On the road again

To say goodbye to Oaxaca, where we had stayed longer than either of us have stayed anywhere at one time in many months, longer than we have been travelling, we trekked up a hill on one of our last days that had some amazing views over the city.

And on our last night, which was a wonderfully Mexican experience, we went out to a restaurant which said Vegetarian on it, foolishly assuming it would be a vegetarian restaurant.  The steaks and 'pork spread' on the menu soon dissuaded us of this.  But we managed to find food everyone could eat and had a lovely evening before some very sad goodbyes the next day.

Y and L heading for adventures in Mexico City, Puebla and beyond, C and J struck south again over the mountains.  On Wednesday, during a couple of days hitching which involved a lot of free rides on public transport from kindly drivers rolling their eyes, we hit the point again where we are further south than we had yet been and nothing but the road was in front of us.  The uplifting feeling this gives carried us all the way over the Guatemalan border (though not officially.  This was due again to confusingly wandering through not really finding customs and will be sorted in a couple of days.  No, we really mean it this time.  No further south until passports are stamped.)

We have now arrived in Quetzaltenango, where we have a lot of exciting plans involving hiking and getting involved in projects.  J has put a spanner in a lot of these ideas by turning over her somewhat infamous ankle.  However our Couchsurf here is very nice and allowing lots of space to recuperate so we should be able to get going soon.

Just a short message to update on the geography really.  We're very sorry to say goodbye to Y and L, and anyone who knows her can imagine J's frustration at being laid up for a couple of days, but really everything shakes down once you're on the move again.  In fact, in what is pretty much our only souvenir purchase so far, J liked a t-shirt in Oaxaca so much she bought it and it says: La vida is como montar en bicicleta; para mantener equilibrio hay que seguir pedaleando.

Life is like riding a bike; to keep balance you must keep pedaling.