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Day 7 & 8- The Unesco World Heritage City of Oaxaca & more ancient pyramids and tombs! Today on our 200th day of travelling (Bl***y H***!!) we headed further east on a 4.5 hour journey to the world heritage city of Oaxaca and again the transport just got better - this beast was top notch, even had seats at an angle so that everyone could see ahead of them, and this wasn't even first class, it was like being in an airplane(not that that helps me though)! Mexican transportation has so far really surprised us and with over 90 gates at this terminal, there definitely wasn't a lack of choice for getting around in style.... Still for me the old rickety bus with broken windows and doors would have been best, mod cons just don't do it for me, and hence the start saw the usual anxious claustrophobic Nikki, sorry Adam! To keep us amused though they put a British war film on in English with Spanish subtitles, result! As we headed out into the valleys the scenery was stunning again, lush green forested fields and mountains, with hardly a village in sight so reminiscent of our favourite routes we travelled in Laos. As the journey progressed the mountains just got higher and eventually we were winding through them climbing progressively around corner upon corner! Up close to the mountains now, we realised that they weren't actually covered in forest at all but thousands of huge Cacti!! I suppose we should have guessed that, we being in Mexico and all that, but from afar you had no idea, it was fascinating! The valleys and gorges got deeper and deeper below us, it really was a beautiful landscape to say the least. Half way into the mountain we came across a barrage of cars, police, ambulance etc.. and saw a huge landslide ahead of us! It looked pretty recent and on passing we were very glad to have not been there when it happened.... Apparently it had happened just the night before, the road was closed and the bus detour took a further 3 hours, eeek! Nearing further towards the state of Oaxaca, the mountains become more rugged and slightly drier, a more reddish tone bit like the canyon! Then finally we came across the valley plain of Oaxaca and headed down into the valley to the city. On route in the number of police around was pretty astonishing (and a tad worrying!), there were coppers even lying under the roadside trees asleep with their rifles across their chests, nice! On arriving in Oaxaca we got a taxi (thankfully a graceful non speedy gonzalas this time) to our chosen hostel ' Magic Hostel' which actually ended up being magic in that it seemed to have bl***y disappeared!! On dropping us off the heavens opened and as we tried a metal door of building with a piece of paper with 'Magic Hostel' on it, it didn't seem to open, no worries sure the entrance is around the back....no! By now we were pretty wet and decided that either this was another scam so the driver didn't have to go far or indeed it had moved and was further into town. In the rain with 28 kilos each, we walked and we walked and we walked, no magic to be seen. By now we were wet, the streets were crowded and life wasn't that great... a new hostel to be found it was, the only one being on the other side of the city! Eventually though we made it, Ads looked at the room, said yes and upstairs we climbed... at this point I got a tiny bit disturbed in that the room Ads had chosen was something Barbie or Sindy would have LOVED, it was BRIGHT PINK!!! Is there something you're not telling me Adam???!!! It was clean though and basic and the outside showers/loos were clean too so all was good. Plus it was cheap so meant that we could have more than ham and cheese sarnies for tea, result! My first impressions of Oaxaca were that Puebla was the 'Bath' of England and that this place was the slightly shabbier version but less touristy and more 'lived in' so to speak. The buildings were crumbling more, graffiti was sprayed across them and it felt more localised...not really what we had read in the book though. That evening we set off to the Zocalo and the image I had of the place TOTALLY changed! It appears that Oaxaca is somewhat divided, the north of 'Independence Street'/square being the posher part with the south being the cheaper part...guess where we were! The square was stunning, a huge bandstand was in the middle with a large brass band playing, numerous quaint cafes, posh restaurants and trees lined the outside, a beautiful 17th century Cathedral dominating one large corner and the 'Palicio Municipal' dominating another side, the atmosphere was cracking but compared to Puebla, this was larger and full of many more westerners!! Boo hoo, we weren't the only travellers in Mexico any longer ha ha! Inside the cathedral was paved in gold design, another ancient beauty of this country. We wandered around the cobbled back streets, craft stalls lined the edges, more traditional musicians were playing, and numerous tucked away coffee shops were amongst more ancient and bright coloured colonial buildings, it really was like one of those Greek picture perfect brochures you see in the holiday shops at home! Heading back to the square we treated ourselves to some pasta and sat with a cold Sol watching the world go by, taking it all in. Old ladies were desperately trying to sell the textiles they had so preciously spent hours on, women were wandering with ease carrying baskets on their heads and young kids of about 7 in some cases were weaving in and out of the tables with hundreds of beads on their arms to sell..... As the night turned the lights just added to the atmosphere and we headed up to Oaxaca's most famous church, the 'Santa Domingo.' On nearing a guy was playing some bagpipes, which just added to the stunning building in front of us which we were keen to explore some more before we left! Looking at the many local food stalls crowded further north, we then headed back towards our hostel, spotted a place called 'Café Alex' which we just had to go in and have a beer for Miss Quinn, (plus attempt at free wi-fi but to no avail) then back to our pink panther room to collapse for the night! Day 8 - A lazier lie in saw us sorting buses for today's' world heritage sight, then relaxing with a coffee and croissant in a newly found café with just us, perfect! Then off to the famous ancient ruins - 'Monte Alban' 10km west of the city. This ancient city of ruins dating from 100BC - 600AD! sits on top of a steep hill (or mountain as the Mexicans say). The drive up was pretty cool as we got to see how incredibly steep the local roads/dust tracks were to the numerous houses built into the mountain and the views across the valley went for miles! My stomach didn't fair too well as we got thrown around abit in the minibus but after hundreds of windy turns we made it to the top and the next 3 hours that lay ahead of us were just fascinating! Monte Alban features numerous ruins of ancient pyramids, palaces of different functions (ceremonial, admin, residences etc..), tombs, plaza's, terraces and ancient stones/sculptures of the 'Zapotec' culture, it was incredible to see how vast this city once was and understand all that went on there thousands of years ago! The imagery is that this city was a political, militaristic site of religious ceremonies, rituals and tortured captives, which became more apparent when we visited the museum at the end and saw the state of some of the skulls they had found here in 1972. The entire city is based around a huge plaza area which is where the many ceremonies would have taken place, then at one end the city is dominated by the South Platform, a temple/pyramid built in AD 500 with a 40m wide base, then on the north side sits the palace, (North Platform) followed by numerous smaller pyramids (Complex IV being my favourite!) and palaces along each side (plus 3 in the middle), randomly called Building A,B H etc...!! We wandered around learning more about this fascinating place and taking in the incredible views of the mountain valley all around us. We saw various 'Stelas' (large stones carved with depictions of the Monte Alban ruling class) and it was incredible to still be able to see the ancient carvings within them. The largest, 'Stela 18' as it was known, sat at 5.8 metres, was built in 100BC and was used as an astronomical instrument to verify midday by the positioning of the shadow, which Ads in particular found most intriguing and I think he would have taken it home if he could! Climbing the steep steps of the South Platform, we then sat looking across the city, again marvelled by yet another amazing thing we were experiencing on our trip, so vastly different from our last, The Grand Canyon, how lucky did we feel to be seeing so much of so many UNESCO listed world heritage places.... The final thing that intrigued us was the ancient ruins of what was known as the 'Juego de Pelota' otherwise known as 'Ball Court.' Using a rubber ball which you could hit with any part of your body, this was used as a ritual practice amongst pre-Columbian Mesoamericans to enable them to resolve disputes, land issues and trade controls! Not bad eh, could you imagine saying to your bank manager, 'how about we play a game of tennis over our mortgage and if I win, I don't have to pay the mortgage!' I would have been intrigued to watch this game in ancient times. Apparently the winner then had full protection and support from the gods, just a perfect response, 'the gods will pay my mortgage thanks...!' Ancient ruined out, we then looked at the many fascinating relics and stone carvings they had placed for protection in a museum and caught the bus ride back, chatting to a cool American guy Travis and his lovely Japanese wife Chika who were also at out hostel, exchanged details and hoped to bump into them again across Mexico! Sampling 'Menu Del dia', which is 'menu of the day' in Spanish, (how good are we getting at our Spanish!??) at the famous Café Alex, we then walked back to the square, gutted to see that during the night local groups had grafittied the entire place, the ancient buildings, cathedral, bandstand etc.. trying to get the tourists to boycott the famous local festival that was happening Monday. It was SO sad to see and made me so angry that they had no respect of the historic value they were ruining, the place looked a mess! What was cool to see though was a wicked band playing on their drums and xylophones in a corner, whilst old Mexican couples danced together, just like we would (well perhaps not all!) 'rock n roll' style...... fab! A great end to another top day.
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