Oaxaca's downtown pedestrian street, the Alcala.

Day 2: Amby got up early for a 70 minute run-walk. All uphill on the way out, up the escalaras (stairs) to the Observatory atop a nearby mount. Once there, he found a nice gravel road, but it continued climbing when he thought it might wind more or less flat along the hillside ridges. 40 minutes out, 30 back.

After breakfast, we both joined a gym a block from our hotel. It's a weird but expansive place that looks like it was once a garage-auto shop. Has just enough equipment to be useful to us, especially several recumbent bikes where Amby will be spending a lot of time.

Then we went to the English Library to sign up and get reservations to the 5 pm movie, The Girl. After a brief tour of the local market, Amby returned to the Terrace of the Library to work on a book proposal. Cristina stayed in the market to buy a few things--a shirt, a purse, a wallet.

The movie at 5 pm was quite good, with lots of quiet desperation and sadness. A major theme was timely--Mexicans paying for often tragic border crossing attempts. It ended happily when a young Mexican girl was returned to her grandmother's house in the hills outside Oaxaca.

We had another lovely Mexican restaurant meal with Jackie and John Hastings, this evening at a slightly upscale place near the Santo Domingo cathedral. Dinner for two, with three drinks, was about $25.