Oaxaca Day 1: Wow!

Well, we almost missed the bus…we were the last on board, they had already shut the cargo and passenger doors! But 9:30am hadn’t quite rolled around so they hadn’t pushed back, luckily for us as we rushed up from our Millennium Falcon of a taxi ride.  Not quite sure how we frittered away the morning but of course partly it was a quest for decent cup of coffee at 7am that did it.  We wound up at Sanborn’s, a Mexican Denny’s sort of where the coffee was at least made fresh from beans, coffee beans, as opposed to the Nescafe we were served the several days earlier at the hotel.

Anyway, we made it so here we are in Oaxaca. Just in case your short term memory doesn’t work to well that is pronounced “wah hah kah”.

The bus ride down was great: another lovely bus in Mexico, it really is the only way to go.  We actually stepped down a notch to a first class bus!! simply because a) the luxury bus left at 8:30am and we figured we would be hard pressed to make it in time and b) it was 200 pesos more per ticket (we are on a budget you know).

The bus was on an Scottish movie theme with Made of Honor which was in part set in Scotland followed by Water Horse (I think that was the title) about a boy who lives on the shore of a now well known lake who discovers some strange rock that hatches into, yes you guessed it the Loch Ness Monster.  After a brief interlude of a Discovery Channel program we were regaled by Hot Balls of Fire an exceptionally daft movie mixing international intrigue and ping pong.  Darcie said it was the silliest movie she had ever watched!!?

I read a chunk of Setting the Desert on Fire, a book about the British/French/Ottoman/Arab mess during the late 1st World War which in large part is to blame for the mess in the Middle East now. I also stared out the window a lot. 

The countryside through which we drove was great: rugged, rolling, rocky, mountainous, sometimes farmed and sometimes just a plunging cliff to nowhere.  I saw three eagles or big hawks surfing the thermals off one such cliff.  We passed through an area that looked like a forest fire had swept through only because the forest was a forest of cactus so all you had were trunks.  Truly amazing to see thousands upon thousands of cacti growing up these steep rocky mountains in such profusion.  As we got closer to Oaxaca the countryside became strongly reminiscent of Northern California, rolling hills covered in waving golden grasses, mixed forests, did I mention the rolling hills…?

The bus station was five blocks or so from our hotel so we finally used our packs as packs and walked, shock horror, to our current residence the Hotel Las Mariposas which is a further ten blocks or so from Oaxaca’s Zocalo.

After checking in we wandered off to check out the scene and immediately fell in love.  Oaxaca is amazing, art everywhere, musicians everywhere, loads of young people (we met a couple today from the DF that said that Oaxaca has the largest proportion of young people of any part of Mexico), the Zocalo is packed all day with strolling families and friends.  We met a young woman and what we took to be her Dad who had recently been in San Miguel who remembered seeing us!  Then while wandering around the local cultural museum we met a woman from our yoga class in Oakland!

The cultural museum is great, filled with cool pottery some dating back to 10000 BC!!!  The museum is located in the former Dominican convent which has been beautifully restored and contains a well presented collection of art representing the cultural heritage of the state of Oaxaca.  Fantastic!

We also spent four plus hours wandering around three separate markets the first of which sold various foods, clothes, chocolate, stuff and so on and is in most respects a typical market made untypical by the mezcal dealers located on just about every aisle and the chapuline sellers.  Chapulines are grass hoppers (chapultepecs) which are fried with chile and lime.  Having resisted my friend Juan’s offer of grass hoppers 10 years ago but having had some very strange things at our Vietnamese neighbor’s house in the intervening time I decided to give the chapulines a go.  10 pesos is a lot of grass hoppers which turned out to be crunchy (who’ld a thunk) and zesty and quite tasty.  I think I need a bottle of mezcal to go with to really do them justice.

The second market was entirely dedicated to food, cooked food.  By now we were both hungry, having walked around the other market and at least in my case salivating like mad at the mounds of mole of all sorts, long strings of dark chorizo, the slabs of beef, the tasty Oaxacan stringy cheese that tastes nothing like the pallid crap sold everywhere else as Oaxacan stringy cheese…

As it seemed a little early to eat we continued on, wandering through a quieter area before stumbling on a market dedicated to selling the local handicrafts.  This was a small market mostly selling clothing and while interesting not nearly as much fun as the first two markets.  So off to lunch we went.

I had the best tamale I have ever had, a thin masa shell wrapped around chicken and mole and then wrapped in a banana leaf and boiled.  Darcie had a chicken soup which was tasty particularly when set off with squeeze of lime and a splash of chile sauce.  We also had a chorizo quesadilla which was good but not a patch on the other two dishes.

After wandering through the cultural museum we wound up back at the Zocalo with a gelato each (the best ‘scream so far) and people-watched for an hour or more before wandering around some more and taking a front row seat at a restaurant for a light snack and a drink.  A great three piece guitar band came along and serenaded the crowd for over an hour which was quite delightful. Which reminds me that we had also listened to a 30+ member brass band earlier in the day playing Tchaikovsky and so on.

As the camera was out of juice I have no photos.

ttfn, Nick and Darcie.