Moving On Oaxaca

Forty Five hours ago we stepped into an Uber in San Miguel de Allende Mexico. Less than two hours later we were on a bus headed for the Mexico City Bus Station at the airport. After a five hour bus ride we began our navigation of the HUGE Mexico City airport. The only difficulty to that point was I left my Kindle on the bus. For the record that was the third time in about 20 years I lost a Kindle traveling.

The airport has 2 terminals and we got off the bus and walked across a bridge to terminal 2. I saw a sign that seemed to indicate the correct direction to go. We checked with an airport security person who seemingly agreed with the direction. Well, I was wrong. After a walk in the incorrect direction for at least 10 minutes with a 40 pound backpack and an eighteen pound briefcase (after all we expect to be gone for 5+ months) I started asking questions, and soon we were headed back the other way. We went back to where we got off the bus and waited for a train to terminal 2. Due to the configuration of the airport the ride took about 10 minutes after a 20 minute wait.  At that point I was saying thanks that our bus had arrived a little over three hours before our flight was to leave.

In terminal 2 we kept finding people to point us in the proper direction. When we arrived at the Aero Mexico area there was a mass of people, but we still had a lot of time. We were directed away from the mass by an employee. It seems that for some strange reason the mass had not gotten boarding passes online. We were able to walk directly to a kiosk where a wonderful woman helped us print our boarding passes and print luggage tags. Then, she took us straight to a station to send our luggage off to Oaxaca.

We still had to go through security. That was an experience tremendously different than in the U.S. No taking off shoes! No removing every electronic device and sending them through singly. Bundle all of our layers into a bin, empty pockets, take off my belt and go. It was a wholly different atmosphere of urgency and stress than travel in the U.S. It took maybe 10 minutes and that included a quick search where I showed two men my chiropractic torque release adjusting tool. We got to our gate with and hour and forty five minutes to spare, so after 6 weeks of eating $1 – 1.25 tacos we splurged on $6 tacos. They were definitely not as good as what we had become used to, but we really wanted some food!

The plane took off a little bit early and we were waiting for our luggage less than 75 minutes after takeoff, a little ahead of schedule. Still it was already 10pm. Luggage arrived promptly and it was off to the cab stand. Only one company’s cabs are allowed at the airport. It is a monopoly and the drivers for that company are assuredly grateful. They all drive shiny new vehicles likely funded by the airport businesses. Their cabs are the best looking in Oaxaca. Bottom line, we paid $25 for a ride to town that we could have had for less that $10 if we wanted to lug everything down the road, off airport property (about one kilometer) and get one of the older beat-up taxis waiting there.

Once we were in the taxi the shock of how 6 years have allowed Oaxaca to change hit us. Our driver was a speed demon, but why not, everyone else was too. The amount of traffic was much greater than what I remembered from 6 years ago. There were more buildings along the road into town, and fewer shacks. It is about a 20 minute ride from airport to Las Mariposas where we are beginning our stay in Oaxaca. We arrived at our lodging just about exactly 12 hours after leaving our last apartment in San Miguel. We were a bit stunned by the amount of graffiti we saw on the way to our lodging.

The following morning we were happy to walk out of our room into a lovely courtyard, just as we remembered it. Part of our lodging is a free breakfast, but, it consists of coffee, juice, corn flakes and sweet pastries; nothing to entice me! We went for a morning walk, visiting a bunch of the places we loved on our previous Oaxaca trip. Unfortunately, we were shocked by what we saw. In addition to a great increase in traffic that all seemed to be in a hurry, the graffiti overwhelmed us. Not nice graffiti, but the kind of graffiti we could have stayed in Spokane and seen. It seemed to be on every bare wall. And, the streets were quite littered. What a contrast to the pride and cleanliness of San Miguel. Several people had told us that they do not like Oaxaca, and now we were seeing why. To make this worse, what we were seeing was in the tourist center of town where we expected more effort to be made to keep the city looking clean.

We walked back to our room, two discouraged tourists, but as I told Sheila; don’t give up we most certainly can find the good in Oaxaca. So, a little over 24 hours after leaving San Miguel we were back at our hotel, a definite bright spot, plotting an afternoon walk.

Tomorrow I will describe that afternoon and day number two. Included will be pictures of Las Mariposas and more.