Oaxaca

Date: 8/11
City: Oaxaca, Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 237
Cumulative kilometre: 25148

Sigrid was up early and started packing, so I couldn’t convince her to stay a day longer. Fine, then we leave today. The bikes were packed and we left at 8AM. The road was windy and we started to climb quite quickly. The landscape changed from costal beach to rain forest.

We climbed up to 2500m and the temperature started getting cold, until I eventually had to put on my t-shirt and close the vents in the jacket. As we got used to the curves, the Mexicans threw in some potholes, just to make it a bit more interesting. At first in the straight sections of the road but later in the corners too :D.
After an exhausting ride we arrived around 4PM and went to the hostel recommended by Stephan and Claudia. We parked the bikes in the hallway, removed all boxes and settled in the room. To have a shower you have to ride the pushbike which pumps the water up into the roof. Great idea!
At night we walked around and visited, guess what, right! A church! 😀

I must admit the exterior looked impressive, with lots of carved wall ornaments. Unfortunately they switched the lights off when we arrived, we will see if we get the opportunity again to take some pictures. The town had many colonial buildings; it seemed that many had been renovated recently.

Tomorrow we will see if we can get some spare parts from the local Suzuki dealer.

Date: 9/11
City: Oaxaca , Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 25148

In the morning we met a German couple , Sabine and Rafael from Bavaria who are also traveling through Mexico by public transport.

Bavaria must be empty, most of the people are over here in Mexico 😉
They suggested a market where we could have a local Mole dish. It’s a meat dish with special sauce that Oaxaca is known for. So we went there, had two different Mole dishes and some hot chocolate. Oaxaca is also known for their good chocolate. 😀

On the way out we passed a stall that sold fried crickets, so we tasted some.

For my taste, the whole crickets where a bit sour, the smaller ones tasted better, a bit more salty.

Next we checked if we could get some spare parts for our bikes here. We walked to the spare part shop, got some oil filters but couldn’t get the chain and sprockets. It’s not necessary yet, but it seems that the original DR chains last around 20000km, so I thought if I could replace them now then we wouldn’t have to think about it again until the end of our trip. The tyres were terribly expensive – 3 times the price we could get them for in the US – but we would be able to get some if needed. The next shop we wanted to visit was a Suzuki dealer. After following Google maps, which promptly sent us to the wrong end of a long road (30 minutes one way), we found a Suzuki shop.

Talking to the sales person, we found that the DR 650 will be sold in Mexico from next month, so no spare parts are available yet. Bummer! But we could get a chain from another bike that would fit; it would cost 300US dollar, again 3 times the price of the US. Looks like we will try to get the parts sent to somewhere in Mexico, but that’s a task for another day. So we went back to the hostel, I like the town centre with the colourful houses.

After a short rest we went to a restaurant to meet with Alvin, a guy from Canada, who lives in Oaxaca now, does tours and writes article for fun.

In Canada he was a family lawyer who had enough of his job. Now he and his wife have a small B&B and that is where Sigrid got in contact with him. The restaurant was very nice and we talked for 90 minutes when Sigrid started to get restless. She wanted to go to a dance show with dinner that was recommended in the lonely planet. So we said good bye and went to the show, they were showing traditional dances from different areas around Oaxaca.

It was not bad but we found it a bit expensive.

Date: 10/11
City: Oaxaca , Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 25148

Sigrid felt worn out in the morning, so we decided to stay a day longer. Updated the blog, had a nap and went into the city to have a look at the church again, this time in day light. When we arrived, the church was closed (siesta), so we had some lunch at a restaurant nearby. The restaurant reminded us a bit of Bavaria with some modern art on the walls and some older relicts around the place. I like the one behind Sigrid, all you need is love 🙂

When we finished lunch, the church was open, so we could finally have a look inside the catedral.

The detail in the wood carvings was amazing

On our way back we found some strange people standing around in the street, Sigrid is on the right 🙂

Back at our hostel I had a look over the city from the roof and a looked at our inner garden.

Did I mention that the hostel was a sort of green hoste? It was the first place where they recycled plastic and glass bottles and decomposable materials. The roof is used to collect water for the showers, and the water is then pumped into big tanks on the roof which are plummed into the gravity feed showers. How to pump the water onto the roof you ask? Well have a look.