Puerto Escondido

So we spent our last day in Oaxaca looking at ruins, which is pretty hot work. We went to see Monte Alban which was the strongest of the Zapotec civilizations, they even had stone carvings of upside down leaders from other towns just to show how strong they are. Then they abandoned the town though, and no one really knows why. There were so many massive monuments and things, it was pretty impressive. We bought some guide book anticipating a lot if Spanish signs, but it was in english as well so it was ok, any way the guide book made this one tomb sound really amazing, but it looked like a closet when we went to see. I guess they took the stuff out so no one would steal it. Other than that it was a fun trip. The mini bus ride up was an experience, it was about 70km p/hr in a 20km one lanes area with judder bars.

Anyway, turned out that trip had nothing on the trip to puerto. It was about 260km but took 6 hours because it was like driving on traffords hill ( takaka hill for the south islanders) all the way, with donkeys wandering on the road nibbling. Also, I guess speed limit signs don't work that well here, so throughout villages there are brutal speed bumps every 100m or so, which act to slow people down only just before they hit them. For all this speeding up and slowing down fir 6 hours you'd think they'd go through a lot if petrol, but the tickets were only about nz$15 and there were only 6 of us. I have no idea how anyone earns a living here, but they seem to be doing ok. We arrived safely, and are really excited to be here. We've been swimming so much in the pool were we're staying, not in the beach yet because we need beach towels, but it's on tomorrows adgenda. Where we're staying is nice, it's an apartment which means we get to make pancakes for breakfast every morning and it'll be nice to cook for ourselves again. There is a pool which is nice, and it's super close to the beach. We also have our own patio which is pretty cool, and our room is pretty cute. All for only $35 a night! Bargain!

Everyone seems to speak English in the town which is popular with Americans, but not so much that it's like Cancun. It's so nice and tropical here with coconut trees, and mangos, so many they're in the gutter, in Canada they were like $5 each. Limes here are 70c nz a kg which seems pretty nuts also. So we're here til the 24th then we fly back to Mexico city and probably will go to a city called Puebla from there then back to Mexico city for a few days then back to Vancouver to go on our cruise.

We haven't heard anything from any job prospects yet, so we've booked tickets back to NZ, so we'll see everyone on the 28th of may, after which I will be joining the Westpac Christchurch ranks once again!