Road trip

Up until now we’ve been doing short hops between destinations. Well, today it's time to buckle up for the 5 hour bus journey that takes us from Puebla to Oaxaca.

This is no hardship because the buses here are lush. Huge reclining seats, entertainment consuls, complimentary packed lunches and dapper drivers sporting collar and tie (why does this make a difference… trust? confidence? dunno, but we like it). MegaBus this is not.

As we pick up speed we start to get a sense of the diversity of the terrain of this country. It quickly becomes hilly then twenty or thirty miles further on the hills turn into mountains with dramatic gorges and some scary drop-offs.

We are very excited when we spot our first roadside cactus. This may sound silly but we’re in Mexico, land of the cactus, and up until today we’ve hardly seen any. Then we see another, and another until before long they're everywhere. Literally thousands of spikey succulents for as far as the eye can see. Magic!

The countryside is more verdant than we expect. In fact, substitute the cacti with trees, shrubs and heather and it wouldn’t be unlike a journey through the Scottish highlands.

Our pre-conceived idea of rural Mexico was a bit more Arizona or Utah. Empty desert, the occasional pile of red rocks and shit loads of cactuses. 

At least we got the cactus bit right.

By the time we reach Oaxaca it’s almost dusk. It’s also 29°C which is a fair bit warmer than what we’ve been used to. A look at the forecast tells us we can expect this for at least the next fortnight.

Which is nice.

After half an hour of not reading the map properly and getting arsey with each other we realise our hotel is right on the main square overlooking the cathedral.

Not too shabby a view from the balcony...

It's a gorgeous two story colonaded corker. Strangely however, it doesn't seem to have any other guests. Here's Wend seeing if they can squeeze us in for dinner.