Thanks to everyone who voted for Lani's story: the closing date was May 31st. Read more about it at BackPack Nation - and thanks again!!
Meanwhile, there are loads of new photos below here on this page - scroll down to see pics of Oaxaca, San Cristóbal, Palenque and Mérida - enjoy!
Oaxaca is famed all over Mexico for its fine cuisine and the beauty of its city.
We arrived in Oaxaca early in the morning after a twelve hour bus journey. Amazingly we had all got quite a decent nights sleep although I ached like I had just done a triathalon and my feet and ankles were really swollen.
The taxi driver told us that it would be hard to take us anywhere near the Zócalo (where we wanted to go) because the Oaxacan teachers had been on strike for a week and were camping out - and so it proved to be. We had planned to sit in a cafe there and look around at hotels but as this wasn't possible he took us to a hostel mentioned in the Lonely Planet and we unloaded there.
The hostel was shabby, stinky and over priced - but more about that later! We took a walk around the place and the whole of the Zócalo (which is the main square) was a building site, and there were thousands of teachers living in a cardboard and plastic city all around it - amazing sight. I asked the kids if they could imagine their teachers doing that!!!
After a hot and unpleasant lunch, a few hours in the internet and finally getting our Cuban air tickets, we stumbled back to the hostel, only to find that mine and Mark's room was similar to sauna without the steam! Our room was at the top of the terrace and it had a tim roof and thin wooden walls - I quickly ajourned to the kids room which was pleasantly cool. After a long rest we trundled out to get some more food, the first nice looking place was a French resterant and we went there for ok but over-priced salads - and I tried a famous Oaxacan hot chocolate, which was indeed delicious. Then we went down to a kind of market area full of ice cream and cake stalls, had very tasty ice creams too, and then went for a stroll, only to find that in the course of four hours the teachers had completely upped sticks and gone with hardly a trace of them left.
That night, our room had thankfully cooled down and we went to sleep only to be awakened a few hours later by an enormous storm. It was bucketing down, with thunder and lightening very close and it was very loud on our tin roof - we couldn't hear each other speak without putting our mouths very close. I have to admit it was a bit scarey but then we started to get pelted by lumps of ice. It was hailing so heavily that somehow the hail stones were finding their way into the room and covering us. Once the light went on we could see that they were coming in everywhere and we had to sit on our bed under an umberella for a while!!!!!
Luckily we could see the funny side, but there was no way I was going outside to the loo or to find a drier room! Gradually it subsided, and we eventually got some sleep, but I can honestly say that I have never been hailed on in bed before, even camping in the most inhospitable weather in Britain.
I woke up with a renewed determination to move and Mark and I went and found a really nice place, quite close, that is actually cheaper and cleaner and we are all, once again sharing a room - which is the first time for a while.
I spent a good half hour researching good restaurants in the hope that we could finally find some of this famed good Oaxacan food. We ventured off, only to find that the ones I had circled either were too pricey for our budget or didn't suit the kids. We ended up eating food that none of us liked much but at least it gave Mark and Melissa the opportunity to sample grass hoppers! (they weren't nice). Again we trotted off to find a couple of nice cafes mentioned in the guidebook to get pudding and coffee, but with it being Sunday afternoon neither of them were open - however we finally did find a nice cafe and had strawberries and cream and cake - so a happy ending at last.
Despite our slightly disastrous start to our few days here, we are cheerful and optimistic that we will indeed come to like the place and will find some nice Oaxacan food. Big apologies to Érica, our Spanish teacher, who is from Oaxaca and who enthusiastically advertised its delights to us - as I said, it's just been an unfortunate series of events!
- HeatherOur home from home in San Cristóbal was a fifteen minute walk from town, and from the Spanish school.
The Hidalgo Diaz family were warm, welcoming, interesting people. There was Francisco and Socoro, mum and dad, and they have four sons and three grandsons. Hector, the youngest son, is fourteen and is very friendly and outgoing. Juan is son number three, he lives three doors down with wife and two sons - Christian and Carlos, then there's Miguel, who lives at home with wife Anai and baby Caleb -who is adorable. Paco (Francisco) is the eldest - he lives in the big city (Tuxtla) and is a radio sports commentator, he visited on Sunday. We spent most time with mum, dad, Hector and Miguel.
Francisco is a builder, and he built the whole of their home (including a pool for the kids, knocked up from reinforced concrete) as well as the homes of his sisters and mum next door on both sides. Socoro is a baker by trade, but mostly works at home - both of them are very involved in community matters, through the church, and through Francisco's thirty-years of Tae Kwon Do training. Rosa, the domestica, also lives there, and helps take care of Caleb as well as cleaning and doing laundry.
One Sunday, we were taken for a tour around the outlying barrios. We called in on Francisco's brother's family, who have a house right on the edge of town, with great views.
We had a great time here - lots of fascinating conversation and insight into working-class life in San Cristóbal, what it was like when the EZLN took over the town, and what it means to be a Catholic follower of a Bishop on bad terms with Rome. And little people to play with, a hammock to swing in, music to listen to (including several traditions of ska to compare), a fellow fourteen year old to get to know, and lots of different kinds of food to try. I don't know when, but if I can, I'll be back.
- Mark (and Heather)In town it was quite green with plants everywhere in some places, and there were loads of nice places to eat. It was quite big with lots of shops and churches and great markets. (Heather also picked up a street dog, who was very mangy but sweet - she followed us a long way on two different days - Heather wished they could take her home with them).
Going to school felt like we were at home again, only this school was lots funner
We went on a trip from school to buy ingredients for our cooking. At the food market there was loads of nice colour it was really amazing and they sold ants too - horrible!
We had another trip to Chamula - it was full of people selling belts, by the end we had loads. They also had a nice church too - (Heather adds, the church was absolutely amazing inside, we couldn't take photos so there are none. It was a pretty church on the outside but inside it was alive with people, candles, chickens, pop bottles, saints and painters. There were people sitting all over the floor, chanting over sick people with chickens to absorb the bad energy, they were also using loads of candles to make significant patterns, different colours and lengths mean different things. This particular culture also believes that bad spirits come out with burps so they have bottles of pop to help them to burp! What an amazing mixture of old pre-hispanic ritual and religion and Catholicism. The atmosphere was rich with the scent of burning candles, pine-needles that were strewn around the floor and paint (the painting of the walls has to be done regularly as they quickly get blackened by the constant burning of candles.)
