Last post: returning to Canada

It feels like I should write one last entry to wrap up the story of My Trip to Mexico.  It's a little late given that we returned to Canada over a week ago, but I spent the last week of our trip sick and didn't feel great the first few days we were back either.

So, where to start.  Maybe I'll start with the least important thing: the blog name.  Did I have better luck finding black tea in Mexico on this trip?  

Resoundingly, no.  In fact, even though I brought tea along with me again, this time I rarely drank it.  Instead I went cold turkey on caffeine.  I didn't even miss it.  So much for being physically addicted.

How did the trip go, in general?  

As always, we enjoyed Mexico.  The public monuments, the public art, the graffiti, the museums, the history, the culture.  The need for self-reliance due to the lack of safety standards for streets, buildings, food! Crazy conventions like dirt piled on the edge of an undercut road to warn you away from the edge.

The controlled anarchy of driving: road rules roughly followed, as convenient, and as accommodated by other drivers. Friendly and helpful Mexicans: helping us get to Pluma Hidalgo, chatting with us about Mexico and Canada, giving us advice on where to go birding or where to catch a collectivo.  

There were downsides:

• Between the time I got food poisoning, a migraine, and the bad cold I caught just as we were leaving Oaxaca City, I spent more than 20% of our trip sick.  Usually not so sick that I was stuck in bed, but "After-being-out-for-half-a-day-I-went-to-bed-at-6:30pm-and-slept-through-to-morning" sick.  Annoying. 
• Cooking at our place didn't go as expected, and there were only a couple of decent (and decently-priced) restaurants close to our apartment.  I really enjoyed the food here the last time we visited, but was less enthusiastic this time.
• Oaxaca City was busier, more touristy, and more expensive than I remember it being the last time I visited.  I know, I know.  I'm a tourist.  I stayed in an AirBnB.  I frequented tourist destinations!  But the cool local cafe with good lunches and loose-leaf tea I remembered from last time has become a coffee chain. The Oaxaca Lending Library has a lot more transient members and feels less like a community  There's been more development: the house we stayed in 2011/2012 is now in the suburb of San Felipe del Agua instead of being on the edge of town.  And on average things cost about twice what they did the last time we visited: a cab ride to Monte Alban was 200 pesos instead of 90 pesos, a cheap lunchtime comida corrida cost 85 pesos instead of 35-50 pesos (if you can find one:  they've almost vanished from the centre), local buses cost 8 pesos instead of 5.5.  

There were also upsides: 

• We'd never been to Xalapa in the state of Veracruz before, and we loved it. The historic centre of the city is pretty, and the streets and buildings throughout the city are clean, well-maintained, and attractive.  It has several great city parks with lots of nature: Parque Ecológico Macuiltépetl, Parque Natura, Parque El Haya. There are lots of good restaurants, and at least one great museum.  It's a university town, and has the vibrancy that you'd expect of a place with lots of students.  There was even a big book fair in the central plaza while we were there! In general it's definitely a place where people live rather than a place that people visit, but it's a nice place.  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It was great having birding as a main focus: it gave us a really different perspective on the places we visited.  It meant we met different people too.  In particular, it was great meeting and birding with Edgar Del Valle, the birding guide we found in Oaxaca.
  
  
  

And some things were just different.  We drove to Oaxaca the last time we visited.  This time we flew and took public transportation.  In some ways this was frustrating, especially given that a lot of what we wanted to do was bird-watching and when you're bird-watching, you generally want to travel to rural locations early in the morning. On the other hand, it was fun to improvise our way to and from various destinations, and we definitely met more Mexicans than we did on our previous trip and heard some interesting stories (like the life story of the cab driver who took us to Yagul, who spoke excellent English, Zapotec, Spanish, and another indigenous language).

All in all, it was a great trip.  In particular I really appreciated that we were able to travel for six weeks, which gave us time and space to spend time in new places, explore Oaxaca, and experience life in Mexico in a way that you just can't do if you're staying in a hotel for only a few days.