Good morning.
It’s about 10 o’clock and I am waiting for my check-in, so I can get my big backpack out of the locker and into my fancy hostel-room. Fun to meet the people here, which has been my hobby since I arrived around 8… With the nightbus from Oaxaca. That was quite comfortable, just that my body length didn’t seem to fit in the seat exactly. But what was worse and something I honestly had not counted on – was that ONE guy in the bus was snoring. If I say snoring, I mean a noise somewhere between a huge pig and a huge construction site machine. I did manage to fall asleep finally, and only was waken up a few times but what I thought in complete darkness (it was dark outside plus mexican professional bus travellers use curtains so it’s double dark) to be the bus sliding off the road for sure, flying down a mountain or having broken breaks.
Well.
Why I heard from the first contact here this morning from a woman that she took the bus from D.F. and the bus was stopped. For ELEVEN hours. Without extra food / drinks. This is extra severe in Mexico, from my point of view….!
Well my bus was on time and of course I am lucky. Or else how could I be here at all.
I realize these days how much I’ve seen and how much is flowing through me, while at the same time it seems to clear me up from the inside. Sort of weird to explain.
Anyhow my stomach – thanks for asking back on that one – is better. It’s not perfectly ok and I skipped out (and shouldn’t admit it) on the fried grashoppers, mostly because of the fried…. but I trust my stomach again which does me good.
I went through the photos on the bus yesterday, but they only go back to the day before yesterday, as I forgot THE cable to get my pics from the camera onto the PC. I seem to get lazy – the pics here stop about two or three (I’m on vacation, can’t remember…) ago.
If you go on the nightbus, you feel sort of like this.
(despite the fact this was taken in D.F. at the floating gardens of Xochimilco…)
For those of us who have to work (yeah now that was mean, but it’s not as if I don’t have to organize stuff around here just that for once, it’s for my own sake…) be reminded humour helps. Always.
I’ve even gotten used to the skeletons by now. Oaxaca bade farewell to me with its siestas starting yesterday (the 30th!), which was quite amazing. Yet the locals were not dancing along as I had imagined, but a looooot of busy tourists taking pics. Including me. Wait till I have that cable back where it belongs…….. Anyhow I hope Cristobal will be smaller & a little more authentic. As far as I can tell from this morning’s taxi drive – real nice.
And real cold. Like I had imagined. Plus I met another real nice lady from California on the bus – she evidently had the same idea about buying stuff in Mexico and selling it elsewhere. Textiles. She wrote down the adress of her B&B and I think I’ll meet up with her for breakfast one of these days.
Ok I wanted to show you pics, huh. The internet’s down (obviously cause the guy at the reception are working on the cables…), so I’ve uploaded the pics but couldn’t put them in the post. I hope the post was saved in itself…
I love the dog skeleton. It just makes me want to work with papiermache again…..
Take a look at Puebla’s ballet school final scene that I was writing about earlier:
Here’s another of Pueblas secrets – Lufthansa has opened up a branch, trying to become even MORE international. I find this so cool, I immediately had a bad conscience for not travelling with Lufthansa…….
My favourite church door decoration (almost on all churches). Plus the most important warning for tourists in museums, churches, ….. whereever.
Dunno if I said this before, but for those of you having to work…………….. You think you have it out of your mind, then along comes this. Nope I refrained from buying this.
Also didn’t try to find & buy tiles this time… I just took pictures of all the designs 🙂
This is the guy and his girl with the golden hat dancing on Pueblas main square in front of the cathedral. Plus the orchestra in the back which you might not really be able to see. PLUS the guy with the bavarian hat, taking style to new dimensions in the very back. You can see his hat.
I keep seeing angels, dunno. On the top list of things I did not buy and now regret for not having done so… is one made of wood, holding a corn (or grapes, not sure about that) in his hands. * sigh *
And I was so close to getting this: weird sweets in the modern coffin-look. Makes you feel alive. I don’t regret not having done that, though…
Dear S., this one’s for you – easily tops Amsterdam hipsters, don’t you think?
Popo’s biggest exhale while I was watching. Normally he takes in small breathes and small signs of clouds exhale, but after a longer break…… you neeeever know. I know it’s not a good idea but I would love to see it spit some lava into the air. With the concluding traffic jam, the cloud above Puebla would probably be more deadly, though.
Bus-view on my way to Oaxaca.
Oaxaca Zocalo (main square). Like elsewhere, the 43 students still haven’t reappeared and are being reminded of.
Local decoration for Halloween / dias de los muertos is hard to top. The pic of the lady changes from lady to zombie if you change position…
Here’s the original vendor of my worm-powder that I tried in small portions (yeees the powder not the worm…) and that’ll go on German barbarian oranges later this year. Reconsider before visiting me (evil Halloween-laugh)
Oaxaca architecture.
Some local artist – I really liked the picture.
I didn’t say I’m immune to taking pics of loads and loads of skeletons, even if I’ve gotten used to seeing them.
(((actually I couldn’t resist when walking past the shop for the second time yesterday and got myself a necklace with skulls – so R. was right I wouldn’t stop buying them – and the necklace bears weird resemblance to those Aztec and Teo-necklaces that had teeth or bones on it. Hooooooo. Might wear that tomorrow. Given there’ll be few occasions in Munich.)))
Well this is not just any skull. This is THE skull from Monte Alban (the ruin city right on the next hill to Oaxaca) from tomb no. 7 and boy does he have charisma! Would consider twice spending a night alone in a room with that guy.
There’s also the very famous tombs no. 103 and 104 – but if you think you can see any of this from the inside. Or the tunnels between the pyramids. Or just one pyramid from the inside. Or one of the bigger buildings or or or —- no. You’re being lead around fenced in quite neatly. And I accepted that cause it was hot and I still climbed a lot of pyramids and had a lot of fun and saw colibris and a snake skind an…. but still I was a little dissappointed. Maybe cause I saw this skull first in the Oaxaca Museum plus all the other artefacts found in the tomb and my expectations were running a little high….
((someone told me they close up everything because of the earthquakes. You don’t want tourists stuck in a pyramid when an earthquake comes. Well. Imagine Teo and a shaking sun or moon pyramid. Hehe. Tumbling tourists. I’d pay money to see that))
Here comes my favourite in terms duality masks I’ve been talking about. See the one eye open (life) and the other closed (death)? Not so easy to be half asleep and yet look so much awake…..
Ok I was sorting out the pics yesterday in the bus while listening to my local entertainment program which was Michael Jackson. So recommended to watch this picture with any Michael Jackson song.
View from Oaxaca museum (I think la casa de las culturas, too lazy to look up, anyhow am certain it’s an ex convent, and I vote for Santo Domingo). Apart from skulls and stuff, the views are wonderful and the building in itself.
Next is „stuff“ – I think this is still from the locals after first contacts with our oh so holy church. Now really while Italy discusses that they have the copyright for pizza. Mexico tops it all. Chewing gum –invented here. Ok you can live without that. But chocolate??? Long live the mayas!!! Corn. And on top of it all —- comics. Those codices, also from the Aztecs, with the little footprints… I bet Goscinny and Uderzo took one nice long trip to Mexico before getting started with some of their stuff. I really like this one.
Talking of the church – never realized so clearly before how many of the old symbols find their way under the blanket of a new religion. This looks like the life-trees you normally see in quite a different context. Really makes me want to find out more about my own ancestors. And I sort of like the conclusion that you can’t just wipe out things. At least in Mexico obviously you can’t.
By the way need to tell you this… Taxi drivers. Being happy to find out I am German. Actually I thought about it and I have not encountered that so strongly in any other country. The spanish – ooooouuuuh. Los conquistadores, ok somehow family, but you know. The French – marched in and were defeated by the Mexicans… Oooouuuuh. The Americans – oooooooouuuuh well a lot of Mexicans live there so it’s ok, but nevertheless. And the Germans? Well, says the taxi driver, during the soccer worldcup of 1986 (this is what I understood and I’m offline so if this is wrong K. will surely correct me – and I apologize but I have forgotten all about your soccer-lesson which would have come in so handy here…) – Germans and Mexicans somehow became friends.
So this is how it feels if you’re from a non-German country and you come to another country. Might be politically incorrect but I really enjoyed that.
Oaxaca night life 😉
And not to forget – I did get a bag, made from palm leaves, but a very decent one. And this is the goodie that will have to continue grunting without me. Well I have snoring bus-neighbors to make up for it… Farewell, mexican Miss Piggy!
