Esta Escrito en las Paredes

November 2, 2006
Poor, poor, poor Oaxaca.

Oh, the Oaxaca I knew from before with it´s bustling, beautiful, colonial streets. Oh the Oaxaca with smiling faces and throngs of tourists. Oh, Oaxaca.

I had called ahead before going and asked what the situation was like. My Oaxacan friends all assured me that it was safe to come, if not a little boring. They said there weren´t many tourists, but that any business there would be greatly appreciated. I asked around to other travelers who had been there and they had said everything was fine. Allison and I also wanted to go to a beach and I wanted to make sure Allison enjoyed herself, which meant going to the Oaxacan coast.

We dropped Graham off in Mexico City and headed to Oaxaca. Just driving into the outskirts of town, you could see the turmoil poor Oaxaca has been going through. The entire city, and I am not exaggerating, every inch of wall space was covered in graffiti.

"Fuera URO de Oaxaca!" "Viva APPO!" "Basta con la Violencia!"

Literally every inch of these colonial buildings covered in graffiti. So, the conflict had begun with a simple teachers strike demanding higher pay, however the governor of Oaxaca (Ulises Ruiz Ortiz) is a complete scumbag and basically did everything he could to make the teachers mad. In making the teachers mad he eventually pissed of all the Oaxacans, which turned a simple teacher´s strike into the desmadre it is today. And now the Mexican federal government is asking the governor to resign. It is the only way anything will be settled.

So, as far as a danger to foreigners there isn´t one. No one looked at us sideways. Most people were happy we were there spending our money because the town was DEAD. I know, I know that an American journalist just got killed, but he was a journalist and put himself right in the middle of harm´s way. A couple of days after we left Oaxaca, the federal government sent in the army to do God only knows what, but I have to hand it to Mexico in a way. The day before the government sent in the army, they stopped all bus service into Oaxaca and strongly urged all foreigners to leave the city.

Talking to the Oaxacans, you wouldn't even know anything was going on. All the restaurants, stores, museums are all still open with the workers just standing around waiting for customers. Beautiful, cosmopolitan Oaxaca is no more right now. This was the town of art exhibits, concerts, conferences, street performances, but now there is nothing. Just burned out cars blocking the streets and graffiti everywhere. It is going to cost millions of dollars just to clean up the graffiti.

All in all, Oaxaca was actually pretty boring. There was an 11pm curfew (to prevent destruction rather than violence), so no one went out at night. Allison and I walked around town for half a day and then went to the ruins and then left. I bought some awesome crafts and chatted it up with a few people, but seeing wonderful, magical Oaxaca in that state was really sad. It is going to take a lot of money to get it back on it´s feet. Another sad repercussion of all this mess is that it is effecting other tourist attractions in the state, like some of the coastal towns because people hear "civil unrest in Oaxaca" and assume it is the entire state. Well, it isn't. Oaxaca city is not a very welcoming place right now, but the coast is fine.

After only a day and a half, we headed to Puerto Escondido to chill out at the beach for 6 days. God, how do I love the beach. Two mornings in a row, Allison and I got up and went on a 5-mile walk on the beach, only to wake up on the third so sore we could hardly walk. Walking on sand is not the easiest thing to do. We laid out, swam and ate deliciously fresh seafood at night. Puerto Escondido was pretty dead too because of it still being off-season, but also because of the Oaxaca situation. There were still quite a few surfers hanging around and at the end of the 6 days, needless to say, Allison and I did not want to leave.

Now we´re in Mexico City. Actually, I am in an Internet cafe and Allison is in the airport waiting to fly home. I will be heading to the airport myself in a couple hours. We have spent two days in Mexico City. We went to the big ruins all on our own using the Metro and buses. We saw the Diego murals and a few museums. The highlight though of being here is the fact that it is Day of the Dead. The zocalo (main plaza) of Mexico City is decorated to the nines with skeletons and alters representing all the barrios of the city. There is creative expression all around.

Last night we went on a kind of lame tour to a cemetery to see people celebration Day of the Dead. Our guides had no idea what they were doing and I were rude. They took 30 of us to the cemetery and were leading us around graves. They would choose graves where people were actually mourning the dead and talk to us about them!!! There was even on guy in the group with a video camera and a spotlight filming people in the cemetery. It was ridiculous. There were too many people and the whole tour was very unorganized. Don't take a tour with Mexibus.

Well, back to the States for me to work and save money for the next adventure.