The story continues from Palenque

Oaxaca: Jan 1, 2005

The bus trip was uneventful and I must have slept a lot, as I don't remember anything that happened during the ride. When the sun rose I watched the countryside out of the window as we descended down into Oaxaca valley. We passed many fields of maguey cactus that was being cultivated for Mezcal. It is similar to Tequila, but dark and sort of bitter. It takes seven years for the cactus to mature enough to harvest. I could see by the names on the buildings as we passed by, that every little town in the valley had a zillion brewers in them. There were also fields of harvested corn that only had the stocks left. There were many little towns that had cement block makers. There was a lot of industry and activity in the valley, even though it was brown and dusty from the lack of rain. The roads were good and smooth and we soon arrived at the bus station.

I took a taxi to the central part of town where Hotel Francia was located. It was right on the corner of the street one block away from the zocalo or city plaza. I checked in and was greeted by a clerk that spoke passable English. I was given a first floor room. It was lovely. It had a big double bed, tiled shower and a TV. Outside the room the hallway opened onto an inner courtyard that was the dining area to the restaurant where they served breakfast. I was to be here for five days and this was perfect. The clerk told me that the hotel could arrange van tours to the ancient sites and some of the area towns, sites and shopping in the villages. They had several package deals. There were three of them that caught my interest. I signed up for one each day starting the next day. I couldn't do better on my own trying to find a taxi to take me. There didn't seem to be any combis. Oaxaca was huge, running the length of the valley with residences running up the sides of the hills.

I settled in with a shower first. I passed on the ugly shower in San Cristobal and enjoyed the hot water, tile and big fluffy towels. Underline fluffy. After that I had breakfast from the buffet in the courtyard restaurant and then went exploring up the street.

The first thing I found was the plaza. That is where all the craft vendors set up their wares. There were also some vendors that carried everything around with them making the rounds of the plaza and up the side streets with their goods. I earmarked them for later as I was headed for the museum. It was ten blocks away and up hill. Lots of the buildings were decorated with wrought iron bars on the widows and fancy gates on the doors. It was very colonial and ornate. Even though the buildings for the most part were flat and plain on the outside, the inner courtyards, halls and rooms were very fancy. Some of them I could see from the street as they had them open during the day.

I made it to the Monastery of Santo Domingo where the museum was located. It was a huge church that housed nuns and monks in the past in the side wings of the complex. Today the museum was on the upper floor of one of the church wings. The monastery is unoccupied but the church still has services. The hallways were at least twenty feet tall with an arched decoration on the ceiling. These inner hallways faced an open courtyard, which had a fountain in the middle. It was very beautiful. I bought my ticket and went upstairs to the museum. It contained a display of the treasures from Tomb 7 at the site of Monte Alban. The jewelry consisted of gold, beads, turquoise, shell, carved bone, silver and other items. It was exquisite and stunning. The way they made the gold jewelry was to melt the gold into a flat sheet, like making a piece of tin foil, and then cutting and shaping it into the desired shapes for the tiny finely shaped pieces for necklaces and other items. I could not take pictures. When it occurred to me that I could use my video camera I walked all the way back to the hotel, picked up the camera and walked all the way back. I went through the exhibit again and filmed everything. Unfortunately I can't display the video here in this journal. Besides the jewelry there were bowls, braziers, funerary jars, figures all made from fired clay pottery. Some of these were similar to the pieces I was able to get some pictures of in Jalapa. Many of the bowls and jars had figures on them, both human and animal shapes. I just loved them all.

The New Years Wedding:

By that time I was down at the end of the hallway. I heard a big racket coming from below. I looked out of the only window available, (right in front of me, lucky huh?) and saw a crowd in the plaza in front of the church. I looked real close and found it was a wedding, a New Years Day wedding. They were taking pictures of the wedding party. What really caught my eye were the giant puppets of the bride and groom and were dancing around the group. I had to see closer and ran down the stairs to reach the plaza. By the time I reached the first level the wedding party was starting to walk down the street toward the Zocalo. I joined the crowd and took every opportunity to take pictures. It was fun.

More of the city sights:

I ended up at the plaza area again and decided as long as I was there I would look around. I found a calendar of the ancient sites around Oaxaca, in Spanish, but I didn't care, I could look at the photos. I found several T-shirts but wasn't interested in the general junk the rest of the vendors had. I made my way up the street again back to the museum. I hadn't really finished looking. I browsed through the gift shop and then walked back down to the plaza by another street. One the way I found a vendor that was selling pastry pies filled with custard. They were delicious. I ran into him a couple of days later and bought some more. Then I spotted the woman with the tray of pralines on her head. I stopped her and bought a half a dozen at a 1.00 a piece. She was very picturesque.

The streets were very crowded for the holiday and sometimes it was difficult to find a spot to walk. I stopped at a restaurant on the Zocalo and ordered some chicken taquitos with guacamole sauce. The seating was under umbrellas topped tables on an open-air patio of the plaza with only a small rail fence to divide it off from the plaza itself. Many vendors came by loaded with goods. Some times they were persistent to the point of being annoying. Several other ladies with pralines came by. I had to wave by bag of candy at them to shoo them away.

While I was eating a couple of young boys came by with bark paper. I snapped right to attention. That is just what I wanted and I didn't have to go hunting for it. They only had ones with painted scenes on the paper. I managed to get across to the boys that I wanted plain sheets. How many? 20, I told them. He said to wait and he would run to the truck and get some for me. He was gone a long time but soon came back carrying a whole load of paper. It was only in brown, but that was ok. I had to haggle with him to get the price down to 2.00 a sheet. We finally made the deal and I took my treasure back to the hotel happy as a clam. I rolled the sheets up in a couple of rolls and then rolled T-shirts around them to keep them from getting bent and dog-eared in the luggage.

Day trip from Oaxaca to El Tule tree, the frozen falls, Black pots, Monastery, and dinner. Jan 2, 2005

The van for the tour came early to the hotel to pick me up. Our first stop was the town of Santa Maria del la Tule. We stopped on the plaza, which was a very clean and had freshly painted buildings surrounding it. The major attraction was the widest tree in the world. It was pretty impressive. After we had a good look we continued on to the frozen waterfalls called Hierve el Agua. We climbed high into the dusty hills covered with sparse scrubby bushes. We arrived at the petrified cascades of mineral water and viewed the mountain high above the swimming pools of cold water. I walked down to the pools and put my feet in. The water wasn't deep enough to get my knee in but I could splash some up on it.

It was time to go so I made my way up to the food stands and bought a quesadilla made on a huge tortilla. It was good. On the way out of the village we had to wait for a funeral to go by. They were walking down the hill carrying the casket on their shoulders. It was interesting but a very somber scene.

We came next to the town of San Bartolo Coyotepec where the world famous black ceramics are manufactured. They are polished, engraved and incised then fired. We visited the shop of Senora Dona Rosa the woman who made the process of manufacturing the pre-hispanic ceramic replicas and modern decorative ornamental pieces famous. I looked real close at the kiln they fired the goods in. It was under ground and used wood to fuel the fire. As we left the village we could see every block had a pottery manufacturing shop.

We continued on the Cuilapan de Guerrero, where we could see the wonderful Gothic architecture of the 16th century open-chapel and the Dominican Ex-convent, which were built by the indigenous people of the Central Valleys during the Spanish conquest. The place was not used any more for a convent, but the church still held mass.

From there we went through a number of villages and stopped for lunch at a wonderful restaurant that made all the food in the dining area. The tables were all long ranch style where we all sat together as a group. We could see the men making bread and the women cooking huge tortillas on open grills. I had the chicken taquitous with guacamole. It was my new favorite. That was the best one I've had. From there we went to the community of Arrazola, whose artisans create a carved and elaborately painted fantastic animal kingdom of Alebrijes, the carved wooden creatures painted with dots and bright colors. I could hardly wait; as that was the other thing I wanted to buy. It was getting dark by the time we reached the shop and I had to hurry to make my selection. Some of the other people in the group also bought things. When it was my turn I had found four things I wanted. The biggest was a dragon (Lizard) that cost 50.00. I don't think she wanted to sell it to me as I had a hard time getting it. At that point price was no object. They finally wrapped up my purchases and I hurried from the shop into the dark street. The man from the tour bus was waiting at the corner for me and ushered me to the bus. We ran into a massive amount of traffic going back to Oaxaca. I sure am glad I took the tour. I would have never been able to find my way alone. The villages were packed together sprawled along dusty, dirty streets that looked so poor I would never guess artisans lived and worked there.

Monte Alban site Jan 3

The tour group today went on a big bus to the site to Monte Alban. It is located on a hill outside of the city of Oaxaca. The tour driver told us when the Spanish first saw the hill they called it Monte Alban, which meant 'mountain covered with white flowers'. He showed us the tree that produces the white flower. I am sure in the 15th century the hillside would have been completely covered with this beautiful blooming tree. Today it was dry, dusty with the sparse trees and weeds that rattled in the breeze. The guide took us part way into the site then let us loose to look for ourselves. Even the site was dry and dusty. The flavor of the site was different as it was Zapotac with Olmec influences. Most of the pictures speak for themselves. There have been many theories about the meaning of the figures carved on the stone slabs. Some say they were dancers, hence the name, some said they were captives in various stages of being tortured. The guide today said this place might have been a medical university with the stones showing internal organs and people with medical problems. Now matter what they were, the carvings were wonderful. We had to leave too soon for me to look at everything I wanted.

I went back the next day and spent the half-day the tour allowed and looked at the museum and some of the temples on the North and South sides. I bought a beautiful pair of silver earrings that were replicas of ones that came from the tomb collection.

The Mezcal brewers and rug weavers on the way to Mitla: Jan 4

Today the tour used the small van for the tour. We went out of town and up into the mountains toward the site of Mitla. We stopped at the Mezcal brewers first. It was an interesting process. The leaves were chopped off the heart of the maguey cactus and then crushed. Next the crushed hearts were soaked until they fermented then steamed in a big vat. When the steam passed through a tube it condensed into a liquid that became the Mezcal. They had a bar with samples. It tasted pretty good so I bought four different flavors in small bottles. I don't think I will ever drink them as I now found they are bitter after tasting them. Oh, well, the labels are pretty.

We then went to the rug weavers. They gave a wonderful demonstration on how the wool is carded then spun into yarn and dyed with natural dyes made from herbs and plants. They had a loom set up and showed how the patterns were woven into the rug design. They had rugs on display hanging all over the walls. I bought a small table scarf and a bag for my friend that also weaves. I would have bought more except the space in my bags was non-existent and I was going to have to squeeze these things in as it was. It was a nice shop and very informative. From there we went to the site of Mitla.

The Archaeological site of Mitla:

When we arrived in the village of Mitla it was a bustling area. Every thing was built up around the edges of the site. In fact the site was almost swallowed up by the village. Sort of like Izamal was. You had to look real close to find it. To one side was a huge Church and next to that was a market place with vendors with crafts and food. The bus stopped there and they escorted us into the site. It was so ancient, predating other places by centuries. Inside one of the temple rooms the guide pointed out the roof construction and the wonderful designs carved in the walls. There were only a couple of the buildings left as all the rest had been consumed by centuries of stone robbers. What was left of the walls and the designs were wonderful. It even had a section with the original red paint. The tour was over in about 45 minutes so I walked back up to the market to see what the vendors had. There were a whole bunch of the carved wooden animals. I found several chickens and a couple of lizards. I sure loved these things and bought several more. On our way back the tour took us to a restaurant for dinner. We had to pay for our own meal. I had a wonderful bowl of soup. It was a long day and we arrived back in Oacaca after dark.

I left Oaxaca mid morning on the 5^th of Jan and headed for Puebla. The ride was interesting through the dry mountains and flat dusty plains. The road was good and the bus zoomed along. We passed a section of road that had a whole bunch of toy trucks and cars lining the edge of the road. I never did find out why they were there.

The story continues with the town of Puebla. Pictures can be seen on the webshots.com photo albums. Click on the Mexican hat on the first page of the web site to get to it.