Diving, shopping...

After spending a few days in San Cristobal de las Casas, a pretty colonial town where we lazed about not doing much, we moved on to Puerto Escondido. It took a a long 12 hour night bus ride. It had been a while since we had taken night buses and it brought back memories of Argentina and Peru.
Nothing much to do in Puerto Escondido apart from diving, surfing and a little bit of shopping. So Thomas went diving. I tagged along for a bit of snorkelling but as it had rained the night before there wasn't much visibility for snorkeling. So I ended up taking the sun on the roof of the boat... tough life!
To fill up the rest day I strolled through the stands of artesanias and spent some money. I am very pleased with my purchase, see below :D

            

Since we had done all possible activities in Puerto Escondido we moved on to Oaxaca (to be pronounced Oahaca). We had the choice between a night bus, 12 hours, or a minibus during the day, 6.5 hours, which, we were warned, takes very zigzaggy mountanous roads. We decided to try the minibus and we definitly made the right choice! We were four, including the driver, so we had lots of space and were very comfy. And sure the road was full of zigzags but nothing too terrible. Ok it took us 5 hours to drive 200 km but we had very nice views :)

So we arrived in Oaxaca yesterday afternoon and so far great impression. There is a lot of activity in the streets. In the evening we saw a marching band and giants (who swirl round and round to make their arms swing). On the main plaza was another band. As we strolled around we noticed a nice restaurant with a little patio and decided to have a drink there. Just pure luck, they had a good choice of beer and Thomas had to choose between Duvel, Leffe, Red or Blue Chimay and Chouffe. (He went for the Chouffe). We were sitting at the bar and ended striking a conversation with our neighbour, a local artist, who laughed very much when we told him we had just stumbled upon the place. He told us this restaurant was something of an institution in Oaxaca! Nevertheless he gave the address of another local restaurant where he goes when he's "short on money". We tried it out and yum yum!