July 29 - Oaxaca

We spent our last full day in Oaxaca (for now) at the hostel, because we were taking an overnight bus, had no room reserved for the night, and didn't want to lug our stuff around town all day long. Passing the time was a challenge... it involved eating, watching random movies on TV in the (still deserted) bar, reading, and playing cards (an activity I rarely resort to). For lunch we had a yellow mole for the first time, which tasted a little like Indian food. The kitchen staff was preparing it for Che, one of the owners, and he kindly offered us some, along with a traditional rice drink called Horchata. The tasty drink tasted like coconut for some reason.

Though tempting, we opted to avoid swimming as we had no shower. Eventually it was time to head to the bus station, so Che called us a cab. We were sad to leave the mountains and the nice family we only started to get to know. Che and his brother told us about their experiences building the hostel and gave us some great advice about buying rugs and black pottery when we return to Oaxaca later.

Getting to the station with some time to spare, we went to a little cheap restaurant across the street and had some tasty quesillo tortas (tortas are very common in Mexico; they're sandwiches similar to burgers). We took the highest class lujo bus, UNO, because we had to sleep on it. We checked our bags and got on. The bus interior looked something like a first class airplane cabin. The seats went almost all the way back, and there were leg rests in front. We watched Casino Royale before sleeping, which was easier for me than for Frank, who unfortunately did not sleep much at all... about 10 hours later the lights came on and we awoke. Everyone seemed to think we had arrived, but Frank was doubtful because the journey was supposed to be more like 12 hours. After 5 or 10 minutes, the driver came back to inform us we were in Tuxtla. Everyone groaned and went back to sleep.