Mexique

Monte Alban, Oaxaca

Sunday, 13 February 2011

Oaxaca is pronounced in Spanish oiraca. This historic site is Mixtec.

They got chased out by the Spanish and Zapotec later settled by decorating with the "style" Zapothèque. The Mixtec and Zapotec are Maya. They are the builders of the temple Monte Alban (White Mountain).

A bit of nostalgia ...

Saturday, 12 February 2011

Pan & Co, a good place in Oaxaca, coffee and baking. There are all kinds of breads and pastries comforts of home.

We became suspicious about the croissants and other pastries made from local butter. They are found everywhere, in the panaderia. They are made of mantequilla (and not from the burro, hey hey Loic, we learned the lesson ;-)), butter or margarine, we do not know too much, frankly taste rancid. And we do not like that at all, besides they can no longer be fooled by their deceptive appearances ...

So here we are sitting around two espresso, children around who drool over the baskets of croissants and chocolate breads. They have a pretty face, smell good and we try to leave well ... few minutes later, the ecstasy. The breads are delicious, flaky and perfect taste!

While savoring the memories back, everyone's needs ...

... one starts filled with all these dreams, a whole-grain bread under their arms and promise to take pleasure in returning.

Nooooooooooo nooooooooo, we do not eat badly in the Americas, we eat differently!

MC

A year older

Saturday, 12 February 2011

Tonight we go! Attracted by the music, we stop at Entropia, a bar restaurant that just opened and that makes his inauguration. It's held by French that we met a few days ago, .

For the occasion, a clown entertains children (and adults), and a group of musicos (French) leads the evening: strings, guitars and crazy tavern, pickup Têtes Raides and Latin groove.

Cóctel Punch de la casa, Botan snacks. We spend a pleasant evening in honor of the anniversary of Jean-Roch.

... And a Happy Birthday also to Denis and Oscar!

Heading center

Tuesday, 01 February 2011

After the Pacific beaches, direction the central mountains. When leaving the coast, it rises. Here, no plains. This time we travel by day on a bus where the driver rolls quietly. Night comes quickly, we have the stress of another time, when we traveled with bike: we make haste to install the camp ... but now, at 19h, in town, there's always light, and can quickly find something to eat and sleep!

Mexican Pacifique coast

Thursday, 13 January 2011

That each his backpack, we reach the bus station in San Diego, escorted by the local and French family.

Hy my school's friends

Monday, 10 January 2011

hola!

I saw the picture on the school website, I was pleased to see you all.

I hope the Christmas holidays went well.

Now I'm in Mexico. We bought backpacks to finish our trip to America. We leaved the bike in San Diego and we'll took them in Marseille to go back to Saint Egrève next summer.
Is that everything is going well in class?

Adios amigos

Thomas

a history of barter

Tuesday, 04 January 2011

And so, we've set off again after two weeks' rest in San Diego.

The last few months have been hard. So hard that we've talked it over and decided to carry on south - but without the bikes.

After 6000 km, we have swapped our bikes for rucKsacks and we are travelling as much as possible by bus.

It wasn't an easy decision to make because, truthfully, we hadn't lost our enthusiasm for pedalling. What we had lost was time. There just wasn't time to manage the CNED course with all the rest: the days of riding, of resting and of visiting.

Thinking about it now, the CNED correspondence course was a bad choice: it didn't suit the way we were travelling. It would have been easier to take the children out of school and teach them ourselves.

Our journey starts again in another way, therefore. We will still discover the Americas but with a lot less time on the road. We will stay most of the time at hostels or with local people, thanks to networks of friends or travellers' contacts. That will give us time and
better conditions for the children to work, we hope.

We now have to rethink our route because, now that we're travelling faster, the seasons will no longer match, especially in South America. The one thing we know for sure is that the next country will be Mexico!

We're thinking of coming home to Saint-Egrève before the start of the new school year. We will do it by bike. We all want that. We'll spend the summer touring France and our equipment is already on a ship heading for Marseille.

So, a new year and a new start.

We wish you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.

MC+JR+J+M+T+M

Translated from the french by Léo