We left Puerto Escondido early in the morning. The sun had just come up when we arrived at the airport. When we had first come to Escondido nearly thirty years ago there was only a small airstrip here, only big enough for prop planes. It was not long after that it was widened to be large enough for jets. Today there are at least a couple flights each hour, most headed for Mexico City. We were not on one of those, however. Instead, just like the old days, we were on a small plane headed straight over the Sierra Madre del Sur toward the city of Oaxaca.
Our flight on AeroTucan was indeed an adventure. It was even smaller that the plane we had taken all those year past. Our flight was full, and I think I counted all of 18 people. I saw almost directly behind the pilot. I was a little unsure how exactly he could see over the instrument panel, but it was nevertheless an almost perfect flight. Looking down at the mountains, I could see a maze of winding roads and I was grateful we were not taking the other option for going to Oaxaca, a twelve hour bus ride. Here I am rather inelegantly exiting this tiny plane.
After getting our luggage, we caught a collectivo to our hotel. We chatted briefly with a woman from Canada and a couple guys from Seattle. We were the last to be dropped off. Our accommodations in Oaxaca are at the Hotel Victoria. John and I had stopped by this place years ago on one of our first visits to the city. I remembered it as being sort of at the edge of town and sort of 1950’s modern. As the taxi dropped us off, it no longer seemed so far away from the center and if anything a bit bleaker than I had recalled.
It was pretty early in the morning, so our rooms were not ready yet. We hung around the pool for a while even though it was pretty chilly.
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he had been so obsessed with getting a room here, even though its Presidential Suite was about the cost of a standard room at the Camino Real, the most upscale hotel in the area. But when we finally got into our room, I decided John was a genius. Of course, you all knew that already, didn’t you? The room itself was absolutely huge. I used the iPhone’s panorama setting to try to get a feel for it, but of course it distorted everything. But you will still get the idea.
But the real attraction of the Presidential Suite is the view from the balcony. You can see the entire Valley of Oaxaca from here. This picture does not do it justice.
As we were tired and the room was so wonderful, we decided to nap for a bit.
After we were rested, we went into town. We stopped by a barbershop. They were full at the time, but happy to make a reservation for tomorrow morning. We walked around looking at some of the places we remembered. For some reason, neither of us took many pictures today. After a bit of that, we went back to the hotel.
In the evening, we went back into the city for dinner. We had made reservations for one of the area’s most talk-about restaurants, the Pitiona Cocina de Autor. This is one of those places with a multi-course tasting menu. We do not normally do that in Los Angeles, but Oaxaca has become famous not only for its traditional foods but for its emerging fusion food scene. And, besides, we knew this experience would be far cheaper in Mexico! And it was more or less what we expected. There were lots of largish plate with not much food on them, and the food was usually some rather odd mixture of things.
Most of the dishes we liked, though we did not fall in love with any of them. Probably what I will remember most of all is that we were wondering if the package we had sent from Virginia had arrived at home. We checked the security camera footage and not only saw the package being delivered but a few hours later saw a young woman stealing it! I guess we’ll deal with this when we get home though I doubt we can do anything. Sigh.
