make the chocolate we went there instead. One fairly nice hot chocolate later (Cadbury´s it isn´t), we headed back to the hostel to get ready to leave in the next few hours. Around 7.40pm we loaded up and walked the 25mins to the bus station, even in the cool of the night we were still sweating buckets and wished we'd caught a taxi or bus. Still we got to the bus station early and sat and waited until our bus was ready to leave. While we were waiting, a Mexican chap came over and asked if we could fill in his questionnaire for his studies. We happly did this to help him out and to pass the time and it was soon time to board the bus. Unlike most Latin American buses we've been on, this one left pretty much on time and we were soon on our way out of the city. Not far along and a DVD came on of Nanny Mcfee dubbed in Spanish. Wanting to get as much sleep as possible, I put my ear plugs in and my eye mask on and tried to nod off. Cat on the other hand wasn't feeling too good and sat staring into a plastic bag for a while. Thankfully, she wasn't sick and feeling better, got off to sleep to.
