Our home away from home, Casa Arnel, had a glorious open courtyard filled with dense foliage and, less popularly, five or six parrots who liked to start squawking early in the morning. But we couldn’t stay too irritable. The street noise early in the morning was enough to drown them out. The monger is a type alive and well in Mexico. Had we wanted, we could have purchased five gallon jugs of purified water, tours of the city, acetylene, various unnamed hot bevereges kept hot by burning some noxious petroleum byproduct, you name it. We knew this because people drove up and down the street with bullhorns attached to their cars, trucks, or carts, blaring repetitive recordings. "AH-OOOOOOOO-GAH! Come see Oaxaca!" "Agua! Agua Fria!" At 6:00 or 7:00 am, this was, um, less than welcome. Comparatively, the squawking parrots were nothing.

It was at Casa Arnel that I recuperated from my illness by alternately sleeping and reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which I found in their borrowing library. Benjamin Franklin, in case you didn’t know, started the first public library in the colonies. He truly was a remarkable man.

For any budget travellers considering a trip to Oaxaca, I highly recommend Casa Arnel.