We took an overnight bus from Mexico City to Oaxaca (pronounced waHAka), it was the slowest and cheapest bus we could find and was still better than most of the buses in NZ! It cost us 248 pesos each for a 10 hour trip.
We arrived about 7.30am, and made our way to the zocalo so we could find our way to Gary's apartment. Everyone was still asleep, so we waited an hour and woke him up. After getting settled, we spent the rest of the day looking around the city centre.
We stayed until Saturday and one day Gary and Kent took a bus out to the countryside and wandered about a small village. They were shown the traditional makings of carpets for this district, including the collection of the cochineal beetles to make the red dye.
Another day we went to Monte Alban which is a smaller more compact version of the ruins we saw near Mexico City. This though was on the top of a hill and had a great view out over the city of Oaxaca, smog and all.
New Year was celebrated in the zocalo with the locals and consisted mostly of fireworks being let off and people spraying each other with cans of shaving cream. We weren't drunk enough for it to be really funny, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Carol has a bad reaction to smog (found out in the USA), gets all snotted up and bitchy. Mexico city started it but Oaxaca city really got it going good. So we decided to move on toward Guatamala and caught a bus to Tuxtla Gutierrez on saturday.
