We have spent our first week getting to know Oaxaca. We are staying in San Felipe which is a lovely area, popular with expats. We’ve tried out the local Indian restaurant(!) and looked at the local church.
On Sundays loads of fun activities come to the Parque Lleno in the neighbouring Reforma area. Olive loved it, painting, riding car, trampoline and sliding down a massive inflatable bouncy slide.
The view from our apartment is lovely at sunset as is the view from Olive’s school.
We said our fairwells to Charl and Nev as they headed on to Costa Rica - thanks for setting us up brilliantly for our adventures. Then we flew across to stay in an apartment in Oaxaca and let Olive start in her school...
We went on a day trip to the impressive Chichén Itzá which has been one of the new wonders of the world since 2007. There was a lot of stuff about human sacrifices which the Mayans regarded as an honour. The prize for the winners of the traditional ball game was to be beheaded and families aspired for their babies to be born on the equinoxes so that their child could be bought up and prepared to be sacrificed by having their heart ripped out and offered up to the gods.
We also went swimming in a couple of Cenotes which are big pools of fresh water formed deep in rock caves, awesome! Olive swam in both Cenotes which was super brave. It was Charl’s birthday and she went on a zip-line course as well which looked too scary for me.
We carried on to Tulum which was better than the guidebooks said! The ruins were fun and there were some good bars and food in town.
Olive enjoyed having her hair cut stood up for 70 pesos (£2.50).
Selina’s sister Charl and partner Nev are travelling around on their sabbatical and joined us for our first week. We relaxed in an all inclusive in Playa del Carmen for a few days. The hotel and food were lovely. I loved the sunrise on the first morning and Olive was the envy of the other kids with her swim setup! We also had Japanese tempanyaki which was new to me - lots of knife throwing and rice being thrown into our mouths as the chef cooked up a treat in front of us.
Having welcomed Baby Boo (aka Phoenix) into the Gibb clan back in June and Selina having agreed extended leave, But we have been waiting for our moment to pounce and go on some more adventures, Covid restrictions dependent.
First stop - Mexico. We went to Mexico 12 years ago and to be honest didn’t love it. However they were one of the countries who would take us and not on the red list when we booked flights, though the red list did go just before we left! We are still hoping to make it to New Zealand if they open their borders...
So the plan is to spend a week or so around Quintana Roo and Yucatan and then head for an extended spell in Oaxaca where we have lined up a Montessori school for Olive to attend for a couple of months.
