Oaxaca

When in Oaxaca - seriously that's a word Vorderman would love. Apart from barely being able to say it, we didn't know much about the town other than it was the food capital of Mexico - and that's all we needed to know.

We pulled up after another long-ish and rather gross journey...(someone had fogotten to flush the toilet and that combined with about 3 hours of winding mountain roads had left the toilet looking like your ceiling after a blender accident. Nice.)

Anyway, we pulled up to a rather nice colonial town which seemed very pleasant at first look. The first thing I did when we got to Oaxaca was search out a cooking class - Oaxaca boasts some of the best chefs working in Mexico today and as a result of all the food tourism, there are a number of cookery classes available ranging from half day lessons to whole weeks spent at villas in the countryside. We, of course, are on a budget, so we opted for a half day class which included a trip to a nearby market to buy food for our class.

We walked up the road from our hostel to the cooking class which was held in a lovely house with a courtyard called Casa Crespo. We chose this cooking class as the cooking focuses exclusively on the traditions of the Oaxaca region so we were to learn something completely new.

Firstly Oscar asked us to choose a number of ingredients and dishes to cook. I was really pleased that we weren't just going to cook from a set menu but could choose ingredients that were both in season and that we liked. Our menu was going to contain one of my favourite ingredients; courgette flowers - i literally only know one way of preparing them which is stuffing them with goats cheese and frying them but today we were going to make tortillas out of them and also a wonderful soup.
Our entire menu was as follows:

quesadillas and tortillas with cheese and courgette flower accompanied with a green and a red salsa and fresh guacamole, a courgette flower soup, a stew made from huitlacoche, a dark mole served with chicken, and a chocolate and chilli ice-cream. We even made a lime water drink to wash it all down.
And the best part ... we got to eat it all !

The next day we visited another larger market called '20 de Noviembre' which had cafes within the market that you could eat snacks or whole meals at. We tried a couple of dishes;

Tlayudas which are giant tortillas, fried crispy and topped with avocado, tomato, beef. onion gucamole and salsa.

Carne adobada which is a thin pork steak marinated in a spicy thick sauce.
Chaupalines which are (wait for it...) deep fried spicy grasshoppers, a famous tradition. The women who make these literally pick each grasshopper in the early mornings. The piles must have contained thousands of them !

Stuffed, we decided to find out what else the town had to offer...Rob had spotted a poster for a Lucha Libre match in town in a couple of days and being big fans of all wrestling and Nacho Libre we decided to check it out. I'm not sure what we were expecting but it wasn't wrestling ring under a gazebo in a park with only two lights taped to the gazebo to shed any light on what was going on in the ring. And then it began to rain!

Luckily we able to keep dry and unelectrocuted and ended up watching loads of great fights! And we had to buy a mask of course!

The next day we decided to get a bit more culture and decided to go on a excursion to various sites in the region of Oaxaca considered must see sites. I won't bore you with a descrition of each site but it went as follows:-

really huge massive tree

incredible ruins

tradtional weaving

pertrified waterfall

mezcal (a type of tequila) distillery

A strange and interesting list of sights you'll agree but we had a really fun day and felt better for having seen a bit more of what the region and Mexico had to offer.

Oaxaca ended up being a real mixture of things for us. We went expecting to be wowed by the food which we were but we were also caught by surprise at how many other things there were to do. A real gem in Mexico's glittering array of places to visit.

San Cristobal de las Casas

If I had a pound for everytime that someone told me to visit this beautiful town in the region of Chiapas, I'd have enough for a slap up meal.

Once we got off the 17 hour coach from Tulum and got in a taxi to our hostal, it was easy to see why everyone had raved about the place so much. The streets were filled with gorgeous multicoloured houses and markets. We also passed about three beautiful churches and plazas on our way to the hostal.

The other thing we noticed almost immediately about San Cristobal was how COLD it was ! It was bloomin' freezing compared to Tulum and we'd only been there half a day when it began to rain. Now, I had been commenting to Rob that I kind of missed the rain, well different weather in general as we'd been literally dripping with sweat for about two weeks, but as soon as it started to rain I realised that I would rather it didn't thank you very much.

San Cristobal is in one of the poorer regions of Mexico and examples of poverty could be seen everywhere that we looked. There were lots of people begging and even children shoe polishers in ragged clothes. However the town has been firmly on the backpacker trail for a number of years and the evidence was plain to see. Expensive bars and coffee shops jostled for space with tattoo shops and shops selling jewellery made from the region´s amber. However not once did I see a local in any of these places; it would have been interesting to know what they thought about their town being overrun with tourists and backpackers alike spending money in businesses they could no doubt find in their hometowns rather than in the markets and street stalls they owned.

San Cristobal was a wonderful place to photograph and walk around, but we were intrigued about the surrounding areas; there are a number of indigenous villages around San Cristobal which you can visit. Rob and I decided to visit San Juan Chamula... on horseback.

While I have a little riding experience, Rob was a complete novice. You think that paying for a travel agency for the experience would mean some guidance and explaination from the guides. You would be wrong. The guides only spoke Spanish and Rob was put on the horse, told not to pull the reins so hard and then was sent on his way. The first I knew of this was when Rob galloped past me on his horse, his face a mask of terror!
We managed to get to Chamula and back in one piece as you can probably tell... just!

No photos of Chamula though - tourists are forbidden to take photos in the town which is completely autonmous to the rest of Mexico - even down to having their own police force and no outside military or police are allowed inside.

Even though I'm very glad to have visited San Cristobal, I was very disappointed at how yuppyish the town had become. Everywhere we looked we saw travellers who had clearly put down roots in San Cristobal and were vying for trade with the indigenous locals from tourists, which to me basically means taking the food from their mouths. Even so it is a beautiful and much loved town in a very picturesque area and well worth a visit.

pn.