Oaxaca

We spent Christmas in Oaxaca, pronounced wa-hacker, which is a beautiful colonial town in Central Mexico.

On Christmas Eve after dinner, Steve and I went to midnight mass in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo. Unfortunately the mass actually finished at 23:30 so we just arrived in time to hear Silent Night sung in Spanish and the priest wish everybody a Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve is the main event in Mexico and walking back to our hotel we could see lots of families in their living rooms sitting down to midnight Christmas dinner.

We stuck to the English way and had lunch the next day by the pool, cooked in the little kitchen attached to our hotel room. Steve made lots of mojitos and by the evening we felt totally bloated, tired and tipsy just like we usually do at home. The Fellowship of the Ring even came on TV in English, for us to veg out in front of.

On Boxing day we went to Monte Alban , a historical site near to Oaxaca. Now if we hadnt been anywhere else like it before, we would have probably thought it was amazing. However to me it seemed a bit like a smaller, less impressive version of Teotihuacan.

Probably Pyramid fatigue is setting in. Similiar to the Cathedral fatigue you get when travelling around Europe, where you walk in to the twentieth stunning cathedral in a row, wander around aimlessly for a few minutes and then decide it would actually be more fun to go and get a cup of coffee.

We are now in San Cristobal de las Casas, a pretty town in the hills with very clear light.

Feliz Navidad

Well its nearly Christmas now and there are lots of tinsel and people dressed as Santa Claus around in Mexico. However it is quite hard to believe that it can really be Christmas time because it is hot and sunny and not dark all the time.

We spent a couple of days in Mexico City which was a lot more fun this time around.

One of the best things was the Museo Nacional de la Antropologia, which is a really nice modern building in a park in Mexico City. It has a bewildering British Museum sized collection of exhibitions on the peoples of Mexico and Central America before the arrival of the Spanish. There were lots of amazing artifacts to look at but particularly the Aztecs, who used to live in Mexico City, didn't seem particularly appealing. I think this is mainly down to their enthusiasm for human sacrifice. They used to constantly sacrifice slaves and prisoners to their gods, sometimes as many as 20,000 at a time.

We also went to Teotihuacan, a pre Aztec city about an hour's drive from Mexico City. There are two enormous pyramids there the Sun Pyramid and the Moon Pyramid. The only two pyramids in the world to be larger than the Sun Pyramid are the Cheops Pyramid in Egypt and Cholula also in Mexico, which is in disrepair and apparently looks more like a hill.

The whole site was concieved on a huge scale and took ages to walk around. The strangest thing for me was that the Teotihuacan's built the Pyramids first and housing and other public buildings came later. That made me think, what made a group of people, living presumably in wooden huts, decide to build what were at the time two of the largest buildings in the world! Also how did they know how to do it? Maybe time for someone to come up with another alien theory....

After Mexico City we went to Taxco which is a pretty little town on a hill, unfortunately blighted by a serious traffic problem. We stayed in a beautiful former monastery. The local taxis were Beetles which Steve cleverly managed to pack my Dad, me, him, two big rucksacks, three little rucksacks and a big suitcase into.

We are now in Puebla, a beautiful colonial city, where we are relaxing for a couple of days. We are heading off to Oaxaca tomorrow, to spend Christmas there.

Just remains to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Mexico City

After Arequipa we headed for Nasca on the coast of Peru. There are some mysterious lines on the pampa near Nasca showing pictures of animals and strange geometric shapes. Steve bravely got into a very small airplane to look at the lines, while I stayed on the ground drinking coffee.

There are lots of theories about why these lines were made, as a kind of giant calendar, to request rain from the gods during a drought etc. The alternative theory, by an American, is that the lines, which can best be seen from the air, must have been made by aliens.

Next stop was Huacachina, an oasis in the Peruvian desert near the town of Ica. Its a really nice chilled out place and one popular activity is sand boarding down the dunes. I stuck to going down on my bum which I found quite frightening. Steve went down feet first and wiped out getting a nasty bump on the head!

Then it was good bye to Peru and Bolivia as we flew off to Mexico City. We spent a couple of days in Mexico City, which was dirty and expensive, before heading off to spend some time at the beach in Zihuatanejo on the Pacific coast.

Unfortunately first I got flu and then Steve had it quite badly, so we have spent a lot more time in bed than on the beach! Tomorrow we are going back up to Mexico City to meet my Dad who is coming for Christmas, which should be fun.