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The night before last I must have eaten something that had a major disagreement with my stomach, because that was the sickest I've ever been on vacation. I even threw up. Twice. Not fun. However, I'd rather be sick on the road than be sick in a hotel room and waste a day, so we pressed on to Oaxaca, thinking, "360km? Okay, if we leave at 10 we should be there around 3:30, maybe 4."
The highway from Tuxtepec to Oaxaca (HW175 in case any of you ever want to try it) is a two-lane highway with absolutely no shoulder and no place to pull over except for tiny villages clinging to the slopes of the mountains every 30km or so and only ONE (that I saw) "lookout point" where you can actually stop and take pictures. This is a real shame because the views are spectacular. At one point you're so high up it seems you're looking down on all the surrounding mountains and a little further on, we drove through clouds. The vegetation changes from lush and tropical to less dense, but no less beautiful, pine forests the further inland you go. It actually got cool, which helped everyone feel a whole lot better.
Let's see, now: 200km through the mountains takes almost 6 hours. We arrived in Oaxaca just as night was falling, with no idea which direction we were coming from since the mountain roads twist and turn so much, so the map was sort of useless for a while. We were tired, I was sick, my mother was feeling sick, my father's leg was in pain from driving for about 8 hours straight (but Max was burbling to himself, for some reason) and we didn't know where we were. After a while I was able to figure out where we were on the map, but we decided to try the first hotel we came across, which turned out to be expensive with impractical parking, so those 3 times around the block were for naught. Finally we decided to try a hotel listed in the Lonely Planet, so we drove on and miraculously found a parking space around the corner.
Wouldn't you know it, the hotel was full. BUT, right across the street, this wonderful little place opened just this past Tuesday and they had a room for us. After some initial confusion by the staff (a guy led the four of us to a room with one bed) we got a lovely room with two comfortable beds, fluffy pillows and a toilet with no seat. There's a little restaurant in the hotel, which is in a gorgeous old colonial-style house. And they price is great! So here's an enthusiastic recommendation for the Hostal Casa del sotano.
Today will be very low-key. We walked around the zocalo a bit, I bought a couple of things and we'll probably find a place for lunch, soon.
The highway from Tuxtepec to Oaxaca (HW175 in case any of you ever want to try it) is a two-lane highway with absolutely no shoulder and no place to pull over except for tiny villages clinging to the slopes of the mountains every 30km or so and only ONE (that I saw) "lookout point" where you can actually stop and take pictures. This is a real shame because the views are spectacular. At one point you're so high up it seems you're looking down on all the surrounding mountains and a little further on, we drove through clouds. The vegetation changes from lush and tropical to less dense, but no less beautiful, pine forests the further inland you go. It actually got cool, which helped everyone feel a whole lot better.
Let's see, now: 200km through the mountains takes almost 6 hours. We arrived in Oaxaca just as night was falling, with no idea which direction we were coming from since the mountain roads twist and turn so much, so the map was sort of useless for a while. We were tired, I was sick, my mother was feeling sick, my father's leg was in pain from driving for about 8 hours straight (but Max was burbling to himself, for some reason) and we didn't know where we were. After a while I was able to figure out where we were on the map, but we decided to try the first hotel we came across, which turned out to be expensive with impractical parking, so those 3 times around the block were for naught. Finally we decided to try a hotel listed in the Lonely Planet, so we drove on and miraculously found a parking space around the corner.
Wouldn't you know it, the hotel was full. BUT, right across the street, this wonderful little place opened just this past Tuesday and they had a room for us. After some initial confusion by the staff (a guy led the four of us to a room with one bed) we got a lovely room with two comfortable beds, fluffy pillows and a toilet with no seat. There's a little restaurant in the hotel, which is in a gorgeous old colonial-style house. And they price is great! So here's an enthusiastic recommendation for the Hostal Casa del sotano.
Today will be very low-key. We walked around the zocalo a bit, I bought a couple of things and we'll probably find a place for lunch, soon.
