We traveled to Mexico over spring break. It's been on our list for a long time, as Mexico is our neighbor, supposed to be beautiful and culturally rich, and Chris has been slowly converting Becky into a Mexican-food lover. Plus, Chris' dad David has been traveling to Mexico for years and extolling its beauty, and Chris' mom and stepdad, Mary and Jack, had traveled to Oaxaca and just raved about the trip and the food. What inspiration to try it ourselves!
It was a wonderful trip! We flew in and out of Mexico City. The first couple nights, we stayed at the lovely "El Patio 77" bed and breakfast in the Colonia San Rafael neighborhood, pretty close to the historic city center. The B&B was in an old colonial-style home on the corner of a quiet street. The rooms were gorgeous, with high ceilings, tall windows onto little balconies, and minimal but elegant decor. The B&B is eco-friendly, reusing waste water, using solar energy for water heating, and striving to conserve energy by using efficient LED lights on timers and other strategies. The breakfast was held in a lovely indoor courtyard. It was the perfect oasis in the busy city. We did some exploring of the city center our first day there, and also went out to the old and beautiful Restaurante Monte Cristo. The food there is traditional Mexican food, done in gourmet style. It was fabulous and the restaurant was not busy that night, so the sweet wait staff paid us a lot of attention, in a good way -- joking with us, making sure we had enough to eat and drink, and just chatting. The food was gloriously delicious.
Next, we took the 6-hour bus trip south to Oaxaca de Juarez, a smaller city in the heart of the Valley of Oaxaca. We stayed at a sweet little hotel with many covered pathways and courtyards lined with plants, trees, and flowers. Our room opened onto a little space with patio furniture, a stone dividing wall covered with epiphytes and moss and trickling with water, and a hammock. The city itself, at least the old colonial part, was just gorgeous. It was much more walkable than Mexico City, and every doorway we passed led to an interior open courtyard just dripping with bougainvillea and lined in green leafy trees. We walked past old churches and convents (mostly rebuilt in the 1700s, after an earthquake pulled down much of the original 1500s construction). The city was bustling with people-- city folk, people from the other little towns in the valley, Mexican tourists, and foreign tourists -- and the Zocalo was swarming with happy people relaxing, strolling, bouncing their babies, buying toys for their kids. We really enjoyed the city -- we discovered many culinary delights: in restaurants, from street vendors, and in the busy markets.
Sadly, after 5 nights in Oaxaca, we had to return to Mexico City to prepare for our flight back. Our last morning in Mexico, we took a stroll recommended by Diego, our host at El Patio 77, and ended up discovering a little fair with delicious food, from tacos and tostadas to raspberry water and caramel. What a perfect ending to our trip! We have more to tell you, so ask us sometime and we can go into even richer detail about what we did, what we saw, and what we ate :-).
Many thanks to Becky's parents, Jim and SB, for helping us afford our vacation -- we wouldn't have been able to do it without them and we are ever so grateful!
OK, vacation over--back to wedding planning!
Nice trip! Nice photos! It sounds great, and we are so glad you had a good time.
ReplyDeletexo, Mom/SB