Advertisement
Published: October 5th 2011
Edit Blog Post
The coach system in Mexico is a shining example of the capitalist model. First class buses run completely separately to second class buses. So separately that they operate from different bus stations so that people like us don’t have to any contact at all with poor people. We went platinum to Oaxaca with a bus company called ADO (6 and a half hour journey cost £35), but we still couldn’t sleep. A much better solution is to get a cheaper (but still first class) coach and smash as many sleeping pills as my kidney can take.
Indigenous blood lines are still going strong in Oaxaca (the capital of Oaxaca State) – the ancient language of the Zapotecs, a rival tribe to the Olmecs, is still alive in many surrounding villages. You also get a lot more giris (tourists) so overall it’s not much cheaper than Mexico City.
Our hostel Ponchon was a 5 minute taxi ride from the first-class bus station and a ten minute walk from the Zocaló. It was about £9 each for a basic double bed, shared shower and more importantly, free WiFi – not bad. We managed to catch the last 20 mins of the
Benito Juarez Mural
The tortilla is around here somewhere... Liverpool-Everton game BBC Live Text and then went for some hueves al gusto (scrambled eggs) in the Zocaló and asked the waiter to put the first half of the City vs Blackburn game on for us. For the second half we watched Nasri and Silva rip Rovers apart as we sipped on some chocolate y pan dolce – a tasty Mexican favourite: cinnamon hot chocolate with sweet bread. Oh, and I went for my fifth poo of the morning – that sauce really was spicy.
Oaxaca claims to be Mexico’s cultural and arts centre with a University popular with artists and architects, plenty of exhibitions and the famous Atame book shop, which claims to have Mexico’s largest collection of books translated in to English. We didn’t pretend to be interested in art but we were reet up for some culture so we hit the Palacio de Gobierno which had an interactive cultural exhibition for kids upstairs. All in Spanish, we learnt about the evolution of humans, both socially and anatomically, and even tried to have a conversation with our bewildered guide about the conflict between religion and evolution in a city which has the stamp of the Catholic Church
all over it. The only problem was, we are at the stage in our Spanish were we can ask simple things but can’t understand anything that isn’t word perfect with the expected response in our Spanish hand book. After 5 minutes of blank looks, the guide gave up and lied to us, “no es conflictia” – there is no conflict. Content, we moved on to the history of science exhibition. It was here Ian revealed why we were really there and asked our new guide,
“Perdone…err….dondé es el grande tortilla?” Excuse me, where is the big tortilla?
“Que?!”
“I’ve got this one Ian…dondé es el tortilla más grande….del monde?” Where is the biggest tortilla in the world?
“Que?! No es tortilla aqui!” You crazy bastards.
The guide looked really scared now so we left wondering why the Lonely Planet would lie to us.
We ticked off a few more things before lunch: the Caterdral and the biggest market in Oaxaca, Central to Abastos. It was similar to indoor Thai markets but the quality was nowhere near as good. There’s no try-before-you-buy culture either: no food/drink tasters, one fried grasshopper between two of us and then we were accused
of being gringos for trying hats on and giggling. Lunch was an apple and banana for 35p.
After lunch I only had one more church in me, but we got lucky and watched a Mexican wedding in Iglesia Santo Domingo. Exactly the same as an English wedding, but the bridesmaids weren’t as pretty. Then we took a tour of the house where Benito Jaurez grew up. It was the house of a bookmaker who took him in and helped pay for the education otherwise unavailable to indigenous people. I didn’t learn anything knew. We just went through the motions so we could say we’ve been in the blog. We just wanted a beer…Indio this time. Very tasty.
In Oaxaca, real men drink Mezcal. This is where it is made and Oaxacans are very proud of that. The drink itself is similar to tequila but it’s a bit stronger and dirtier and comes in a lot more flavours. That night at Casa de Mezcal we got through quite a few flavours. I’d sip gusano all day but minero tasted like smoke-in-a-glass.
Quite a few of the basic, plastic-chair type food places in Mexico don’t have liquor licenses and the
popular Cenaduria Tlayudas Libres is one of them. Big loss. Although there was only once choice on the menu, it was steak and cheese tortilla. Win. Leaving around 10, we were just in time for some Salsa lessons at Candela. There were no lessons, just a £3 cover charge. This was the second time Lonely Planet had lied to us that day, so we just got on it and chatted with some Mexican girls in Freebar. Next stop was Cantinita where, it seemed, all the fit Mexican girls had been hiding. By the time 1am came round, we were both falling asleep and decided it was time to go home, drink lots of sparkling water and take pictures of me in my boxer shorts – see photo of me drinking sparkling water in my boxer shorts.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.141s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0449s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb