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Published: February 14th 2011
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My watch has stopped. Grrr.
Our tour on Wednesday was a short one which took us on a boat through the Canyon del Sumidero . We saw amazing rock and moss structures, spider monkeys and a crocodile. Jo does not believe that the crocodile was real ("it didn't even move! And how did the boat driver know where it would be?"). We then visited the town of Chiapa de Corzo where we had free time. This place was really quaint and quite old school. We accidentally went the 'wrong' way and ended up in these little side streets rather than the markets where us tourists were meant to go, but we really enjoyed a bit of non-touristy strolling. We tried to buy a bag of mango (10 pesos for about 2 mangoes already chopped and ready to eat!!), but accidentally bought 2 bags...so we had a lot of mango. It was very good though and we almost finished it anyway. When we got back to San Cristobal, Rocio's mum had prepared an amazing family meal that we shared with them. We asked for the recipe. Kaori and Rocio then took us to a museum called Na Blom (House of the Jaguar).
This place was the old house of some explorers who came across the local Indigenous tribe of the area called the Lacandon . There were some amazing photos from the 40s and 50s here showing these native people doing their everyday activities as they had done for the last who-knows-how-many years. We then moved on to the Kakaw museum...or chocolate museum, were a young guy explained to us in Spanish the entire history of Mexico, the Mayans and the cacao bean. Luckily, Kaori came with us and was able to translate the entire story for us (Mayan kings were apparently thought to be more beautiful if their head was the shape of a cacao pod?!). We bought her a chocolate caliente moka (hot chocolate-mocha) for her efforts. And just because she is cool in general. We had tostadas and tacos for dinner at an eatery that was owned by a guy that appeared to be a friend of the family. Rocio thinks it is funny that we eat so much.
Our last day in Chiapas (Friday) was spent with Rocio and Kaori (although Kaori spent the morning at school...7am to 3pm!). Rocio promised to take us out for breakfast to
eat huevos motelenos (amazing layers of tortillas, eggs ham, peas, tomato and salsa...with fried banana on the side!), but we slept in until about 9:20... so it was a late breakfast (but so so good!). We then visited the villages surrounding San Cristobal. In San Juan Chamula we came across a pagan catholic church where John the Baptist and Coca Cola are held in higher esteem than Jesus (Coke facilitates burping in the church which releases the bad spirits...). This was a pretty weird and scary place to be, with about a billion candles alight, drapery everywhere and pine needles all over the floor. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos in this church... we were even just using my phone for its spanish-english tranlation application and were told to put it away. In Zinacantan (we were charged just to drive in to the town!) we visited a textile center where we were able to try on a traditional wedding garment. It was not quite the white cupcake dress associated with a western wedding... here we were also introduced to tacos with pepita (ground pumpkin seeds as far as we can tell) queso de chiapas y salsa. Pretty darn
good. When Kaori had finished school we had another amazing home-cooked meal, then visited an amber museum and a dulceria (sweet shop!). Kaori and her grandma helped us pick out the best items (which seemed to be just about everything!) before we went home for showers. A little before 8pm, we said goodbye to our lovely hosts (and added Kaori on facebook) before hoping on the bus ready for a 12 hour trip to Oaxaca. We will miss this family.
The bus trip started off okay, with a screening of 'High School Musical: El Desafio', which was in Spanish of course, but we still got the idea. As the trip went on, we realised that the poor lady sitting in front of us had a toddler that was quite violently sick every hour or so. We got a few hours sleep in (although there's only so much you can do to get comfortable on a bus...) and I hope this lady did too. We arrived in Oaxaca city at about 8am, paid 40 pesos to enter the bathroom and freshen up (the best 40 pesos ever spent) before catching a taxi into the Zocalo to find some breakfast (amazing chilaquiles
with coffee and fruit). After breakfast we walked to our hostel, which is about three blocks from the city square, dropped of our backpacks and set out to explore the center of Oaxaca City. We found a bookshop with an amazing selection of english and spanish (or both!) books (we each bought the same cookbook here...mine is in spanish though, so if I get stuck translating I'll be on the phone to Jo...), a market with a massive amount of meat including pigs' feet (we got lunch here, althoug we opted for a tlayuda each rather than pigs' feet), a very long line of Mexicans outside a bank and Santo Domingo church. Later in the afternoon I gave the nice man at reception a large pile of dirty clothes...this hostel has a laundry service! We strolled back to the Zocalo for dinner and really enjoyed the night atmosphere this place has. Every night the square is full of people with venders, clowns and musicans all trying to make a buck. Marimbas seem to be pretty popular here...the City Marimba Band give a live performance each night at 7pm for free...and they are pretty good!
Breakfast is included with our accommodation
here, so on Saturday morning we headed to the dining room to choose from eggs and bacon with toast, jam, fruit, coffee, cereal etc. At 10am we joined a tour group heading off to see El Tule (a very wide tree), Mitla (some amazingly well preserved ruins out in the stereo-typed 'desert' of Mexico...cactus and sand storms everywhere!), Teotitlan del Valle (where we saw the process of making the beautiful Mexican rugs and textiles of the area), Hierve el Agua ( lovely little pools on the edge of a cliff with a petrified 'waterfall' below) and taste some Mezcal (the yellower it was, the better...or more tolerable). We really enjoyed this day (maybe our best tour day of all?) and made buddies with some other english speakers from the US and UK. We had dinner at the Zocalo again (another tlayuda and some tacos shared between us), but were a little disappointed that there were no frappacinos with cajeta (the reason we chose to eat at this particular restaurant. Chocolate flavour was fine...but you can get that in Australia!)
This morning, after our hostel breakfast (eggs with salsa verde and salsa rojo!), we hoped on the bus for our last
Mexican tour. Our destination was the ruins of Monte Alban, an amazing archiological site on a mountain top above Oaxaca City. My favourite structure was the stadium for playing mayan 'basketball'... but overall I think I was a little disappointed at the amount of un-original buidings there were. All but one had been extensively 'restored' (rebuilt). While it was nice to see what the place would have looked like back in the day, I think I was expecting it to be left as it was found (how did they know what each building should look like anyway?). I am still very glad we went though. This was only a half day tour, so we hopped back on the bus and got dropped off in the city center to find some lunch (yet another tlayuda and something that I don't remember the name of...chicken tacos in a red salsa with lots of tomato in it...). We also tried some sorbets (mine was cajeta and Jo's was tres leches...both were pretty good).
We are now back in our hostel room and are starting to think about the trip home. We printed our plane tickets from Oaxaca to Mexico City and are talking
about what clothes/shoes we might be able to leave behind when we take the trip to Australia in two days. Sigh.
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