Blogs from Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico, North America - page 30

Hi all, Well, I´m still in Mexico, although this part of my adventure ends on Saturday and I´m just about ready to move on now. Don´t get me wrong, I´m still having a great time, but I feel it´s time to meet a new set of people now (and my new roomate is very much into doing his own thing, so I´m finding myself on my own quite a bit). After a couple more nights in Playa del Carmen, we headed off early on Monday morning for the Mayan ruins of Tulum. Whilst these were far from the most impressive ruins that we´ve seen, they did benefit from a stunning location, right on the Caribbean coast. After wandering around for an hour in the searing heat, we took advantage of this and had a refreshing dip ... read more

Another 7am start for our five hour bus to Oaxaca. I have dreamt of coming here for year!. Oaxaca is famous for cheese, coffee, chocolate and dry roasted grasshoppers called 'Chapulines'. Oaxaca and Chiapas have the largest Indian communities in Mexico. We arrived at 2pm, did a short orientation walk around the city and then I went shopping. I bought some embroidered shirts from the Indian markets. We found a bar that sold 1L cocktails for US$5 so a few of us went there for the evening. I bought some grasshoppers from the markets and we tried them. They tasted like crunchy salt and smelt of dried sardines you'd give your cat. Not pleasant. ... read more

If you like this, check out my regular page at On the Road with William Walker All is quiet in Oaxaca. At the moment it is closer to a ghost town than a traveler’s Mecca, as the preceding months demonstrations have kept the tourists away and sent many locals seeking refuge with friends and family elsewhere. Some hotels have boarded up for the season, and the restaurants that remain open are lucky to have two or three tables’ worth of customers at peak times. The craft bazaars were bereft of buyers. Amazingly, this did not seem to affect market equilibrium. Listless merchants, once engaged in a haggle over a rug or a shirt, sprung to action with a steely enthusiasm that made me look over to shoulder to see if there were really were a dozen ... read more

We arrived in Oaxaca City yesterday on a night bus from Villahermosa. We are out of the way of hurricane Dean up in the mountains here where the weather is cooler and dryer. After we got settled into out hotel and cleaned up we went to see the Zapotec ruins of Monte Alban which are located on top of a mountain (big hill) overlooking the city.... read more

Having dealt with bus stations for a good 4 months now, we decided to do Mexcio a little differently. We joined the Bamba Experience, which is a travel network of vans to take you from place to place. Day 1 was a drive to Oaxaca. It is only recently that the NZ government has stopped warning people from going to Oaxaca. That is because for most of last year, the city was paralysed by protests and riots. We asked about this and were told there were no problems. Not sure if the guy just didn´t know or didn´t want to put us off, but he forgot to mention the fact that the day before, there had been more protests and a bit of a clash with police. We had already paid our money by that stage ... read more