My Nomad Diary, Week 8: We’re In Business
Moments from the week:
Deciding on what I’m doing for the next four weceks, including climbing an active volcano!
Finishing my marketing website
Exploring the wider state of Oaxaca
What I’m reading this week:
Finally back on this, such a fantastic read: The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel
Welcome to week 8 my favourite little reader, yes, I’m talking to you!
It’s a new week in Oaxaca and I’ve extended my stay for another 10 days to take me to just shy of three weeks here, I love this little city.
For my first day of the week, I’m having a slow day, I have my usual errands; laundry, a Spanish lesson and I need to start packing as I move out of this hostel tomorrow.
Later in the afternoon I headed to a museum called MUFI which is a philatelic museum, and as boring as that might sound, I loved every moment of it! There are vintage Volkswagen Beetles everywhere in Mexico, endearingly referred to as Bochitos, and there is one in the MUFI museum, completely covered in stamps.
Afterwards I headed for a meal and watched as my friend ate crickets in front of me (“chapulines”), still not sure how I feel about that.
Although, we will all be eating crickets one day, so I should probably get a head start, right?
Tuesday and it’s moving day… I think I’ve managed to strike a good balance on the road, you know? Up to a week in a hostel to socialise and go on little walking tours and then a week in an Airbnb to detox and put in a good old fashioned 35-hour week. It’s probably quite a lot of moving around for the average nomad, but, at the moment, it’s absolutely perfect for me. Besides, when it isn’t, I’ll adapt, that’s the point.
My bags are packed and I’m headed to my new Airbnb. I’m leaving the touristy Centro Histórico of Oaxaca and heading 5 minutes up the road to another neighbourhood in Oaxaca called Reforma. I love actually living in proper local neighbourhoods, everything is more calm, quaint, authentic and it’s cheaper too.
Once I was settled in, I finally finished my website for my marketing consultancy and I’ve now sent it off to my expert copywriter Catharine to give her two cents on my copy. I know I’m a good copywriter but she’s the best in the business and it’s helpful to have somebody mark my homework, so to speak. Additionally, I’ve sent it off for QA testing to ensure the responsive framework is OK and it works across devices. Can’t really sell website services if mine is a bag of sh*t, can I?
All in all, a productive day and looking forward to the rest of the week.
Happy hump day. I’m knuckling down today and catching up on some content for this website, I’ve expanded my trip report for Valencia with a bit of extra detail and I’ve made a start on my Mexico City trip report too, I expect I should have that finished tomorrow and then I’ll make a start on developing my photos from there and also from Oaxaca. I’ve been giving a lot of thought today about where to go next and I’m torn between hopping on a flight straight to the gulf of México (likely my final destination in Mexico) or if I continue with overlanding, although it will take a few days as it’s about 30h and I’ll want breaks in-between. I have a deadline on this “trip” of about May and I also would like to be in Guatemala for Christmas, so I need to be conscious with my time. I’ll dedicate some time to this tomorrow and get it figured out.
Thursday and I had a proper full focused day of work; I received my copy feedback from Catharine and she had some fantastic points, so I made some minor tweaks, in addition I received my QA test report back and had some responsive fixes to make and we’re all done and dusted. I think I’ll launch on Monday as I have a few more bits to do and then we should be good to go!
Towards the end of the day I started planning my next major moves and it really started giving me a lot of anxiety… airports, crossing borders, long bus rides, all of it makes me panic so much. I probably shouldn’t travel, right? But for a moment of discomfort, it’s worth it. I won’t go into detail about what I’m doing just yet as I don’t like people knowing what I’m doing in real-time, or worse, before I’ve done it, so I’ll cover it in future posts, but it’s all very exciting stuff!
Wrapping up the day, I went for dinner at a nice restaurant with a friend, main course and drinks for two people including a tip… £18 🤯
Heading into the weekend and it’s Friday, so I’m knuckling down and getting a serious shift in today; finishing the website, preparing the LinkedIn announcement, finishing up my trip report for México City and planning an action-packed weekend in Oaxaca. I’ve also finally committed ahead and have sorted the next four weeks of my travels in México and Central America… more on that soon!
Heading into the weekend and I have an exciting couple of touristy days with my friend and I’m playing passenger princess all weekend 💅 on Saturday we headed to Santa María del Tule, which is home to a 2,000 year old Montezuma cypress tree, El Arbol del Tule. It’s one of the oldest and largest trees in the world and with a circumference of 42 metres, it’s the widest.
On Sunday we headed to San Martín Tilcajete, which is famous for its alibrijes, and the crown jewel is the workshop of Jacobo and Maria Angeles, whom has worked with the likes of Birkenstock, Adidas and the Rockefeller Centre, plus the art was a huge inspiration behind Pixar’s Coco.
An amazing day overall and a highly recommended day out if you’re ever in the area.
Same time, same place, next week – goodbye for now!
