Have Shoes, Will Travel

With fresh bouncy sneakers on his feet, what else is a boy going to do but walk? There’s a big stairwell in Oaxaca that takes you to the top of a hill for a panoramic view. It even has a name. I read about it years ago in a guide book but I can’t remember it and I couldn’t be bothered to look it up.
If you can see the bandstand high on the hill, just head towards it. That’s what I did, on a general sense of direction, turning right and left here and there,

taking in some old colonial style streets I’d never seen before.

This is where it begins.



Head on up until you come to the mouth of a tunnel. Don’t be afraid. Go on in and don’t let the graffiti put you off. The area is watched over fairly carefully and kept as clean and safe as possible.







Some views of the town? These pictures blow up very nicely if you want to save them.




A sidewalk runs for miles with regular exit trails. I have no idea how far it goes. Maybe as far as Monte Alban.







Back at the hotel, I took a novel to the table outside my room where the light was better. I might have read two sentences before a 5 year old boy, whose grandmother worked the front desk and whose mother ran a little jewelery kiosk, came over to entertain me. I’d met him the day before dressed as his alter ego, Batman, helping his grandmother out by collecting keys from guests. I recognized him right away, even without the cape and mask. I thought he might go away when he saw the book didn’t have any pictures. When you’re a bored little boy spending the day in a hotel lobby, anything can be a game. He pointed out the words he recognized: “the” “an”... We ended up having an English/ Spanish lesson until it got dark and I went back to the room to settle in . There was a knock at my window. My buddy’s grandmother passed in a plate of dessert.