Bienvenidos a Mexico (Welcome to Mexico)

We made it!

We departed yesterday from Houston and arrived in Juarez de Oaxaca at about 10 pm last night. The trip was somewhat uneventful, despite a 6 hour layover in the airport in Mexico City. We filled our time with changing some money, reading Spanish stories (we learned the vocab word for high heels, very handy, indeed), playing chess, and trying to decipher the departures screens - for a big airport, this one seemed to be woefully lacking in monitors, so the flight listings were constantly rotating at a pace just a bit too rapid for these two travelers. Once in Oaxaca we scored a ride into town with a van service, per the directions of the bed and breakfast owner, and were ushered directly to our room for some welcome sleep.

We awoke this morning at about 9 am and headed to the main apartment to have our breakfast with Gary, the aforementioned owner, and another guest. It was fresh papaya and mangoes with granola and yogurt. (Apparently, Rory now does like papaya leaving Erica alone in her pickiness.) After getting a map from Gary and a few recommendations we set out for a day of walking around the Centro Historico. We took in some of the famous sites - the Zocolo (a main plaza area), Santo Domingo (a beautiful church), the Auditorio (at the top of about a million steps), and el Llano (a park). We didn't spend much time in each place 1) because we have 3 months to fully explore and observe and 2) we were mainly trying to get oriented and find areas were we might want to rent an apartment. During our walking tour we did manage to find the Oaxaca Lending Library, a place Erica had read about online before our arrival. It is a mixture of coffee shop and book store run by expat volunteers. It is also a great source for apartment listings and volunteer opportunities.

At about 1:30 we enjoyed our first Oaxacan meal that was muy delicioso. Then we each nodded off for a bit of siesta during the afternoon. Upon waking Erica met Lorenzo, who coordinates the English instruction for the students at the Oaxaca Learning Center, which also houses our Bed and Breakfast. With Lorenzo's encouragement we both now have intercambio (language exchange) dates with a couple of students. We are both excited about the opportunity to practice our Spanish and learn more about Oaxaca from some local residents!

Earlier in the evening we asked Jorge, a teacher who lives at the Oaxaca Learning Center/Bed and Breakfast, to suggest a place for us to go for a jog. We got a real treat because he offered to show us AND go with us. We walked back through town for about 20 minutes over to one of mountains nearby. We ended up right on the stairs that we had walked up earlier in the day and instead of walking this time we ran! Needless to say when going up that many stairs and then continuing on up a steep slope... the run did not last long. But we did get to see some beautiful views of the city and we got to see a path that in the future may be runnable - after about three months of regular uphill practice.

So there's a play by play of our first day here. Seems busier than it felt! Hopefully we will be able to share some reflections instead of just a list of what we do, but until we adjust that might be all you get....