Continued from Oaxaca Day 2 Part 2.

We are making our one outing outside of Oaxaca City on this trip, a short trip to Monte Alban, a pre Columbian Zapotec ruin.

Some of the baked goods that we got yesterday. I learned yesterday that our room comes with breakfast and it can be ordered at 8am. So we ordered breakfast and will supplement it with some pastry.

Our courtyard is awesome. The weather in the morning is slightly chilly, needs a light jacket. Perfectly shaded in the morning due to the high walls in the courtyard.

Breakfast arrives. I’ve got a dish called Eggs Divorced. Fucking good. Just sunny side up eggs on top of a toasted corn tortilla with red sauce on one side and green sauce on the other. So simple, but so good and so beautiful. I’m eating this every morning and I’m going to make this dish when I get back to Austin.

RL’s oatmeal has nothing on my eggs.

So satisfied.

They’ve got the little in ground water fountain turned on this morning.

We had the hotel call a taxi to take us to Monte Alban and back. It’s about a 20-30min drive and will cost us 600 pesos there and back. So, roughly $30, not too bad.

Our taxi arrives, the driver doesn’t speak any English. Good thing we had the hotel staff help us tell him that we’d like to be picked up an hour and a half after drop off. Not many people speak English here in Oaxaca. But RL really enjoys figuring out how to communicate using gestures and the few words of Spanish that she knows. Plus, pretty much everyone is very nice, patient, and willing to work with us. That always helps.

Soon we were out of Centro and heading up the mountain to Monte Alban.

That’s quite the wooden sunshade.

The center of Oaxaca is very quaint. The surrounding areas, not so much.

The center of Oaxaca is also very clean and devoid of trash. The surrounding areas, not so much.

We’ve reached the parking for Monte Alban. Confirmed via Google Translate with our driver that he’ll come back to get us in 1.5 hours. He was very nice about it and told us we didn’t have to pay until he comes to pick us up.

Took a photo of the license plate so that I know which cab to hop back into.

A short walk up to the visitor’s center where we can get tickets and there’s a small museum.

Tickets, there was zero line. Almost everyone else came up here in tour groups.

Cool view up here in the mountain. We definitely feel some of this higher elevation. Oaxaca is already over 5000ft, and I believe Monte Alban is at 6400ft. Definitely out of breath easily.

The small museum in the visitor’s center.

Got our tickets and we’ve entered the site. From the research I’ve done, everyone says 2 hours minimum. But judging from past experiences, me and RL can get it done in probably half of that time. Just in case 1.5 hours so we won’t feel rushed.

Plumeria. We saw Plumeria all over town, and then thought it was odd that they’d plant a flower from Hawaii here. But no, that’s actually wrong. Plumeria is native to here and actually imported into Hawaii!!! Who would have thought!

The moment we got off the taxi, we could hear this loud overwhelming eerie sound. At first we thought it was some sort of siren. Then we realized it sounded more like some sort of insect, but we couldn’t see any. Finally, we saw some giant cicadas on trees that were making all the noise. They sounded unlike any other cicadas I’ve ever heard before. Eerie is the only term I can think of describing. See it you can spot the one in this photo.

Cicadas were everywhere.

I don’t know what to say about these mounts other than that they had really steep steps. Always found that odd as the indigenous people were very short, and yet they had these super tall steps.

It’s hard work climbing these giant steps in this thinner air.

I’m not as young as I used to be.

Very little place for shade out here. We slathered ourselves in sunblock and brought our hats.

Going down is even harder than going up. Slightly dangerous, actually.

RL really liked the small pebbles amongst the large stones.

It’s the dry season, can you see?

One last giant stairs to climb. We can do this!

RL goes first.

I’m slowly making my way up.

Made it to the top.

They’ve also got some mounds that have not been restored.

Alright, we’ve made it from one end to the other. Now heading back.

They’ve installed handrails on one side, so we’ll use that.

Kids on a field trip here. All of a sudden, the teacher must have said that they could race, and all ran down the field like gazelles except they were yelling at the top of their lungs. Fun and kinda cute.

Sports!

Great view of Oaxaca City from up here.

Our hotel is not too far from that large white roofed auditorium on the left.

I sense someone taking a photo of me…

Now I take a photo of you taking a photo of me.

So that you can take a photo of me again.

OK, that’s that for our visit. We managed to see everything that we wanted to see in about an hour. I guess we can go make a quick visit to the museum.

Not much to see, let’s visit the onsite cafe.

Oh, they’ve got a full bar here at the cafe.

Even better, they’ve got covered outdoor seating with beautiful view of the valley. The weather is mid 80s but with very dry air so doesn’t feel too hot. Under the shade with the breeze, it’s perfect.

Well deserved beers after hiking around stairs for an hour.

Kind of glad we had extra time to enjoy relaxing here.

If you look very carefully, you’ll see a yellow bellied bird.

Alright, it’s almost time to meet our taxi driver. I hope he shows up on time.

And right as we walked down to the parking lot, we see our taxi driver coming up the mountain to meet us. Perfecto!

Now, we head back down the mountain, and enjoy the view of the trash on the side of the road. Reminds RL of traveling in China, there’d be beautiful mountains with piles of trash at their base.

To be continued at Oaxaca Day 3 Part 2.