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Published: October 24th 2010
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Shopping for grasshoppers
in the market, grasshoppers are a local delicacy First of all, I must apologize, today, October 19th, I log onto the blog site and to my amazement, realize that the last blog was not sent on October 13th like I thought it was. My mistake, so hopefully I will get this one out a little more diligently. Linda is off to school as usual, and is very busy testing and preparing report cards. I seem to be able to find things that need doing to keep busy. Of course, I walk and ride bike quite a bit, for example, a trip to Costco requires 35 minutes, most of it brisk walking, and maybe 10 minutes of subway riding time. Costco remains our favorite store to access meats, we do draw the line and avoid the meats, chicken and fish that are offered in the street markets. And of course now that BBQ season is upon us, I am busier than ever.
A short 4 day week, we are off for our long weekend! We decided, that because we had the extra day, we should travel to one of the farthest destinations we can access by bus. We were told repeatedly that Oaxaca (WA-HAWK-A) was a destination well worth
Delicacy
grasshoppers in a variety of flavours, we will have them on the table at Christmas visiting, and that 3 days would not be long enough. So, at 3 o'clock Thursday afternoon I meet Linda at the metro station and on we go to the bus depot; we buy tickets for the next bus leaving for Oaxaca. Church's chicken for supper, of course, while we wait, then on the bus and away. Up and over the lip out of the basin that Mexico City sits in, and 2 hours later, we are passing through Puebla. Google Earth is wonderful, I have just finished checking elevations. For example, Saskatoon sits at about 1650 feet above sea level. The highest point driving through the Rockies West is just past Calgary at an elevation of 7300 feet. Mexico City lies at about 7500 feet above sea level and when we leave the city, we climb to 10,400 feet, then back down to about 5000 feet, then back up to 8000 and finally back down to 5500 feet in Oaxaca. We do notice the pressure change in our ears. But because of the comfortable Mercedes-Benz buses, we cruise along quite nicely and pass a lot of trucks on the road. They use a polite system of signalling when it's safe
Meat market
gives a new meaning to the term to pass and that helps keep traffic moving along. The scenery was fantastic! The orange/red soil, the deepcut crevices caused by rushing water during the rainy season. The sticks that covered the mountains turned out to be 50 or 60 foot cactus. The greenery, since we're at the end of the rainy season, looked welcoming. There was rolling country with scenic surprises around every corner. Winding up one steep hill and down another............No time to sleep on the 6 hour bus ride.
Now for Oaxaca. The valley is home to 3.5 million people of which about 750,000 live in Oaxaca. 77% of the population is involved in some way with tourism. Oaxaca is internationally and nationally recognised for its textiles, mezcal (tequila but from a different region, it has a unique very smoky flavour), black pottery, cheese, its' history and ruins, chocolate, and of course the local delicacy, dried grasshoppers in all flavours.
We arrive in Oaxaca at 10 pm, take a cab to a hotel just a few blocks from the Zocalo that we have booked in advance. We settle in, unpack, and still are early enough to walk to the Zocalo dressed only in t-shirts and sip on
Oaxacan Valley Mototaxi
we saw these everywhere in the valley a cerveza while listening to live bands. Entertainment, interesting sights, a gentle breeze and creveza, we felt spoilt!
Next morning, off to see the sights. We stroll through the local market that offers flowers, fruit, ices, fruit drinks, handcrafts, leather goods, hats and knives, among other things. We talk to the local operators and book a tour for the aftenoon to the ruins of Monte Alban only 8 kilometers away. Monte Alban was the ancient capital of the Zapotecs and one of the first cities in Mesoamerica. During it's epoch, it was one of the most populated. It was founded approximately 500 years BC and flourished until 750 AD. Monte Alban sits on a mountain in the center of the valley that rises 1300 feet above the valley floor. The views are spectacular, the history is rich, and interesting. Instead of getting into the history of ruins in this blog, I will blog again only regarding the ruins we have visited. At the end of the afternoon, we made our way back to the city center, enjoyed a delicious shrimp supper at LaRed, then strolled along the Zocalo enjoying the light evening breeze, music, sights and sounds and markets. Saturday
In Oaxaca and district
apparently imported from India, they are nimble and quick and use the sidewalks too morning, after a breakfast of huevos (eggs), we take an all day tour out of the city. 6 tourists in a 15 passenger van head out of town to our first stop, Tule, where we visit the world's largest diameter tree. Half an hour later, off we were to visit a local weaving facility. Ernesto and Margarita have been featured in the Smithsonian for their work. El Tono de la Cochinilla is the name of the family homestead in Teotitlán del Valle, where for four generations they have been maintaining their rich tradition of weaving 100% woolen rugs. Each and every one of their quality pieces is hand-crafted from start to finish — from cleaning, carding, and spinning the wool, to dying, and then weaving on pine looms. They showed us a 180 year old carpet that has retained its colors because they use only natural dyes derived from plants, flowers and insect larvae. We are now the proud owners of a 50 by 80 inch handwoven naturally dyed carpet that required 2 months of work to create. Then, off to the Mezcal factory where we are shown the process by which they brew, bottle and market their mezcal from
Top of Monte Alban
you can see Oaxaca below, the other hilltops have ruins as well, an indication of the some 30,000 people here in 500 BC their small family facility. Of course, we have to sip and test taste the new mezcal, the 2 year old, the 4, the 6 the 8 year old, then of course you have to try the flavoured varieties.......vanilla, chocolate, capichino,mango fruit, almond, brazil nut, and on and on. Needless to say, between the rug, the 6 bottles of mezcal, the pottery, dolls, and grasshoppers, we needed the help of packmules to get our stuff home! Oh, and we found curtain material that we had to bring home too. From the mezcal factory, to a grand buffet dinner, then off to visit the ruins at Mitla. Mitla was more of an old folks home and place where the ancient important people came to die. This 1500 year old set of ruins has not been restored, but is in its natural state. Very Impressive. Then it was back to the city, and the Zocalo again. We enjoyed such a variety of music, there must have been 6 bands playing in the Zocalo Saurday night. We listened to a large 100 peice band perform, we sat and listened to a high school type rock band, also to an all male harmonizing mariachi group
Lying down woman
if you look closely, you can see her, this is over 2400 years old of 20 men, as well as the traditional flute players and ........................, clowns performing, children playing, hawkers selling, and crowds strolling. The ambiance is delightful.
Sunday morning, after breakfast, we finish up our shopping ( we added another flavour of grasshopper, they are not as crunchy as I expected, they are rather.......how about we bring them home and put them beside the pickles on the Christmas table and you can be the judge) and then headed to the bus station. We caught the 2 pm bus and were home about 9:30. What a great trip, we will have to return again as there is so much we didn't see. There are many villages that have unique crafts and art, a friend of ours said they rented a car and spent a week touring the area. We now understand the magic of Oaxaca!
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Annette and Lionel
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Wow, love the pictures and comments!
That is an awesome tree! You are seeing and experiencing amazing things!