Days 16 & 17: Oaxaca

I'm up before dawn for the taxi to the first-class bus terminal. The taxi driver jumps all the lights but Veracruz is quiet at 6 a.m. The bus takes a roundabout route to avoid the highest mountains but suffers a puncture on the motorway. Fortunately ADO does a good job and the driver contacts some other services to offload the passengers and the net delay is only an hour.

Oaxaca (pronounced Wahaca like the restaurant chain) unlike Veracruz, IS pretty and is popular with tourists and expats alike; I see more gringos in an hour than in the 3 days in the Gulf port. But besides its beauty, Oaxaca enjoys a pleasant climate, still hot (up to 30C) by day but fresh at night.

Oaxaca lies in a more traditional part of Mexico and there is a large indigenous population, some of whom speak the original languages. It's also the quintessential market city with covered arcades, some of which have performing musicians inside. The street stalls spill on to the central plazas (two for the price of one, corner to corner by the Cathedral). The colours are extraordinary. A bit surprisingly for a country where the mural was perfected (Orozco, Rivera and others) there's less street art than in some Latin American cities but the hotel where I'm staying boasts a pretty one.

On my second afternoon while stopping to buy a snack, there's a commotion outside of drums, brass and cheering. I rush outside to witness a street parade, one of many in the run-up to the pre-Lent Carnival. In 3 minutes it's all past but I look forward to more later, and wonder if the dancing girl was the model for the painting in my hotel.Read more