We repacked the rucksacks again, checked out of hotel, had breakfast in the Zocalo, then we had our final day in Oaxaca to look around before catching the bus to San Cristobal in the evening. The Australian girl yesterday had mentioned the Santo Domingo Cultural Centre was good so we headed there.

The centre is housed in a former monastery and is attached to the Inglesia de Santo Domingo. Outside of the church there was some sort of festival going on, with large papier-mache characters dancing around to loud music, together with women with what appeared to be baskets of fruit on their heads dancing, there was also somebody setting firecrackers off every so often. We stood and watched for a while, then they started throwing sweets out to the crowd, not sure what the significance of all this was!

We then looked inside the church which was very impressive, lots of gold everywhere. After the church we entered the Cultural Centre which is comprised of a museum, botanical garden and library. After looking briefly in the library we wandered around the temporary exhibition of Mayan art then around the rest of the museum which was mainly pre-Columbian but there was also a good selection of Colonial pieces. The building was very impressive, mainly constructed of white stone with some excellent internal courtyards and some huge open windows.

We bought some postcards in the shop and wrote them out in a small cafe nearby before heading to the post office to post them. I then went for a haircut whilst Katerina went to use the internet. The barber spoke no English so I just indicate with a scissor movement with my fingers near my head to indicate I wanted a haircut, he seemed to understand and proceeded to cut my hair!

Afterwards we went for dinner at a place called the Cathedral restaurant, which was a very nice place but we were the only ones in there. We both had chile rellenos, which were excellent. We then had some time to spare before catching the bus so we wandered around town some more before heading back to the hotel to catch a taxi to the bus station.

We arrived at the bus station and boarded the bus, the two Australian girls from the trip yesterday were also on our bus. It was a very nice bus, big seats which reclined quite far back, and a toilet and refreshments at the rear.

At 8pm, as the bus headed out of Oaxaca, the video started and it was Sleepless in Seattle which was a pretty bad movie but OK to waste a couple of hours. We then sporadically slept for the rest of the uneventful journey, although it was not too easy as there were speed bumps on most of the roads, even the main highways, and the road twisted and turned constantly as it headed over the mountains.

San Cristobal del las Casas 1