Day 2! Petrified waterfalls! Textiles! Mezcal!
We started today with a lovely little saunter around the corner to a tiny independent coffee shop called The Oaxaca Coffee Company. It was really cool, and the two women there serving were jolly friendly, thrusting free chocolate samples our way, and smiling lots. This gave me a bit more confidence to converse in Spanish...ordering Andrew's mocha was a walk in the park, naturally, but I did somehow end up with a cucumber, lemon and lettuce smoothie. I had hoped for a mango one. Oh well! It was v refreshing...

After our salad bowl-inspired breakfast, we went back to the hotel to start our tour of some local sights and met our tour guide. We were bundled into a minibus with 8 Latinas for our day-long trip, and our bilingual guide was impeccable. First stop: the Tree at El Tule! The widest tree in the world, and over 2000 years old. On paper this doesn't sound that impressive, but it was quite a sight. Our guide told us all kinds of interesting facts about it - I can't remember any of them! But it was a bloody big tree.

Next up: the petrified waterfall! After an hour's drive through the Sierra Madre (which was AMAZING - Andrew was playing Plants vs Zombies on his phone, but I appreciated it...) we arrived in the middle of f***ing nowhere at the Hierve el Agua. It looks like a frozen waterfall, but is actually a huge collection of stalactites, and there are also some pools you could swim in from the natural spring at the top. This is all in the middle of the mountains, so the setting was just beautiful. We paddled around there for an hour, and after a quick quesadilla snackette, washed down with my first beer of the honeymoon (wahoo!), we were told to be back on the bus at 1:30 SHARP.

We left at ten to two for our next destination: the archeological site at Mitla. This was a very impressive restoration project of some ancient Zapotec buildings, and we had an extensive tour in the blistering sunshine. It really was bloody hot...There was more to it, but I feel I've rambled on quite a long time already!

Next stop: traditional weavers village!
We met a Zapotec guy who gave us a weaving demo of traditional textile techniques. Now, as you may know I'm not really into my crafts, but this was fascinating, especially his natural dyeing techniques, using things like pecan shells for browns, indigo for blues, cochineal for reds (!), etc. he was great! Cue another massive thunderstorm (I mean it, like, REALLY pissed it down) and we all ran back to the van for our final stop of the day:

A mezcal distillery! I'm sure most of you may have done, but I'd never heard of mezcal before. It's Mexico's national drink, of which tequila is a variety, and it's really bloody strong. The distillery itself smelled rank, but the mezcal tasted good and smoky. Top tip: have orange with your tequila, not lemon! We tried LOADS of varieties, and then Andrew ate a GRASSHOPPER! Gross. He had to pull the legs off, and everything. I declined.

Right, that's it for today! More ramblings tomorrow!