Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 50 - Oaxaca, Mexico City, Los Angeles (Mexico, USA)

We were feeling a little fragile after the hostel party for Tim’s birthday and ended up wasting the day sleeping in the hammocks in the courtyard, watching TV, messing around online, playing with the hostel dogs and generally vegging. We only popped out long enough to pick up a Subway. We were pretty glad when the time came to get a taxi to the bus terminal so we could get on the bus, get tucked in to our sleeping bag liners, put some TV on and go to sleep. But it was a night bus so sleep was lacking, even the ADO ‘Gold’ service wasn’t as luxurious as the buses we’d used in South America and we had a terrible night sleep and arrived shattered.

We got to the hostel we’d booked into at around 7am and it was too early to check in. We dropped off our bags and headed into the centre to see if we could find a coffee shop to pass the time. Unsuccessful in our search we ended up heading back to sit in the courtyard communal area at the hostel. Around 10am we headed out again, this time we walked to the Zocalo, the main plaza to check out the cathedral and up the pedestrianised street Calle Alcala to the Inglesia de Santo Domingo, a huge ornate church with a plaza out front filled with aloe vera plants. We trundled back past some more little churches and through the Jardin de Socrates, a little square full of sorbet stalls. By then it was midday and our room was available. We jumped straight in to bed for a 2 hour siesta. It was blissful and well needed. When we woke we headed back out in to town to the Mercado Central de Abastos, an absolutely massive market crowded with locals that sold absolutely everything. We stopped at a meat stall to buy some beef that they cooked on the spot and after buying bread, salsa, spicey sauce, lycees and doughnuts we headed back to Jardin de Socrates to eat lunch overlooking the church. After lunch we stopped for the most random sorbets (I think mine was carrot and cream) before walking to the artisanal market and heading back to the hostel via the Mercado Artesanias, Mercado 20 de Noviembre and the Mercado Juarez. I left Rhys chilling at the hostel and headed back out to the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca, housed in a beautiful monastery building next to the Ingelsia de Santo Domingo. I got an English audio-guide and spent an hour and a half wandering around, admiring the building as much as the exhibits. I could have done with longer but it was closing time and the gates were being locked up and the lights turned off.

We headed back out again for dinner that night, back to the Mercado 20 de Noviembre. We ordered a huge tostado thing with grilled meat and bean puree on, messy but tasty. We were so glad to get in to bed that night and I was asleep before Rhys even put the computer away.

The next morning I was awoken by Rhys bringing me a coffee in bed, a real treat. After a chilled morning we headed out at about 10am to the second class bus station to try to find a bus to either El Tule or to Teotitlan del Valle. It was hard work, everyone we asked pointed us somewhere else and we were about to give up when a kind, English speaking guy came up to help us, asked some questions and pointed us outside to get a collectivo. We then spent another 20 minutes walking up and down the street by the side of a chaotic market trying to find a collectivo before finally locating one, and then there were hundreds. The ride took less than 20 minutes and we arrived in El Tule. Our sole purpose of visiting was to see ‘the widest tree in the world’ it was 14m wide and over 2000 years old and dwarfed the little church standing next to it. Once we’d walked around the tree we found another collective that would take us to the junction of the highway to get to Teotitlan. From the junction we got another collectivo into the village. We were a little disappointed at how unpicturesque it was, we were imagining a lovely little traditional village but it’s a lot more concrete than that. We had a short walk around peering into some of the weaving workshops, checked out the church and wandered through the museum, which was actually quite interesting with lots of local facts about weaving and bizarrely, marriage ceremonies. We headed back to Oaxaca and grabbed lunch in the Mercado Central de Abastos. Rhys decided he’s like to visit the museum I had been to the day before so we went back before Rhys headed home while I stopped by another museum, the Museo Rufino Tamaya. This museum housed lots of pre-Hispanic artifacts but concentrates on the aesthetics of the exhibits rather than the historical aspect. That night Rhys wasn’t hungry so we only walked as far as the corner where I bought a cheesy corn on the cob from a street vendor.

We were up early the next day for the walk to the second class bus terminal. We didn’t have to wait long until a bus came for Mexico City, nearly half the price of the ADO buses. It took 8 long hours but we arrived in the city before dark and jumped in a cab to our hotel. We’d booked a room at a place between the centre and the airport and although it was abit out of it, it was clean and had a mean sandwich shop nearby. Not realising quite how big the sandwiches were we ordered one each, they must have weighed about 1.5kgs each, 1.5kg of meat and cheese, ridiculous.

The next day we headed out to find a bus into the centre to explore the city. In the Zocalo we were overwhelmed with the shanty town that had been set up in protest to something or other, littered with vendors selling all kinds of random things. It was hectic and meant you couldn’t get close to any of the big grand buildings in the main plaza. We headed out to follow the Lonely Planet walking tour but being a Sunday a lot of places were shut and the streets were very grey and dirty. We weren’t impressed. Every thing just needs a good clean. The highlight was a stop at the Templo Mayor. The temple is thought to be the exact spot where the Aztecs saw their symbolic eagle, perching on a cactus with a snake in its beak (the symbol of Mexico today) and for the Aztecs was literally the centre of the universe. The ruins were volcanic rock so were pretty dark but were still quite cool and there was a decent museum showing some amazing finds that were recovered from the site. After the Templo we grabbed lunch and caught a taxi back to the hotel (we had no idea where to get a bus from). We had a couple of hours of down time before we caught another taxi across town to the Arena Mexico for the Lucha Libre - Mexican wrestling. We even bought masks (and we’re keeping them for you Sean). We watched 4 of the 6 bouts, it’s not the most enthralling sport but serves for a bit of light entertainment and is just something you have to do when in Mexico.

We had a flight to catch at 9:45am on the 9th and after the cab dropped us at the wrong terminal we just had long enough to get through check in and grab a cup of coffee before we boarded. It was only a 3.5 hour flight before we arrived in Los Angeles. It then took another hour to get through customs (although these were the friendliest American customs officials we’ve ever come across) and another hour to collect our hire car - a nightmare, the rental place was chaotic and ended up being a bit of a free for all. Half hour later we were pulling into the garage of our AirBnB rental. It was perfect, a 2 bedroom house all to ourselves about a 5 minutes walk from Sunset Boulevard and 15 minutes from Graumanns Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. After a quick trip to Trader Joe’s, a supermarket everyone raves about to stock up we headed out to explore the local area. We stopped at a sports bar to try to get to grips with American football, wandered along the Walk of Fame spotting the stars in the pavement of celebrities before popping into Graumanns Chinese Theatre where there are celebrity hand prints in the cement and where all the movie premieres are held. We finished our walk at the Hollywood Roosevelt, not only the location of the first ever Oscars ceremony but the place I Stayed when I came 15 years ago with my family (Mum, sadly Charlie Chaplin wasn’t there anymore). Back at out house we cracked open a bottle of cava (we’re on holiday for 4 days before we get back to backpacking) and cooked in.

Our first day full day in LA we woke without an alarm and had a relaxed morning drinking coffee and planning the days ahead. We headed out around 10am and drove Peanut (our Chevy Sonic, a miniature car in American terms) to Venice Beach. Once we’d parked up we found a little booth hiring rollerblades on the beach front and spent an hour rocketing up the pier and along the ocean path, stopping at Muscle Beach to look out for stupidly muscular men and peeking at all the weird people who congregate in the area. After we returned the skates we got back in Peanut and moved him to another car park closer to Santa Monica beach. We ate our picnic on the sand before wandering to the pier, spotting dolphins only a couple of metres off shore on the way. We rode the ferris wheel before calling it a day and heading back to our house in West Hollywood. We had a couple of hours to chill before it was time to head out again, to the Hollywood Bowl for a classical music concert. The Bowl is amazing, an outdoor amphitheatre with great sound and views even from the cheap seats. We stayed for the first hour enjoying a bottle of wine listening to a classical pianist and the LA Philharmonic Orchestra. The experience was well worth the rushed 40 minutes it took us to walk there. On the way back to the house we stopped at Hooters on Hollywood Boulevard opposite Graumanns Chinese Theatre for all you can eat chicken wings.