Couchsurfers (Jamie & Raquel) and Hosts (Morgane & Moises)
Mexico City and Oaxaca
For Thanksgiving, I took a short 6-day trip to Mexico to do some sightseeing and couchsurfing with one of my former couchsurfers, Raquel from Brazil. I arrived in Mexico City on Thanksgiving morning. Raquel arrived a couple of days earlier and already made some friends through the CouchSurfing project including Luis, who picked me up at the airport when I arrived, drove me to meet up with Raquel and then took us to our host's place in the historic center of the city. Our hosts, Morgane & Moises, had a spare bedroom in their apartment with two beds in it... perfect for Raquel and I and in a great location. On my first day in Mexico, Luis gave us the walking tour of the entire city. Mexico City is huge and reminds me a lot of Los Angeles. We did A LOT of walking that first day and I was pretty tired at the end because I had traveled all night with little sleep. On top of that, I caught a cold before leaving LA, and the combination of lack of sleep, dirty air, and high altitude was just making it worse. I ended up being sick for the entire trip, but it did not stop me from having fun. The next day, Raquel and I were on our own and we wandered around the city some more on our own. Unlike some of the Mexican border towns and other large cities in Latin America, Mexico City is quite safe and we felt comfortable walking around everywhere even when we were taking pictures and acting like tourists. On Friday night, there was a big Lucha Libre event at Arena Mexico so we decided to check it out. After eating some of the best tacos ever from a street vendor, we bought some tickets for less than $10 and went inside. The wrestling is all fake, like the WWE, but that just makes it more fun. The crowd was full of people of all ages cheering for their favorites and against the bad guys. We saw five matches including one with women wrestlers and the main event featuring Mistico, the biggest star in Mexico. On my third and final day in Mexico City, we met up with Luis again and he drove us out to the archaeological site of Teotihuacan where we got to see some ancient ruins and climb to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun (which was not easy to do while sick and at high altitude). Luis then took us to a traditional mexican restaurant in his neighborhood and then took me to get some real horchata which was much better than any I've had in Los Angeles and more fun to drink... it's served in a plastic bag with a straw. On our final evening in Mexico City, our hosts, Morgane and Moises, took us out to a local bar to hear some (very loud) live music and drink some dark mexican beer called Indio. It was really good, but not so good for my cold.
We left Mexico City at midnight on Saturday on a 6-hour overnight bus ride to Oaxaca. The bus ride was comfortable and smooth, but I was sick and really could have used some sleep. Also, the altitude change was really hurting my ears. The ride was downhill the entire way and my ears were popping every few minutes. We arrived at the Oaxaca bus station at 6am and I was feeling pretty crappy. On top of that, our couchsurfing host was not answering his phone and we weren't sure what to do. We decided to take a cab to his house, only to find out that it was pretty far outside of town and he didn't really have room for us both unless we wanted to sleep on the floor. We decided to take a cab back into town and stay at a hostel that another couchsurfing member suggested to us as a backup. We got a private room in the hostel for about $10/night and we were conveniently located in the historic center of town. I was a bit annoyed that the "couch" did not work out, but I'm glad I got to experience both a positive and negative experience while couchsurfing for the first time. I felt terrible that first day in Oaxaca and decided to take a little nap and then went out to explore the city. Oaxaca is a beautiful colonial town with colorful buildings and cobblestone streets that reminded me of some towns I visited in Brazil. There isn't a whole lot "to do" in Oaxaca, but that's fine. It's a great city to just walk around, explore, take pictures, shop in the markets, and most importantly, EAT. Oaxaca is famous for it's cuisine. First there's mole, a dark sauce made from many ingredients including chile and chocolate which is served over chicken, beef, and other foods. Oaxaca is also famous for chocolate, primarily for making hot chocolate and I visited the most famous shop Mayordomo. You also have to eat bugs if you go to Oaxaca. A snack that you will see everywhere in this area is chapulines (fried grasshoppers with chile). You will see these being sold by the poorest street vendor and in the fanciest restaurants. I tried some in a restaurant and the ones I had were a little too salty. The hot chocolate was good, and the mole dishes that I tried were some of the best meals that I've ever had anywhere and cheap. The last thing I had to try from this area was mezcal, an alcoholic drink made from agave plants. It's similar to tequila and very strong. I had a couple of shots served with orange slices and it was quite tasty, but I could tell that a few too many of these would give you a killer headache and since I was still recovering from a cold, I didn't drink too much. We spent three days in Oaxaca mostly walking and eating. On the third day, I flew home and Raquel continued to her next destination...Cancun.
Here are the photos from my trip.
link to this post
