Explorandor - Día Uno

Over the past five weeks we have gotten into our daily life patterns and have acclimatized to the temperatures. It is time to change things up a little and go out and see more of Mexico.

Linda got an email from our friends Jill and Barry. They had set up a trip with a small group of four couples to travel to and explore the area around Oaxaca City and invited us to join their party.

Ruth hands out our boarding passes for the day.

Oaxaca City is located inland and south in the lower part of Mexico. To get there we had to take a van to the Manzanillo airport and fly Aeromexico to Mexico City where we transferred to a plane that flew for two hours south into the high country landing at the Oaxaca International Airport. This journey started at 8:00 am and we landed in our new destination at about 4:00 pm. This included a three hour lay over in Mexico City.

This long first day started a bit bumpy. Our tour company picked us up at our casa and rendevoused at Jill and Barry's home to load into a van for the airport. Just as we arrived at the meeting point, a group of Villa Orbregon taxis pulled in and blocked our van. The taxi drivers were not going to let a van from the airport pick up passengers in their territory.  This is not unusal. Taxis from the local towns around Manzanillo Airport can not pick up passengers at the airport proper, because the airport drivers won't allow them this option. There was much chatter and hand waving, but finally Ruth, the owner of Mex-Eco Tours, said it was not worth the delay and loaded us into three taxes.

Popocatepetl and Iztacciuatl
two volcanos from our plane.

The rest of our travel was uneventful and our Aeromexico flight landed (after a pretty turbulent entry) at the Mexico City Airport where we connected with one of the guides, Noel, and another Mex-Eco tour group from Puerta Vallarta. Noel lead us on to our plane that took us to our final destination for the day Oaxaca City.

At this point we met our van driver, Eladio, and our daily tour guide, Rosario. 

Our hotel, Hotel Marques del Valle, in Oaxaca’s historic centre was a wonderful home base for our stay and exploration. It was located on the main jardin for the historic center of the city. 

Our  hotel from the plaza.

She looks pretty good after a full day of travel.

Cathedral of Oaxaca, north side of zocalo.

Our hotel lobby at check-in.

Another view of the Cathedral.