Finally

Ok, so I´m sick in a hostal in Oaxaca and have finally decided to update my blog.

Life in Merida is fairly routine. Still upset with the lack of Spanish spoken, and still in love with my host mom. School is not all that challenging, students tend to present and the teachers don´t really teach that much. The educational system is definitely very different, and nothing runs on a schedule. For example, I was supposed to present for my Mesoamerican history class about 3 weeks ago, and have yet to do so. I tend to show up to class every day and find out I´m not presenting.

I love living in el centro, I can go out and find something to do whenever I want to- and tend to frequent a cafe, ´el hoyo´ a bit too much. The heat is no better, still soars up above 100 every day. The men are still annoying as possible.

This week we had a week off for ¨La Semana de Antropología¨ and traveling with two girls, Kristin and Shoshi.

We left late Saturday night, and arrived in Palenque at around 5AM on Sunday. We ended up booking a tour package in Palenque that took us to the ruins....quite extensive....different in style than the Yucatan, a beautiful waterfall, and then a series of waterfalls where I swim, because I wore my suit...but the water was freezing. Ate lunch there, ended up taking a bus to San Cristobal de las Casas. That bus ride, was one of the single most terrifying experiences I think I´ve ever had- luckily, I was too tired to care. You could look out the windshield, and only see grass, you looked to the left, and only saw a giant cliff, and looked to the right, and saw nothing. I´m going to guess we were only on the right side of the road about 50% of the time and everytime we had to pass anything, I was positive there was going to be a headon collision.

Arrived in San Cristobal, checked into the hostal, wandered around a bit.

The first day we were actually there, there were protests going on. Something about 4 men who killed women and children in a pueblito and them being freed from jail. Both sides of the argument were protesting, with people camped out infront of one of the cathedrals. Fun stuff. San Cristobal is known for it´s Zapatista leanings. Essentially, an armed revolutionarly group that has declared war on Mexico, supporting indigenous rights. San Cristobal was beautiful, colorful houses all sitting on hills, there are no hills in the Yucatan. The temperature is considerably cooler-- in was cold! In the 60´s!! I wore long sleeves, jackets, and scarves. When we were there, we did a lot of wandering around, and went to about 50 different churches. We did a fair amount of shopping, found two markets, and a dulceria market. Amazing. Cheap sweets will be the death of me. Started my Christmas shopping in the markets there. San Cristobal was pretty, but in reality, a bit toursity. Not many Americans, but a bit of a European- flower-child Disney Land. Did have some absolutely wonderful crema de calebacita soup while there, it was fabulous.

Left San Cristobal Wednesday night for Oaxaca. Arrived in Oaxaca at 11 am ish the next day, checked into the hostal and took a nap. Later Wednesday, wandered around Oaxaca, the zoocalo, listened to street musicians, found the market, and ate there. Some fried cheese concotion that had a whole jalapeno pepper in it, without knowing, i bit into it. Was left unable to talk or breathe for about 2 minutes, and then finally able to gasp for air, I said something to the affect of ¨pica!!¨ and proceeded to drink all of my soda and eat whatever remaining mole was left.

Oaxaca is famous for mole, chocolate, and cheese- what a terrific combintation!!

Thursday we did some more wandering around getting to know the town. Stopped in the museum in the former Palacio de Gobierno and killed some time there looking at altars, learning the history of the area, and then enjoying the fun interactive anthro museum--terrific!

We´ve been eating at least one meal a day at the market, no menus, tends to be about 30 pesos a meal.

Friday, we went to Tule, to see a very, very large tree. It was interesting, wrote postcards there for awhile, ate ate their market, for 12 pesos. Fabulous.

Saturday, we went to the Zapotec archaeological site of Monte Alban, nestled in the moutains about the city of Oaxaca. Beautiful view, the ruins, green grass in the foreground, beautiful blue mountains and fluffy white clouds in the background, with a view of the whole of Oaxaca. Interestingly enough, the poorer people tend to live higher up, and the city is located in a valley.

Beginning to feel sick, fun little cough thing going on, returtning to Merida tomorrow night via plane (the plane takes 3 hours, the bus about 22).

Hope you enjoy the long awaited blog update....