Taxi

Went into town to make use of the hop-on hop-off tourist bus they operate here that loops round the main sights of the Valley. It slowly became apparent that it wasn’t running, though opinions differed about whether it had broken down, didn’t run on Sundays, couldn’t be bothered or had just taken a cut from the town’s taxi drivers to stay home instead. By this point we’d priced up some taxi options and managed to befriend a girl from France and a couple from Germany so we discussed itineraries and ended up sharing with the French girl for a ride out to the Cueva San Tomas and the Mural of Prehistory. What we didn’t realise until we rounded the corner was that our ‘taxi’ was more of the tuk-tuk variety (oh, how the other drivers laughed when they saw our faces…!) but actually it was a lot of fun – if a little bouncy… Unfortunately I had a dizzy spell having scrambled up a mountainside to the cave – I’m blaming the immodium I’d taken previously – and sat out the tour. The mural was worth a visit though – whatever possessed Castro to suggest that one face of the mogote in an otherwise beautiful and unspoilt valley was in need of a psychedelic painted makeover is anyone’s guess but the result somehow manages to be both an offence to nature and yet also weirdly pretty cool…