Oaxaca and Tehuantepec- M
OK, I know that this was weeks ago and I am so behind (ever the procrastinator) but I just feel that I can not skip ahead to where we are now (just visited Tikal today) without purging myself of everything (or nearly everything) before. So, you all will just have to suffer through or skip ahead. Oaxaca was a lovely and interesting place, perfect for settling in for a little while and taking the spanish course that D and I had been planning on. It boasts a wonderful bohemian/arty subculture even while most of the city is quite traditional. It's a nice juxtaposition.
Dealing with D's shock problems and waiting around for the new shock to arrive meant that we didn't really have as much time as we would have liked to spend on spanish courses (also, for our budget they are expensive!) So we settled on a week in Oaxaca. It just turned out that that week had some very unusually cold weather that had me sleeping in my long underwear (our hotel for the duration didn't boast any heat). Add to that suddenly having a schedule and 5 grueling hours a day of Spanish classes and I wasn't at my most cheerful (such a difficult life I know). So, between Spanish class, homework and naps (I was ridiculously exhausted, much more than was warranted) we did much less in Oaxaca (other than eat) than I was anticipating. We did spend a great day at the local ruins after nearly getting attacked by a manic chihuahua. It is so humbling to see what amazing feats other people managed in BC times. Our western culture focuses so much on the middle east but in reality, there was so much else going on...
Anyway, Oaxaca was a great stop for us because it really did help with our communication capabilities, more in understanding others than speaking for me but Davis has improved so much it's amazing. He really does have a gift with languages. It's lovely to see.
As Davis also mentioned in his much earlier post, we were able to do some long awaited bike maintenance on my bike which was wonderful. In the proceeding weeks I had gone through ALL of my rear brake which was a bit of a disaster on those windy curvy mountain roads. If you have no motorcycle experience the explanation is this: 70 to 80 percent of a bike's stopping power lies in the front brake because when stopping or slowing down weight is transferred to the front, obviously. However, when in the process of riding and not stopping, the rear brake is very important (especially if you are a bit of a newby as I am). The rear brake allows you to slow down without transferring weight forward and thus destabilizing the bike (very important when going down mountains and around curves). So, while I was still able to slow by downshifting (I'm a bit shift happy sometimes) I was without the back brake for a bit and was very happy to get it back.
Overall Oaxaca was wonderful and we met some great people in our classes there. Rebeca and Andrew were a lovely couple that we met from New York state. They were in Oaxaca for several months with their eight and four year old daughters. It's so wonderful to see young families traveling together and they were so warm and nice that it was a delight to spend time with them. Davis and I were able to attend a lovely seminar of sorts with Andrew at a very nice Oaxacan lady's hundred year old house on the correct preparation of Amarillo mole. It was delicious and I have the recipe. Hopefully, I'll be able to piece back together how to make it...
It was with sadness but also relief that we started our journey over again. With my bike singing again from it's recent maintenance, we headed to Tehuantepec.
Tehuantepec had a bit of a ghost town feel to it. It started with our arrival to the very closed hotel that we had planned to stay at. We found another quickly just down the street that had a ceiling fan like a helicopter rotor though and it was good enough. We only stayed for a few hours really and the think that most stands out in my mind was the wind on our third story balcony and the pack of more than ten dogs that could be viewed roaming down the street. The wind was the important part though... Davis had read earlier that there was a patch of very windy land that we would be riding through the next day. In our Mexican Camping book the authors had gone so far as to admonish RV drivers to batten everything down or risk loosing awnings and such in the blink of an eye. It was a little trepidation but also excitement that we set off the next day.
OK, I know that this was weeks ago and I am so behind (ever the procrastinator) but I just feel that I can not skip ahead to where we are now (just visited Tikal today) without purging myself of everything (or nearly everything) before. So, you all will just have to suffer through or skip ahead. Oaxaca was a lovely and interesting place, perfect for settling in for a little while and taking the spanish course that D and I had been planning on. It boasts a wonderful bohemian/arty subculture even while most of the city is quite traditional. It's a nice juxtaposition.
Dealing with D's shock problems and waiting around for the new shock to arrive meant that we didn't really have as much time as we would have liked to spend on spanish courses (also, for our budget they are expensive!) So we settled on a week in Oaxaca. It just turned out that that week had some very unusually cold weather that had me sleeping in my long underwear (our hotel for the duration didn't boast any heat). Add to that suddenly having a schedule and 5 grueling hours a day of Spanish classes and I wasn't at my most cheerful (such a difficult life I know). So, between Spanish class, homework and naps (I was ridiculously exhausted, much more than was warranted) we did much less in Oaxaca (other than eat) than I was anticipating. We did spend a great day at the local ruins after nearly getting attacked by a manic chihuahua. It is so humbling to see what amazing feats other people managed in BC times. Our western culture focuses so much on the middle east but in reality, there was so much else going on...
Anyway, Oaxaca was a great stop for us because it really did help with our communication capabilities, more in understanding others than speaking for me but Davis has improved so much it's amazing. He really does have a gift with languages. It's lovely to see.
As Davis also mentioned in his much earlier post, we were able to do some long awaited bike maintenance on my bike which was wonderful. In the proceeding weeks I had gone through ALL of my rear brake which was a bit of a disaster on those windy curvy mountain roads. If you have no motorcycle experience the explanation is this: 70 to 80 percent of a bike's stopping power lies in the front brake because when stopping or slowing down weight is transferred to the front, obviously. However, when in the process of riding and not stopping, the rear brake is very important (especially if you are a bit of a newby as I am). The rear brake allows you to slow down without transferring weight forward and thus destabilizing the bike (very important when going down mountains and around curves). So, while I was still able to slow by downshifting (I'm a bit shift happy sometimes) I was without the back brake for a bit and was very happy to get it back.
Overall Oaxaca was wonderful and we met some great people in our classes there. Rebeca and Andrew were a lovely couple that we met from New York state. They were in Oaxaca for several months with their eight and four year old daughters. It's so wonderful to see young families traveling together and they were so warm and nice that it was a delight to spend time with them. Davis and I were able to attend a lovely seminar of sorts with Andrew at a very nice Oaxacan lady's hundred year old house on the correct preparation of Amarillo mole. It was delicious and I have the recipe. Hopefully, I'll be able to piece back together how to make it...
It was with sadness but also relief that we started our journey over again. With my bike singing again from it's recent maintenance, we headed to Tehuantepec.
Tehuantepec had a bit of a ghost town feel to it. It started with our arrival to the very closed hotel that we had planned to stay at. We found another quickly just down the street that had a ceiling fan like a helicopter rotor though and it was good enough. We only stayed for a few hours really and the think that most stands out in my mind was the wind on our third story balcony and the pack of more than ten dogs that could be viewed roaming down the street. The wind was the important part though... Davis had read earlier that there was a patch of very windy land that we would be riding through the next day. In our Mexican Camping book the authors had gone so far as to admonish RV drivers to batten everything down or risk loosing awnings and such in the blink of an eye. It was a little trepidation but also excitement that we set off the next day.
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