Vancouver to Oaxaca

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Thursday, 27 Oct On plane

We left home at 2 pm to travel by bus to the airport. We bought a sandwich from Subway to eat for dinner since Air Canada doesn't serve meals any more. The Air Canada plane to Los Angeles left on time at 5:40 pm. The weather had been good today, but the rain clouds were coming in as we left and the forecast was rain every day for the next week - a good time to be leaving.
It took three hours to L.A., where we had to change terminals to the international terminal. This was the most depressing place - dark and dingy. But all of a sudden, it was like you were already in a different country - on the plane down from Vancouver (unlike when we go to Asia), the people were all white and western. Now everyone seemed to be Latino. We had a five-hour wait for our Mexicana connection which left at 1:50 am. There was no peace to have a doze - the PA system was going non-stop. If they weren't announcing flights, they were telling you not to leave your baggage unattended, to report anything suspicious, and that you don't have to donate to solicitors because they aren't sponsored by the airport authority.

Friday, 28 Oct Oaxaca, Mexico

We left Los Angeles on time. Jill and I hadn't been given seats together, yet we both had a vacant seat next to us. After half an hour of darkness, they put the lights on to give us the scheduled meal, which we'd expected would be breakfast. Instead, it was a packet of chips and a dry ham and cheese sandwich with almost nothing on it. At least they served beer with it. Then another short period of lights out and we were descending into Mexico City. We landed at 7 am. and it was still pitch dark.
We had anticipated getting 180 days on our tourist card, but they would only give 90, so that means we will either have to get it extended, or get a new one when we return from Guatemala, either of which will cost money. We later heard that the length of stay granted appeared to be very arbitrary, but very few people seemed to get 180 days; many people got less than we did. Quite a few we talked to didn’t even realize that they’d been given a limited stay, and had no idea that they needed extensions.
We weren't sure whether we would have to clear customs with our bags here, even though they had been checked through to Oaxaca, but we were told “immigration in Mexico City, customs in Oaxaca”. We had a two hour plus wait for our connection, but the Mexico City airport was infinitely better than the international terminal in L.A.. We changed travellers’ cheques into pesos whilst we were waiting. It was very overcast and obviously had been raining. As soon as the plane left the highlands near Mexico City, the sky cleared and then there was just scattered cloud for the rest of the one-hour trip to Oaxaca. There was a nice feel as you got of the plane in Oaxaca - a small terminal with no sky bridges; down a staircase off the plane onto the tarmac, sunny and comfortably warm. We were happy to see our bags arrive on the baggage trolley - we still had a sneaking suspicion that we should have done something with our bags in Mexico City. It was fast through customs - you pressed a button to see if you get a red or green light and we got a green, so straight through. Then we bought our tickets for the collectivo - no more than 30 metres from entering the terminal on one side to leaving on the other. The collectivo, a comfortable van, had only six foreigners in, and took us straight to the guesthouse we had booked.
The guesthouse quite nice, but we thought over-priced for a room without private bath at $25, but there was a nice courtyard packed with colourful plants.
Since we had missed a night's sleep we lay down for a while and perhaps dozed a few minutes, but we needed lunch - we hadn't had breakfast other than the dry sandwich at 2:30 am. We found a place just across the street - a little two table “home” restaurant and had the set lunch, comida corriente, which was much more than we needed - soup with noodles, rice, beans, fried chicken, macaroni salad with ham, and tortillas.
After that we took a walk around the neighbourhood, then into the centre of town. We were partly getting our bearings, and partly looking for eating places and other places to stay. There were plenty of eating places, but we didn't see much in the way of alternative accommodation. The city has been spruced up and made more “touristic” since we were here 12 years ago, but there is much more traffic. There are many more tourists around too. It is still very pleasant though with all the low rise (mainly single storey) pastel coloured buildings.
We didn't bother with dinner after that big late lunch - just fruit and biscuits. There was activity at the church across the street from the guesthouse - lots of fireworks and a band leading a parade from the church around the block back to the church, all very typically Mexican, a good first day experience.
We had booked this guesthouse through the internet and Jill had been interested to see that there was sometimes some art courses given there. We were surprised to bump into the French woman who teaches them, since she only gives two 10-day classes a year here. She also had just arrived, and was starting teaching her course tomorrow.
We went to bed early.

Saturday, 29 Oct Oaxaca

a good nights sleep and we feel back to normal. After breakfast, we went a walk around the neighbourhood and looked at a few alternative accommodation is but didn't find anything. We managed to get another night where we are in addition to the new we had booked.

After that we walked out as local and the nearby markets we had great tamales, a local Oaxacan style with chicken and more lay. We went looking for bulk mess cow which we used to buy before - fill you on bottle from the barrel, but that doesn't seem to happen any more here, and the bottled mess cow was very expensive. We got some petrol do make brandy cheaper.

For dinner, we got some nice bread rolls, a ball of the strained it Oaxacan cheese, and tomatoes, and they did on our guesthouse terrace. We really enjoyed it.

After dinner we went to the bus station to check out buses for our next leg. We didn't buy tickets them because there were enormous lineups.

During the day we tried to get our chloroquine antimalarial tablets, but couldn't find him; the pharmacists didn't even seem to know what they are. We're not in a malarial zone double and there are very few mosquitoes here.

Sunday, 30 Oct Oaxaca

we will walk in very early - 4:38 a.m. - I fireworks and the church bell across the road. It went on from we'll all the one-hour. It was much worse than being near a mosque, the usual problem we have.

After breakfast, we went straight to the bus station and bought our bus tickets for tomorrow with no problem. We were the first people buying tickets for the bus so we had our pick of the seats.

We went out again looking for partners have temporary along with our sightseeing. Of four places we checked, three were already booked a February, so we took the one we could get. It is quite a nice apartment with a patio, complete with fridge and still. It is certainly a lot cheaper than the bathroom West room we've got now.

Another good lunch - tamales again as Kayser dear with squash flowers. Then we listen to a good concert in the struggle by the Oaxacan state and, Symphony Orchestra sized band brass, woodwind and percussion (rather like a big English brass band), plain light classics. The 90 minute concert was being televised. We also visited the main cemetery to see the preparations for the piano day will somewhere close, the day of the dead, which takes place November 1 and two, but before then all the grapes have to be cleaned and decorated. There haven't been a great deal done yet, but a few graves were decked out with lots of flowers.

We debated when backed the square from the evening concert, but decided we were too tired - we bought a lot of miles today. We'd heard bands playing everywhere today, and we could hear one as we sat in our room in the evening, along with the occasional firework.

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