Southern Exposure

December 7 – 12

We both were looking forward to visiting Oaxaca, our first real colonial city in Mexico. In fact, we had such a great time living the city life, that we ended up staying for five days, much longer than anticipated.

We settled in a charming Casa Gigi, a good value bed and breakfast 15 minutes walk from the colonial center. While the city is quite spread out across a grand expanse of a deep set valley (1600 m above sea level), it is easy to navigate on foot and bustles with life that fuses indigenous traditions and colonial grandeur.

We spent most of our days just walking the city streets, taking breaks at the numerous coffee shops (the coffee is superb in Oaxaca!) and chocolaterias (chocolate is the drink of the Gods), shopping at the local markets, checking out the museums and galleries, enjoying our evenings at the zócalo – the main square, treating ourselves to ice cream and the best tamales we have ever had from a popular street vendor.

I have to mention how fond we are of the festive and communal ways Mexicans like to spend their evenings and weekends. We noticed it not only in Oaxaca, but in about every town that has a zócalo.

Every night, families from young to old, amorous young couples, adorable elder couples, and people of all walks of life pour into the streets to socialize, listen to the music performed by local bands and roaming troubadours, dance, eat, drink and have a genuine good time.

Every night in Oaxaca’s zócalo there was something going on, whether it was a concert, a circus show, a fashion show, a clown show, a dance for all ages, the city was booming with life and light.

Christmas decorations were up, the carnival moved in and the festivities, fiestas and religious festival processions filled the city with color and fun.

We felt almost sucked into the city life and kept prolonging our stay for one more day and another day and another day, always finding something cool to do. Below are some of the highlights of our stay in Oaxaca.

Visit to the Ruins at Monte Alban and Mitla —

The only ancient civilization ruins I have seen in my life were at Stonehendge, England about six years ago. I was very much looking forward to visiting these two sites of the ancient Zapotec civilization.

The Oaxaca valley is the cradle of some of the earliest civilizations in Mexico, beginning with the Zapotecs who founded their first city sometime before 1000 BC. By 600 BC their population has largely expanded, and a clear social hierarchy was formed with priests as the ruling class.

The Monte Alban site, which sits high on top of the mountain, was leveled forming a massive plateau without the aid of the wheel or animals. Millions tons of earth were shifted to build a vast flat terrace on which the Zapotecs constructed colossal pyramids, astronomical observations and pyramids.

For 1600 years Monte Alban served as potent symbol of Zapotec power, but had been abandoned by 1000 AD for reasons still speculated at by the archeologists. The site was only discovered by modern archeologists in 1930 and some structures are still being excavated.

We spent about two hours wondering around the plateau absolutely in awe of its monumental size and the ingenuity of people who have not even seen a wheel when they were constructing these enormous structures.

The site of Mitla was not as grandiose as Monte Alban, but impressed with its superlative bas-reliefts, geometric designs and greca stonework that is considered to be without peer in Mexico.

The site was founded after the implosion of Monte Alban, but was considerably destroyed by the Spaniards in 1500’s – 1600’s who used the stones from the palaces to build the Catholic church that is located next to the ruins. In general, throughout Mexico’s (and Latin America’s) history, it is inconceivable how much cultural and historical destruction the Spanish conquest brought to the region.

In as much as all the colonial churches and cathedrals look beautiful, elegant and impressive, the fact that they were built through wreckage and extermination of indigenous populations and their traditions makes them that much less attractive and interesting to me.

Cooking class in Oaxacan Cuisine —
Oaxaca is known for its inventive contemporary cuisine and great street food, with such local specialties as tamales (corn masa with a variety of flavors wrapped in either corn husks or banana leaves), Oaxaqueño mole (a sauce made mainly with chile peppers and chocolate, though there are great number of varieties, and families pride themselves on their special secret recipes that are passed on from generation to generation), chapulines (crunchy seasoned grasshoppers), quesillo (Oaxacan string cheese), and of course mescal known to some as the drink that has a dead worm in bottom of the bottle (made with cactus plants, tequila is a specialty type made only from agave). One evening we walked by a tourist office and I picked up a flyer for a cooking class, which seemed like a great idea, as a lot of people come to Oaxaca specifically to learn about the local cooking methods.

There were two more people in my class a couple from Oslo. We started at 10 am and agreed of the menu. I was eager to learn to cook mole from scratch, we also settled on chile rellenos, squash flower soup, two salsas, an almond syrup cake and passion fruit drink. First, we visited the local market to purchase the produce, and were educated about the varieties of local foods, some of which looked very strange and unusual. We also visited the tortilleria, a shop where they make fresh tortilla dough that locals purchase to make fresh torillas at home. The cooking process for our feast took about two hours. We first pressed and fried our own tortillas, which was quite amusing. The mole recipe we selected had only 8 ingredients, while some moles have up to 25. The recipe was quite simple to my surprise. We also roasted the chillies and tomatoes for the other dishes which I think is one of the secrets of Mexican cooking as it really adds a nice flavor to the dish. We prepared the cake, the passion fruit water and were
set for our lunch, for which Matt joined us.

We shared quite a lively meal with the Norway couple enjoying the fruits of our labor and our impressions about Mexico and Oaxaca. After lunch Oscar, our chef host, offered us a shot of his casa’s special mescal, which i really didn’t care for as it had a funky flavor and a not so attractive taste for my palate. I will be getting the recipes of all the dished we have cooked and will post them on the site shortly.

Visiting the Artisan Village of Arrazola and the Rug Market at Tlacolula —
The Oaxacan markets are full of delightfully boldly patterned wood animal figurines made from copal wood called alebrijes.

The Arrazola village where they are made was a short ride from Oaxaca and we decided to venture there to see the artisans at work and get some good deals on Christmas presents for family and friends.

We really went to town buying all sorts of themed figurines, and getting pretty good about bargaining for the best price. The region is also known for its brightly colored rugs and textiles, which we could not pass on for the price. It turned out that our bill for shipping all the presents was close to what we have actually paid for the stuff, but not much we could do at that point.