Patience little grasshopper, patience..

Wonderful days seem to always start the same way: late! Our plan was to get up early so we could drive by the Los Pinos presidential residence and visit the gardens of Xochimilco outside of Mexico City. However, as you could have guessed, we woke up just before 10AM!!! Oh well.. we checked out and drove towards the presidential palace at least.

After driving around the city, missing exits, taking wrong highways, etc.. we saw the back of the presidential palace 1 1/2 hours later :) It was a wonderful fence and a beautifully flat white colored wall.

The drive towards Oaxaca too us about 4 1/2 hours but it was possibly the most scenic so far!! Breathtaking views of the mountain ranges, cliffs, green everywhere.. really (and don´t call me soft now) it was inspiring. There were some very peculiar cacti that looked like a single stick up to 3 meters (9 feet) tall!! Greg and Todd did a lot of the picture taking as I was busy hugging the turns as any high perfomance driving machine would. To be completely honest, the drive out of Mexico was full of smog in the mountains but this only lasted for a couple of minutes and as soon as we were into the open mountain range the views were incredible!

Arriving into Oaxaca we went to a hostal where we would have had to stay in an 11 person dormitory.. Now, it´s not that we dont like to socialize but we´ve been there and done that.. In such a room, the probabilities of getting a locomotive-sounding snorer is huge! So we (think Jose running around the block stopping for a brief moment to ask for rates at hotels while Greg and Todd drove slowly next to me hoping that they wouldn´t have to drive around one more time) got a great deal at the Hotel Vallarta just south west of the Zocalo (this is not the same one as the one in Mexico City). The rate for 3 people was $450 pesos but after tough negotiations lasting more than 120 seconds we got it down to $350.. now this is the same price as the hostel, parking included, central and no locomotives!

We decided then to stroll around the area. In the local Zocalo, we saw tons of people protesting.. Now don´t ask me what they where protesting about but it seem as if they just did not like this guy ¨Ulises¨.. poor guy, but it seems the whole town hates you buddy.. radio stations were there telling every one you were a murderer, liar, etc.. etc.. if you are still around this is our word of advice: RUN!

The stroll was pretty cool. The Santo Domingo church was awesome!! The gold painting on every detail was just amazing! After taking pictures and shopping around for Mexican national team jersey´s we sat down to have a bite at El Naranjo restaurant.. Oaxaca is well know for its food.. specially it´s mole sauces so we tried a couple of those sauces and apparently, this restaurant is the place to eat them. They were very good but there was still some room for a little dessert.. Now, some people would have gone for dulce de tres leches, straberries and cream, or even something a little more risque like fried plantains with ice cream. However, we have a mission to accomplish, a challenge to undertake, places to be, people to meet and a whole lot of stuff to try.. so we settled for grasshoppers.. Yes, yes.. spicy, toasted grasshoppers in all their glory.. Greg and Todd tried about 2 each while I bought two bags worth of the poor little insects.. to be truthful we thought it was going to be disgusting but they taste pretty good and their texture is immense.. really crunchy! You should try them some time.. given that I still have about a pound of the stuff.. I think Alexey will be trying them soon.


So now we say good bye.. it was a big day but it will hopefully be rewarded tomorrow when we drive to the beach and try to heal wounds and think about for our drive through Chiapas.