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Published: February 15th 2010
Monte Alban
We took ages trying to get the camera to balance on a wonky stone!Oaxaca
We spent 5 days in Oaxaca city, capital of Oaxaca state in Mexico. It´s a beautiful colonial town with some really great views of the surrounding mountains. We spent a few days in the city itself, looking at museums and eating at the great selection of vegetarian friendly cafes! (Many of which had a chicken option but we´ll overlook that!)
One day went to visit Monte Alban, one of the most important archeological sites in this region. It´s built on a hill and is pretty spectacular. It was built around 2000 years ago and had lots of pyramids and excavated tombs. We had an interesting taxi ride up the hill with a driver who spent the whole time gossiping on the phone and not paying much attention to the VERY windy road!!
We splashed out one day and went on a tour of some of the sites around Oaxaca, as we were too lazy for once to arrange the trips independently. But it was worth it and we met some friendly Americans and Mexicans from Mexico City. We visited El Tule, the largest (widest) tree in the world, then stopped in a town where we watched a
El Tule
Rather wide - 11 metres around! demonstration of rug weaving with natural dyes. Our third stop was Hierve el Agua, an area of slightly sulphuric natural springs set atop a dramatic mountaintop. They created a deep pool where you could swim, kind of like a natural infinity pool! There were also some petrified waterfalls where centuries of dripping water had solidified. Ben was in heaven!! We were the first to brave the water but were soon followed by the Mexican couple who donned wetsuits, swimming hats and googles and dived in like Olympic swimmers! Then we stopped for lunch and we sneakily managed to get away with paying half the price of everyone else as we had the vege buffet - result! But it wasn´t purely vegetarian,.... as they had Chapulines.. known to me and you as grasshoppers! Ben decided that as he probably eats lots of flies and certainly kills mosquitoes that he should try one, and try one he did! They taste like sun dried tomatoes (honest!).
Last on the itinerary was Mitla, an archeological site known for it´s mosaics. We could go in the tombs! Well, almost.. On the way home we stopped at a Mezcal distillary where we tried some Mezcal
Infinity Pool
Hierve el Agua - and it didn´t involve paying a fortune for a hotel room, what a view! and I decided to try a Mezcal worm. It was gross and I had bits of it´s skin stuck in my teeth for ages afterwards!!! The funniest bit of the Mezcal factory was an American guy in our group getting really confused that Mezcal didn´t taste of pineapples because that was the word the guy had been using to decribe the parts of the cactus they use to create the alcohol. See picture for explanation!
We had our final Trek Study appointment and were free - no more poo capturing buckets and gloves to lug around!!
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ali mccabe
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Wow to that infintiy pool. I spent a weekend ill in bed then went to acton. Enjoy mexico. i'm in NY in march, come on a detour and lets party 'stateside' as the yanks say