Blogs from Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico, North America - page 4

We've made it to Mexico! We arrived in Mexico City early, and got a taxi to our hostel at 5am, to find it locked up. To improve matters there were a lot of riot police with shields on the street too. Whilst they seemed friendly enough, it didn't help us feel comfortable in this new place! Nowhere is open at 5am, so we were a bit unsure what to do, but luckily knocking on the hostel door for the attention of a security guard who let us in :) Once it finally started getting light around 7am we decided to go out and see what the city had to offer, very aware of the riot police and our valuables. Luckily we needn't have worried, as we felt perfectly safe, and speaking to locals they told us ... read more

HE SAID... Today we were leaving Puebla and travelling southeast to Oaxaca City. After spending the morning in Puebla’s historic centre, we made our way back to Hotel Puebla Plaza, grabbed our packs, checked out and jumped into a taxi at midday. We were heading to Puebla’s bus station, as we had a four and a half hour trip to Oaxaca ahead, and our luxury ADO bus was leaving at 1pm. After speeding through the maze of outer suburban streets, we arrived at the bus station at 12:30pm, picked up our tickets and made our way to the waiting lounge. We had about 20 minutes before we left, which was a lucky break for me, as my stomach bug had returned, and I didn’t want to spend too much time in the tiny bus toilet. We ... read more

Today was a very long day, 500km trip, leaving Mexico City for two days based in Oaxaca (pronounced Wahaka. What tha!). First we picked up the rest of our passengers for the next 9 days. 5 in total, 2 male Columbians & a retired couple from Brisbane & me. First stop was Puebla, Mexico’s fourth largest city after passing the immense, usually visible snow-capped volcanoes Popocatépetl (Smoking Mountain, 5464m) and Iztaccíhuatl (Sleeping Lady, 5230m). Didn't seem as impressive as I would have thought but you barely noticed that the highway had climbed to over 3000 mtrs so looked small in the distance. Near Puebla we visited the Santa Maria Tonantzintla temple with an amazing fusion of indigenous and Christian religious decoration. It is so over the top yet beautiful at the same time. No photos allowed ... read more

Hello everyone I FINALLY made it out of Asia to bluer skies, MUCH better food and different colored people (Normalcy is amazing I must say) I flew from the city I was working in in Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City via Jetstar it was a smooth and easy hour and a half ride and accompanying me was my boss of all people lol. We found out we were on the same flight the before we were going to the airport in Vinh. It was a nice sendoff as he was really the only helpful and cool person there and not to mention he speaks English. We landed and they didn't have any checked baggage and I had to wait for mine to come around so I gave him a hug and told him thanks for ... read more

After a long 13 hour bus ride that was only supposed to be 10 hours, we made it to Oaxaca just before dark. We were again having trouble pulling money out of the ATM's even with our credit cards so on our first night we spent our last MXN40 on a small dinner shared between us. Fortunately, the next morning we found a Scotiabank (side note: who knew there were Scotiabanks in Mexico) that worked and we needn't worry any longer. Our first day was fairly relaxed; we wandered around the city center, saw crickets for sale in the market and stopped by a cafe for a coffee and apple strudel. The climate in Oaxaca seemed to be right up our ally; being in the mountains, it was cool but not quite as cold as San ... read more