bla Puebla, Oaxaca...

I got to Puebla feeling fairly tired, overwhelmed to be in a city and hungry. When I got to the hostel I sat on the bed wondering what to do next, and a couple of minutes later 2 boys walked in..I introduced myself and ended up travelling with them for the next week. We went from Puebla, to Oaxaca, to Puerto Escondido in a week.

Puebla- was just for one night. For most people I´ve talked to it seems to be an in-between location, a stop off from Mex. City to Oaxaca. We wandered round and looked at churches as tourists do (there´s a really beautiful church but I can´t upload many photos because they show up as numbers, not pictures, so I have to guess!). We tried Michelados, beer poured into a mixture of soy(?) sauce or equivalent salty condiment, lemon juice and other delicious things. There is chili round the rim of the glass...got some good puckered face pictures.

Oaxaca- 3 nights (we got there late, because we were too disorganised to get on the bus). The highlights were our 15 minute party, where we heard noises in the street outside, and came outside and saw a parade of cars. We ran down the street barefoot following them, and got invited into the back of an open top truck with lots of wasted mexicans, who proceded to fill us with tequila and other substances. I was handed half a glass of tequila, wimped out and gave it to Mikhael (one of the guys I was travelling with- the other is called Richard), who within 15 minutes had been given enough alchohol for the next few hours...

Another highlight were the ruins at Monte Alban, on top of one of the mountains that surrounds Oaxaca. It was huge...the ruins of an entire city. From where we were sitting on the ruins of the pyramid, we could see everything- we could see the rain creeping slowly towards us across the valley...it looked like a misty curtain from far away. We spent hours there, then walking back down the hill found a path into a small forest (UNESCO site, I think), to have a ´churro´, which kept us entertained for hours afterwards...

After that, Puerto Escondido. We took the second class bus, or not a bus, a mini-bus that wound through the mountains and villages. At one point we got stopped at one of the military checkpoints, which is normal but still scary, and had to get out of the car whilst they checked inside everyone´s bags..

When we arrived, our luck with meeting people changed. We hadn´t made that many new friends throughout the week except each other, but as soon as we arrived...

(tbc)