We think that our main issue with Oaxaca is that it has become overly touristy. We were definitely not staying in a touristy part of town - somewhere far more 'genuine' - but there were posters on the wall about gentrification and our walking tour guide spoke about it too. In our view San Cristobal dealt with tourism far better than Oaxaca. And was far better value too. It's perhaps because Oaxaca is not just a tourist spot, but also a very important regional centre. Oaxaca was however very colourful with a strict urban colour palette passed down from some demented person in UNESCO. Which meant that Ronald's emporiums were not present in the historic centre.
The big thing about Oaxaca is food and the big food thing is 'mole' - which we thought was just chocolate sauce with chicken. Which it is BUT there are a number of 'moles' and, for example, we don't think the green one called 'pipian' has anything to do with chocolate.
According to our guide if someone says that they have been to Oaxaca, you should ask them what parade or protest was taking place whilst they were there as there is always one or the other. And so it was with us. We were a bit shocked when we arrived and walked into the centre of town as the main squares and the roads leading to them had all become tented villages. Initial thought was that these were migrants heading to the USA. We had seen hundreds of migrants heading North on the coastal roads to Puerto Escondido previously. Had they got here? No, they were teachers on strike - the Mexican Presidential Election is imminent, the 2nd June, and there are a lot of people wanting things from whoever the new President will be. Our guide tried to explain the reasons behind the strike but it became complicated. Even though his mother was in one of the tents. It seems that this particular grievance has been ongoing in different forms since 2006. Mexican laws aren't necessarily applicable in the Oaxaca region and free school education isn't available for all. But there has been a ridiculous level of overstaffing in schools usually by relatives of the headmaster. And therefore pay rises have been cancelled. Etc. Etc. Hence the tented village which was all very well organised and well behaved; no piles of rubbish or bad smells despite the hundreds of people camping out in the heat. However, in order to help a bit with the solar protection on the tents there were tarpaulins strung across the streets and, although generally Mexicans are taller than their Central American cousins, it was still a problem for Paul to pass underneath.
We also spend time visiting some 'dry' waterfalls. These were basically limestone carbonate drips over a cliff. In the dry season there is just a few dribbles from the pools above, where we had a swim, and you end up with rock formations that look like waterfalls.
Having rested, we moved on to Puebla. The road was quite scenic for once and the temperatures started dropping. This was a stop chosen almost at random and we were really disappointed that we could not spend more time in Puebla. There were so many multi-coloured baroque churches and interesting buildings that we did not have time to visit.
Puebla had been 'chosen' as it was on the way to Teotihuacan where we wanted to see the pyramids. The site is immense and we did not manage to see all of it as thunder and lightning was threatening rain. Yes, rain! But we returned the following morning... The pyramids are man-made mountains and the size of them is impressive. Again, as for the Mayan structures we have seen, a lot of the structures are believed to have been covered in red painted stucco which would have made them even more impressive.
We celebrated our seven months on the road in Oaxaca. We will shortly have clocked up 30,000km and have stayed in 125 different accommodations - and we are still going. We have to.
21 days to get out of Mexico...
