Where But In Mexico??

Where but in Mexico...do you see a coffee ground Virgin?

Where but in Mexico...do you see a man dancing around with a big bull on his head with fireworks coming out of the bull's ass?

Where but in Mexico...within 30 yards of each other in the zocalo do you see a 50 piece brass band playing danzon music, a children's Pastorella and a men's chorus singing Christmas carols... and if you stand in just the right place, hear them all equally?

Where but in Mexico...do you see, coming down the main boulevard, over 100 taxis, honking their horn and all dressed up for the Virgin of Guadalupe?

Where but in Mexico...do you see a giant metal structure, called a Castillo, which explodes with gigantic fireworks, the sparks raining down on the crowd and nobody gives a damn or tries to run away?

Where but in Mexico...do you see an impromptu turkey market, right in the regular weekly market, with all sorts of indigenous folks bring one or two turkeys to sell, all holding their turkeys by their ankles and the turkeys not even complaining one gobble?

Where but in Mexico...do you see a nativity scene that includes not only the holy family, but baseball players, Mark Twain, an elephant and pink flamingos?

Where but in Mexico...do you see pickup trucks driven around town, with oranges, pineapples or big bottles of water in the back and the driver is loudly proclaiming through a loudspeaker just what a good deal he has...at 8 o'clock in the morning???

Where but in Mexico...do you see more off key oom-pah bands roaming the streets along with fireworks...at 4 o'clock in the morning?

Where but in Mexico...are grasshoppers eaten as a staple in the everyday diet?

Where but in Mexico...do you see the cutest little kids all dressed up as Joseph, Mary and the three kings, riding around in the back of a pickup truck followed by an off-key, very loud 5 piece brass band along, for just extra noise, a few snare drums?

Where but in Mexico...so much noise, so much color, so many different cuisines, so many kinds of music, so many different landscapes, so many different people and so many different cultures...total sensory overload?

God, I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!!

Our Lady of the Coffee Gounds

So you travel around the world, meeting people and seeing new things all the time. Just when you think you´ve seen it all, something happens that is, in the words of Monty Python, completely different.

We are in Oaxaca, land of great food, music and crafts. Virgin of Guadalupe had her day last week. Now it´s the Virgin of Soledad. She´s Oaxaca´s own virgin and has a church near our hotel. Her big night is tomorrow, Thursday night, but there are processions happening today. So we went there this evening for a look-see and there were all sorts of beautiful ladies in native costumes. we were taking picture of a lot of them and there was one woman who was standing off by herself. All the women carry this big basket full of flowers and maybe a flower crown on their head when they go into the church. But this lady had a big glass and wooden box with a bowl in it. WTF??? Amy went up and started talking to her and learned from her that this was a very, very special bowl. Take a look at it she tells us. Do you see? Do you see the Virgin of Soledad on the bowl? So I look and indeed, there is a black and white version of the Virgin of Soledad right there on the upper part of the bowl. Well, the lady tells us, five years ago when I was drinking coffee out of this bowl and I drink all the coffee and all that is left is the coffee grounds, there is the Blessed Virgin herself, right as you see her, made out of my coffee grounds. So she says she cleans up the bowl, except of course for the part where the Virgin is, and she stays there, a perfect representation of our Blessed Lady of Soledad, Oaxaca´s own virgin. Not only that, but get this. Soledad is a protector of fishermen and as this lady was having her coffee and the Virgin was appearing, they were having crab for dinner!!!!! What the heck do you make of that!?!?!? There are soooooo many mysteries in this world and just chalk one more up.

our lady of crema de chile poblano

just read craigs blog about our lady of the coffee grounds
we have great pix of this
he did not mention that then, we went to the main square, and, typical oaxaca style, there was a noise fest. a wonderful noise fest. A 40 piece band playing danzon, a stage with 7th graders doing a pastorela, a boys choir doing joy to the world a la rock and role, and, a bunch of comparza bands accompanied by 2,000 young folks drinking free Sol beer.
then to celebrate this, we went ate. Delicious five star food at La Catedral. cesar salad made at the table elegantly with lime and egg and anchovies, and cream of chile poblano soup with baby corn, and very young pig roasted with chile sauce, and crepes with huitlacoche, and pecan pie and a very fine soft cabernet from Chile. both, with fine waiters and starlight and gentle music, for, $56 US total.

oh, and, the people dancing danzon, all had pink satin scarves around their necks, and a mode of total elegance. in spite of the fireworks going off, and all the other things going on.

Our Lady of the Taxi Drivers Union

Orizaba on this holiday weekend had a lot more to offer!
turns out every year on this sunday, the church of La Union arranges for different groups to continue doing pilgrimages to the virgin

how did we find this: totally by accident

we decided to see a part of town we had never located, the Parque de la Alameda. Wow. what a great kids park. Enormous walled french style park, many acres, and, perhaps because its sunday and perhaps a holiday sunday, so much free stuff for kids to do. there were: bicycle pedaled carts for you to take your family in, a small choochoo train powered by a VW bug cleverly hidden by a wooden box to look like the engine of the 3 car train, FREE electric powered cars each big enough for one to two children, able to be manipulated by them, their parents holding a cord, or both, huge jumpies with trampolines, even huger jumpies one was with a space shuttle and one an enormous inflated tiger with a huge climbing gym... a free painting class to make christmas decorations.... wow. And clowns. and ice cream. there were kids everywhere, and like all mexican kids, totally well behaved, cooperative, and fun loving. so nice. we could have spent hours just watching the adorable girls in their electric barbie jeeps, the little guys in their tiny red convertibles. it was awesome. And of course, free loud mexican baile music blaring, to make watching everything even more fun.

so then, we went off to look for the flower market. sounds boring you would think. Not at all! because today, the flower market was sponsoring their entry in the parade we had not yet heard of! first we saw people making many small floral displays, which everyone seems to need right now, and, then, we saw the most awesome, 3 tired floral concoction, like a giant wedding cake 8 feet high, with of course, a flower cave where the virgin and Juan diego were gettigng acquainted. with awesome colors and each a perfect flower. the best part was that they had dipped some of the roses in glitter on the edges ... it was lovely. sounds tacky. it was not. Then outside, was the float they had created, even bigger, truck mounted, with a huge virgin and enough room for little kids to have been in front of her in the cave if they had been meant to. they were not. around us on this normal looking street were the most lovely kids, a young girl about 9 dressed to the nines in shiny red and green costume, a young boy about 6 dressed in a fancy white charro costume, and a tiny girl in the india costume. so lovely.


they explained to us there was about to be a parade, any minute now, well maybe in 5 minutes, maybe an hour from now, depends on when the TAXI union gets their act together.... meanwhile they were just going to sit here, keep doing finishing touches, and lets light off a few bottle rockets to not get bored... oh by the way did we tell you about the dancers who are coming? Aztec dancers...

so anyway we went on down to the church which was their destination, and saw OTHER floats coming in, each with marching bands, rata tat tattat tat tatta, of cute high school girls and boys, phenomenal rhythm, and some form of the virgin on some kind of float, and lots and lots of folks singing the same song, about the virgin coming down one handsome morning to bless us, her hands folded in prayer and everything about her from her hands to her face to her skin, were MEXICAN! and isn´t that an honor for each mexican. it´s a great song... but can get a little raspy when sung live on a crummy loudspeaker. it´s great when the crowd is singing and they always look annoyed that we are there photographing, until they see we are singing along, and then, well ok then, go gringos! as long as you are worshipping the virgin too, that´s ok!

and as usual there is an OTHER contingent in this town... the fundamentalists, also holding church today. but they don´t get the fun parade action.

finally we found our group again as they were getting ready.the dancers were here! they were from somewhere in puebla. they wore phenomnally scary devil masks, had huge prongs sticking out of their heads, and there were some with pirate hats and swords labeled not Pirata which means pirate, but Pilato which is pontius pilate. swooshing around. everything got going, the floats were moving, preceded by bottle rockets set off right in the middle of the highway, then the marching band, then the marching DEVIL band, then the floats, then the lovely little kids holding hands in a line in their costumes, then large groups of devotees singing, you guessed it.

and all the flower market men, straining, because the float they were carrying on their shoulders, was HEAVY! and they had relief but it looked like pain....

Then, the taxis!

the entire main highway came to a halt... going the pace of foot marchers.... bands tootling, drums drumming, explosive fireworks banging... what a treat! and, each danged taxi setting off every alarm they had. all in honor of the virgin of guadalupe! our lady of OUR taxi drivers union.

Friendly Folks in Orizaba

We have a little time to kill before the bus takes us from Orizaba to Oaxaca, so we are in a little internet place near the bus stop. Gives Amy and me enough time to write a little more about the wonderful town of Orizaba.

One of my best impressions here is the friendliness of the city. Most of the Mexican cities we go to cater to tourists and when someone approaches you it is almost always to get something out of you, take you on a tour, give them money for whatever, or sell you something. Not that that is all that bad, that is just the way it is. Here in Orizaba, we have had all sorts of people talk to us on the street...just to talk. They are curious what we two gringos are doing here. In two days we have not seen ONE other gringo. So naturally, we are a curiosity. Yesterday we were at the flower market, where they were preparing for a big procession down to the Guadalupe church. Several people saw us and started up a conversation. One man, who had some darling kids dressed up in folkloric costume, was more then happy to have us take pictures of his kids. Just try that in Chiapas, where they are deathly afraid of cameras.

The procession of the flower market folks was great. They went down the main boulevard of town, holding back traffic behind them. They were proceeded by a guy shooting off bottle rockets. The flower folks hired some folkloric dancers from Puebla all dressed up in the wildest Aztec style costumes and masked. And then came their two floats, Ol´ Guadalupe on top of the most elaborate flowered mound you´ve ever seen. It was amazing and we´ll post pics when we get home. The flower folks were followed by the taxi association...about 100 taxis or more all dressed up in balloons, flowers and a picture of Guadalupe. All honking their horns at the same town. Sensory overload again!

This morning, another great market food experience. Street food tip: in a Mexican market, always look for the stall that is the most crowded. We found that stall this morning, cooking up what looked like very tasty things. They take a tortilla, dip it in some boiling oil and then place it on a comal, a big concave metal dish over a fire. Then you went from there...a garnacha, a flat crispy, fried tortilla topped with crispy shredded pork, cheese and red sauce; an enfrijolada, a crispy fried tortilla topped with beans, cheese and chicken, a taco, here it was a very big crispy fried tortilla filled with flor de cabasa (zucchini flower) and cheese and sauce. We had four garanchas, one enfrijolada, one big taco, and two champurados, a chocolate drink made with rice. Napkins on the table were like thin paper bag paper. All this for about $5. And the food here was better then in the restaurants we went to in Orizaba.

Good Virgin Town - Bad Virgin Town

We are now in the town of Orizaba, situated below the volcano of the same name, also known as Citlaltépetl. This is the third highest mountain in North America but unfortunately you really can´t see it from the town, except for the very top of the peak. The picture above is how it would look if we could see it.

The other nice thing about this town is that, compared to the town of Jalapa, they really respect their festival here for the Virgin of Guadalupe. We were really looking forward to the festivities on Friday night for Guadalupe but it turned out to be just a big fair with kiddy rides, booths for dart throwing, candy, gambling, t shirts and other assorted boring stuff. It was all commercial and not really aimed at the spiritual aspect of the day. There was a street that the pilgrims came down that went to the big church and they were all into it, but most of the crowd was just there for the party. Kind of disrespectful to Guadalupe, if you ask me. Along with the perpetual traffic jams, not so good food (except for some amazing street food we had), and not too many interesting old buildings, Jalapa is to be missed EXCEPT for its saving grace, the Archeological Museum.

So we left yesterday for Orizaba, which is a very nice town. We hiked about a mile from the bus station into downtown, where there is a nice square, beautiful buildings and a great market. There is also a church that is dedicated to Guadalupe where there were some nice festivities going on and this was much, much better then the day before in Jalapa. The best part were all these little kids. The boys, ages from newborn to maybe 5 or so, dressed up as Juan Diego, the Aztec prince who Guadalupe appeared to. They are so cute in their little straw hats, sandles, white linen shirt and pants, and sarape. The girls, who we call Juanita Diego, but they just call an Indian around here, are dressed up as indian girls and are just amazingly darling. There are booths that they get their picture taken in that have live rabbits and goats.

More about street food, or in this case market food. Wandering around the market yesterday I was a bit peckish. So I just looked at the different food booths to see what the locals were eating. One guy was chowing down on a bowl with a very red liquid and meat. Turned out to be pork in a spicey red sauce. With a Mexican Coke (much, much MUCH better then American Coke), it came to about 40 pesos, or $3. And it was really, really good. After we blog here we are heading back to the market for lunch today. For dinner last night we went to a ´fancy´restaurant here in Orizaba, one that has been around since 1948. Let me just say this...NEVER ORDER STEAK IN MEXICO. They just don´t know steak here, maybe its an American thing. We felt like a nice steak, Amy had filet mignon and I had a rib eye. Very thin little things and very touch. But we had a nice Portuguese wine to go with it. I´ve been fairly disappointed with restaurant meals since we left Oaxaca. Luckily, tomorrow we are back in one of the world´s great food towns.

Virgin of the Aquarium

ok, we lied. we hated jalapa. we LOVE Orizaba.

Orizaba is a small city with great character in a valley in the mountains, with a distant glimpse of the huge volcano that was originally Orizaba and is now known by its traditional Nahuatl name. which is C..... teatl something. Great place. Although we are in a pretty large city, with semi sophistication, still, as I sit now in the internet, looking out the window across the street above the stores, I can see a huge volcanic hill covered in soft green jungly vegetation. and although I can´t see it from here, I know the volcano itself is up there... somewhere.

Yesterday, day 1 in Orizaba, was a really nice day. The night before, the eve of Virgin of Guadalupe Day, we had been in Jalapa, and we had hoped to see some of the same romantic spiritual quality of singing to the virgin that we experienced last year in Merida.

NOT! the same. In Jalapa, everything was crowded out by the huge numbers of cars and trucks, and although every now and then families came through carrying a green flower offering to the virgin, and sang a little, in order to get to the church they had to go through 3 blocks of wall to wall carnival stands with gambling, cheap clothing, fuzzy animals and country fair food. NOT appetizing. then they went up to the modern church and out the other side. no large place for people to gather and socialize. and these are all citified people -- the town is too large for people to know each other, and so they mostly showed up, went to the church, came out the exit, and left.

however... a part of this, maybe the main affair was kind of cute. Each family that could afford it, dresses their kids (up to about age 5, boys and age 12, girls) up as little indians, as Juan Diego in a little white costume with hat, and the girls as little¨índias´, with colorful woven skirts, braids in matching red, green, pink, or combined, ribbons, and lots of shiny little necklace. The kids, wearing this, are all taken to the churhc. and THEN, after, the photo. In Xalapa, families could choose from about 17 different booths re-creating a scene of the virgin, out on a hillside somewhere. And, the plan is to pose your child as if they were really there. course, it doesn´t work out that way, so, to make it easier on the kids, they get posed on the back of a mechanical horse. Many of the kids were so cute. It was fun, to pat the live bunnies, chicks and goats that were also part of the Virgin in a cave sets. they were there to make the babies laugh.

but the whole experience of it, combined with all the fair stalls, made it feel like to these families, day of the virgin had stopped being a meaningful ceremony, just mostly a photo op.

So... we were disappointed...

but, the next day, we took the bus to Orizaba, we were in a whole nother world.

Orizaba

Orizaba is in the mountains, near where the states of Puebla, Oaxaca and Veracruz all come together. The people are a really nice mix of citified folks, and several different groups of huastec indians who come in from neighboring villages, that still enjoy dressing up in traditional costumes, specially on such a big day. We met a really nice older man who told us that nearly everyone around, speaks Nahuatl as well as spanish, and he taught us a few words. we have heard a lot of converstaitons, people seem to like hanging on to both languages. even here, in this internet cafe, I hear both.

Although most people are in city clothes, the women that do come in their village dress, look beautiful. One type of costume for the ladies is absolutely beautiful. Over a lacy petticoat that hangs down in many icicles nearly to the feet, is a dress that has two tiers of pleats so it´s really wide, and comes up to spaghetti straps over the blouse. the dress and skirt is usually satiny, a turquoise or rose or some other nice color. then, under it, is a lace blouse with puffy sleeves, and woven into the blouse are stripes of quarter inch satin ribbon, and here and there where the ribbons cross, are fabric rosettes, usually pink. really a nice costume. never saw it before. it´s some variant on the famous ´china poblana´costume.

when we arrived in town, we realized that celebrating the Virgin was definitely still going on, and we headed right down to the church called La Concordia. This cathedral is definitely the virgin of guadalupes church with enormous murals of the whole story of Juan Diego meeting the virgin and trying to prove to the bishop that she had come. it´s a really nice tall orange, brown and white church, very gingerbready. All in front, are great paper decorations.

Inside, masses went on with nice singing and constantly, the priest would be offering nice prayers for the children. he would say, now, parents, place your hand in blessing on top of your child´s head, and let´s give these children all we can, spiritually, because they are precious. and the parents were tearing up and sometimes you would even see middle aged men putting their head on their grown son´s head while he put his hand on his tiny five year old juan diego´s head.

At the church of the virgin were many, many people, milling around in a relaxed way. The carnival booths were there of course, but right in front of the cathedral, there was a huge park with playground and bandstand and lots of shade, where vendors were off limits. . Again, there were the photo op booths. but these seemed funner somehow. the bleating goats were great. then, I realized, that about five of these, have the virgin, in her grotto, with the donkey, and, on the wall, a computer aquarium! so funny. The Virgin of the Aquarium.

Another really nice thing we experienced, last night, was a procession to a different church, where people held up candles in stars and lanterns made of celluloid in different colors. the frames are handmade of little strips of wood. the singing was heartfelt and the sight of the red, green and orange flames, was really pretty.

what else is great about Orizaba -- the down town, and the art museum.

Wow, the downtown. The main highway between mexico and veracruz, runs about four or five blocks south of the old downtown, and that is where a number of the hotels, and the first class ADO bus station, area. however, everything else is much more tranquil, while still vibrant.

the piece de resistance is this terrific metal ´municipal palace´, a french balconied iron building that was actually built in belgium around the time of the eiffel tower, and shipped and rebuilt in the late 1800s, here. It has two wings, a grand staircarse, and it has a raised veranda all the way around on 2 levels, which is a great place for an upscale coffee restaurant. with absolutely great tres leches cake topped with caramel. In the downtown area, although the old buildings are mixed in with some modern ones, and the shops are vibrant and new, still, it feels really romantic and nice. it´s surrounded by nice french style city garden, fountains, etc. The locals who sit here are fashionable, very courteous, polite manners with each other.

Within a few blocks is a really nice arcaded market building, a pretty cathedral with large churchyard, a big central parque, and a few walking alleys around the French municipal palace.

Good food is available, both traditional food in the market, and romantic candlelit dinners on white cloths with red wine down at a restaurant on the main highway drag called Romanchu.

We are paying 350 pesos or less than $30 for a king sized bed in the Hotel plaza palace or something like that, just next to the belgian building. only problem is the romantic french style city lights stay bright, all night long.

This morning we went on a hike-run with the locals, down into a deep canyon and up and out the other side, past a skinny waterfall, and a place where a waterfall would be if the waters were flowing. ok, there were a lot of concrete stairs. and people jogging up and down these stairs rapidly with their dogs. but it FELT like we were in the country. and we just went up and down this really nice park-let, that they have made out of their river... it runs on a cobblestone floor with the occasional boulder but it´s a really nice curvy river with lovely paths and steps and walls along each side.

Tomorrow, we may hike up one of the volcanic hills that rise directly out of the city, and so be able to get a clearer view of the volcano. right now we can only see the tip of it, over the closer hills.

ART Museum

this town has a fabulous museum of paintings! really nice collection of great mexican artists of the 1700s and 1800s, sensitive portraits, lots of great landscapes which are particularly nice now that we have been to a lot of the places so seeing how cool they were in the past is great. There was a paddle steamer, very luxurious, at Tlocotalpan, for example. And they have a collection of Diego Riveras... unfortunately most of these had been on loan to an exhibit in Colombia and have just arrived home and were not yet on display.

what we didn´t do, because didn´t realize in time, is go out to one of the high mountain valleys, Zongolica, nearby. but it would have taken about an hour and a half on the bus. it´s supposed to be spectacular, and a pretty big town, with lots of opportunities for waterfalls and caves nearby. next time...

never get a hotel on a street where the trucks go uphilll....

craig and I are in a very vibrant city, Xalapa, in the state of Veracruz .... in a bowl in the mountains. nice place, however, the traffic here has been growing fast. the paper today said 20% more cars, in a single year. so, what probably once was an incredibly nice town, is still nice but a bit exhausty and noisy. too bad... but...

this town has one of The Best archeologic museums we´ve ever been in. it´s the state´s museum, its a huge collection, and the building is somewhat like the one in mexico city, except you don´t have to be there. it´s a great, marbled floored modernish building that cascades from one open level to the next so that each culture gets a lot of room and its own open patios. the bulk of it is Olmec, the big head folks, but the other scuptures they did are fantastic. I ended up taking so many photos in there, because the quality of the art and the sense of design was fabulous. Craig had a great time too. we took a cue from a nice french man we met, Laurent, to rent the headsets. great. the headsets not only explain pretty well, they have terrific sound effects -- overlays of lightning, jaguars, babies blabbing, and ceremonial drumming. it really was well done. It has been really nice to come here after being in southern veracruz, where so many of the olmec items were found.

Xalapa itself is pretty cool. It´s a semi colonial city, with some nice moder touches. It is build amid several small hills and valleys and there are a lot of small parks. the first day we went down to a lake park, and met 3 kids there who quickly steered us to what we wanted to know, which was, where would the virgin of guadalupe celebration be. they showed us the carnival rides, the several streets of booths selling carnival type stuff and also some V. of G. teeshirts (sorry Barbara, it´s too cool here, no boxer shorts) and lots of statues. and even grottos where you can get your photo taken with the V of G. Then, the church: they tore down an old church and replaced it with a basilica like a mini version of the one in Mexico City, complete with multiple flights of stairs for pilgrims to ascend, on their knees I guess if they wanted (like they do in mexico city). But in this town: groups or families get together, and buy or make a small float that is like a half helmet, they cover it with green leaves, and flowers, and the front flat side has a picture of the V of G, then they accompany it through the city with candles, down or over to the church, up to the church, and leave it there. so by yesterday noon which is still a day and a half early, there were lots. masses were going on and grey habited nuns were around keeping everyone reverent close to the church... but everyone had a lot of fun as soon as they got a bit further awáy. it´s nice... a local american guy we met here said used to be lots nicer, but now that the city has such traffic gridlock much of the time, they don´t do it on foot so much... they put it on a car or truck til a few blocks away then walk it in. so it´s a tradition being abbreviated.

Too bad xalapa hasn´t yet done what so many other towns have done... created a carless center. oh well. it´s still a nice town... just try to find a hotel on a side street... we are not on a side street but are on the inside courtyard of hotel salmones, for 440 pesos a night for a king bed, nice, modern, clean.

we have had good eats here. today on a streetcorner way out nowhere, we joined a fun group to eat from a stall that is only there on fridays. we had gordas with spicy pork sausage (a gorda here is a fat corn pancake with the meat inside) with green spicy sauce and lime and cheese, and, great quesadillas with squash blossoms and cheese and spicy red sauce, and, great quesadillas with a filling made of some green herby item we can´t explain with green sauce. very good. we did not try the cactus-nopal version.

yesterday lunch we ate in a touristy alley called Diamante at a place called La Sopa and had pretty good chile relleno with picadillo (spicy mincemeat) and really nice roast pork in a slightly sweet sauce that apparently has some prune or raisin in it but when you mix in roast chillles, it´s remarkably good. at lunch we went to a place called Casona de B... something, and had a good mixed grill of some kind and some not very good cochinita pibil (we are clearly not in the yucatan anymore so why do they even bother...)

we have been playing this trip very much by ear. tomorrow we are going by bus to Orizaba, the town that´s at 4000 feet at the base of one of the highest mountains, 3rd after mckinley-denali and mt logan in canada... it´s 18,000 something.

now down to go sing to the virgin... unfortunately I have lost my voice... craig is now having to be the main spanish speaker... kind of fun for me actually

Jalapa and Jalapenos

We are now in the town of Jalapa, the state capital of Veracruz. This is a town up in the mountains, at about 3500 feet altitude. There is a fantastic archeological museum, a beautiful plaza, and lots of nice old buildings. About 800,000 people live here. There are also approximately 14 billion cars. I have never seen so much traffic in my life. Most of the main roads are so blocked with traffic that it is just a lot faster to walk anywhere then to take the bus. We read in the paper today that in the last year the number of cars here rose 20%!!!!

Jalapa, also spelled Xalapa, is famous for the japapeno pepper. It comes from here, somewhere. But the people are also called jalapenos.

But even with all the traffic, noise and diesel fumes, this is still a nice town. Tonight is the big night for the Virgin of Guadalupe and there is a whole set up in the town with carnival rides for the kids, lots of booths selling candy, tacos, Guadalupe trinkets and various cheap crap. Unfortunately, no Virgin of Guadalupe boxer shorts like we saw in Merida last year. We will be heading down to Guadalupe Land in a couple of hours for the big show at midnight.

Today we went to the fantastic archeological museaum. This is one of the nices museums I have ever been to. Really bright, with lots of windows and some fantastic things. The most amazing were the HUGE Olmec heads, about 10 of them, throughout the museum.



As we were heading back into town we happened onto a little food stand. This place proves that some of the best food in Mexico can be found in the little stalls that all over the place. There was a little old lady making some tortillas out of masa, as fresh as you can eat them. We had a couple of quesadillas, filled with some kind of green vegetable, some meat and fresh local cheese. On this we sprinkled some great hot salsa. It was soooo fricking good and only 7 pesos each (50 cents). We also had a gordo, which is a thicker tortilla with the meat and cheese spread on top. OHMYGAWD. When you come to Mexico DO NOT BE AFRAID TO EAT STREET FOOD. If the place looks clean and the people look clean, too, you will be okay. Except for Oaxaca, which is a place that is almost impossible to have bad food, I have been much happier with the street food then the restaurant food. And a meal on the street is usually about 20% of the cost of a restaurant meal. And more fun, cuz you are usually chowing down with the locals. They know their food and if there are a lot of people around a food stall you know it will be good. Tonight, at the big Guadalupe hoop de doo we will be eating tacos and what have you with the locals and, guaranteed, we will be the only foreigners there.

windward side.... of catemaco

another great day. this morning we woke up in catemaco, walked down the malecon which is the waterfront (a not very busy street, with some restaurants, launches and a few religious plazas on the lake side) and went up a side street to get a ´pirata´out to the countryside and beaches. A pirata, is a six seater pickup truck, where the back has a domed roof like a conestoga wagon, and on each side are bench seats. loads from the back, with a metal gate, kind of like loading cattle. So if you are sitting on the benches in the back, you can see forward if you look over the front of the cab, at the scenery, to feel the wind blow on your face, and you can see backward, if you look out the hoop behind you, to see where you have been... otherwise you are in an enclosed vinyl tunnel and it´s great people watching just to see who you have as travel companions.

Catemaco is the town that´s meant for mexican tourists, a newish town on a lovely lake, but the town itself is not so attractive, not like the lovely town of Santiago Tuxtla we went to the other night. it´s kinda tawdry. Well... as soon has you head off towards Montepio, it´s instantly great. It´s rural and pleasant and people are very very kind. The whole area is on volcanic slopes and very green, the road winds gently up and over several ridges and drop down to the shore... then up... then down again. up high, it looks like Olinda (Maui upcontry), with cows and trees and jungle, and down low, it looks like Puna or the forests on the wettest part of hawaii, and the shore when you touch it is very nice. The pirata, is a local bus system. they leave every 45 minutes, to go a quite long way out to Montepio the beach and beyond costs about 28 pesos or 2.50 us, and, you get quite a show. not only do you wind out the road (which is mostly paved, except for a few miles where you go through the most preserved part of the jungle, where it is paving stoned=, but, you also pick up and discharge interesting passengers, and, go off the paved road back to quite a few little villages, on your way.

Our fellow travelers loved to initiate conversations with us. if they knew some english, they wanted to try it. The bus takes school kids, high schoolers, a guy taking a big cedar armchair in for upholstering, bundles of banana leaves, all kinds of stuff.

About half an hour out, after you go way up and way down, is the town of Socotepan (or something similar), which is where some fresh rivers feed a briny lake that flows out through a sandbar to the ocean. A large lake, several miles across, with fishermen. in the shores are mangrove swamps, and some freshwater rivers, lots of fish, a few caymans or crocs (not sure waht they are, as the word lagarta, lizard, and crocodrilo, can mean lots of things). However, we did not get off there, instead, we went off into the greenery through jungle and through cowpastures up and down, finally ending an hour and a half later (would only be an hour, if you were not making all the side jaunts and pauses) in a large set of bays. the first beach is montepio, an old sugar refinery was there til the 1920s, and it has pretty brown-sand beaches, very shallow, a great place for dogs and locals and intermittently, a few buses with mexican soccer players and tourists. It´s where two pretty large streams meet and discharge to the water. First we sat in lovely shade of palapas on the beach, which at first had some cute young soccer players... they left... we ate fresh fish and fresh limonadas and a coke for $10 usd... then, we wandered around a bunch, inland, thinking we might make it all the way to a waterfall. We had not realized that actually our little pirata system would have kept going to the town where you easily get to the waterfall, a place called ´revolucion de abajo´(The Revolution came from Below). So we only got to a town called ´2nd of April´. Why second of april? a woman who had some more pepsis for us in another shady palapa, said, ¨"well, it must be called this because we always have parties on that day". go figure.

Wandering was fun. we met a guy with freshly baked bread, yeasty, aromatic, wheeling them around on a handtruck in the middle of nowhere between 2 villages, wanted to know if we wanted some, we told him a new group of mexican tourists had just shown up at the beach, he got so happy and said God Bless you! and off he trotted to find them.

The nicest thing about wandering was meeting a great old guy, about 65, a cowboy, on a palomino. nicest guy. he had lived in bakerfield, or somewhere, for a decade, years ago. Said, I roamed the world, then I realized, this is heaven here. So I came back. He wanted to know if we had any magazines in english so he could look through them. we had a new yorker, not sure if he´ll like it or not. It was like meeting the guy who wrote Hele on To Kauai.... left home to see the world... found out the best was at home.

and, we hopped back on another pirata, heading back home. A new set of side roads, a new set of belongings. Immediately, some kind guy talked to us about how he´d be happy to have us come stay at his beach property, and wasn´t this the best place on earth... a place where you only have to eat, drink, swim, and sleep.... again, same story.. I´ve been everywhere... and this is heaven.

We were told, this is the switzerland of veracruz... I guess because green and cows... obviously they have never been to hawaii!

The beach at montepio is not necessarily one I´d want to overnight at... and I would never go there at a high mexico tourism time as it gets packed. but today it was a long, nearly deserted shore, three or four small spreadout towns you could hardly see... fish to eat... icecream sellers with fruit flavored sherbets... pretty nice

now, back in catemaco... busy,motorcycles, taxis, and... more parades and masses for the virgin! but we are ready to go... on to Jalapa tomorrow.

A word about catemaco... the two hotels that interested us the most were the one we stayed at, the Playa Cristal, which was more comfortable looking in that it was pretty modern, nice roomy layout, clean and not hardly run down yet (even new mexican hotels seem to run down kinda quick), and not expensive off season. the other hotel we liked is on the end of town right next to the ADO bus station. it has a huge garden... its rooms look nice... 400 pesos... but.... the beds feel like 2 inches foam on 4 inches stiff plywood... when you sit on the end, the other end clearly seems to tip up like it would if it´s all a plywood frame. and you´d hear the buses if you were too closer. but it´s right next to the edge of town, and the open spaces along the lake... from a natural setting standpoint, nice!!!!

earplugs -
as in all mexican hotels you need really good earplugs... our gorgeous room at dona lala, had an inexplicable eletric hum all night... our nice hotel the playa cristal at the quiet end of town with only one restaurant nearby was great, until someone set up a huge band in the restaurant for someone´s quinceanera.... ya just never know.... bring earplugs!

Sensory Overload

Mexico is definitely not for the faint of heart. It is loud, fast and everything can happen at once. Example...Sunday night we were in Veracruz. That is a great night to be there as it is danzon night. Danzon is a wonderful style of music here, a style of jazz that originated in Cuba. Sundays in Veracruz there are two danzons. One is in a small square a few blocks from the main zocalo. Here you will see many old folks, minimum age seems to be about 60 or so, maximum...well, we saw some folks in their 80s. Maybe it is a dying art, as there were no young folks except in the band. Anyway, these elders come down to the square with their significant other, or sometimes alone, to dance the danzon. It looks easy, just a few steps here and there, but I am sure it is not so easy. The band consists of some brass, a trumpet, a trombone and some percussion. The songs all kind of sound the same, and a little off key. So Amy and I just sat at a restaurant and watched and listened. Great stuff. We had a wonderful crab soup that is a speciality in Veracruz, washed down with a couple of Negro Modelo beers.

From here it was a three block walk to the Zocalo and here everything was different. There was a HUGE crowd, several hundred folks. Most were watching the danzon and the band here was much bigger and pretty much on key. Professional musicians. After watching this for awhile we sat down to have some dessert (an okay, but not great flan) and here was where all hell broke loose. The band playing the danzon was loud, so you could here them even though we were about 100 feet away. But then there were all these wandering musicians, strolling through the tables of the various restaurants, playing for people at the tables. At one point I counted four different groups PLUS the big danzon band. All playing at the same time!!! Maybe for the table that the musicians were playing for they could here the band that they were playing for, but for us it was just one loud mish mash of music, danzon, sons de jaracho (the local traditional music), guitar trios, and then a mariachi band showed up!! Yikes!! That was our clue to get the heck out of there.

For lunch in the same square it was much quieter. A guitar trio come over to our table and played a couple of beautiful, traditional Veracruz songs. Nice guys, lovely music...it will be on YouTube soon.

The city of Veracruz was much nicer then I expected. A bit grimey, but its a real working port town where there are lots of container ships and oil being exported. The Malacon, the walkway along the water is great for people watching. All sorts of folks trying to sell you fake Raybans or Rolexes. Great big huge cargo ships and tow boats along with a few navy ships. The breeze off the ocean was lovely. The food left a little to be desired, but heck, we had just come from one of the great food towns in all the world, Oaxaca, so maybe its all relative.

We have been having quite a few seredipitus moments. Yesterday, in the charming river town of Taclotapan, we took a boat ride with a guy named Horatio. He told us about his three granddaughters who learn traditional dance at the Casa De Cultura. So were went there late in the afternoon and here was the local version of a Hawaiian halau, with their kumu and ukulele players. They kids were learning the traditional dance and they ranged in age from about 5 to 15 or so. They set off in pairs of boys and girls and do a kind of flamenco with a lot of heel banging on the floor. They were accompanied by about 10 kids playing the jarana, which is an 8 stringed instrument tuned JUST like an ukulele. Very beautiful instruments with narrow bodies and they have a certain kind of strum they do. This was all overseen by their dance instructor, who was a lady probably in her 70s and obviously knew what she was doing.

So Amy is writing alot about what we have been doing the last few days so I will just write about a really cool experience we had today. We are now staying in Catemaco, a small town on Lake Catemaco in southern Veracruz state. Its a bit touristy, but this time of year there are no tourists. That is hard on the locals, especially the guys that sail the little boats that take you out on the lake. Havent done that yet. This afternoon Amy wanted to go to a town about 45 minute bus ride today, Santiago Tuxtla. This is a great little town with a very nice parque, or square. As we were wandering around an American guy came up and started talking to us. He was so glad to see us as he hadnt seen an American in several weeks. Needless to say, we are not in Cancun!! Amy wanted to go to the town Casa de Cultura, so he showed us where to go way up this hill and that we should talk to Don Angel, the creater, owner and manager of the place. Indeed we met Don Angel, who was very gracious and kind and showed us around the little place. They give all sorts of classes here on various things, like dance, playing the jarana, painting and basket weaving. He even gave us a small basket. He then took us into his office where he sang some traditional songs of the area and even a couple he wrote, on the jarana and the guitar. He then read us a poem about his town, Santiago Tuxtla. We were very impressed with the place and gave him a donation to help three students for a semester (amazing what $20 will get you here).

WOW!!!!

We just had to log off because we heard a procession going by outside and had to have a look-see. As you may know, these are the days leading up to December 12th, the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. So there are all sorts of things going on in all the towns. We heard the song La Guadalupana outside and knew there was a procession going on. Sure enough, about 100 people were walking by being led by two small floats with Guadalupe on them and being followed by a truck with giant loudspeakers playing this song over and over. Everyone (except us, who by now had joined the parade) had a little red candle. We all sang the song. We slowly strolled around the block past the firehouse and the parque up to the cathedral, where they went in and were all singing the song (the truck with the loudspeakers never made it inside). You know, this kind of thing is really touching and is what makes traveling so wonderful. I am not a believer, I realize that the story of Guadalupe was made up by local priests in the 1500s to convert the Aztecs. And it worked like a charm. Guadalupe is bigger then big here in Mexico. Bigger then Jesus, bigger then God himself, she is what the Mexican people really feel in their hearts when it comes to their Catholocism. But even as a non
believer in Guadalupe, it touches my heart. These people really believe. And isnt that what a different culture is all about¿ Not only the food, the landscape and the art, but the religion, too.

awesome times on the gulf coast

wow, in 3 days we have been in 3 such incredibly different places... unbelievable. This trip to the veracruz area is definitely surpassing what we dreamed.

>Veracruz

We arrived in veracruz in predawn dark on sunday morning and checked into what seemed like a potential fleabag hotel in the potential worst of dirty port towns. Wrong! people in veracruz starting with our hotel owners are so warm and the town has such elegance. we woke to tropical sunlight, walked out into soft breezy air into an incredibly active port but with lots of character and amazing amounts of music.

Veracruz was re-created in the mid 1800s during the age of elegance and the gilded age was its last heyday. So its small downtown area is laid out in excellent style. Although the main streets are a little crowded, it has a network of small walking pathways between hidden plazas. the overwhelming feeling is that you are in kind of new orleans -- 2 and 3 story grand buildings with wrought iron railings, doorways that enter in large entrance halls with ornate carved ceilings, grand stair cases and huge gilded mirrors.

The main plaza in particular has everything tropical you want... lovely grand palm trees, huge cupolas, cigar stands and about 7 different sidewalk cafes to choose from. There are several grand hotels. We had paid 350 pesos for our hotel, el faro, but since it is such low season, we found we could have paid 550 pesos for a grand room in the Hotel Imperial overlookiong the square that normally goes for 950 pesos so from 85 to 45 dollars.

for breakfast, we went to a restaurant at the border between the malecon, which is a very long portside promenade where you can watch major shipping vessels load and get on boat cr uises and watch vendors and sidewalk painter s, and the downtown area. The Cafe de la Parroquia serves excellent coffee... if you want it black you get Cafe Americano, if you want it with milk you g et a hug e glass mug and then people come around with tin teapots full of steamed scalded milk and hot coffee to fill it for you. we had some local things our hotel told us to eat - gordas and picaditos I think... mainly we got to have such fun, the place had about 12 outdoor tables and 40 indoor tables and was packed, packed with locals and some mexico city tourists.. as well as a local group of middle aged harley r iders. In came a guy with guitar, a guy with huge harp, and two dancers woman in white with big wide skirts and man in formal white, who do this flamenco like tapping dance the area is famous for. Meanwhile, clowns, santa and endless vendors of quote rolex watches and quote rayban sunglasses entertained everyone. it was hard to find tim e to eat. the crowd was fairly elegant, there is a cuban sophistication around.

For dinner and after, we were mostly sitting in plazas listening to big bands play danzon, the dance music of this area from the 30s and 40s. very romantic and the older folks dancing wore sophistication even if their clothes were simple.

There was danzon music in the big plaza, late at night ... but it was hard to hear! that{s because there was also mariachi, ranchero, son jarocho, karaoke, and maybe 3 ot her types of music being offered by strolling musicians. and cuban music, and cumbia

as you can tell we really liked veracruz. we liked the total blend of cultures.

however... our next day was even bett er we got up early and went to the town of Tlacotalpan

> Tlacotalpan

this is a river town, that in the 1800s was the major center for its whole area. the coast around veracruz is very flat and there are lots of tidal ponds and huge lagoons... and in the 1800s roads could not be easily built with just manpower which was in short supply anyway. so where the major river of the area, the papaloapan, joins another river just in f rom the coast, a town kind of like Brazils Iquitos and Manaos, sprang up. From inland, coffee, chocolate and fruit came down, and sugar was harveste d all over the area. So the landowners became very rich. They built a town along the river in the french style or something, with wide boulevards and lined them with houses with shady arched arcades. Over t ime in the area, the tradition has come up to paint the houses with brilliant colors... orange, tangerine, lime, lemon, cherry, violet, grape, turquoise. often each house has 2 contrasting colors. Anyway... Tlacotalpan has streets of tremendous color on wide streets that are perfectly clean... the area makes victorian style cedar furniture with wicker seats and backs, making rocking chairs, dining sets and formal living room sets. So these colorful buildings have iron railed windows and when they are open to let in the br eeze, you can see... everyone seems to have a formal living room with curved bent wood rockers and cameo portraits on the walls. and its like you are in the 1890s. there is even a huge old theater that opened in the 1890s, with gilt balconies and private boxes. The first presentation seems to ahve been wagners rings.

Now, no one makes a living on sugar or coffee and all the produce goes to veracruz anyway, and the small city-t own is a ghost town, practically. The slow wide river flies by and second class buses come by, and fishermen go up and down the river and not much happens... except the cows graze and ... people play music. not so much any more but once a year the place floods with people who love the local guitar-based music, Son Jarocho. young people have to move away to make a living.. which is sad.

I see craig has just been writing about our great experience at the casa de cultura. A few more things about tlacotalpan: great place to spend one night and day... we stayed in the best hotel the Dona Lala, which was expensive for us off season 775 or about 65 dollars but it was a huge corner room on the second floor looking acr oss the street at the river and it had great kingsize bed, clean and sleek and a flat screen tv to watch old mexican movies and american movies. Up the street from the main plaza on the street that goes up river there is a hotel RIGHT on the water wich looked nice. We ate pretty good whole fish at one of the MANY restaurants that hang over the river with balconies of tables, there are lots of restaurants because of the huge crowd the town g ets every year on february 2nd, we had it with mojo de ajo which is garlic sauce which is always great, and with chilpotle sauce which was VERY hot and smoky. washed down with Indio beer and limonadas. However, at dinner time ALL the riv er restaurants are closed. there is a place to eat on the main square (the square is VERY pretty and serene, with two white churches and three fun bars) but the food is not good. So eat well early.

we had no trouble getting to Tlacotalpan by a Cuenca bus from Veracruz, and no trouble getting from Tlacotalpan by a good more first class type Cuenca bus to our next stop, San Andres Tuxtla and Catemaco and the nearby town of Santiago Tuxtla.

going up the river is fun... horacio charged the 2 of us, 100 pesos per half hour.. but we went up the Papaloapan... if I did it over I{d ask to go up the San Juan because it probably has more wildlife, more people line fishing from boats , and fewer views of riverside homes of the rich and famous (an odd thing about Tlacotalpan, it has an odd connection through its past wealth and a major composer, Augustin Lar, to the rich famous and politically connect ed in mexico, which may be why it has a very nice clean bur nished feel to it--- maybe its upkeep has to do with its wealthy visitors. anyway it{s a real nice place. nothing tawdry and people are SO helpful in a nice way, no one is conning you or trying to get something from you, they do want you to spend money there of course but they are proud of taking care of tourists, they say.

> The gulf coast scenery

So... the first imp ression I had of the coast , was FLAT. then from veracruz to T lacotalpan i could see how pretty it is. And varie d. There are big lagoons and cane fields and green sand dunes with cows, and lush tropical growth and yet some cactus also. The roads oft en seem to run along the coast dunes and the big rivers and lagoons inland, are low. the roads might even run on embankments... I get the impression at one time there was not so much solid land along. when we went up river at Tlacotalpan, we saw grassy banks, mesquite trees, cows munching, horses in up to their hocks, big white herons

Today coming from Tlacotalpan we g ot into sugar cane land and past ures with cows and cowboys on horses, and, finally we got started abruptly uphill into this amazing area, the tuxtlas. its a big volcanic outcropping I guess. There is one high cone and many smaller cones and ridges and hills. Its wilder, greener, there are tall trees of all kinds and as you climb in to the hills, it gets to look like upland maui or the way guat emala used to look, or like california in the higher coast hills when its very gr een. there are cows and sheep and areas of jungle and clear rushing streams. Its pretty neat. the main tourism focus of the area is a very large lake at Catemaco, 6 miles across, like a mini lake tahoe in a basin of volcanoes. might be a big caldera lake. i t has a black sand and basalt shore . the town of Catemaco is ok but dominat ed along the shady lakeside with fish restaurants and many many flat boats like pangas that are jus t there to take tourists to see the lake, its islands and some so called eco resorts. There are also fishermen, casting nets from their boats

One more great thing about the whole area... is the ongoing love of colorful houses. Its amazing, the combinations. tonight at sunset we were walking by a house painted the exact color of cherries... awesome in the dusk with a girl in pink sitting in front of it.

> adventures in Santiago Tuxtla

Catemaco is ok but a bit disappointing ... in that you get a lot of touristm stalls, a lot of would be boat ride givers, and overpriced food, in a site that is pretty nice but would be nicer, wilder and 20 years ago. so, we hopped on a bus today, to go back down the road 12 miles or so to the first of the 3 towns. Santiago Tuxtla gets no tourism visits except from people who want to see the Olmec heads and museum of the local finds, and it is charming to us... a vibrant , modest, not overwhelmingly wealthy but very self respecting town. We were really lucky to be steered by earlier bloggers, a chance meeting with a lonely American who moved here t o be with his local girlfriend, and our experience at Tlacotalpan, to go up to the Casa de Cultura. Oh! I see Craig has written about this! and we will youtube it.

> ok what he has not written about, is, the festivals! the holiday season is coming. in tlacotalpan we saw our first posada, a terrific juvenile event, with 6 year olds dressed in shiny sateen costumettes, being joseph, mary and the 3 kings, walking the streets trailed by a guy playing recorded mexican carols from a loudpeaker mounted on the front of his bicycle cart. he and all the adults were really enjoying the tykes. they were great. later that evening, we saw a huge crowd of about 50 bicyclists following a blaring siren and a truck with the Virgen of Juquila on it, and some motorbikers too, doing their antorchista pilgrimage like we saw last year in Merida. Today we caught a glimpse of 2 huge puppets agin, this time a skeleton and a large red satan. we look forwar d to seeing more. all the plazas are having blazing red decorations, and there are larg e biblical scenes going up everywhere in the plazas. today we wanted to go into the church devoted to the virgin of carmen, in Ca t emaco, and girls wanted us to buy bouquets of basil and roses, that you are supposed to use to make a cross on the glass enclosing the statue then smear the basil on yourself somehow. and, someone was painting christ{s crucifix. oh there is á parade going by ! gottta go and fireworks too


.....

well.. you can read from craig we joined a procession for the virgin. what he didn{t mention is that at the end of t he procession, people absolutely filled the church here, and, there was the most heavenly singing, of the same song. and the priest swirled clouds and clouds of copal incense around (the same incense that the aztecs and their associates used exactly in this same villge of tuxtla, (which is a very old world, nahuatl, means somet thing like field of rabbits... ) for centuries... and the huge virgin was lit by backdrop of silver and blue vertical glitter from ceiling to floor... beautiful! the music was absolutely magical. tears in the eyes...

tasty bites and dancing, punctuated by fireworks

wow, oaxaca is still amazing. This is our 4th time, and I thought it might get old. not a chance. Perhaps especially because we arrived first weekend in December, along with a lot of other folks coming home from the states to their home, things are happening. weddings, quinceaneras, dancing, fireworks and parties. it´s great. and the food still remains the best in the world. not a bad bite yet.

We thought we might be having a good time, yesterday Friday, in Guadalajara, where we had to make a 10 hour stop over. And, Guadalajara was surprisingling pleasant, for a huge city. the main downtown has all kinds of walking streets, a fun blend of modern and old, and lots of people were very kind to us. From our taxi driver who regaled us with his stories of visits in Ketchikan, and lots of people helping us find our way to bus stops and helping us get off buses, everyone was so nice. but the food in Guadalajara is not like oaxaca, the beans are pale the spices seem predictable, compared to oaxaca. breakfast, was green and red sauce ´divorced´chilaquiles with cappucino, and lunch, was a really pretty good savory pozole and tasty roast goat in some kinda sauce. with pale beans.

But Oaxaca. Since coming early yesterday evening, we have had: a meal fit for kings, the only people in beautiful restaurant La Catedral, with a handmade cesar salad, chilles rellenos de picadillo (spicy mincemeat) and lechon al hornillo (young suckling pig roasted with spices). Breakfast was a really great oaxacan dish, tlayudos, in a wonderful restaurant in the market, Comida Candita, accompanied by a huge bowl of hot oaxacan chocolate frothed in milk and cinammon, with an egg yeast roll with cardomon, and craig had atole, a cornmeal chocolate drink. Tlayudos is a large crispy flat tortilla which is 2 inches wider all around than a dinner plate, coated with delicious refried black beans smeared thin, with a dark mole sauce and avocado and tomato and lettuce and onion, with a central portion of thin grill fried marinated spicy beef, or spicy chorizo sauce, or cecino which is pork. Lunch was incredible green enchiladas where the enchiladas were smooth rich oaxacan cheese in a fresh made green tomatillo sauce with tasty shredded chicken, and craig had the yellow mole, a large bowl of spicy yellow orange chile soup with chayote squash. And another bowl of chocolate. Dinner was azteca soup which is chicken soup with crumbly friend pork rinds, tortillas that were crisp but fall apart, avocado, oaxacan cheese, and quesadillas with melty oaxacan cheese and a tangy green herb called epazote. chased down with brown Negra modelo beer. and in betweeen we wandered to chocolate shops where we sampled dark chocolate, dark chocolate with cinaammon, dark chocolate with nuts, and more dark chocolate, and a small vendor who made us an espresso of local oaxacan coffee, and a couple of stops for capuchinos. Also, we got street food at a dance festival, mostly chips and popcorn drenched in chile sauce.

Dancing. A great thing we remember from our last trip here, for day of the dead two winters ago, is the dancing with huge puppets in the street, often to the german-band like oompa music of a type of band that plays comparza music. The puppets are enormous. Well this time we got to see them, in one day, four times! The first was, in the morning when we walked down to the main square, a lovely young girl was having her quinceanera mass, she was in a very sophisticated bronze gown with large hoopskirs and her hair upswept, her younger attendants were in smaller copper colored gowns. The comparza band with them was I think a yellow haired girl puppet and a large twirling globe and some other funny character. Then, later, up at the Santo Domingo church, a great set - an enormous white bride, and an enormous groom with a top hat, and a big ball like a fly-away honeymooner balloon. The white bride was dancing, and later we got to meet the person holding up the bride. in the brides skirts, at her knee level, there was the face of a lovely young woman, peering out. the puppet holders are holding some wicker framework that must rest on their shoulders. it´s amazing. Then, later, back down at the square, a very fance wedding happened, with terrific mariachis, and the bride in a dress with a train needing 3 kiddos to hold it up. Then we saw a large puppet dressed like catrina. Then tonight, we went to a great free dance concert, at yet another cathedral this one dedicated to the virgen of soledad, by the Oaxacan folkloric dance company.... and they arrived as a parade, with a comparza band, with a large yellow headed puppet, and several witch like figures dressed head to toe in shiny strips of fabric. with a lot of colorful women in traditional guelaguetza costumes... mostly the lovely costumes of the isthmus of tehuantepec which are velvet heavily embroidered in rich colors, a loose short top over a long wide skirt with about a foot of stiff lace at the bottom.

Really fun

So during the dance concert, periodically, fireworks were set off... on a 13 foot pole held up by a 13 year old kid, which sputtered and fizzed, seemed to go off, then started twirling madly in a catherine wheel, showering the kid and the crowd in sparks and setting off that delightful eeeee eeeee eee sound. then boom! exploding


OK so now I read Craigs blog and it reminds me of one of the really fun things about Guadalajara, which was the large and very convenient market there. It is a great market. I guess normally they have lots of food, lots of great leatherwork... want some fancy cowboy boots in any hide imagineable... lots of guitars... lots of the crafts of the area which are some nice pottery, glass, etc. But the fun part for us was the crafts set ups for christmas and the feast of the virgen. So nice. not only lots of twinkly lights and things playing christmas carols.... but homemade things, apparently when you make an altar for the virgin of guadalupe there have to be fresh flowers, and there have to be sort of offering baskets... and I guess it is customary for these offering baskets to have emblems of fertility and enough food. So they make, in Guadalajara, small pine wood boxes or kitchen shelvy things that are open weave, and they havea multitude of tiny kitchenwear things, little pots and pans and little food items, and, pictures of the virgen. very cool. And, they sell all kinds of creche things... creche scense are very big here, very important more so than christmas trees... and they have to have lots of open space for the sheperhds to traverse on their way to the christ child... and on the way they have to be tempted by satan so there are lots of little red satan figures to be bought in the market... and, since Guadalajara´s state, jalisco, is the home of tequila which is made from maguey, they have tiny little maguey plants for your creche scene. cute little cacti, with little red dots which might be flowers or might be christmas lights.

Another nice thing is that many mexican markets have tiny birds for sale, and lots of people keep pigeons for pets. so as we are wandering by basket after basket of christmas ornaments for sale, what do we see, but someone´s little pet pigeon, nesting on a basket of decorative balls of some kind.. chirping and singing... so cute. we got some nice pictures. it would periodically hold still, then turn its head one way or another, and hold again... it was hard to believe it was not a little toy

and speaking of toys... lots of small toys handmade, lots of tiny pinatas to buy.
and everyone is wandering around today with pots of poinsettias... and every town square is planted thick with them... and they have large christmas trees made from stacks and stacks of them

before I left to come here, I was NOT ready for christmas... I was not enjoying the music and the push to buy. But in mexico, december is party season! everyone is in to the party, everyone wants to share the food they have prepared with you because it brings good luck, at the dance they were throwing out ´guelaguetza´gifts to the audience after each song, sharing the abundance of tortillas and apples and small sweets and little hearth brooms and whatever, so that the audience could take home some good luck for next year. Pretty cool!

well tomorrow morning we will wake up in the tropics... we´ll see if December is celebrated there as well!

We are picking up little magic good luck emblems, here and there.. and sometime next week we will go to a town that is a major center for `good witch`style witchcraft in mexico... love potions, things like that... we will try to find good luck for all


oh... a little notes on prices for us to remember
taxi from guadalajara airport, to the plaza de armas, takes 45 minutes, fixed price 250 pesos about $18 (peso is 12.5 to $1)
bus from guadalajara center to Tlaquepaque, about 6.5 or 9.5 can´t remember
taxi from Tlaquepaque to airport, 150 pesos
meals in Oaxaca with everything so far, $50-60 for a luxury meal for 2, $10 for a market meal for 2 (exceptionally tasty and clean), capucinos are about 20 to 30 pesos depending where you are $2, our really great hotel with very comfy large king size room was about 630 pesos which is about $55 which is more than we used to but it´s great

One Constant Fiesta

We are in our favorite Mexican town, Oaxaca, for one day. Tonight at midnight we take the all night bus to Veracruz, on the gulf coast. But today was a great day, as most days in Oaxaca are.

Friday morning at 1am we took the 3 1/2 hour flight to Guadalajara, where we had a 10 your layover before our flight to Oaxaca. So we took a cab into town to check it out. Downtowan Guadalajara is very nice. Lots of pedestrian streets, nice churches and public buildings. The great Mexican painter, Orozco, has some amazing murals here. In one building, he painted all over the ceiling and the walls and it looks like a Mexican version of the Sistine chapel. But his paintings are pretty rough...lots of revolutionary themes, conquistadors, military conquests, etc. But his art is pretty amazing.

From there we went to Talaquepaque, an artsy-fartsy town nearby, kind of like the Mexican version of Carmel. But getting there turned out to be dramatic. We were told where to get the bus, but none came. Then a guy standing nearby told us where to go to get the fast bus, but we kind of messed up on his instructions and were standing in the wrong place for a half hour. We asked four different people and got four different answers. Finally we found the spot and as Amy was running to it, BAM!!!! she tripped over a curb and did a face plant on a metal fender of a horse drawn buggy that was right in front. Very lucky for her, no major injury except a huge purple and blue bruise on her chin.

So Telaquepaque was anticlimatic after that, but it´s a nice town and has some good food.

So we finally got to Oaxaca last night and after checking in at our favorite hotel, Las Golondrinas, headed down to the Zocalo, where there is always something happening. On the way there, we were walking by a gallery and heard the beautiful strains of a guitar trio. Indeed, there was one inside as there was an opening of a local artist´s exhibition. The art was so so, but the music was wonderful. Classic Mexican songs and great guitar playing.

The zocalo is now all decorated for Christmas. There are literally thousands of poinsetia plants in the square. They are making large creches that have all sorts of interesting characters in them. The market, a block south of the zocalo is loaded with bright flashing Christmas lights. We haven´t found any of the wonderfully kitchy Virgin of Guadalupe flashing light things like last year, but we´re still looking. This is kitch to its max...the Virgin of Guadalupe on hard paper, surrounded by three rows of flashing lights...blue, red and yellow. It´s so bloody awful, it´s fantastic. We bought one last year and it was the most admired of all our Christmas decorations.

For dinner we went to our favorite restaurant, La Catredral. We were the ONLY customers for dinner, although this is one of the best places to eat in Oaxaca...not too many tourists in town now. This is what we had...a Cesar salad, made right at our table. The waiter must have taken 10 minutes to make it and it had all the ingredients, olive oil, anchovies, garlic, basalmic vinegar and many other things. I had this wonderful roast pig that was cooked to perfection and it came with some potatoes in a kind of curry sauce. Amy had chile relleno picadillo...peppers with minced meat. I also had a Herredura reposado tequila and we had two margaritas. All of this for a grand total of about $38!! This is fancy eating in Oaxaca and the price is definitely right.

Today we decided to go cheap on the food, so we headed to the big local market. We went to a stall in the middle of the market, one that has been there for many years. The proprietress inherited it from her mom, Candita. Amy and I split a Tlayuda, a kind of Mexican pizza...a huge flour tortilla that is grilled and on top of it they put refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes and any kind of meat. It was really good....

Okay, so I see Amy is writing about our food experiences and the quincenieras and all the good stuff we saw today, so I won´t repeat too much. But tonight we went to a folkloric dance where some local dancers in full costume danced all sorts of classic Oaxacan dances. After each dance they throw food into the audience, small bags of bread and candy that is a tradition here. The music was a lot of fun, that good old slightly off key oompa-pa type stuff. It´s pure joy to listen to.

So we are off tonight at midnight for the all night bus ride to Veracruz. It´s a first class bus, which are wonderful. Much, much more comfortable then an airplane ride.