On Saturday, we took the bus to Mitla to see the ruins in the town. It’s not large or even coming close to the size of Monte Alban, but nonetheless, it was worth the visit. As it is always when we get off a bus, we felt like we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere. This time though, there was a dirty sign about 50 meters from the bus stop that pointed the direction to the ruins. 2 kilometers it says. Taxi? nah… I think we can handle the midday oaxaqueno sol bearing down on us as we hike uphill. Mitla was a neat little town with a town market, and of course, a church. The streets were empty away from the market except a few bicyclists and people just sitting around wondering why in the world anyone would want to walk 2 kilometers under the scorching sun. We passed a few liquor stores all advertising the best mexcal, restaurants touting their tortas and tlayudas, a tied up horse, a cactus wall, and some yapping dogs. You can check the photos here. After the ruins, we took the bus to Teotitlan to see their world famous hand woven rungs. Man, the stuff were nice… wish we had the cash to bring one home though. Small rugs were running at about 4000pesos each. A shopkeeper and weaver even took the time out to demonstrate the process from dye to patterns to weaving. Muy interesante.
Sunday, aka vomit day, brought us to for the virgin springs.
The popular Hierve de Agua for whatever reason was closed so we opted for this alternative which, in our grand travel tradition, was in the middle of nowhere. Unlike Mitla, there was no sign, the bus driver had no clue, no taxi drivers, and when Keywan asked these dudes which way to walk, we got back a “who sent you?” Whoa godfather of san jose. We just wanna take swim in the spring of Salina Blanco. Is that so hard? The group of guys all agreed that it was a 3kilometer walk. One offered a taxi but we’re too cheap to pay for a 3km ride and opted to walk. They all laughed and thought we’re completely insane. Then one guy offered to take us to the entrance and we can walk the rest of the way. Sure why not. All the while an irish expat comes cycling down with here baby in the bike caboose and stops across the way. Somehow I knew she spoke english and spanish and would be helpful. What tipped me off was that she was wearing a helmet and cycling! Turns out this guy in a dirty ripped white shirt we’re negotiating with is the right man for the job. We ate some tortas, hopped on the back of a pickup truck and dropped off in front of a wired fence. No sign, no arrows, no barking dogs to indicate that this is the entrance to the springs. We hiked about 30minutes down the mountain to the river. Took some photo ops, learned some spanish curses, tasted the natural salt on the mountains before taking a plunge in the water. All the hassle was worth the refreshing swim… even karen’s vomit episode. So why were we asked who sent us? Turns out that no one really shows up to the spring. One reason is that it’s in the middle of nowhere. Secondly. it’s usually a group outing from a hostel or university to this place.
We had to spread out our arhaelogical sites apart so on Monday, we headed off the the grandaddy of them all, Monte Alban. The place was enormous, but we conquered all the scalable structures in about 3 hours. I’m a bit disappointed to say that there weren’t any outrageous instances whilst getting up to Monte Alban. A tourist bus got us there, so other than the flamboyant gay spanish couple, nothing noticeable.
