Winding Down

Hello from Mexico City! This is just a one night stopover on my way up north to visit some friends in San Miguel de Allende. The past few days have been a mixture of much activity and lots of wandering around aimlessly. I only have a few minutes on this computer so I´ll give a quick rundown then give more details on a couple of things in another post, hopefully this weekend!

My last 2 days in San Cristobal were relaxing, mostly shopping and wandering. I did go see the Museum of Mayan Medicine which talks about indigenous methods of healing and medicinal plants. Very cool. Also saw a Jade Museum which was a bit of a yawn.

Then I had a 12 hour overnight bus trip to Oaxaca. Time for a side note on buses... Bus travel between cities is either second class or first class. Second class means clunky buses, maybe air conditioning and more importantly, many many stops along the way which means a very slow trip. First class usually means direct, airconditioned (sometimes way too much) and reasonably comfortable seats, like airline seats: comfortable but not much space for people over 6 feet tall. When booking the 12 hour marathon bus I noticed one that was a bit more expensive than the others. "That´s Luxury Class". There's more? Well, it turns out there is an Executive Class which means more room, headphones, a free drink and separate male/female bathrooms), and Luxury class which is all that but with much more room, and seats that recline almost all the way back. It was only $6 US more to upgrade and for a 12 hour overnight trip it was so so worth it!

So, I arrived in Oaxaca at 7am on Easter Sunday. I dropped off my pack at my hotel and wandered the very quiet streets for a while. Finally found a cafe that was open, right on the zocalo and had breakfast and coffee while watching the city wake up. I couldn't check into my hotel until later that afternoon so wandered around more, went to the market a bit then finally back to the hotel to crash for a while. I decided I wanted to take a trip up into the mountains where there was supposed to be a beautiful cloud forest and some wonderful small villages. Monday morning I planned to stop by the tour operator office, organize something then have the rest of the day to explore. Well, of course it took all morning to get something organized but by about 1pm I was free to explore.

Oaxaca is well-known for its artisans. There are many villages in the area that specialize in one type of craft or another and purportedly you can go out to the villages and talk to the artisans and see how they work. Sounds awesome. So I hopped a bus to San Bartolo de Coyote to see how the famous black potter of Oaxaca is made. Turns out it was just a bunch of shops and a makeshift market selling zillions of similar looking bits of pottery. Not much of the actual craft going on, just people trying to sell it to you. It was a bit disappointing but still an interesting experience. I did fine one kind of unique piece from a very interesting old woman who has been doing it her whole life. I think. She didn't really understand my spanish and I didn't understand her too well either.

Oops, running out of time....more later!