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Dec 20
Well, this will be as far south in Mexico as we are going to go for this trip. Oaxaca de Juarez, (Oaxaca City), Oaxaca. Taking a convoluted route, we entered Oaxaca mid-afternoon. The streets are rough and rutted. Their layout keeps you on your toes as streets suddenly become one-way and the left / right orientation will switch without notice. Now let’s exacerbate the driving fun by throwing in some city-wide protests. A protest doesn’t just mean a demonstration. Let’s use our vehicles to block streets. More on this in a bit.
We made it to our hotel in the Centro/Colonial area where the street layout makes sense; regular ol’ square blocks that are all one-way that alternate direction. Our hotel was fantastic! Nothing to look at from the outside but a big wooden door. Inside were lush gardens, terraces, a super deep heated pool and most rooms surrounded an interior patio. Expensive? No. Should it have been? Yep. The on-premises parking was also behind the walls of the property and definitely a perk, compared to our parking in Guanajuato. No hiking required.
For dinner we walked a few blocks to the city center and the Mercado Vente de Noviembre. It was loud and busy. One of the ladies with a nine-pack-a-day voice strong armed us into sitting in her section. Okay… they have beer. We ordered a couple of tlayudas that Oaxaca is famous for. It’s sort of like a giant chalupa or “Mexican pizza” but don’t expect pepperoni, Canadian bacon or anchovies. Black mole, chapulines (grasshoppers) and cactus on a crispy and fragile mega-chip. Goes great with beer! Several beers! But just incase you disagreed with the bill, you didn’t pay the waitress. You payed the guy with gang tattoos.
On our walk back to the hotel we decided to check out a mezcal bar where I got to practice a fair amount of Spanish. We ordered flights (bartender’s choice) and by the third shot my Spanish was flowing but was not necessarily comprehendible.
Dec 21
After breakfast at the hotel, which is included and served on the 2nd story terrace, we decided to make an early exit and explore the Mezcal route farther south of Oaxaca City. Suffice it to say Sharon and I now know more about mezcal than is really necessary to survive in this world. We also sampled so much mezcal that my taste buds burned off.
Near mescal world is Teotitlan or rug town, an area in Oaxaca that the locals still use traditional foot and hand powered looms to make a variety of small and large rugs along with bedspreads, table runners and wall hangings. Unfortunately, they were a bit pricier than we expected. It was basically like weaving a rug made from pesos just to lie in front of the sink. We declined and moved on.
Our ability to drive back into the city was challenging. Besides the labyrinth of the street layout, the garbage workers decided to protest today. Lovely. Key intersections were blocked by garbage trucks and trash pickup ceased. I drove down one-way streets in the wrong direction to make it back to our hotel. I didn’t drive in Oaxaca for the rest of our time here.
As evening developed, we walked to a number of restaurants and settled on a rooftop Italian place. From there we could watch the street life and sip a pretty nice wine.
Dec 22
Art & food. It’s Oaxaca. We walked in and out of numerous galleries today. Fantastic galleries. Wood cuts seem to be the dominate art method but there were plenty of ceramics, oils and mixed media. And art is not sequestered to the galleries. Street art thrives here, especially home printed art glued and plastered to walls throughout the city. It mixed naturally with spray paint protest tags. The sanitation workers strike continues resulting in some streets being jammed with traffic while others became strictly pedestrian.
We wove through the garbage truck laced cobble stone streets back to our hotel and took advantage of its calm and inviting seclusion. We swam for a bit, mingled with some of the residents and sipped on some of the previous day’s mescal purchases.
Food? Tonight, we walked 10-12 blocks to a little speck of a restaurant called El Quinqué Oaxaca. Nothing fancy except the food. Great creative salads, a savory portobello burger and a perfectly prepared kingfish filet. That and cocktails? Less than $18.
On the walk back we noticed the growing fleet of parked garbage trucks, the bulging trash bins, and the not-so-sweet aroma caused by the afternoon sun. Their focus was the square. Fortunately, the whiff of the square was soon forgotten once we passed one of the many cathedrals in downtown. This particular one was fully arranged with fresh flowers. Tens of thousands of flowers. This and an afternoon swim made the garbage protest a distant memory.
Dec 23
Today was a lot like yesterday, art and food plus the market. We spent quite a while that morning in the market and even purchased some mole that we’ll experiment with once we get back home.
By the way, several times on this trip I’ve mentioned mole. In case you’ve never experienced it, seen it, or tasted it, it’s not a small burrowing animal that destroys your garden. I’m referring to mole, (Mohl – ay). There are about seven different varieties, have 30 to 40 ingredients and take 2 days to make. It’s like heaven’s gravy. Way more exciting than a rodent and mighty tasty!
Today in the main square is supposed to be Oaxaca’s Radish Festival. It’s a weird and quirky excuse for a festival where locals carve radishes into nativity scenes and other religious veggie interpretations. That called for cocktails there on the main square so we could plot how we would maneuver the festival. We suspected the Radish Festival may be in jeopardy. Not because of the piles of garbage. That’s all gone along with the trucks. But today is an all new protest, the transportation workers. Busses are much larger and effective blockades. Combine this along with the Corona virus and… the Radish Fest recused itself. Shucks.
Throughout Mexico, there are places that will surprise you with spectacular sights and amazing dishes. Our dinner tonight was one of these. We have walked past this location at least ten times. At the next corner down from our hotel was a simple menu written on a white board. It hung on front of what looked like a family’s front patio. Chicken with two moles and the coconut shrimp made the cancelled Radish Fest a fuzzy memory.
Dec 24
Today was a fun day and another first for our Mexico travels. We taxied out south of town and spent the morning horseback riding! For those that don’t know, Sharon is super experienced at this horse thing. She used to work at the old stables at Brackenridge park and even competed at barrel racing. She’s a bad ass.
As for me, I got a stick-pony once for Christmas and I tended to fall a lot when I played with it.
Sharon got to ride Centurian, a 25-year-old Criollo Bay gelding. I don’t know what that means but Sharon certainly displayed authority once she was in the saddle. I was on a red horsy named Piquine. Piquine and I worked a deal where no animals would be harmed in return for me not breaking a bone or two. We, (Sharon and I, not the horses) were required to wear long sleeves and long pants which I wasn’t too thrilled about but sure appreciated them once we were in the brush and surrounded by spikey things. I felt comfortable with Piquine, even when he randomly trotted a bit fast for this amateur equestrian. Now I was the bad ass.
The morning ride was better than I thought it would be. You could see a glow of confidence on my face all the way up to the time to descend. Evidently if your butt falls asleep you also will lose the feeling in your legs, not unlike when one needs to get off a horse. I dismounted with the grace of a moose on ice.
Once back to the hotel the day’s events started revealing just how much exercise we actually put in. We were stiffening up pretty quickly. We worked it out by walking around trying to find a place to have a nice dinner for Christmas Eve. That was a challenge. Most restaurants were closed or required a reservation. We could just settle on going into the market and eat there. Nope. It was closed too. After an hour of searching, we came back across El Quinqué. Yea!!
We exited El Quinqué full from an excellent Tampiqueña plate and a to-go box that we gave to and older couple that were begging for pesos.
Dec 25
We spent this Christmas day driving north, back to Puebla. La Quinta. The Room next to a 24 hour Mexican Krispy Kreme. Merry Kreesmas vatos.
