Driving from Puerto Angel to Oaxaca

Okay – we are actually here in Puebla now – but I need to tell you about the drive to Oaxaca first and show you some of the amazing sights en route. If you can see the photo of the map it shows you where we are are – we have driven 2,900 kilometeres across Mexico from the Yucatan which is to the far right of the map and borders with Belize and Guatamala, to Puebla a big city just a 90 minute drive from Mexico City and 2,150 metres above sea level. We did experience some altitude sickness whilst in Oaxaca which is already very high up; spinning heads, disorientation etc – but fortunately we made the adjustment, so by the time we got to Puebla we were aclimatised. Long drive but it’s been amazing, the VW Jetta did us proud and was absolutely filthy when we handed it back the other day!

The drive was through some absolutely breath taking mountain scenerey; winding high up and down in to the mountains with some pretty huge drops but Dave drove carefully and didn’t act like he was Steve McQueen in Le Mans thank god. There are LOTS of dogs in Mexico – loads of them running around and unfortunately a lot of squashed ones on the roads. They actually sit in the middle of the road, wander idly alongside it or sleep right on the edge of it. This gang in the photo ran straight out in front of us from nowhere.

The closer to Oaxaca we got the more wacky roadside things we spotted as Oaxaca is the main Mexican city for artisans – lots of great stuff carved from old pieces of wood, fallen trees etc. I will include some of the more decorative examples in the next post. By the way – I still can’t figure out why the pictures open up so huge when you click on them – I am saving them as smaller images and clicking the small image size when we upload – so if anyone knows how I change this so that they open to an easy view size when clicking on them – let us know!