Biking West 2015 ‐ Oaxaca

2015-11-29

tl;dr: In Oaxaca I checked into Hotel Florida, found the bike parts I needed, and I visited the market.

It is actually cold here in the morning. I had to break out another layer. It was 10 degrees C when I woke up and made multiple trips to the Oxxo waiting for it to open. It is obnoxious how late this convenience store actually did open. And, of course, hours aren't posted. There was a group of taxis parked in the front, and all of the drivers were standing in a group drinking beer. They were so hammered. One of them spoke English and wanted to talk. It was not a productive conversation. Eventually, as the sun was coming up, all of these drunk drivers climbed into their taxis and sped away. Awesome.

I peddled into Oaxaca, which was less than twenty kilometers. Oaxaca is surrounded by mountains. I'm still not sure if the haze is due to fog or smog. I'm leaning toward smog. Once into Oaxaca, I made a wrong turn and ended up on a street lined with hookers. These women were not very attractive, but it was still morning (early morning by Mexico standards).

I am so glad I don't have to drive a vehicle in this city. The streets are crazy congested. Eventually I made my way to the to the Hotel Florida. This hotel with its adjacent restaurant have a very narrow slice of the street, but the hotel reaches far back. It's actually really nice. From my room I can barely hear dogs barking or roosters crowing. I paid for two days because most of the bicycle shops in town are closed on Sunday, and I figured it would take all day to find the brake parts I needed. The shop across the street was open. It took ten minutes to find the brake parts I needed.

Oaxaca has a market. It is called Oaxaca. I swear the entire Centro area is one giant market. It's kind of unbelievable. No matter where you walk (you are crazy to drive) there are stalls and street vendors and stores and old ladies with three small bags of peanuts. Many blocks are composed of covered stalls. One block was nothing but solid food stands and limited seating. It seems like you can buy anything here if you know where to look, and you have to know because there is no directory. It is complete chaos. These markets are aimed at locals rather than tourists, so the sellers are nowhere near as pushy as other places I've been. I did see a number of other non-Mexicans. They ignored me. They are probably trying to appear as local and don't want my touristyness rubbing off on them.