Travelling from Puebla to Oaxaca

The last couple weeks have been about exploring central Mexico while trying to find moments to rest and relaxation on the coast.  This blog we encountered protests and earthquakes as well local distilleries we probably won't forget.  We decided to go to Chiapas after so many positive recommendations and realized the humidity hits differently in the jungles of Mexico.
 

February 28^th – OVERTIRED

Like so many places in the world there seemed to be political changes in Mexico.  The Government of Mexico had just changed the rules related to electoral law resulting in less funding for local election offices who operate and oversee polling stations causing protests throughout the country.  Unfortunately, for us, the protest seemed to happen near our campground and started around 11pm, lasting until almost 6am.  We slept incredibly poorly, but we had plans that we didn’t want to delay, we wanted to visit the city of Puebla.

Our first stop of the day was the church of Santa Maria. A locally built church just south of Cholula with the entire inside adorned in gold. From the outside the church looks like many others we had seen, but inside it was opulent and extravagant.

Puebla was explained to us as the city that makes a great weekend trip from Mexico City.  We were told it a cute city with lots of charm.  Well, we don’t know what people’s definition of cute is but a big city is probably not what we would have defined as cute.  However, their El Centro definitely was.  The drive in was a bit crazy with many vehicles cutting us off and honking in our general direction, who knows if they were honking at us.  We were so happy to find a parking spot only to fight with an app we were forced to use to try to pay for that parking.  After 10 minutes we gave up and paid a real person who was patrolling a parking lot for a hotel.

Puebla reminded us of Barcelona, although Puebla is not on the water, it does have its own distinct flavour with huge pedestrian only roads, cafes and tons of stuff to do. 

We started with visiting a part of the city known as the Alley of the Frogs (Callejon de los Sopos) known for its colonial architecture and brightly coloured buildings, originally named due to the number of frogs that would appear when it rained.  From there we walked to the Artisan Market and the art market before heading to the Main square to explore the Cathedral and walked Calle de 5 de Mayo.  This road was a pedestrian only road that we could have explored and walked for hours with so many little business, restaurants and cafes leading right to a large market.  This market was massive with many vendors yelling at us to buy their produce with long lines of people desperate to do so.  We purchased some Mamay, a fruit we thought we hadn’t had before, but turns out the flavours brought Paul right back to his time in Cuba. It is like the texture of an avocado with the flavour of a papaya.

We returned to Cholula over tired which meant one thing, WE WERE GOING OUT!  We had heard of a trendy container city full of bars in Cholula and decided to get a Didi (Mexican Uber) there for some drinks and food.  Well, it was closed, well almost, there was one bar opened that served us the WORST NACHOS WE HAVE EVER HAD!  Quick side note, this was also the first time we had seen Nachos on any menu so decided to get them, nachos aren’t really a “thing” in Mexico.  Usually, nacho chips are served as chilaquiles which are drenched in red or green sauce and sprinkled with cheese. After an okay drink and terrible nachos, we somehow ended up at a jazz bar which offered homemade pizzas and cold beer.  We listened to live Jazz until we couldn’t keep our eyes open then went back to the campground to finally have a good night sleep. Another side note is that Didi worked for us this time and Kendra was not suspended from it!

 

March 1^st – Historical Bad Omens

We slept well!!  There were not protests or crazy sounds to keep us awake so we were able to start our day of touring “on time”. 

Today we decided to explore the town of Cholula, specifically its archaeological site.  It is a massive pyramid, larger than the pyramids in Egypt, however most of it is still underground.  Cholula is defined by a massive hill in the middle of town with a church on top.  We learned that this is not actually a hill but a pyramid with lots of dirt on top of it making a mound.  Archeologists are still exploring the ruins but only portions of it have been uncovered.  They have found temples and buildings from 200 AD and alters from 600 AD where children were sacrificed because it was believed that children could ask the god Tlaloc for water for their community during time of drought.  Since the community of Cholula has been inhabited for so long (it is one of the longest continuously inhabited cities in the entire world) different group have used this site for different purposes.  Originally, similar to Teotihuacan, it was a major city of commerce, but when Teotihuacan fell it was no longer as strategically important.  Its importance grew as different groups rose to power in the area and new alliances were formed, but the pyramids slowly disappeared as wind pushed more and more dirt onto it.  When the Spanish invaded they saw anyone at the pyramids as a cultist so decided to place a cross on top of the dirt on top of the pyramids which quickly was struck by lighting.  Undeterred the Spanish placed another cross, which was again struck by lighting.  Finally, they decided to build a church on top of the mound, which was destroyed by an earthquake.  There is a church on top of the hill, but it was built with pieces of the pyramids, and although it is still there, there is an active volcano that you can see in the distance, so who knows, maybe it will be gone soon.  If you are wondering if the Spanish did anything else in the town, they did, they killed thousands of people after calling a meeting with various indigenous and local groups.  We are learning why the Mexican history always showcases the Spanish as evil.

We decided to make our way to Oaxaca which we knew would be a long day.  Although it was only 350 kilometres, google informed us it would take us almost 6 hours.  Google was correct.  By the time we arrived into Oaxaca city we were exhausted.  We went to an RV park located very close to the city, set up our awning and cooked a delicious steak and potatoes dinner with a side of peas (all purchased fresh at Cholula’s municipal market) before relaxing for the evening.

We would be lying if the night ended without the van doing some rocking.  We were awoken around 11pm by an earthquake, the second one of the trip.  Paul jumped out the van convinced someone was playing a trick on us as it felt like people were on both sides of the van rocking it.  Thankfully (?) a quick google search let us know that it was a 5.8 magnitude earthquake just off the coast of the state of Chiapas; relatively close to our location.  After the rocking stopped we went back to bed.

 

March 2^nd – Drinking Ancestral Mezcal

We had been told of a ‘must do’ attraction in the Oaxaca City area and that this “must do” had the added benefit of going through areas known for it’s Mezcal.  Tequila is a type of Mezcal, but really where the two differ is in how they are prepared, more on this later.

The must do attraction was a petrified waterfall with various pools that overlooked a canyon.  It was easy to tell that anyone who wanted to upload some sweet shots to Instagram had to go here.  This meant that there would be tour buses of people coming from Oaxaca city all with the aim to take pictures of themselves and share it to their followers.  We knew we had to arrive before them so we could take all those pictures without sharing the space with others.

Only one small tour bus arrived before us so we were able to enjoy the pools and the views while taking a few pictures.  Once the larger buses started to arrive we positioned ourselves in an upper pool to people watch every person take “THE PICTURE” while politely asking others to move out of “their” picture.  Here’s our picture at the coveted spot!

After we got bored of this we decided to do the hike to the base of the waterfall, it was a great hike and the petrified waterfall reminded us of falls we had seen in Yellowstone National Park.  We encountered one pretty big issue though; it was very hot.  Rupert stopped walking while we were still walking down to the waterfall meaning that Paul got to carry him the rest of the way down and all the way back up in his backpack.  Again, this wouldn’t be an issue if it wasn’t over 30 degrees. 

The hike was worth it but we were so happy to be done and back into the air conditioning of the van.  As we left the town Paul’s eye caught a hand drawn blue sign stating that a place down a dirt alleyway made and sold “Ancestral” Mezcal.  So many places said they sold Artisanal Mezcal, or just Mezcal, but we had never seen Ancestral. 

The place looked a bit sketchy, but a woman changing over her laundry with a baby on her hip beckoned us in.  She explained in Spanish how her Mezcal was made with the Agave leaves being pounded by hand then burnt below the ground and distilled in vats.  It honestly looked like they made the Mezcal the same way they did generations ago.  The Mezcal was good, but we were unsure if it was “good” or not as we didn’t have anything to compare it with.  We purchased a couple bottles, which cost way more then we thought but we enjoyed our experience with the woman and she did try very hard to show us how Mezcal was made.  She also was EXTREMELY generous with the Mezcal sampling, especially after hiking up a mountain in the heat. 

After spending a small fortune on a few bottles of Mezcal the woman recommended another road to take to leave the area as it had beautiful views, it was a dirt road up a mountain, but it was worth it and had some nice views.

We made a stop in a town called Tecutlan known for its rugs (hoping to find blankets for some reason) and didn’t find anything we fell in love with meaning we only had one more stop for the night, another Mezcal place.  We wanted to go to one of the big tourists Mezcal places to taste theirs and compare it to our experience earlier in the day.  One of the biggest in Don Agave Mezcal which didn’t give us the time of day for some reasons, probably because we weren’t on a proper tour.  Lucky for us the Mezcal place beside them did want our money and showed us all their Mezcal.  Once again we spent a small fortune on some of their best to do a side by side tasting. 

We went to bed relatively late comparing Mezcal and making friends and asking them to try compare our Mezcals.  We were happy that everyone’s favourite was the one purchased from a woman folding her laundry in a sketchy sort of place (aka her backyard).

 

March 3^rd – Not falling in Love

So many people told us that they loved Oaxaca City and we were excited to share that love.  Unfortunately, we left feeling that we had missed something.  We arrived and with great luck were able to find free parking close to the historic part of the city.

We started our journey walking through the neighbourhoods specifically known for their colourful buildings, namely Jalatlaco then wandered right into the heart of El Centro and their pedestrian walkway known as Calle Macedonio Alcala which we had hoped would be like Puebla, but unfortunately was directly in the sun with no trees to offer shade.  There was also no cafes or restaurants instead they were replaced with white tourists and people trying to sell tours.  We had hoped to enjoy this area for the same reasons we enjoyed Puebla but forgot that we can’t expect the same things or experiences in different cities. 

We then headed to the Municipal Market and the Artists Market.  At the Municipal Market we tried some of the local foods of Oaxaca, which were fine, and Kendra purchased as shirt.

We kept on walking and seeing some neat stuff but nothing that was making us want to stop and explore more.  We eventually ended up in Plaza de la Danza, which Paul referred to as Ice Cream Plaza because it was full of ice cream vendors which has become our guilty please; to overindulge in ice cream. 

Our last stop was a restaurant that served Mole, specifically 7 types of Moles that Oaxaca is known for which is made with chilli peppers, chocolate, and almost countless spices (it is often made with 20 or more ingredients).  It is very much a touristy must do if you see yourself as a bit of a foodie.  It was full of Mexican tourists wanting a taste of Oaxaca.  Surprisingly this very fancy restaurant (known as Los Pocos) let Rupert in and we were able to enjoy the Moles.  They all tasted very different but a couple of them just weren’t for us. We enjoyed 5/7, some were just not right for our palates. However, a few were to die for!

Oaxaca being a big city did allow us to pick up a few things that we were concerned about, namely Rupert’s food which if you don’t know the dog requires a special hydrolyzed protein food that not even the street dogs in Mexico want to eat.

We ended the day looking at a tree with the largest diameter in the world, although the Americans refute this.  It is in Santa Maria del Tule, a cute town that would have been great to eat dinner in, but after spending so much on Mezcal the day before we decided to cook dinner in the van.

 

March 4^th – Returning to the Coast

According to Google we had 250 kilometres to drive, google also informed us that this drive would take us over 7 hours. 

The drive was beautiful but exhausting with more curves and altitude changes than any road we have ever driven meaning we always had to be aware.  We did break up the day a bit with on stop in a Municipal Market to buy meat and vegetables in Ejutla de Crespo where we got a ton of looks, I don’t think very many foreigners come here. 

Our final stop was Pulma Hidalgo a town high in the mountains that people had recommended for its coffee.  Lots of coffee consumed in Oaxaca and lots of coffee which says is from Oaxaca is from this region so we thought to check it out.   It was such a cute town with cafes and chocolate shops everywhere (another thing the area was known for).  We were surprised how friendly the town as we were offered free chocolate while exploring form a woman outside of the village hall.

We knew that we should only choose one café to have a cup of coffee as it was already almost 5 pm so we settled on one with a smiling old man sitting reading the paper.  Turns out he only watched the shop but he recommended what we should buy while he called the owner to come brew us some coffee.

We sat talking and enjoying a great cup of coffee, wanting to stop for the night and go to other cafés in the morning but we are a month behind schedule and we were looking forward to seeing the ocean again so we continued on to the Huatulco area and an RV park with a Quesnel connection. 

An RV Park near the ocean is owned by a couple of Canadians who are the in-laws of a person from Quesnel whose sister works at Cariboo Pulp (Hi Joelle, thanks for the recommendation!!).

We arrived just before sunset after a very long day of driving and decided to sit and actually watch sunset before pulling into the RV park.  This was a great way to celebrate completing a long day of driving.

 

March 5^th – Rest and Relaxation

It feels like we have been go go go since leaving Puerta Vallarta so we decided to not leave the campground.  The place had everything we needed, namely a pool and beer for sale so we took full advantage and recharged our batteries.

 

March 6^th – Not ready to go

We had a slow morning which turned into a slow afternoon socializing with other campers and trying to get used the heat and more specifically the humidity. 

We did eventually leave the campground and went to the beach within the Bay of San Agustin for some snorkeling, but with the sand being very hot on our feet (as well as Rupert’s paws) we didn’t stay very long.  We were actually quite happy we didn't stay too long as the owner of the RV park ended up showing us a bunch of artifacts from the local Zacotecs that he had uncovered while building the campground.   Definitely quite the experience to hold some of these artifacts in our hands.

We finished our time in the Oaxaca coast watching sunset one final time with some friends we had made.  After sharing some beers, we walked back to the campground where another Italian couple generously made us a delicious Carbonara.

We often feel that we are doing this trip incorrectly, with many saying we should stay in one place longer and we often wonder if they are correct.  Every time we do we are able to make connections and are able to relax, but we seem to see a lot less and we love exploring and seeing new things.  We just wish we had more time to do this more often.

The day ended and continued into the early morning hours of the next day with a couple of beers and talking.  The last few days definitely made us mentally able to continue the trip.

 

March 7^th – Dear god the humidity

In general, we try to do everything that is recommended to us, but one place we have been very hesitant to visit is the state of Chiapas. 

There are stories of illegal roadblocks, corruption and violence against tourists in this state, but with no government of Canada warning and so many positive things shared by other travellers who have recently been there, we decided to nervously set the compass to Chiapas. 

The drive was short in kilometers but long in time, but eventually we did arrive in the state of Chiapas.  Our first stop was in a supermarket in the city of Arriaga and then we drove to Puerto Arista a coastal town that is trying to be a domestic tourist hotspot and a common last or first stop in Mexico before crossing the Mexico Guatemala border.  It was evident that this is a poorer state with many Mexicans referring to the people of Chiapas as peasants. 

The coast was unbearably humid, a humidity neither of us had ever experienced.  We didn’t explore the town that much due to the humidity instead opting to just sit on the beach and watch the waves of the ocean.

It was very difficult to get to sleep, and even after we did we were awoken around 1am as the humidity was even worse due to an impending rain storm.  Thankfully the torrential downpour at 2am cooled off everything and we were able to get back to sleep.

 

March 8^th – Boating through emblems

We left the coast for the mountains hoping to escape the humidity to the capital city of Tuxtla Gutierrez which had recently built a Christ the Redeemer statue larger than the one is Brazil so obviously we had to check it out.  It was big, but left something to be desired.  We had hoped it would provide views of the city as well, but all the doors to the outside of the upper levels were locked.

On the way back to town we stopped for Tamales, which surprisingly, after almost 3 months in Mexico we had never tried.  I don’t know if it was the ones we purchased but they were not good.  The shrimp tamale had full unshelled shrimp inside and the mystery meat one we had tasted like it was made with a mystery meat. 

The city and its neighbouring Puebla Magico Chiapas de Corzo are known for the Canyon Sumidero which pictures of it instill a thought of “where is that” or “I need to see this”. 

The cheapest way to see the canyon is to show up at a boat dock pay a bit of money and hope that 13 other people show up to take you by boat through the canyon.  The boat will not run with less than 15 people.  After about an hour a tour company for French tourists showed up so we got a bilingual tour of the canyon, just none of the languages were English.

The canyon was something to behold and well worth the money and time waiting for another 13 people to show up.  We even learned that the emblem for the state of Chiapas is the canyon that we had boated through.

We ended up camping in the parking lot of the boat launch as for a couple bucks the night watchman would keep an eye on us and allow us to stay in the area.

 

March 9^th – Reaching one of our first top picks

Long ago when we were first talking about this trip Paul was told about the city San Cristobal de las Casas and he marked it on his google maps.  We don’t know where we had heard about it or from who but assumed we wouldn’t actually visit it because it was in Chiapas.  Today we would actually see the city.

We woke up early and went to the Puebla Magico, Chiapas de Corzo, for some breakfast/smoothies and then jumped in the van to drive the short 60 kilometres, which only took around an hour. 

We arrived with no issues and drove straight to a viewpoint of the city; it was nothing special so we drove the incredibly narrow streets to a campground close to the historic downtown.  We arrived so early that we had the entire day to explore San Cristobal so that is exactly what we did.

The town reminded us of San Miguel de Allende but with far less tourists and more “regular people” who are not dependent on tourist dollars.  The town itself, and the whole state of Chiapas for that matter, is mostly indigenous people to Mexico, so the whole place had a mix of Mexican, Indigenous and Spanish influence meaning it felt quite unique. 

We explored and took pictures for hours until our legs were exhausted and it was time to return to the campground.  During our adventure we saw beautiful church’s, Spanish monuments, grand plazas, markets including a souvenir market with shirts, shoes and souvenirs you actually wanted to purchase.   Humorously the souvenir market, which was located at one of the large churches in San Cristobal reminded Paul of the bible story where “Jesus lost his shit”.  Kendra had no idea what Paul was talking about until he showed her the story of the Cleansing of the Temple and the various pictures of Jesus flipping tables at a market in a church.

We see why so many people come here and end up staying far longer than they initially planned.  We seriously thought about being those people.

 

March 10^th - A religious experience

After a woman from Belgium said we should see the town of Chamula, Kendra had read a lot about this community just north of San Cristobal known for their religious syncretism- where two religions come together to make a hybrid religion. Those involved in the church believe all the saints are actual brothers and sisters of Jesus and as they would traditionally pray to different deities to help them, they pray to different saints.  They also bring animals to the church for sacrificing in front of the statues of the saints, so there is definitely a blending of Christianity and traditional Mayan rituals.

Our first stop in the town was the cemetery where different crosses marking graves meant different things, white for babies, green/blue for children and black for adults.  We had read people may be buried on top of each other meaning grave plots will often have multiple crosses and pine branches adorn each grave.  The church at the graveyard, which lacked a roof, was a marker of the Spanish’s failed attempt to convert the locals to Catholicism.

The San Juan Bautista church was quite an empowering religious experience.  We were forbidden to take pictures within it ($4200 peso fine if you do, plus who knows what the local people and the saints and deities would do to you as well), but when entering you are first greeted by the smell of warm pine needles, with countless candles on either side of the building.  There are no pews or anywhere to sit, instead the ground is covered with pine needles which people will push aside to sit on the ground and light candles letting the wax melt and get stuck on the floor.  People would sit with their animal sacrifice or prayer beads praying to saints showcased in display cases on the walls.  There is no Jesus on a cross, instead where Jesus typical is in a church is the patron saint of the church Juan Bautista.  The whole place is chaotic and impossible to look away from.  Each parishioner or grouping of parishioners is actively involved in something meaning there is a lot to look at and a lot happening all around the church.

We grabbed a few things from the open air market in the town which surprised quite a few locals who were just used to tourists gawking at them as they purchased fruit and vegetables, or uniquely to this market live chicken.

We left the town and drove straight to a waterfall which was recommended to us.  Once again it wasn’t technically far away, but due to rush-hour traffic in San Cristobal and busy roads in communities further south we arrived late to the waterfall.  The waterfall was quite a hike to see so we decided not to see it tonight.  This was fine as the parking lot for the waterfall doubled as a campground.

 

March 11^th – El Chiflon

The waterfall at El Chiflon is known to be busy and it was a Saturday so we wanted to start the hike up to the waterfall as soon as we woke up.  By around 9am we were walking, which turned into hiking.  The parking lot is at the base of a river and the top view point is around a 400 meter change in elevation.

There were multiple viewpoints, but the best one was of the Bride’s Veil Fall portion of the water fall and because we got there early we had the view point to ourselves. 

We did decide to see the upper portion of the waterfalls which was grueling but gave us nice views of the valley.  We are not sure it was truly worth the sweat to reach the highest waterfall, but we were glad we did it.

After returning to our favourite viewpoint, we decided to purchase a drink, (because there was a store that was opened that sold beer at around11am) and sit and watch the falls while we tried to slow our hearts and stop sweating.

After seeing the waterfall, we drove to Montebello Lakes National Park right on the Mexico Guatemala border.  It is unbelievable to think that we are so close to another country after being in Mexico for so long. 

This area is almost cold at around 20 degrees after being exposed to heat for so long, but it looks exactly like Canada, beautiful clear lakes and diverse forests.  It really reminded us of Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan.  We even decided to get a camping spot right on the lake and watched the sun slowly set beyond the hills.