3/11- Woke up and realized that we’d lost our bathing suits on the bus the day before, coming back from Hierve de Agua. This happened because the bathrooms in two different bus stations along the way were out of service, and I was too polite (or uptight) to just piss in public. Sure wish I had, because by the time we got back to Oaxaca I thought my bladder was going to rupture. I had chugged an entire liter of water from my Nalgene in order to make room for the mezcal we bought, which didn’t help... Staggered off the bus, barely able to stand, and begged the first restaurant I saw to let me use the bathroom. The girl saw how distressed I was, and let me go. “Mil gracias,” I gasped as I staggered out past the giggling girl after a five-minute piss. Anyway, the upshot of that whole thing was that as I tried to leave the bus without publicly soiling myself, my swimsuit was the last thing on my mind and I left it on the luggage rack. Maryse was likewise occupied with my dilemma, (as I kept bitching loudly about how I was going to die) and so she forgot about our suits as well.
We decided to spend our day running around Oaxaca on a treasure hunt for swimsuits, Imodium A-D and moist towlettes. The latter two items were the last remaining “travel essentials” we’d so far failed to find. We went first to the market and had an insipid and expensive cup of coffee at some pretentious place fronting the beautiful main plaza, and watched the market meet the day.
The night before, we saw a sign on a closed building that said “Museo de Mezcal” so we went back that day to check it out. Wasn’t a museum at all, but a mezcal vendor. In any case, we talked to the rather pickled Quebecoise proprietoress of the “museo” who had been in Mexico so long she’d forgotten how to speak French. Her idea of heaven was Añejo, and lots of it. She showed us the process her fabrica used, which was pretty much a large-scale version of the one we’d seen the day before, while plying us with samples of the various mezcals and fruity mezcal liqueurs sold there. Most of them were sickly-sweet and awful, but the Mango was good, so we bought a bottle and went on our now slightly buzzed way. This apparently alerted the god Mezcalito to our presence, so everywhere we went we were summoned into shops to do endless shots of their various potions. We ended up buying several more little cordials, of course...
Asking directions all over, and inevitably recieving conflicting directions from everyone, we generally hiked all over Oaxaca in search of swimsuits, moist towlettes, and Imodium. It became like a little idee fixe, a mantra for us. We found none of the above, but saw lots of interesting scenery, buildings, the market, the square, met people, and generally had a good time. I noticed that you could usually spot the Americans not only by their frequent disgusting obesity and Disneyland T-shirts, but by their constant looks of unhappiness and depression. I also started laughing at all the gringos who spent their time with their noses buried in guidebooks, oblivious to the actual experience occurring all around them. Every time we’d see one of them, we’d generally ridicule them for a while, feeling very superior. Of course we were able to do this only because we had hours of wandering at our leisure, unable to find what we wanted... Two sides to every coin.
Eventually, we got hungry, just as we were walking past a mariscos place. Went in and ordered a “Vuelve a la Vida,” (Return to Life) lemonade, and a cerveza con limon. The beer showed up ten minutes later, accompanied by half a glass of fresh-squeezed lime juice over ice! Damn, I just wanted a slice... Poured half the juice into Maryse’s lemonade, poured the beer into the remaining juice... What the hell? It was pretty good, actually. The Vuelve a la Vida was incredible. Giant cocktail of octopus, oysters, conch, pescado, camarones, and who knows what else, with tomato juice and lots of avocado. Delicious!
Properly revitalized, we continued on our futile search. Giving up the idea of finding a swimsuit in Oaxaca as impossible, we went in search of the pharmacy Maryse thought she remembered from the day before, which was fifteen blocks away. It turned out to be a tire store (!?) and I was getting cranky. Just before I got truly pissy (or maybe a little after) a Farmacia Ahorra hove into sight. At long last, we bought the coveted moist towlettes and Imodium, and returned to our hostel well satisfied.
Packed up our goodies, walked the 15 blocks to the bus terminal, and bought tickets for the next bus to San Cristobal de las Casas. As luck would have it, the Swiss folks were next to us in “line” (cluster, actually) waiting for the chariot. For some odd reason, they seemed a little cold. Asked if they were staying at Magic Hostal II in San Cristobal, (where we had made a reservation because of the intelligent marketing technique at MH I of offering us a discout if we paid upfront) and got an adamant “No!” from the Swiss guy. Sorry, damn... Eventually they warmed up a bit, but not a lot. Well, I’d probably be cranky if they walked through my room, too. Boarded the bus, watched a couple movies, and faded out into uncomfortable sleep.