20th December

Mikey seems to have recovered and was up for some breakfast followed by market and ruins action. We met the girls, Beth and Jackie, and headed off to the stalls. The markets, both indoor and out, are great in Oaxaca. The girls bought some trinkets and I had to steer Mikey away from the leather hat shop for fear he would like like someone out of the Village People. We had lunch - chorizo, beans and tortillas for me; stuffed chillis for the girls and Mikey had 2 meals because he confused the waitress. The juices the others had looked amazing - pints and freshly squeezed. In the afternoon we headed for the ruins of Monte Albán. I persuaded the others to take public transport as it was cheaper and I needed some space away from Oirish. 38 pesos got us to the top of the mountian. The main differences between today's and yesterday's ruins are the fact that as the name suggests Monte Albán is built on the mountain overlooking the city. The views from the main pyramid were amazing. We took many photos, with some action ones on timer. The heat was relentless but I managed to keep the girls' enthusiasm going with promises of ice-cream while not trying to sound like a perv.

Our return ticket got us back to the centre about 5.30. Mikey went off to pick up his vomit-free laundry and Jackie, Beth and I had a snack in the square. Had my first tamale since Tupiza and a cup of hot chocolate. We batted many a street-seller away and then made our way to the hotel to join the others.

We are off on a 12 hour night bus to San Cristóbal tonight so made sure the snacks were a-plenty and contact lenses out. My glasses are in seriously bad shape and I look such a slob now when I wear them. The bus station looked more like a car showroom than a terminal, spent the final 30 mins before the off watching a chocolate making demo in one of the shops.

Mikey and I managed to secure a seat well away from any Irish and as the film was a badly dubbed Indian spectacular we all dropped off to sleep pretty much straight away.

The coach had a pit stop after 8 hours, had coffee with evaporated milk (yuk) and listened to tales of woe and discomfort from Hilary.