Oaxaca

We felt that it was time to move on from Sayulita, so Friday evening we got our gear together and hit the road, final destination being Oaxaca! (pronounced Ha-wacka by the locals) What we thought was going to be a 12 hour travel day turned into a 30 hour travel day, so that kind of sucked. 5 hour ride to guadalajara, 8 hour ride to Mexico City, 7 hour wait there, then a 8 hour ride to Oaxaca. The bus from Guad to Mexico City wouldnt shut off his air conditioning for some reason and the bus was at sub-zero temperatures for the end of the ride. Mexico City was....big. Luckily it rained the night before so the pollution was way down, although it looked similar to LA. All 3 of us developed throat aches upon entering and they lingered until we were out past the city. The area surrounding the city was actually very cool, and looked really similar to the area around Skihist/Lytton. Finally got into Oaxaca Saturday night at about 9:30, after leaving Sayulita friday evening at 5. Staying at a hostel here, Oaxaca seems to be a definite destination for backpackers in Mexico. Very cool, old city with quite a bit to see and big open squares lined with cafes, lots of people milling about everywhere. Went to the market today, hit up a museum and one of the big churches. We plan on going to these smaller ruins tomorrow, then taking the night bus to Puerto Escondido, where we'll hang around for a few days, then go back inland to a bigger city for the Day of the Dead and Halloween celebrations. Looks like we have much more time in Mexico, given that Guatemala seems to be a write off.

Pictures: Me saying goodbye to the samurai as we left Sayulita...*sniff sniff*, next one is a typical Oaxacan street, pretty much what everything looks like around here, and the top one is of me eating grasshoppers! Apparently its the thing to do in Oaxaca, so Ryan and I spent some time looking around town and finally found some for sale at the market, pretty much tasted like the bbq sauce that was on them, but the consistency once you bit in was...unpleasant. They also had worms and cockroaches for sale, we opted for the hoppers!

Thats all for now, adios!