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
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