The VW is back!

After being car-less for the last week, we have the VW back! We have a few more things to see and do before we head back home;
-Nopales, a mountain town
-Manialtipec Lagoon
-Manzanute and San Agustinillo beaches (side by side)
-Sport fishing (booked for Monday Jan 24th at 6:45)

As a special treat to myself, I had Adrian drop me off on the way to the beach at an esthetic place for a manicure! I've been growing my nails since my manicure in Calgary just before Christmas. I could communicate to the ladies what I wanted and they indicated it would be 120 pesos ($10.00). We all 3 did our best to figure out a few things to talk about, I opened up my Spanish / English dictionary and a few hand signals and pretty soon I knew Gloria and Rosie! Gloria has 3 kids, 1 boy 2 girls, boy was 33, others I didn't get :) Gloria wanted to know if i liked Oaxacan food and what I did, what my husband did etc. We won't be emailing each other when I leave, but we had a nice visit.

Today was hot, as usual, no one discusses the weather here, it is always the same, hot, frickin hot, sometimes stinkin hot. Humidity, yup some of that too..... :) Not complaining, simply commenting.

We hung out at Playa Carrizalillo with Frank and Mary, they don't usually go down to that beach as it is 167 steps to come back up, and they are steep steps. We ended the day by watching the sun go down at one of our favorite restaurants Guadua, rhymes with Ottawa. I had an interesting, but not to be duplicated by me ever again, drink. The spicy Tamarindo margarita. Adrian had a margarita on the rocks then a Green Iguana. Frank also had 2 green iguanas, and Mary had the Tamarindo Margarita, which was awesome!

We finished the day with a pretty darn good pizza from Mediterraneo.

Till Manana!

Bus over the Sierra Madres Mountains

Yesterday was a long day.

We had a lovely breakfast at our B&B (Oaxaca Ollin), then packed up and took a taxi to the bus depot that our guide was kind enough to find for us, and ask questions from them the day before. The bus we were taking is a 12 passenger van, which included the driver. After buying our tickets, we sat and waited for it to leave, however, a couple of young italians who purchased after us took our front row seats. I motioned to the woman who we purchased our tickets from that we have very long legs and we would need those seats. The couple was not pleased. But after I brought it up, the driver and the ticket seller got together and assigned seats as to the order the people purchased them, ie. last purchaser got the last row......I was hoping they took gravol.

Our guide HIGHLY recommended that we take gravol, he advised the 7 hour trip, to go only 250 kms, was nothing but switch backs. He did say that we were lucky as we would be taking highway 175, it had the best roads, not 131 as it was terrible! He didn't realize that about 1.5 hours into the journey, the van takes highway 131:( He was right, these roads are terrible!

I can't say that the gravol was necessary, but we weren't taking any chances. The van was hitting pot holes, veering around pot holes, screetching around corners and generally going like a bat out of hell. All normal Mexican driving :)

We finally made it to PE around 6:30, jumped into a taxi and headed home, without my wallet though! Some how it was either picked, or it fell out somewhere, lucky for me it only had about 170 pesos (15.00) or so, and none of my ID. I kept this little change purse in my pocket as a bit of a decoy and for beach trips and only noticed it missing when we got back to our Casa and I tried to pay the driver.

Today we have mainly caught up on laundry, bought groceries, made sangria and Hibiscus agua. I purchased the dried hibiscus flowers at the market as we had the best Hibiscus (jimica) water when we were in Oaxaca city. I thought we should give it a try. After purchasing our fresh produce and some local bacon (toccino) we headed to the local "Walmart". Everyone from town calls the local la tienda 
that is somewhat larger then most, the "Walmart". Found pre made Jimica Agua in bottles.

One of the most interesting local Mexican things are the door to door Gas sales men. They drive around selling tanks of Propane for your house. Propane is the fuel used for your stove and hot water heater. The truly interesting thing about it is they drive around from around 5 am and all hours of the day with their loudspeakers blaring. It is music and singers and a cow mooing, as far as I can tell they are saying; blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah, gaaasss de Oaxaca! Moooooo! over and over and over. Charming, just not at 6 am on vacation...... Nicer are the water door to door salesman, just leave 12 pesos in your used 20 litre water bottle on the front porch and they will deliver you a new one, anyday of the week.

Here are some of the last pictures we took in Oaxaca. We had the light on our side so took some pictures of one of the amazing churches on Garcia Vigil street, as well as a few shots of the same street:

Until tomorrow..

FOOD and Touring East of Oaxaca

The food. Wow the food! Oaxacans are famous for their cuisine for a very good reason. It is delicious and unique, and very bragged about here. They don't allow franchise restaurants in the historic part of the city because they prize and protect their culture of food.

Yesterday for the evening meal we went to a restaurant called Los Danzantes. We had been recommended by several people we met in Puerto, plus our B&B had information and some reviews from other guests to back that up. The menu indicated it's selections that were local, which is important to get the most authentic meal. I had the Tortilla soup, Adrian had the Fideo Pasta with Oaxacan chile pastilla y Queso fresco OR what they called Oaxacan dry soup! dry soup? hows that? We followed that with Corn Smuts Cannelloni in 4 cheese sauce (Adrian) and Organic Local Turkey breast in Hibiscus flower Mole (me). The Turkey and the dry soup were the winners! delicious.

Dry Soup

Corn Smuts Cannelloni

Organic Turkey breast in Hibiscus flower Mole

We didn't get much farther after dinner, we were stuffed so we headed to the Casa for the night.

This morning we had a delicious breakfast of a traditional Oaxacan omelet made of eggs, potatoes, chorizo sausage, served with tortillas and salsa. I forgot to take a picture cause it was so good :)

After breakfast we had hired a guide to take us out to Mitla, an archeological site, and to Teotitlan, to see the master weavers of the area. We wanted to see more than one weaver, as last time we only saw the premier weaver, Bulmaro Perez Mendoza, so we saved him for last. The first weaver was wonderful, we chose one to come back to if we didn't see something we liked better. The second weaver wove in a very comtemporary style which we were not interested in. He was highly talented, but not our particular style. We ended our tour back at the premier weaver, and of course within minutes found our new 4 foot by 6 foot baby! We will get it in the morning after they clean it and bind the edges. I can't wait to take it home.

Our final destination MITLA. Mitla is a site of significance as a burial site to many eras. It started as a Mixtec/Zapotec site, moving to Aztec hands, then finally the "conquerers" took it over. The conquerers or Spaniards, tore much of the site apart, wreaking havoc on the site the bishop called "hell" leaving only the center site in tact. They took much of the material they tore apart and built their own Catholic Church on TOP of one of the existing indigenous structures, and built a town from the remnants on top of many of the other structures.

It is small Ruin and very interestingly built. Just one example of the interesting architecture, they did not use mud to glue the structure together, they built with earthquakes in mind and in very small pieces all settled on top of each other.

Our excellent young (25) guide Coco

Main building for burial in Mitla

This is a bill of money slipped in between the building blocks,  proving no mud was used

Each of the very smallest squares and designs is made of single blocks 

Inside a tomb, these are not carvings, they are individual blocks put together as if a puzzle

Catholic church built on top of the ruins

On our way out of the new town, we came across a funeral procession, our cab driver said it would not be disrespectful to take a picture, the little coffin carried on top of someones head is a baby or young child :(

Our tour ended with a meal at a Mezcal factory, we each had Oaxacean Soup, which was squash, squash flower, mushroom, cheese, parsley and cilantro in a green broth, and we shared an order of chili Rellenos. Then we ate a cookie that we had purchased in the market at Mitla. The cookie seemed to be a thin tortilla, cupped then filled with sweetened merange filling my picture is of our driver Antonio finishing his last bite.

Oaxacean Soup, peanuts, special Mezcal drink and tortillas

Until tomorrow mi Amigos

Walking Oaxaca (wah-HAWK-ah) CIty

Our Bed and Breakfast is the number one rated B&B in Oaxaca City. Their style is to serve a very traditional breakfast to their guests. Last year we stayed here as well and thoroughly loved the breakfasts, even if they weren't always really filling or to our tastes. The fun thing for us is trying something new. Below is a picture of our breakfast. Chocolate Agua (not in picture) is hot chocolate made with water, not leche (milk). Fruit and granola, and a fried egg served with a fried toritilla folded in quarters smothered in tomato sauce and sprinkled with Oaxaca cheese, onions and parsley. It was delicious!

After a lot of conversation with our all American guest mates, we headed out on a self guided walking tour of the city. We just don't walk fast enough to get to it all unfortunately:)

Around 11:00 my stomach started to act up, so I headed back to the Casa, then waited for Adrian to meet me here. I waited and waited and waited..... classic mis-understanding, he was waiting for me on the same street that i left him at. Not knowing where he was, I left him a note that I was at the city square (Zocalo) walking around. By 1:30 we finally found each other, that was not fun. I don't know how people go on vacation alone for a long time, 2 hours and I was feeling lonely!

We sat down at Terra Nova for a couple beer and each had a chicken and mole tamale for lunch. A little old Zapotec woman came to hawk her goods, some lovely scarves. Sucker me bought one, probably paid twice what I should have, but oh well, I like it.

Got on the street again, heading east, and walked. Here are a few sights.

We also came across a great Oaxacan Cultural centre in our journey. The centre was there to support the Young Oaxacan Artists. Painters, Musicians, and Dancers.

For Kelly

On our travels we also found a Musical Instrument store. I asked the clerk to show me a bass, I even asked him to demonstrate, this is for Eric!

Love that Hannah Montana guitar!

He was happy to show me his Rock Star moves 

Tomorrow morning, we will head to Teotitlan (Rug weavers), and Mitla (Archeological site) with a guide. Our guide's name is Coco and he has taken us out a couple other times when we were last here. He is about Marc's age and he is very knowledgeable of the area.

Saludo!

Adrian and Bernetta

Death flight to Oaxaca City

For the second time in less than 12 months we have ventured to Oaxaca City over the Mountains by Air. I am still a huge chicken and was a puddle of fear the whole 35 minute trip, Adrian has bruises to prove it! This time the plane was a 12 seater and had an actual co-pilot too.

We arrived in Oaxaca city around 2:00 and quickly set out to find our favorite Torta stand. Torta sandwiches here in the city are famous and our favorite stand is only a block away. Unfortunately for us, they aren't open Sunday:( So we headed to the Zocalo (town square) for some food, beer and peanuts.

After getting some food in our starving selves, we set out to walk to a few streets we had not seen before on the West side of our B&B. We discovered a really interesting area that we will explore a bit more tomorrow. As usual, we found another Catholic Church, there are so many!

One of our favorite pastimes is to look in open doors, and photograph closed, interesting ones. Last year after our visit here, i bought a book for Adrian called "The Doors of Oaxaca". It is very cool, and we are finding great doors ourselves.

We have dinner reservations at a highly recommended restaurant tomorrow night. Los Danzantes is surrounded by artisan stores and is a fusion of Oaxaca and international food. They describe their style as "slow food" which is sort of a buzz slogan here, take your time and enjoy.....

Until tomorrow
B

Lifeguard rescue on Zicatela

VW is gone :( our rental expired, and since we are headed to Oaxaca City there is no use in keeping it at $20.00 per day. We may get it upon our return, it depends on how much we spend in Oaxaca city! This cutie is for rent too, but Adrian barely fit in, and could hardly get out, let alone drive in it.

I've got my eye on a bigger Mexican rug for the living room.......one the dogs can't kick up so easily. The albrije (mexican wood carving) we bought last April may be read for pick up and payment as well, ouch.

Frederico's rental place is close to Zicatela, so we decided to walk over to our favorite spot "Grekos" for beer and to chill in their loungers. We had a great time learning some new Spanish words with our friend Sandiego. He is trying to learn more English, and we more spanish so it is a win/win. He came back to our table with his book of phrases he was teaching himself all written down in a ratty ring bound notepad, very worse for wear! I couldn't resist, I gave him our English/Spanish dictionary. This little 4 inch by 3 inch book could help him learn a lot, and we have 2 more here in our Casa.

Federales patrolling the beach in front of us

Our casa is in behind the second Palapa to the right of that huge condo. We can see the ocean on the East and South of us

The lifeguards at Zicatela are always on the prowl for people not respecting the waves and currents (right Eric!) and today they were ultra vigilant, the surf was really high and the undertow was unbelievable. 3 young guys were in front of us swimming in the surf and he shooed them closer to shore, but the guys weren't deterred, when the lifeguard moved on, they went back in at a different spot. Only this spot was a "rip". A Rip is where the water makes it's way back out to sea the fastest, kind of like a funnel, so the tow is impossible to fight. Well all 3 got in trouble, they were sucked out, way out. The lifeguard got on his seadoo and had to rescue them all individually. The last guy looked like he was going to drown, he was swamped over and over by the waves and it looked bad because the life guard couldn't go into those waves with his Seadoo.  But the lifeguard saved his sorry ass.

It was pretty unnerving when the lifeguard stayed out there for a few extra minutes sweeping the area, we thought there must be another swimmer out there, but I think it is their protocol to stay out and ensure no one else was swept out. The way the lifeguard towed them in must have hurt like hell, the swimmer hangs onto some kind of handle on the seadoo, and he is dragged in, bouncing on the enormous waves. Yeow! Some Mom is not getting the most horrible phone call of her life tonight, thanks to the lifeguard.

We had lunch at the Burrito place finally! The Meat burrito was great, thanks Eric for the recommendation. After lunch we walked down to La Punta (the Point) where all the surfers were catching these huge waves. The walk was quite a bit farther than we had thought, but we need the exercise after using that VW for the last 2 weeks :) The surfers were awesome.

I have been having a ball finding some white stones here, in hopes of making a bracelet once I get back home, I'll have to find some one with a stone milling thingy, I think Paul Sargent might have one... :)

Off to Oaxaca city tomorrow, hopefully the WiFi at the B&B will allow me to Post another blog manana!

At La Punta