A week at the Beach

After Oaxaca, like everyone else, we decided to head to the beach. As was the same for most people this meant heading south to Puerto Escondido. To get there you have two choices - a 6 hour van up a mountain or an 11 hour bus somewhat around the mountain. We opted for the bus as we had heard people often got sick on the van and it also counted as a night's accommodation. 

We had booked a hostel for our second night in Puerto Escondido but had to find somewhere to stay for the first night at 8 in the morning when we got off the bus. I didn't feel up to trudging around a new town with backpacks trying to find a cheap hotel so we just went with the fist place we tried and we were glad we did. We ended up having a room on the top floor with access to this balcony that we had to ourselves. As you can see the view was pretty good. The next day we made our way to our pre-booked hostel.

We pretty much did nothing for a whole week which was quite a change. We went to the beach, swam in the hostel's pool, went to a different beach, pottered about. I don't know if I could have handled much more anyway, with the sweat dripping off me just from walking from the room to the kitchen. The heat was quite a shock as Oaxaca had been surprisingly cold.

On our first day we wandered along the beach in search of food. We hadn't eaten for about 12 hours and I was getting desperate. This was the only place with some life so we decided to go for it. It turned out to be a Canadian ex-pat bar that consisted of mostly senior white people playing horse shoes. We had a white man's version of Mexican food. The price of letting yourself get too hungry. 

Everywhere we have been in Mexico (except Cancun) there has been some kind of festival happening. Puerto Escondido was no different. They have a festival going all through November. This meant we got to see more giant puppets!

There was an international surf competition as part of the festivities. Apparently just before the competition started all the waves dropped off. 

My favourite beach in PE. 

A glimpse of the pool that we hung around for 5 days. 

On our last evening it decided to pour rain for maybe an hour. I enjoyed the imagery of the soaking hammocks. 

More of Oaxaca

There was more to Oaxaca than Day of the Dead.

Oaxaca City - it's easy to think you're in a small town when you're just hanging out in the historical center but we were surprised how big it was when we got up here.

There are bugs everywhere here!

 We went on a day tour just outside the city:

The widest tree in the world!

We visited a textile "factory". I have a much greater appreciation for have woven rugs now. 

This is what a Day of the Dead altar looks like after a few days

We visited an amazing petrified waterfall

The views were amazing

Saw some Aztec/Zapatos ruins (I was confused about which it was by the end, but it was cool)

And of course there was a mezcal tasting

Which wouldn't be complete without the worms....

Oaxaca is known to have some of the best food in Mexico so we thought it would be the place to do a cooking class.

It included a tour of the market. Lots of colours and many many smells. 

mmmmmmm

The end product - yellow mole with vegetable, complete on Halloween plate :)

Dishing up! It was one of the most amazing kitchen's I've seen! Very inspiring. 

Stuffed chilli, black beans, home made tortillas, guacamole,  and some extra stuffing from the chilli (chicken, tomato, onion etc.)

Oaxaca was very nice and if you ever make it to Mexico I recommend it.

Dia de los muertos

Long long ago back in Australia we did some research to find the best place to celebrate Dia de los muertos, or Day of the Dead. Oaxaca was the name that constantly came up so that's where we went.

Day of the Dead is a tradition that stems from pre-Hispanic times. It's a time to celebrate and remember your loved ones who have passed away. The story goes that during this time the spirits come back to our world for a visit, children on 1st November and adults on 2nd November. Families make altars in their homes decorated with photos, flowers, candy and the deceased favourtie food and drink (because they'll be hungry after such a long journey). Families also decorate the graves of their loved ones and hang out in the cemetery together all night waiting for the spirits.Hanging around in a graveyard all night doesn't sound that fun but there's food, music, mezcal and family bonding. It really does feel like a celebration.

The main days for celebration are between the 31st October and 2nd November but in a lot of places preparation and celebration starts days before. Almost every night we were in Oaxaca there were street parades where a band would play, walking and and down the streets, and a horde of people in costumes would dance and follow them around. There would be 2 or 3 of these happening. Random people would be throwing lollies into the streets. People dressed up their dogs. Delicious food stands were everywhere and heaps of decorations.

Ever since I discovered Day of the Dead existed I've wanted to go and I'm happy to report it was not a disappointment, not at all.*

Sorry in advance for the quality of photos, night time photos are hard with a point and shoot.

People are always getting their photo taken with the people in the best costumes. There was the best costumes I've ever seen here.

Street Party

Some of the Decorations:

Altars representing the different areas of the state of Oaxaca

Decorated grave

A more elaborate altar

Chocolate de leche con pan de yama (Hot Chocolate with bread made from egg yolk - the little head represents the soul. This is also part of the traditions. You have to dip the bread in your hot chocolate because it's so stale)

Candy Skull

Sand Art

*Ok, the one disappointment I had was that the Candy Skull I bought to eat didn't taste good. But that's it.

The Road to Oaxaca

We flew into Cancun on the 23rd and had to be in Oaxaca on the 31st of October to make it for Day of the Dead. The next 7 days became all about getting there. When we had originally booked this from Australia I had not fully appreciated just how big Mexico is. This means we didn't end up spending as much time in the Yucatan as we would have liked but we made it to Oaxaca with a day to spare!

Cancun

Cancun didn't really feel like we were in Mexico. It's an insane place. There's a 20 km strip of just hotels, fittingly named the Hotel Zone. We had two nights booked in Cancun to get over the flight and hopefully adjust a bit. The very first thing we did when we got there was sleep for like 12 hours. The next day we decided to check out the Hotel Zone. It's full of beaches which are pretty nice, and I'm sure it's great if you're staying in one of the fancy hotels but we weren't so Cancun was kinda gross. The Hotel Zone is full of people yelling at you trying to sell you stuff and creepy people dressed as the mask. It was also too windy to enjoy the beach (we were getting pelted with sand at one point). We were glad we only had one more night left.

My first taste of Mexican wild life on the walk out to the Hotel Zone. I am ashamed to admit he actually frightened me when I first saw him.

I got to go to a Bubba Gump restaurant! I had only semi recently discovered that these even existed so when the chance came up to go to one I had to. I've now got it out of my system and yes, they do play Forest Gump on repeat.

The beach at Cancun

Merida

From Cancun we decided to head to Merida just because it was easy to get (4.5 hour bus ride) to and it was in the right direction. We ended up spending 3 nights there. We found a nice hostel to chill out in and met some nice people. It's a little colonial town and it was starting to feel a bit more like we were in Mexico. We caught the end of Mayan Festival while we were there so there was endless dancing in the streets.

The first little Street Party we went to. I got to try queso de bola ice-cream which literally translates to cheese ball ice-cream. It was pretty much bits of Edam Cheese in some Vanilla ice-cream. Not quite what I was expecting but it was alright.

We went on a tour about an hour's drive outside of Merida to learn about how people used to make ropes and bags out of agave plants and ride on a trolley pulled by a mule.

Making the rope

The mule whom I am very grateful to for pulling me around in the hot sun

The Agave crop

The best photo we got of the Cenote that we got to have a dip in as part of the tour. 

More dancing in the street!

There were even Disney Princesses there dancing to the Spanish version of "Be Out Guest" (from Beauty and the Beast). After this they were dancing with Ben Ten and some kind of version of Spiderman.

Palenque

After three nights in Merida we had to cover some distance so we caught a 9 hour bus to Palenque and stayed there for a night.

While we were in Merida we found it hard to find any fresh food, as strange as that seems. We had even heard other people talking about how hard it was for them to find some fruit to eat. In Merida we found one weird supermarket that only sold packaged stuff and cheese and meat. So when we came across this supermarket in Palenque I was pretty excited to find tomatoes, but to top it off they sold Prickly Pears!

During our one day in Palenque we went to the ruins close by. It was a hot muggy day broken up by a few showers of rain. While the ruins aren't the best I've seen (I think I've ruined myself for appreciating ruins after going to Ankor Wat) it was an atmospheric setting amongst a jungle. The howler monkeys screaming in the distance adding a bit of thrill.

After the Ruins we hopped on a bus that would leave us in Oaxaca for Day of the Dead.

Before Mexico there was London

Before heading to Mexico we had three days in London. Last time Alex and I were in the UK we had one crazy full day in London doing all the major site seeing so this time we got to do a bit of a different trip. 

We saw a show. Definitely go see the Book of Mormon if you get a chance. 

We were like an hour away from getting to see Daniel Radcliffe!

I finally got to go the the Museum of Natural History! Yay!

We went on a walking tour of the West End and heard lots of great stories, like the back story of this pub. There was a rich man who owned a warehouse. He was happy and in love and about to be married. He was so excited that he prepared the big wedding feast the night before the wedding, beautifully laid out. Then tragedy struck and  his fiance died the night before the wedding. Dick was distraught and refused to see the point in it all. He declared that from now on he would refuse to bath or clean anything ever because it would just get dirty again. From this point on until the day he died he change his clothes once, out of necessity, because they had rotted off him. He left the great feast to warehouse animals and whenever he found one of them dead he would nail it to the wall. He became known as the dirtiest man in London (which was saying something in those days) and had the dirties warehouse in all of London. People would flock to see him for themselves. Eventually he died and his friends kept his warehouse the way it was. This pub is named after him, Dirty Dick.

We also saw heaps of street art on this tour, even the street artists themselves, promoting their work. (Or this might be some kind of Rap/Urban artist using it as a backdrop.... I don't really know!)

Last but not least we had the chance to catch up with friends, but I don't have any photos of this so you'll just have to believe me that it happened.