by Michelle Nelson
Our very last stop on the world tour was Oaxaca, Mexico. Oaxaca is only about 500 km south of Mexico City but it is a whole different world. The atmosphere, the art, the colorful houses along with a very friendly indigenous population made Oaxaca my favorite city in Mexico. I almost do not want to write about it here because I do not want to see the cruise ship buses arriving.
Crafts and Art
Oaxaca is famous for the many galleries around the city as well as the folk art which the locals sell all over town. I bought myself a very nice handmade hat on the street from a lovely gentlemen who assured me I looked „bonita“ in his hat.
We also bought a fantastic handmade wall tapestry which used the native Zapotek pattern.
The Santo Domingo Church and Monastery now hosts the cultural museum and a botanic garden filled to the brim with cacti and succulents.
A fiesta for every day of the week
No matter when we left our hotel there always seemed to be a fiesta or demonstration going on. The people of Oaxaca like to celebrate. Here we have a brass band and some fantastic dancers on stilts.
On the Zocalo there is an ongoing demonstration which seemed to have some kind of very loud speeches every night. Why do politicians in every part of the world sound the same? Rant, Rant, Rant. We were very glad when they quit for the evening. I researched what they were protesting about and it seems the teachers had been having a one-year sit-in on the main square and threatened the president of Mexico if he comes to visit Oaxaca they will block all the roads. It is said that he has canceled all visits and not been to Oaxaca for 2 years.
Uli fell in love with this painting at one of the many, many galleries we visited.
Perhaps he feels some sort of kinship with the „Nasenbear“?
Many buildings are also decorated with lovely paintings. This made it easy to not get lost… not like most new neighborhoods in the USA and Germany where every house looks the same…
I have to show these pictures to gentleman that painted our house last year. It took me major convincing to get him to paint a small sunflower on the front of our house.
Mole anyone?
In Mexico, food and cocktails are very inexpensive. You can eat very well and if you like mole sauce you will be in heaven in Oaxaca. There is red, yellow (amarillo) and black (negro) mole. The Negro mole was my favorite as it is made with CHOCOLATE. Nothing made of chocolate could be bad. Several restaurants had rooftop terraces overlooking the beautiful Santa Domingo Church which encouraged us to sip a marguerite and enjoy the scenery.
In this place we also got interesting fish soup, which was cooked at the table. The waiter came with water, fish, herbs, vegetables and broth. And she had 6 really hot stones. She put everything in the coconut shells, put the hot rocks in and everything got boiled right at our table.
There are other foods which are typical here in Oaxaca which we did not enjoy quite as much: insects. Grasshoppers are served everywhere and eaten crispy or with guacamole. I do not recommend them. I think they come from the time when they did not have anything to eat. The locals I talked to did not like them and much preferred a „Hamburguesa“ to the grasshoppers.
As you can see in the next picture. Uli has eaten better before.
Santiago Apoalo – Mixtec country
To get a feel for real Mexico we took a two-day hike into a remote mountain village called Santiago Apoala where the people speak Mixtec. To get to Santiago Apoala we had to drive about 2 hours by highway, 2 hours on a dirt road and a 5-hour hike through a river gorge. The scenery was beautiful and we got to scramble over the river every 30 minutes… there was not a real trail, we just picked our way through. Luckily we joined a group with a guide because we would have not found our way to the village.
The town of Santiago Apoala is very small and consists of a church, school, town hall and some very little houses. There is also an ecotourism project which rents little cabanas and cooks meals for the tourists. That is where we slept.
The cabanas were nice and clean but there was „No aqua caliente“. Which meant I had to take a very, very cold shower with mountain water. Funny, after I told everyone there was no warm water none else showered.
In the village we saw the local citizens harvesting their black beans and cleaning them by pouring them from basket to basket with the wind blowing to blow away the leaves and other dirt they did not want in their harvest.
We asked them if we could take their picture and explain what they were doing and they were happy to comply.
The courthouse is very impressive for such a small village.
In Latin America you often see things like this painted right on the house walls. They can be political slogans for an election or in this case a health warning that eating too much salt can give you high blood pressure.
Cactus is grown here for Cochineal insect which is used to dye fabrics and other things a very bright red.
After we watched a local woman weaving a basket we found some palm leaves and decided to give it a go. I think I will have to stay with my profession as software programmer. I was hopeless.
On the second day of our hike we had to really climb around the river and I was very impressed with the others in our group who were a good 20 years older than I am and made it over these rocks and roots! Good job guys. I only hope I am up for this kind of later in life!
As in so many Latin American villages there is a big problem with stray dogs. They are everywhere… sometimes they are friendly and sometimes you need to carry a stick. This guy was friendly.
El Tule
One of our other adventures involved taking a Taxi colectivo to a village called El Tule where they have a very old Tule tree. A colectivo is like a taxi which has a route and picks up people along the route which flag the taxi down. It costs about 10 pesos which is 50 cents. The funny thing there seems to be no real limit to the amount of people which can squeeze into the car. Seat Belts, maximum occupancy? No problem in Oaxaca.
The tree is purportedly the „stoutest“ tree in the world at 58 meters circumference.
There is a very nice church next to the tree with beautifully landscaped gardens. Unfortunately, the church was locked and we could not enter.
The best part of El Tule was the lunch we had at the market. El Tule is on the „Mezcal Road“ and every stand in the market hat a crystal decanter of mezcal which was free with your meal. So we drank too much mezcal with lunch and ended up sleeping the afternoon away.
So, that is the very last blog from our world trip. It is time to go back to work.
We Wish you well and happy travels!
Santa Domingo Church
Our very last stop on the world tour was Oaxaca, Mexico. Oaxaca is only about 500 km south of Mexico City but it is a whole different world. The atmosphere, the art, the colorful houses along with a very friendly indigenous population made Oaxaca my favorite city in Mexico. I almost do not want to write about it here because I do not want to see the cruise ship buses arriving.
Local women with long beautiful braids
Oaxaca is famous for the many galleries around the city as well as the folk art which the locals sell all over town. I bought myself a very nice handmade hat on the street from a lovely gentlemen who assured me I looked „bonita“ in his hat.
We also bought a fantastic handmade wall tapestry which used the native Zapotek pattern.
The Santo Domingo Church and Monastery now hosts the cultural museum and a botanic garden filled to the brim with cacti and succulents.
A fiesta for every day of the week
No matter when we left our hotel there always seemed to be a fiesta or demonstration going on. The people of Oaxaca like to celebrate. Here we have a brass band and some fantastic dancers on stilts.
On the Zocalo there is an ongoing demonstration which seemed to have some kind of very loud speeches every night. Why do politicians in every part of the world sound the same? Rant, Rant, Rant. We were very glad when they quit for the evening. I researched what they were protesting about and it seems the teachers had been having a one-year sit-in on the main square and threatened the president of Mexico if he comes to visit Oaxaca they will block all the roads. It is said that he has canceled all visits and not been to Oaxaca for 2 years.
Uli fell in love with this painting at one of the many, many galleries we visited.
Perhaps he feels some sort of kinship with the „Nasenbear“?
Many buildings are also decorated with lovely paintings. This made it easy to not get lost… not like most new neighborhoods in the USA and Germany where every house looks the same…
I have to show these pictures to gentleman that painted our house last year. It took me major convincing to get him to paint a small sunflower on the front of our house.
Mole anyone?
In Mexico, food and cocktails are very inexpensive. You can eat very well and if you like mole sauce you will be in heaven in Oaxaca. There is red, yellow (amarillo) and black (negro) mole. The Negro mole was my favorite as it is made with CHOCOLATE. Nothing made of chocolate could be bad. Several restaurants had rooftop terraces overlooking the beautiful Santa Domingo Church which encouraged us to sip a marguerite and enjoy the scenery.
In this place we also got interesting fish soup, which was cooked at the table. The waiter came with water, fish, herbs, vegetables and broth. And she had 6 really hot stones. She put everything in the coconut shells, put the hot rocks in and everything got boiled right at our table.
There are other foods which are typical here in Oaxaca which we did not enjoy quite as much: insects. Grasshoppers are served everywhere and eaten crispy or with guacamole. I do not recommend them. I think they come from the time when they did not have anything to eat. The locals I talked to did not like them and much preferred a „Hamburguesa“ to the grasshoppers.
As you can see in the next picture. Uli has eaten better before.
Santiago Apoalo – Mixtec country
To get a feel for real Mexico we took a two-day hike into a remote mountain village called Santiago Apoala where the people speak Mixtec. To get to Santiago Apoala we had to drive about 2 hours by highway, 2 hours on a dirt road and a 5-hour hike through a river gorge. The scenery was beautiful and we got to scramble over the river every 30 minutes… there was not a real trail, we just picked our way through. Luckily we joined a group with a guide because we would have not found our way to the village.
The town of Santiago Apoala is very small and consists of a church, school, town hall and some very little houses. There is also an ecotourism project which rents little cabanas and cooks meals for the tourists. That is where we slept.
The cabanas were nice and clean but there was „No aqua caliente“. Which meant I had to take a very, very cold shower with mountain water. Funny, after I told everyone there was no warm water none else showered.
In the village we saw the local citizens harvesting their black beans and cleaning them by pouring them from basket to basket with the wind blowing to blow away the leaves and other dirt they did not want in their harvest.
We asked them if we could take their picture and explain what they were doing and they were happy to comply.
The courthouse is very impressive for such a small village.
In Latin America you often see things like this painted right on the house walls. They can be political slogans for an election or in this case a health warning that eating too much salt can give you high blood pressure.
Cactus is grown here for Cochineal insect which is used to dye fabrics and other things a very bright red.
After we watched a local woman weaving a basket we found some palm leaves and decided to give it a go. I think I will have to stay with my profession as software programmer. I was hopeless.
On the second day of our hike we had to really climb around the river and I was very impressed with the others in our group who were a good 20 years older than I am and made it over these rocks and roots! Good job guys. I only hope I am up for this kind of later in life!
As in so many Latin American villages there is a big problem with stray dogs. They are everywhere… sometimes they are friendly and sometimes you need to carry a stick. This guy was friendly.
El Tule
One of our other adventures involved taking a Taxi colectivo to a village called El Tule where they have a very old Tule tree. A colectivo is like a taxi which has a route and picks up people along the route which flag the taxi down. It costs about 10 pesos which is 50 cents. The funny thing there seems to be no real limit to the amount of people which can squeeze into the car. Seat Belts, maximum occupancy? No problem in Oaxaca.
The tree is purportedly the „stoutest“ tree in the world at 58 meters circumference.
There is a very nice church next to the tree with beautifully landscaped gardens. Unfortunately, the church was locked and we could not enter.
The best part of El Tule was the lunch we had at the market. El Tule is on the „Mezcal Road“ and every stand in the market hat a crystal decanter of mezcal which was free with your meal. So we drank too much mezcal with lunch and ended up sleeping the afternoon away.
So, that is the very last blog from our world trip. It is time to go back to work.
We Wish you well and happy travels!
Comments
Post a Comment