Monte Albán and other stories

After blogging last week we caught some short films at the Oaxaca Film Festival.  They were aimed at children but we all had not problem enjoying them quite a lot, especially Flawless Life and No Playground For Little Cowboys.  Some of the others were a bit strange but only added to it being an amusingly surreal evening.

The next day we ventured out all together on a group trip to Monte Albán.  This was the Zapotec's largest city for over 1000 years.  What remains of the temples and buildings are beautiful and interesting, and the walk up there (because we took a 5 peso local bus and a walk rather than a 40 peso tour bus) allowed for some amazing views over the city and valley:

But perhaps most interesting about the place is how they changed the landscape.  They created huge areas flat enough for agriculture in the sides and tops of the mountain.  The main area of the city used to be the peak of a hill but since the Zapotecs remade their immediate world will always look like this:

We spent a whole day there, maintaining a properly respectful attitude apart from one brief game of tackle tag in some ruins but we're sure they wouldn't mind.

The next couple of days consisted of more cantina visits, group meals and the selling of flowers in the square (or giving them away to particularly cute dirty children).  We met a few more travelers who play music and hopefully L and Y can meet up with them more in Chiapas.

J would also like to take this opportunity to recommend The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver to anyone interested.  It's an amazingly lifelike slice of Mexican and American history and an interesting tale.  As part of our more relaxing month we've all been reading a lot and trading books (though C's habit of reading The Economist aloud to anyone who sits still long enough does not always go down well...).

Our Arizona friends left on Saturday, which is very sad not only because we enjoyed their brief stay but because they cook very nice food.  But hopefully we will meet them again on our travels.  The same day C, J and Y hitched up to San Jose del Pacifico, a tiny mountain town famous for clouds and fungi, for a change of scenery and some fresh air and peace.  We arrived there in style:

and the views from our little cabin (incredibly cheap and run by a lovely woman) were literally breath-taking and almost impossible to capture on camera.  Course, J tried:

 

Back in Oaxaca, Y and L report that for Dia de la Revolución yesterday they did indeed see small children running round with mustaches, which seems to be the main attraction of the day.

With various bits of life bureaucracy to complete this week and goodbyes to say, we hope to have enough time to drink a lot more hot chocolate and keep up the economy by buying Oaxaca cheese.  Then we all go our separate ways.

We've been on the road now for almost six months, and have another six to go.  We've traveled three countries so far, including one of the most underpopulated in the world and one of the most naturally diverse (the USA was also present).  We've made about 7500 miles (only roughly, as we've done a lot of wiggling about).  The vast majority of this has been done on the kindness of strangers, little interjections into hundreds of other people's lives.  We have over 6,000 miles still to go though doubtless we will manage to make it longer.  Google maps 'cannot calculate' where we're going as it does not all involve roads.  But difficult (though not impossible) though it is to thumb a lift on a boat, we'll figure it out.

See you in Guatemala!