Gate at Manchester Airport

That was… looong.  I mean, I know we’re tech­nic­ally trav­el­ling and so the jour­neys are part of the fun, but since leav­ing we’ve done Manchester>Atlanta>Mexico City>Puebla>Oaxaca.  That’s 18hrs of travelling.

How­ever, we only felt like we’d reached a comfy stop some 32hrs after leav­ing.  We had a brief three hour stop in Atlanta, where we guzzled free gin and tonic and nibbles in the rather excel­lent lounge.  That was the only bit of lux­ury for us, how­ever.  But those moments make mem­ber­ship of a suit­able priv­iledge or fre­quently flyer scheme worth­while.  They give a nice break where you’re tak­ing mul­tiple flights.  And Atlanta air­port is sur­pris­ingly pleas­ant.  On the inside at least.  I’m sure that an archi­tect would be dis­mayed at the lack of enorm­ous con­crete swoops and dra­matic exter­ior, but the inside was well dec­or­ate with lots of art­works and almost no advertising.

The flight to Mex­ico City was as unre­mark­able as all flights should be.  But we were late, and we wanted to leave imme­di­ately for Oax­aca where friends were waiting.

Give money or he’ll con­tinue to look mournful

How­ever, with the next Oax­aca bus from the city being at 7am, we decided to try, instead, to take a bus to Puebla where we were assured there’d be a reas­on­able onward connection.

They were, of course, lying.  Still, it meant a chance to stay in Puebla for the night, albeit dur­ing a hol­i­day sea­son where every single hotel was fully booked.  Oops.  Con­sequently we man­aged to find a hotel that was both grotty and expens­ive.

And now here we are in Oax­aca — a rel­at­ively tour­istic city.  It’s pop­u­lar with both Mex­ican and for­eign tour­ists so food and accom­mod­a­tion can be a little expens­ive by Mex­ican stand­ards, and qual­ity doesn’t seem to be amaz­ing.  We’re now set­ting ourselves up to go and visit some old ruins.  Mayan, I believe, but I’ll admit I’ve not being pay­ing atten­tion.  I was simply happy to arrive some­where and get thor­oughly fed and watered, along with a comfy bed for the night.

In terms of hotels, we can heart­ily recom­mend the Posada Don Matias in Oax­aca.  Clean, taste­fully dec­or­ated and friendly.  And free Wi-Fi if you have the kit with you.  You can guess how I’m man­aging to blog this :-)

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