San Cristobal de las Casas and Oaxaca City

I really liked San Cristobal. The centre is very lovely to walk because they've closed some streets to vehicular traffic, so it's easy to stroll down the Main Street (complete with buntings in Mexican flag colours overhead) and look in the little shops and cafés. At the very end of the pedestrian street is a cute yellow and white church on a hill. Another amazing church is a few blocks away, surrounded by a local craft market (which I spent a little toooo long at). There's also the main square (zócalo) with, you guessed it, another church. It makes such a difference when a city is easy to stroll around. I remember being "over" Hanoi very quickly (years ago) because the part I was staying in had very heavy scooter traffic, and the sidewalks were completely clogged with parked scooters, so you really had no where to walk without getting hit. 

I stayed in a lovely cosy little hostel with sunny courtyards (complete with hummingbirds) and fantastically hot showers. It gets really cold in San Cristobal. It's kind of like a Biloela winter in that you need to really rug up at night (I had 3 thick woollen blankets on my bed) but then when the sun is out during the day you have to peel off all the layers back down to a tshirt and shorts (unless you're in the shade - where it's a bit nipply).

I only stayed one night as time is running out but could easily have stayed for several! 

Next was Oaxaca City. It was an overnight bus from SC that began with a man in a uniform that said "privado seguridad" (private security) taking a video of the faces of everyone sitting on the departing bus. So there's a video of me scowling in confusion as to why I'm being videoed floating around Mexico somewhere. Then we were woken at around 4am and had to get off the bus for a security checkpoint, which involved them selecting a few random bags to unzip and look at. Completely pointless. Then at 5:30am a guy in a spiffy all red uniform came through the bus to look at us, check the toilets, then get off the bus. I'm not sure what this was supposed to achieve. I guess none of us looked like villains. 

Oaxaca is another cute city, I preferred San Cristobal though. More old churches, more markets, more old buildings. I found that Oaxaca was a bit bigger and had more big, expensive restaurants, shops etc and less of the small cute ones that San Cristobal had. So San Cristobal wins. I spent my last morning there looking around for 'milagro' which are little metal charms that are traditionally used for asking for blessings. Eg. If you had a sore/broken arm you would go and buy a little metal arm milagro and pray for your healing. Then, when your arm got better you would go to a cathedral and leave it there as an offering of thanks. In craft shops I've seen big crosses or hearts covered in these milagro charms and I really like them but they're super expensive, so I've bought a tonne of the charms and I'm going to make some myself when I'm home!! 

Next instalment: Mexico City.