Oaxaca

Saturday 12th December 1987

We got up at 08:00 hrs. with our main priorities being getting breakfast and changing money. We had an extremely cheap breakfast consisting of bacon and omelette in the Hippocampo Restaurante to start with.

All the streets in Oaxaca are laid out in a grid system so it is easy to find your way about. Everything is a few blocks away from the spacious central zocalo with it’s trees and familiar band stand. Ancient well weathered churches surround this main plaza. The morning crowds were an odd mixture of Mexicans, local indigenous Indians and western tourists.

We changed up some money in the American Express Office in the centre and wandered around in search of a local market. Mary, the Australian girl who had been travelling in South America for two years, kept us interested with stories and advice.

We found a touristy indigenous Indian market where Declan bought some baggy black trousers, and later the big local market which sold everything from fruit, clothes, hardware, Indian rugs and shawls to leather sandals with soles cut from redundant car tyres.

We bought some bananas, peanuts and oranges, which were practically free, and returned to our room. In this town there seems to be all manner of western brand goods in open fronted tiendas (shops).

In the afternoon we went out for a coffee in the zocalo where a stream of cute children peddled flowers, Chiclets, carved swizzle sticks and cycling monkey toys. Chiclets is a brand of candy-coated chewing gum owned by Mondelez International. The brand was introduced in 1900 by the American Chicle Company, a company founded by Thomas Adams. The Chiclets name is derived from the Spanish word chicle which is the name for chewing gum. We got used to the call “Chiclets, Chiclets” from the young salespersons.

It was very pleasant to sit in the zocalo and watch the locals. Back at the hotel we studied our guidebook (we used Lonely Planet and the South American Handbook, the backpacker’s bible). The South American Handbook is a travel guide to South America, published in the United Kingdom by Footprint Books. It is the longest-running travel guide in the English language.

Aussie Mary gave us some recommended hotel names and advice. We found a good restaurant just off the zocalo and ate tacos and drank “Dos Equis” beer as Mary went through a suggested itinery for us. Traditional Mexican beef tacos are made with marinated sliced or shredded beef on soft corn tortillas.

We left at 23:00 hrs. and the streets were virtually deserted, and the shop fronts boarded up. The odd drunk staggered passed us or slumped against a shuttered door.

Earlier in the afternoon there had been a small but noisy fiesta in a street just down from the hotel. We went onto the roof to watch the ridiculously loud “thunder flash” fireworks and watch a parade with music and singing.