Day 92 Friday July 26, 2013

Willie Nelson turned 80 a few months ago and Mick Jagger turns 70 today……"time flies when you are having fun"…..? OH WELL!

I am now in San Cristobal in the state of Chiapas. The centro of San Cristobal is dense with tourists. I have the feeling that the deeper I go into Mexico the more magical the country becomes.

The trip from Oaxaca to San Cristobal took me two full days.....

I was stopped here trying to figure out how to get back to the highway.

This little fellow and I had a conversation about the bike, international travel, technology and we take each other's photo.

Day 88 Monday July 22, 2013

If everything works out I will be leaving Oaxaca tomorrow morning for the state of  Chiapas. I will go to the UPS office here late this afternoon and pick up the package that my daughter sent me last week. I moved out of the hotel that I had been staying in because they were booked this week. I found a hostel about two blocks away that had one spot left and I took it. There are about 30 twenty somethings here from Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Columbia, Canada, USA and probably other countries. Several of them have already been to San Cristobal, my next destination, and they all say it is the coolest place in Mexico.

Some shots from the Hostal Los Amigos.

These are photos from Monte Alban. Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the central section of the Valley of Oaxaca. The present-day state capital Oaxaca City is located approximately 9 km (6 mi) east of Monte Albán. The partially excavated civic-ceremonial center of the Monte Albán site is situated atop an artificially-leveled ridge.

Besides being one of the earliest cities of Mesoamerica, Monte Albán's importance stems also from its role as the pre-eminent Zapotec socio-political and economic center for close to a thousand years. The city had lost its political pre-eminence by the end of the Late Classic (ca. AD 500-750) and soon thereafter was largely abandoned.

This is one of the approximately 3000 tombs believed to be at Monte Alban. Only 30% of the site has been excavated to date.

This is some of the jewelry recovered from the tombs.

This is David....he was the english speaking guide for my group.

This is a monastery that was built between 1555 and 1568. It was largely destroyed in an earthquake in 1931. Pope John Paul II visited here on his first trip to Mexico in 1978.

 More will always be revealed.

Day 85 Thursday July 18, 2013

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with Gale Stephanic, formally from Destin, FL. Gale and I met for lunch in Pensacola in March after bumping into each other on Horizons Unlimited, a worldwide internet forum for adventure motorbike travelers. We have stayed in touch and shared our knowledge about how to live on the road. Gale was in Oaxaca for just one day. He is going on to Guatemala where he is enrolled in a spanish language course. Gale is planning to stay in Costa Rica and has applied for residency status there. We plan to meet up again maybe several times in the next few months.

This is Gale, we met at a restaurante in the zocalo (the centro or main plaza) for coffee and spent the afternoon touring Oaxaca.

When I returned to my hotel last evening I called Katie (my youngest daughter) and she informed me that she sent me a package to Oaxaca via UPS and it will arrive next Tuesday if Mexican customs does not flag it. I had looked on the internet at UPS's website and thought that I understood that this package could be delivered in three days, but that is not the case. So I will probably leave Oaxaca in a few days and return when my package is delivered.

One of the many churches around the centro.

The city of Oaxaca is hosting a festival of traditional dance and costume and it will climax next week. I have been told that it is likely that finding a hotel room in the city will be impossible.

Day 83 Tuesday July 16, 2013

I am still in Oaxaca and will be here for at least the rest of this week. I am waiting on two packages, one from my daughter and the other is a tire that I've ordered from Mexico City. The package from home contains an assortment of items that are not readily available here in Oaxaca....several of the items are not available in Fairhope, AL either. I hope my package passes through customs without any problem. This is my first experience with shipping anything to Mexico. I know from some of the forums I follow on international travel that shipping items to some South American countries can be very restrictive and/or costly with tariffs being 100% of the value of the items.

During my first hours in Oaxaca I experienced the first theft in my motorbike travels. The tank bag on my bike was stolen while I looked for a hotel. The bike was parked on a main street in a bike parking area, it was covered and the police were within 50 yards of where it was parked. From the time I left until I returned was less that 30 minutes. Whoever stole the bag must have been watching me park and cover the bike. This is one of the disadvantages of traveling solo....oh well! I do not keep any really valuable items in my tank bag....but I did lose my SteriPEN, so another one along with a new tank bag are being shipped in my package.

Oaxaca is a fun city with plenty to keep me occupied and with many travelers from around the globe. The temperature here is in the 70's and no A/C is required. Between 8:00PM and midnight it rains a little everyday.

This is a wedding parade last Saturday.

The market in Oaxaca covers three blocks.

This is not fish bait!

Another wedding parade.

Mexicans love parades!

In the market here cacao and chocolate are a big business.

This man goes up and down the street sharpening knives for the tacoreas and restaurants.