Mexico through the eyes of an Aussie: Part 2, Oaxaca, Chiapas and the Yucatan
- Claire Ottaviano
- May 7, 2017
- 10 min read
In Mexico City the things that surprised me the most were the kindness of strangers and the accessibility of tourist attractions. Free bikes and a bustling Sunday vibe added to the community feeling in Mexico City while cheap food and accommodation were draw cards for budget travellers like us.
As we continued south to Oaxaca the feeling continued but with some added difficulties in transport.
In Part 2 I will share our experiences with the ADO buses as well as alternative transport to tourist attractions and our perspectives of the States of Chiapas and the Yucatan region.
** all amounts are in MXN unless otherwise stated.**
Approximate exchange rates
$1AUD = $13MXN.
$1US = $19MXN.
€1EUR = $20MXN
ADO buses
Firstly buying the bus tickets can only be done at the bus station unless you are Mexican with a Mexican credit card, and even then they don’t work as we borrowed our hosts to book online and it wasn’t accepted.
Getting your ticket early is a plus as early bird tickets are up to half price. (Our Australian credit cards worked every time from the bus station).
We got around Mexico using ADO buses of which there are four levels.
OCC
ADO
ADOgl
ADO premium
OCC and ADO pretty much go hand in hand, they’re the cheapest option but are much more comfortable than the American Greyhound line or any other bus line we took through Europe (FlixBux, EuroBus etc). This was surprising actually, that the Mexico buses trumped those in America or Europe.
We took ADO from Mexico City to Oaxaca and luckily scored a “ADO Nuevo 2016”, a newer model bus with added cup holders and foot rest. The tickets cost $316 pesos. There are TV’s positioned above every four or five seats and the audio plays freely throughout the bus (in Spanish of course).
When we got to Oaxaca we booked our exiting ticket to San Cristobal four days in advance and upgraded to an ADOgl for about 100 pesos more than the OCC would have cost us. About $460 pesos.
The ADOgl has some added advantages to regular ADO, the seats are the same in size but they recline a lot more and generally operate at night for this reason. I had a very comfortable sleep although Mark did not as our bags were too big to fit in the overhead and reduced our feet space to pretty much nil.
The gl has male and female toilets (and the girls remained clean the entire 15 hour journey) as well as a drinks station at the back with hot water for tea and coffee, although I didn’t try it out as the roads were so bumpy I thought I’d lose half the contents getting back to my seat. The gl has better blinds, linking to the front of the bus behind the drivers to provide almost full blackout.
The biggest advantage is the inclusion of an audio jack in each seat so that you can chose weather or not to listen to the movies playing, mine was broken so it didn’t work but I slept most of the overnight bus trip anyway.
From Palenque to Merida we booked a regular ADO with seats behind the driver for extra leg room. We could only book the day before and therefore got no discount and slugged $600 pesos for the 8-hour bus trip.
The conveniences of the gl bus don’t really matter during the day when you’re not trying to sleep but I was happy to be in the gl after our ten-hour journey had to detour 5 hours around some sort of “revolution”... apparently, it’s a common occurrence in Mexico.
Note: The four levels of buses aren’t always available. Most of the time it was only OCC or ADO, we only saw the gl option once and never a premium.
Tours, local buses and alternative transport
Getting between cities is convenient but getting to tourist and historical locations is quite the opposite. You either have to take a tour or drive OR take a camiones or collective (shared transport).
We have self-driven France, on the Autobarn in Germany (where there is no speed limit), in an RV across seven of the United States, in our trusty jeep pulling a 19ft travel trailer, through a winter in Canada and on icy roads in Iceland, but we did not want to drive in Mexico which left us with limited options to get around.
Getting to Heirve de Agua on a colectivo.
A tour to Heirve de Agua was going to cost $250 plus $120 for all entry fees and another $150 for lunch. $520 pesos is only about $45 AUD (x 2 = $90AUD) and may not seem a lot for a tourist but to a backpacker it is.
Most disappointingly the tour only spent 45 minutes at Hierve de Agua! The tours also go to Mitla (another ruin) and the world’s biggest tree (in width). The only way to go straight to Hierve de Agua was with a private tour costing around $1500 pesos each.
Instead we chose to take a public bus to Mitla for $40pp return and a collectivo to the falls for $50 ($200 return). You can also take a taxi from Mitla for $200 each way.
We spent a lot of time deliberating on the safety of the colectivo, we read every trip advisor post and online help forum we could and they all advised to the safety of the trucks. On the other hand many advised against taking taxis as they sped around tight corners in a race to get up the mountains and return for more passengers.
Because the cambiones took the dirt road up the mountain and not the main road (to avoid an extra toll fee) they had to drive really slow and steady over roads and uneven surfaces.
We ended up spending two hours at the petrified waterfalls.
Getting to Agua Azul on a tour
Agua Azul, Blue Water, is a beautiful place but not easily accessible. It is in between San Cristobal and Palenque in the middle of the jungle and requires tour or car to get there. The ADO bus that goes straight to Palenque was about $300 and the tour was $450 including including entry into both tourist stops (we took our own breakfast and lunch) so we figured the extra cost a good price to be able to see Agua Azul.
It was the ride from hell.
We drew the short straw and got stuck in the back corner of the van. They said there was space for our bags, which there was not and they spend the first half of the trip on our laps. There were 14 seats in the bus, including two up front next to the driver and four tight spaces on the very back seat. The closer to the front the better but in the back there was no room at all and we had 7 hours on bumpy roads ahead of us.
To add to this wonderful experience, I was travelling with a head cold and suffered a blocked nose and headache for most of the trip.
The aircon remained off for the first half and we were sleep deprived from a 3am start but were denied sleep due to the condition of the road and our driver’s haphazard acceleration and breaking over speed bumps, pot holes and in general dodgy roads of the jungle.
We got an hour and a half at Agua Azul which was enough to walk the rivers and falls and have a quick reliving dip in the cool waters.
Here are the photos, was it worth it? I think it was.
Palenque
We had a generous two hours here but we still found ourselves rushed for time as it’s such a big site. I wish we could say we explored the jungle around the town that night but as tired and sick as I was feeling it was all we could do to make it to our budget hotel room and crash.
Local buses to Chichen Itza
We also took a local bus (ADO one way and local back) from Merida to Chicken Itza.
We left Merida on the earliest ADO bus at 6.30am to make it to Chichen Itza for opening at 8am. Traffic delayed us by another half an hour and we arrived after 8.30am. We have another one hour before the place became a zoo as the tour buses arrived.
The local bus back took an hour more and we did have to wait in the sun for an hour for it to come, but it was safe, clean and comfortable, I slept most of the way back to Merida.
ACCOMMODATION
We used Airbnb in every City but Palenque.
Mexico City: the Airbnb cost $410AUD for 15 nights ($13 pp/pn). It was a shared apartment however the owner was away and we had the place to ourselves for two weeks. It was quite large for City standards with kitchen and bathroom and it has a large bedroom simply decorated and very comfortable.
Oaxaca: two nights about $50AUD total (shared but the owner was almost never there) and then we were lucky to stay with a friend for another two nights in a very nice apartment.
San Cristobal: Another steal at around $30AUD a night. A room and shared bathroom in a place above a café. Right in the centre of town but in an off street and nice and quiet. We had use of the kitchen and made ourselves a dinner and lunch the next day for our trip to Palenque. Food was so cheap we ate out mostly.
Merida: $30AUD a night a large room in a house with a private bathroom that was more like a hotel, really friendly host and we got free breakfast included. We didn’t have use of the kitchen but will breakfast and crazy cheap food in Merida it was no problem – added with sickness and the inability to eat we didn’t use the kitchen apart from the kettle for some two minute noodles.
If you would like to know where we stayed send me a message!
THE FOOD
A highlight! My god. the food. Finally I can comment on the food, usually we never eat in restaurants unless in the company of others but we were sent a monetary gift from my Aunty who lived in Oaxaca and wanted us to enjoy the food that she did. It was such a great gift because the food in Oaxaca really is something to try. We are not artisans or lovers of fine dining but appreciated what Oaxaca had to offer.
We arrived on Easter Saturday and the night was alive with festivities. We just wanted a quick bite and stopped at a street vendor this night and I was introduced to Tameles, miniature pizza like finger food with black beans and string cheese.
On Easter Sunday we met with my Aunty’s friend who still lived in Oaxaca and his friend, they took us to a very traditional Oaxacan lunch. It was a stinking hot day as we entered inside the Mercado 20 de Noviembre, or boiler, I’m not sure which because it was even hotter inside than out. We let the locals decided and we found a seat on a long table with other Oaxacans.
You choose the meat you want, they cook it, and bring it to your table and you order extras like tortillas, guacamole and salsas.
The next night we went to Casa Oaxaca and had four tapas like entrées for $7.50 each and four drinks and the bill came to only $500, or $36AUD.
Another meal at Praga, on Jazz night, we had beautifully cooked salmon on rice and chicken with vegetables for only $20AUD.
Our last meal we decided to go all out.
The next day we saved ourselves all day only eating oats in the morning to have a late lunch before getting our 10-hour bus to San Cristobal.
We went to La Hostería de Alcalá for the three-course special and drinks for $195 but we ended up ordering a Oaxacana Plato for two, entrees each, sparkling water and wine and the bill only came to $550! Again only about $36AUD.
As much as we tried we only spent 2/3 of what my aunty sent us and we ate like kings (to backpackers anyway).
In San Cristobal the food was even cheaper. For one lunch we had a freshly cooked vegetable sandwiche and a BLT for only $35 and $45. Then we had breakfast with eggs Mexicana, bread with jam, fruit and tea and coffee for only $55 each.
I would highly recommend eating at Madre Tierra (Mother Earth)
Merida was also great for food, not counting that something made me sick and I’ve had to make very intimate relationships with several toilets across Mexico, Cuba and our cruise cabin.
SAFETY
Very safe. We’re alive right? But we did see some things that raised eyebrows.
Just outside Oaxaca we drove past two burnt out buses and several cars on the middle of the road. When we asked our friend living in Oaxaca he said that they were some remnants of some revolution some months ago. He also said it his 12 years in Oaxaca there has been several revolutions where at times there remained a lawlessness in the City where neighbourhoods would band to together to protect themselves from thieves and other violence.
We heard of more current instances from another Mexican on the bus to Palenque. He said towns in the south would also go above the law to deliver punishments to thieves and law breakers if they did not agree with the police outcome.
THE NEGATIVE
Rubbish. Everywhere. No matter where you’ll go you’ll be confronted with rubbish. It’s bad in the centre of cities but the outskirts become dumping grounds. In Europe cats roam the streets but in Mexico dogs hold the majority of unwanted animals.
Our Airbnb host in Mexico City warned us that the tourist attractions we would see would be littered with rubbish. In her words, the locals don’t care about the environment. She said they have no concern for their national parks and she’d seen Mexicans throwing plastic bottles and rubbish flippantly off the sides of boats and into nature. We also saw it happening with our own eyes.
TOURISTS
As travellers we hate being categorised as tourists, especially American tourists. The locals think you have loads of money and that you should spend it lavishly in their town.
As the only way to get to most of the tourist sites we saw was by tour it meant we became 'tourists' and were treated like them.
I thought this part of Mexico would be remote, isolated, untouched. Instead we found it crawling with people and cameras and we were constantly touted at by venders at every stop.
Chiapas and the Yucatan are tourist central, don't expect to ever have a place to yourself, going early ensures some serenity but it doesn't last long ones the tour buses arrive.
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