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Published: January 29th 2008
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Market in Oaxaca
we spent a lot of time and money here I guess my poor attempt at a play on words only works if you know how to pronounce oaxaca (see previous blog 😊. So here is part 2 of my mamouth holiday blogging session.
I spent Christmas with my family in Tuxtla. My original plan was to be as far away from all things holiday related, to ensure i didn't feel christmassy and therefore avoid feeling homesick. However the family asked me way back in november if i would like to spend christmas with them, and i figured it would be pretty interesting to spend the 24th and 25th with people (as opposed to a bottle of Tequila) and experience a proper Mexican Christmas.
Here in Mexico, with regards to food, the 24th is more important than the 25th. So for the whole day on the 24th we were in the kitchen, preparing food to eat that evening. Much of my time spent with the family is food related (either preparing or eating) and i enjoy the times we all sit round the table and i can do something monotonous (like chop a million tomatoes into tiny pieces, or shell prawns (NOT my favourite job) and drift off into
my own world whilst the others chatter away in spanish about one of two topics....food or telenovelas. So i think we were supposed to have dinner at about 11pm and eat up until the 25th, however by about 830 we were all hungry, so we set out the huge spread of food we had prepared earlier that day; Pork stuffed with pork, olives, raisins, prunes, almonds, herbs, Stuffed chicken, spaghetti, fruit salads, vegetable salads, guacamole (with 3 different levels of chilli... pica poca, pica mas, pica muchissima)- sooooooo tasty, it was very difficult to stop eating. We also had wine, and then when that was running dry, Alba cracked open the tequila and me, Bety and Alba were downing shots of Tequila until we saw in Christmas day.
So Christmas day arrived, and not much happened really, i guess it was a lot like boxing day here. We ate all the leftovers (breakfast lunch and dinner) and gave out presents, but in a very low key kinda way. It was a nice relaxing kind of day and sufficiently different for me not to feel really homesick, although i did miss lots of things about english christmas...the fire, the mince
Oaxaca
Cactus and Churches...how very mexican pies. brandy butter, hmmm...lots of wine, and obviously spending it with my family. But i guess that will make next year super special.
On the 26th i packed up my bags again and headed out to Oaxaca. Els and I took another 10 hour bus journey through very windy roads, to get to what i think is one of my favourite places in Mexico so far. Oaxaca city is a bit like San Cristobal, but bigger, and warmer. After spending the previous week visiting ruin after ruin, we decided to take it easy and wander round Oaxaca. It also proved an excellent place to shop, with about 6 different markets to buy jewelery, pottery, bags and various other things that i probably don't need but were so lovely i just had to buy them 😊
Day 2 was soured slightly when we went to visit another regional market, in a little town close by. Due to a ridiculous amount of people, and my own stupidity at taking my MP3 player with me, someone had a little rummage through my bag when we caught up in a big crush in the market and took a fancy to my music.
wasn't impressed and a few weeks on i have come to realise how much i depend upon my music to instill a little sanity into my life, when Mexico gets a little frustrating. Oh well, as i keep telling myself better my MP3 than my passport or credit cards.
After Oaxaca we jumped on a bus and headed to the coast, were we had plans to meet up with some other volunteers and spend new year together. Our first stop was Puerto Escondido. There had been a lot of stress about whether we would actually find a place to stay, arriving with no reservations and it being an incredibly popular tourist/backpacker hangout. Luckily we managed to find some beds in the hotel where Fabian and Nick were staying, although the lady that ran the place was a bit brisk, and insisted on us specifiying exactly how long we would stay and paying upfront. Luckily when we decided that we weren't going to stay the original 3 nights as intended we managed to wangle our money back, although probably just to save the hassle of dealing with a whole bunch of pain in the ass volunteers. Puerto Escondido was nice,
but due to the excessive amount of people it didn't feel quite as relaxing as it probably should have. Plus the waves on Zicatella were way to powerful for me to swim in, so a lot of time was spent baking in the sun.
After a heavy night out in Puerto Escondido we set off the next day in search of calmer places. Luckily we arrived in Mazunte which couldn't have been better for what we were looking for. just a dirt track and a bunch of posadas on the beach, plus water calm enough to swim in. Our posada was at best ramshackle, but had a beautiful view, plus a whole family of kittens that lived in our room. Antonia and I regressed to being 6 again and it was certainly difficult to tear ourselves away from the kittens.indeed such was the excitment over the kittens that i seem to recall Antonia actually grabbing all 5 and putting them in my bed halfway through the night. which seemed to backfire a little as i soon realised that kittens have remarkably sharp claws. Other fun to be had in Mazunte consisted of a boat tour, which took us snorkelling,
The big white rock
i took a lot of photos of something so disturbingly nasty turtle spotting (which would have be fine had the guide not decided to jump in the water and catch one of the poor things for us all to get a closer look at...completely unecessary and verging on cruelty) and dolphin spotting, which was pretty special. Curiously the guide also took us to a big white rock, which was home to thousands of birds. As we approached it became clear to us why exactly the rock was white and i think it was fair to say that the smell hit us first followed by a swift 'oh my god thats hideous'kinda realisation. Then for some strange reason the guide insisted that we circle the rock 3 times, just to fully appreciate the horrendousness of it all. wonderful indeed.
The following day we were off again, me, Nick and half of Siijuve's german contingency (Fabian, Fabian, Toby, David y Antonia 😊 to find our place on the beach for New Years. We were headed to a place called Chachua, a beach accessible only by boat through a beautiful lagoon. It took two buses, a truck and boat to reach our destination, but seriously, i couldn't have been more enchanted with the
place, and certainly was exactly what i was hoping for for a different new year. When we were there we met up with Jorge and Anja, who kindly let us all pile into their tent for the night (10 people in one tent is pretty good going). The tent was pitched under a palapa on the beach, and the nice restaurant owner let us stay for free with the condition that we ate dinner in her restaurant.
So new years passed with little incident. We had a bonfire on the beach, ate freshly caught fish and drank tequila. Was pretty perfect really and certainly beat being stuck in a club in Tuxtla. It was with regret (and a little hangover) that i hopped on my first 10 hour bus journey of the new year to return to Chiapas, although it was certainly nice to get back to my family,having clean clothes and showers (albeit of the bucket variety) as and when i choose.
Well, that just about rounds of my season of holiday writing. Can't believe i am already halfway through this year. I promise there will be more to come very soon, as even as i write
this i am just recovering from our halfway camp, a week in Mexico City and a weekend in Puebla!
Take care and lots of love,
Nic xxx
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