- What's up amigos.
We are back at it again in Oaxaca, Mexico.
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(speaking foreign language)
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- [Jordan] For break fast we are at this cool rooftop spot
called A.M. Siempre cafe.
And you've got a small cappuccino.
- No, grande cappuccino.
Check this puppy out.
Oh, wow.
I'm gonna do one of those Italian look
it's practically as big as my head.
And I think this is my favorite cappuccino
that I've tried in all of Oaxaca
and it has some stiff competition
because Oaxaca is well known for its amazing coffee.
One of my top three favorite coffee regions in all of Mexico
- Carefree day, Maddie just can't get enough coffee.
Like she'll have coffee at home
and then go out and have another coffee
and then she'll be like,
"I wanna go to a cafe to get a coffee."
- And you know, the thing is,
it's not that I need the caffeine.
In fact, I feel like I'm vibrating to a new dimension
every day with the amount of caffeine I have,
but it's like, it's just so good.
And I wanna try as much of it as possible while we're here
because there's nothing like Oaxaca coffee.
I could just go on and on about it.
- We've had this same breakfast here before
and knew we loved it.
So we came back and ordered the same exact thing.
- Oh my gosh, this eggs Benedict.
I don't even know what they put in here
or what the sauce is,
but it's got like bacon,
eggs, parmesan cheese on top.
And of course the hollandaise sauce,
roasted tomatoes and pesto.
Oh, so good.
Its so good and then they put it
over top of tortillas de maiz,
corn tortillas since I can't have bread.
- I've gotten shit in the comments in previous videos
for coming to Oaxaca and ordering waffles.
So this time I ordered pancakes to appease those people.
(laughing)
- You're going real authentic today with this.
- Looks like you hated it.
- Yap.
Definitely not trying to get every last drop on this plate.
(laughing)
Nope.
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Well, in our last Oaxaca blog,
we had every intention of showing you
a little bit of the Xochimilco neighborhood,
well, now we have.
This restaurant in Xochimilco
and it's a neighborhood that is North of central.
It's very artsy.
Like there's lots of murals all over the walls here
and then some very pretty streets.
And you also get to see more of the AquaDuck
that also in central.
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- Now that we've been in Oaxaca for a few times,
a few different trips
we'd know a few different neighborhoods.
One is central and that's like the most historic area
the most popular area.
I would kind of describe Xochimilco
is like the artsy neighborhood.
And then we have also been in Reforma,
which I would describe
as the most high end neighborhood that we've been in.
- Yeah, it looks like a completely different city.
I mean, it's very like upscale,
a lot more modern buildings,
higher end restaurants
where you're going to be paying a pretty penny to eat,
but it is very nice clean.
Actually a lot of Oaxaca is clean,
except on this trip I've noticed.
So this is now about two years
from the first time we were ever in Oaxaca.
- Yeah.
- There is so much more graffiti.
- [Jordan] Oh my gosh, it's gotten bad.
- I mean everywhere.
And it breaks my heart because it's such a beautiful city.
But like, I mean, just from where we're standing right now
there's graffiti on this wall,
across the street.
All along this wall.
I wonder what that means about the city though.
There are a lot of political unrest,
is crime on the rise
or they're just a new generation of hooligans?
Are people bored?
Like, I don't know what is it?
I'm curious.
Maybe if you're watching and you know, let us know.
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- If ever want cheap food in Mexico.
You can always find some in Mercado.
- And we've been having the darndest time
trying to find any cheap eats here in Oaxaca
since the price have gone up so much.
Yeah, we actually got a comment recently saying
can you guys show some more affordable food in Mexico?
You're going to all these nice restaurants.
And for some reason in Oaxaca, the prices have gone up.
Like you mentioned, probably about 50%.
- In a year and a half. - In a year and a half,
which is like an explosion of inflation that I've never seen
in any other city in Mexico before.
So yeah, this is definitely the place
you gotta go in a market.
If you want those cheap eats.
We actually skipped this market though for eating breakfast
because we were a little bit worried about the proximity.
Usually you're kind served and eat in here
with lots of people next to you,
and sometimes it's closed air not open air,
but anyway this market is called Sanchez Pascuas,
I believe is the name of it.
And it's a much smaller market
than the other main one of Oaxaca.
So I enjoy coming here a lot more than that one
because it's a very overwhelming, to be honest, to be around
that many people and all the vendors
who want to sell you their things.
Here's a little bit more relaxed.
(speaking foreign language)
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So here's like the restaurant section,
where you can sit down to eat
and actually have a whole bunch of dividers,
which I was not expecting.
- So this also is more open air that I was expecting.
So I think we might have to come back here
and get some cheap grub,
like really typical Oaxacan food like tlyudas, tejate.
Good, good stuff, good stuff.
Well, it is becoming Oaxaca blog tradition
that I get hack this drink
basically in every video.
I actually didn't like it
when I first tried it here in Oaxaca,
because this stuff on top
is kind of a foamy whip cream type texture
which is not what I was expecting.
And then the flavor is somewhat earthy
but a little bit chocolaty.
So to me it seemed like an acquired taste
but it is really good at though.
- On the top it's almost gritty though, no?
- I think it just dissolves in your mouth, yeah.
And it's a really inexpensive, refreshing drink.
This is cold and it was 25 pesos
for what looks like a leader maybe
or like a three-quarters of a leader or something.
Oh, it's so good.
And I'm pretty sure this is healthy for you too.
So I like getting it for that reason as well.
For an upcoming video, we were thinking of doing this topic
a list of things that I never expected to miss
until moving to Mexico.
For instance, carpet it's so plentiful in the U.S.
At least in Arizona, where I'm from
and you come to Mexico, there's some times rugs,
but never carpet, never carpet.
I miss the heck out of carpet.
I never thought of that as like a luxury or anything.
But anyway, we have a whole list of random stuff
that we didn't expect to miss until coming to Mexico.
Let us know if that is a video you want to see.
- Coming up pretty soon,
we have to take a necessary trip to the U.S.
and it looks like there's going to be
a COVID test requirement for this time.
- As of today, it's proposed
that there's going to be something
that requires you to have a test center in the country.
- So I was looking up what we can do
about a COVID test here.
And the regular test is 250 pesos.
And then if you want an antibody test, that's 180 pesos.
- Yeah, I'm interested to know
what it would be like to get a COVID test
from like the videos and stuff I've seen.
It really gives me the heebie-jeebies
that they basically like stick a Q-tip up your nose
and stab your brain,
in order to like, get the sample or whatever.
- I hope it is not like that.
- Yeah.
- Do you guys know if there's different kinds
or are they all like stab your brain kind?
- Dog is sniffin'
and Laska is on a mission.
- He actual made a run.
We've mentioned how Oaxaca is getting really expensive
but one of the few nice restaurants left
that's still affordable is Casa Taviche.
- This might look familiar if you're getting deja VU.
It's 'cause we did go here like two years ago or so.
And it's still as good as that time.
So I'm excited to check out their menu,
they'll be changes basically every day.
Before we even order anything
they bring us out some chips and some homemade salsa.
And also some mezcal.
I don't know if this is something that everybody gets
or if we're VIP's or something like, so I said, I don't know
because we have been here before
and we've made a video here before.
So sometimes people like to throw
a little something our way, just as a little thank you.
- The last time we were here, we had two amazing desserts.
One was this thing made of tapioca,
that was kind of like arroz con leche,
but instead of rice they used tapioca.
- It's like guayaba, like a guayaba dessert.
- Yeah it was so good though.
And then they had fresh cut strawberries
and dates in there as well.
Oh, I'm really sad this time though,
since the menu is changing so much here
neither one is on the menu this time.
I was looking forward to both of them.
- Well, I guess we're gonna have to keep coming back
until we hit the magic roulette of tapioca dessert.
- So with my menu, they'll be a menu of the day.
It comes with four different things.
It comes with a soup, a main dish
A dessert and a drink.
A drink is hibiscus water,
like a agua fresca with hibiscus flavor.
And I just take the mask off.
That was almost a mistake.
Oh, and I got this drink for 70 pesos,
It's like a mezcal margarita kind of thing
with some hibiscus on it.
- It's like tejate in there.
- And it's cool.
Like there's hibiscus flower on the top.
And then this is probably ant salt or worm salt.
- It seems being in Oaxaca
and eating bugs of various kind
is very, very common here.
I've wondered what would a health violation look like,
at a Oaxacan restaurant?
Like, Oh, we found crickets in the kitchen.
No, no, those are to eat,
probably here's worms.
Nope, those are also to eat.
But what about the ants?
You've got ants everywhere yet.
Yap, we crushed those up and put salt with it
and then put it on top of our cocktails
- Lately I've been eating a lot of dishes
that are all like one color.
I love that when I come here
all the dishes are super colorful
so know I'm getting all kinds of nutrients.
And even the soup is.
And now for the main course
this is a little smaller than the last,
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extra tasty, the chicken spice really well.
- And don't mind me stuffing my face with this,
it is amazing guayaba.
- There's this popular dessert in Mexico
called arroz con leche or rice with milk,
it's way better than it sounds.
This looks like one of the fanciest I've ever seen
in addition to the normal rice
with like a creamy sugary thing.
And also has guayaba and strawberry.
Let me give it a try.
Yeah, that is good.
- Well, that was delicious like always.
I am definitely fat and happy now.
Truth be told on this trip
we're having actually kind of a hard time
knowing what we can or want to do around Oaxaca
because it is a totally different vibe
than on any of the previous trips that we've come here,
with COVID obviously like, for instance,
I really want to go see Hierve el Agua
but that's closed right now because of COVID.
We also wanted to see some of the ruins around
like Monte Alban and Mitla.
Yeah but it's limited hours,
like they're only open on the weekend
and at a very limited capacity
like only a certain number of people can go in in a day.
- A lot of you guys have been wondering
what it's like here with COVID and what's different?
Well, every restaurant you go into
they like spray you down and take your temperature
and give you hand sanitizer and things like that.
And just about every business in general does that.
And also they have foot sanitizers at the entrance,
everywhere in public requires a mask.
Although that doesn't seem to be enforced
as much as in other cities.
- At least I haven't seen anyone like police
going around talking to people.
We have seen that in other cities.
- But I say that it looks like it hasn't been,
it's not enforced because I've seen a lot of people
without masks granted in the central area.
Most people have them on, but you get...
- Expect the rebellious ones are sadly foreigners.
- I've seen Mexican too.
- But I mean, the majority of the people that I've seen
are like very obviously tourists
who just I don't know, I have mixed feelings on it.
- But we've gone up into the Hills surrounding Oaxaca
and nobody is wearing a mask up there.
No foreigners, no Mexicans like 90% of people
don't have it on.
Anyway so that's our observations here.
- We were going to cut the video off yesterday
but we got a pretty big piece of news
that we think is going to change
travel drastically in Mexico.
- Mexico is dependent on tourism from the US,
the vast majority of their tourists
come from the United States.
And this new requirement is going to require
anyone flying into the US
to get a COVID test within three days.
That's regardless of whether you're a citizen
or away on business, or away on vacation.
- The length of your trip doesn't matter
if you're going out of the US and coming back into the US
via airplane you're required to get this COVID test
which has to be according to the CDC website
and NAAT or antigen test.
- If I were an American living in the US
and want to come to Mexico for a week.
The last thing I would want to do is take a day,
a full day out of my seven day vacation
to look up and track down a place where I can get tested,
figure out transportation there,
be around a bunch of sick people
while I wait around for the results
and all while trying to figure
this whole process out in a foreign language.
That is the last thing I want to do
and that does not sound like a vacation at all.
- So in the patootie and then like
if you do test positive then what?
You went away for one week on vacation.
That's what you got off work or whatever
then what you have to stay in Mexico for another two weeks
and pay for your accommodation and everything.
- Yeah so if I was going on a week vacation,
I think this would be enough
to make me cancel or reschedule.
- Yeah, pretty big deal breaker.
We've already heard of some resorts
are now going to be offering onsite testing
so that it's even easier.
But I think it's going to be a while,
I think before that's all smoothed out
and easy for people to do
to where it's no big deal to have that test done,
and not to mention the cost.
So in some places we were hearing
that it's like 50 US dollars
- And some one said in Puerto Vallarta
it's 200 US dollars to get tested.
Here in Oaxaca we found a place
where we can get tested for about $12 and 50 cents.
- So that's not too bad.
I'm just like fingers crossed.
It's not like the stab your brain kind.
- It is.
- We were talking about, oh man,
that just gives me the heebie-jeebies like crazy.
I don't wanna do it.
But yeah, that's the news,
interested to hear your thoughts,
what you think how this is going to affect Mexico
in tourism and just travel in general.
- We sent this out on email list,
talking about this, and we got a lot of responses,
of a ton of people saying,
yap they canceled themselves as soon as they heard the news,
they canceled their trip.
Someone else who works in the tourism industry
say yap, cancellations are already flooding in.
So yeah, I think Mexico tourism
is about to get decimated again.
- But anyway, that's the big update.
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