Oaxaca (wah-ha-ka)

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Wow. I mean seriously, wow. This week just gone I was amazed at how different a place like Oaxaca is in comparison to the rest of Mexico. The place was a whole new side of Mexico, you could almost have been in another country, the language style was different, the people were different, the whole vibe and I loved every minute! To begin at the beginning...

Wednesday afternoon at around 2pm we hoped on the bus to head to Mexico City which took in the end about 7hours, the rough plan being we'd get an overnight bus in Mexico City and somehow make it to Oaxaca on Thursday morning. The one glitch to our plan was that we figured out that in order to make this happen we'd have to brave the Mexico City traffic and swap bus stations (we arrived at the Northern Bus station and needed to get a taxi to the Eastern Bus station). Our roommate had simply told us one piece of advice for M.C, whatever you do don't get into the green cabs, they're renowned for robbery of tourists etc, so don't do that, that's BAD. Correctly following his advice we decided to buy a taxi ticket from the official taxi stand (a little pricier but its safer) and walking out of the bus terminal what do we see? The whole taxi stand is full of green taxis. Not one other type in sight. We stood there for a second not knowing what the hell to do, we'd already paid for the taxi so there wasn't really much option, and we couldn't wait and take another type of taxi because they were all in a nice line, awaiting their turn to take passengers so with much trepidation we got into a green taxi and spent the whole trip praying that the driver wouldn't kill us! It seems God was looking after us because absolutely nothing happened, the driver just sat there and drove and I spent the whole time looking in awe out the window. Needless to say we arrived at the bus station and caught the overnight bus to Oaxaca which took approx 6hrs. Although hardly a good nights sleep what with the guy next to me snoring loud enough to wake the dead I managed to snooze most of the way, regretting the whole time that i'd forgotten earplugs.

We made it to the Hostel in Oaxaca by 6.30am, in bliss that the place opens its doors at 5.30am, checked in and crashed for a few hours sleep before grabbing a quick breakfast and exploring the city. The Zocolo, or main plaza is quite nice, there were people milling about everywhere, coffee shops all through the plaza and indigenous people constantly trying to get you to buy something off them. We continued on to the Cultural Museum of Oaxaca that went from the pre-colombian cultures, through the colonization and continued right through to oaxaca today. The building was an old Dominican monastery that had been gorgeously restored and maintained, you could literally spend most of the day wandering the wide corridors, getting lost. Next door in the Church Santo Domingo (I swear I've visited more churches over here than I have in my life at home), I was completely blown away by how ornate and amazing this church was. The entire roof was carved and had gold leave and beautifully done. Deciding that we wanted to get some more culture we visited another museum, this one was the restored house of Benito Juarez, the first indigenous Mexican President, and then, because we just couldn't get enough we headed to yet another museum that was filled with the personal collection of the famous Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, and I was so impressed at the sophistication and detail of the pre-colombian works. By the end of the day we were ravenous and in need of sustenance, and what better way than we an original Oaxacan hot chocolate! The State is famous for its 'drink of the gods' which, for about $1.50 aus you get a bowl full with a sweet bread roll to dip in it as is the custom over here. It was AMAZING. I don't think I moved that night after getting into bed, we were completely buggered.

Friday we booked ourselves on a big tour to see the outskirts of the city which included seeing the oldest tree in the world, a traditional zapotecan village, the ruins of Mitla (a zapotec city), some beautiful petrified waterfalls. and finally a visit to a mezcal factory. Our tour guide, Eloy, was lovely, and I was happily surprised at how much we understood (we'd booked for the spanish speaking tour to practice). Its amazing how well we can understand some people and others not at all!

El Tule, while it may sound boring just to see an old tree, you should've seen the size of this thing!! My photos can't do it justice, its as round as it is high and they average its age to be over 2000yrs old. It practically dwarfs the church next door. After a quick stop for photos there we continued on with the mexican family (the only others on our tour, a family of three little girls, with a poor long suffering dad!) to a traditional mexican village/collective of families that ran their own craft business of making traditional rugs with natural wool and natural dyes and everything. It was fascinating to see how they came up with the dyes: red, orange and purple was derived from a dried bug that they retrieved off the cactus plant and mashed up to get the colour. Blue from a stone again ground up, and yellow and green came respectively from different plants soaked in hot water. Apparently for the average adult weaver a rug can take anything from a week or two or months to complete depending on the complexity of the weave, and trust me they get complex!! It was a beautiful group of families running it though, I even made a new friend, her name was Nila and she was about 6 months old and it looked like she was the communal baby, nothing phased her about strangers, everyone keeping her entertained so she was the cutest, happiest little thing.

Further on we stopped at the famous archeological site of Mitla which is renowned for its geometric patterns on the walls of the temple, and while not very big, the symmetry and grandeur of the remaining building is impressive, being used originally as a temple, then a horse stable (conquistador's) and as recently as 50years ago as the local marketplace. Next on the list, we wound up through the valley into the hills to see the petrified waterfalls and although they were impressive, I was more taken by the view down the valley, it was incredible and reminded me a bit of looking at the blue mountains, that kind of enormous vista. Last but by no means least we stopped into a mezcal factory which is really just a different form of tequila, although it is said to be the stronger of the two. We got a demonstration of how it was made and went on to taste testing which was fun; you could try the white stuff, literally just evaporated and rough as methylated spirits, then there was the yellow kind (with or without the worm as you prefer) and then finally the gold kind which had aged a little and was smoother than the other two. Then if you wanted there were flavours ranging from what the guide said was "Viagra plant" to "coffee" to "apple". We made it back to Oaxaca city at about 6pm and after a quick rest we met up with some friends and sampled the local mezcal at a bar to everyone's detriment the next day!

Needless to say both of us were a tad slow the next morning to get going and we slowed down today and generally spent most of the day wandering around the markets, saying hello to the locals and sampling the indigenous fare that included grasshoppers in chile and lime, some type of sweet pumpkin, and different fruits and berries. For dinner I gave stuffed chiles a go (stuffed with cheese or chicken) and I really enjoyed them, very greasy but tasted amazing.

Sunday we woke up to a beautiful clear day and thank god as we were headed for the big archeological ruins of Monte Alban, which are situated on the top of a hill on the outskirts of the city and provide the BEST views I've seen in a long time. You can stand on the top of this pyramid, after walking up the steep stairs and just breath in the view. There are really no words (shelle get excited this place is the bomb and its on the tour!!!) What was left of the afternoon was spent eating at an Italian restaurant which essentially meant pizza with oaxacan flavours like grasshoppers as the topping, and wandering around an impromptu night market in the Zocalo. That something I love about this place, the centre of the city is always bustling with events, fairs, markets, dancing, singing, you name it, its such a cool laid back family atmosphere completely different from anything at home. The closest thing I think we have is the beach, a communal area for absolutely everyone and his dog.

Monday we got up super early and caught a bus with the other locals out of Oaxaca City into the mountains to visit a traditional Zapotecan town and check out the supposedly gorgeous forrests, flora and fauna of the mountains surrounding the valley of Oaxaca, and boy we we impressed!
We just kept heading up into the hills and what started out as a nice day turned into a freezing cold, windy, raining one as we reached the cloud level which had settled on the mountains. This nice old man met us at the bus stop at the edge of town and took us to the local tourist cabin to wait for our guide who was running late. In the meantime I was slowly freezing to death with only a wallaby jersey and my dunlops for warmth I was not looking forward to tramping around in the rain for four hours with no protection. I was completely unprepared thinking the weather would be similar to the weather on Monte Alban, windy but still warm enough not to need a jacket and have sunscrean. I was definitely NOT prepared for the glacial conditions were the temp only reached about 6degrees. Starting from an altitude of about 3000metres above sea level, with the old man ending up being our guide we headed off into the Forrest. The old man (still don't know his name) had quite a gruff, no nonsense sense about him but was quite happy to answer all our questions about the ecotourism programme, the coniferous forrest, the types of flora and fauna, the oldest tree being roughly 400 years old. What made the whole trip worth in it my book was while we were trudging slowly up hill, me eternally grateful for the spare parker the man had lent me, we came across a group of local villager men who had just finished hunting a deer for an upcoming festival. I was blown away when all these highland men walked by each cordially saying hello to us, all with a gun slung over their shoulders, all speaking spanish as their second language, with hunting dogs following them, it all felt decidedly like I'd walked into an Indiana Jones movie or something, it was incredible. Then low and behold one of the younger guys walked by, saying hello and letting us have a look and the recently killed deer he was carrying back to the town. The carcass was still bleeding it was that young a kill, the gun shot going straight to the heart.

It took us around 2 hours to reach the summit of the mountain where there were some beautiful rock formations, the last little bit being quite steep and it was there you really noticed the altitude because I know Katherine and I are fairly fit and we were severely dying by the time we reached the top! Still pissing down and fog and wind everywhere you couldn't see anything much from the summit but I was stoked to have made it up there anyway. After 20 minutes or so freezing on the top of this rock we headed back down, the return taking about the same time and the ascent. By the time we got back my feet were soaked and I was ready to pack it in the for day. Never has a hot chocolate tasted SOOOO good than in this little convenience store come cafe with a lady and her baby sitting by the stove watching t.v. and helping the two frozen young western girls thaw out before the trip home on the bus. We got home about 8.30, our feet having been wet for about 6 hours, I wasn't able to feel them and I swear, I stood in the shower for a good 20 minutes just regaining feeling.

Tuesday unfortunately for us was our last day in Oaxaca, the morning was spent doing anything we'd missed in the last few days like visiting this famous Christian statue in a Church, tasting Cactus ice cream and having a look and giving a donation to the local Oaxacan centre for street children which helped educate, feed, clothe and generally care for all the homeless children in the city. Currently the place was taking care of around 600 kids. We decided during the course of the week that flying home was the better option, only taking 5 hours instead of the 16 or so to get there, so by 10pm we were back in Guadalajara and today (weds) was back into the swing of uni. All in all a top week. xx

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