Oaxaca

Have you ever had something to eat that completely confused your brain?   You're not sure you like it, you can't really describe it, but you can't stop thinking about it?  That's me with a good mole sauce.  I love mole, I'm fascinated by it, I love trying to figure out all of the flavors that meld together in it.  So when planning time in Mexico, I knew I was going to the home of mole- Oaxaca.

Oaxaca turned out to be the perfect little town to visit for a week.  There were nearby ruins (Monte Alban), lots of fun local artists to visit, a fantastic history museum in the cathedral cloisters, and so much good food.  There was a torta truck parked in the park near my hotel, and their sandwiches were AMAZING.  I had one almost every day.  There were also chocolate shops in town that served frozen chocolate milk beverages with fresh ground cocoa, putting any Starbucks drink to shame.  And there was mole, black and red and yellow varieties poured over simple chicken and rice.  YUM.

One thing I really wanted to do was take a cooking class to learn how to make mole.  It ended up being a great experience.  We went to the market first to buy all of the ingredients, which was great except for the huge bunches of cilantro that smelled so foul.  But then we went back to the chef's home, where there was a huge kitchen set up in the courtyard.  We made chicken with mole, soup with zucchini blossoms and huitlacoche, tortillas, memelas, and tamales stuffed in banana leaves.  Everything was delicious when done except maybe the soup.  Huitlacoche isn't really my thing. 

I also did a day trip to Monte Alban and the surrounding villages.  Monte Alban was a Zapotec city that is now in ruins high on a mountain top.  The long platform is edged with the remains of houses and temples.  There was even a ball court, though that section was damaged in the earthquake last September so it was closed to visitors.  The buildings were impressive for their location at the top of the hill.  You could see both ranges of the Sierra Madre mountains in the distance. 

The Museo del las Culturas de Oaxaca was definitely a fun way to spend a day as well.  The museum is in the cloisters and monastic quarters of the cathedral (itself a marvel of gold and beautiful carving). It highlights the history of the region from the earliest inhabitants to the colonial period and the independence movements in Mexico.  The many windows gave beautiful views of the surrounding hills, and you could even peak into the church from the balcony level.  I loved the set ups that showed how early Mexicans lived, like the kitchen exhibit and the beer brewing equipment.  There was a huge bookstore on the main floor but it was pretty much all Spanish language texts. 

I wasn't feeling great during my week in Oaxaca- a sinus infection that wouldn't quit combined poorly with the elevation.  I spent a lot of time walking in the sunshine, stopping to rest in the many parks, and just soaking up life in this perfect little Mexican city.  With the many old VW Beetle cars, the delicious tortas with stringy Oaxaca cheese, and the amazing chocolate, this was a Mexico I could fall in love with. 

inside the cathedral

kitchen exhibit at Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca

view from the museum

Monte Alban

Alebrije- spirit animals

making tamales

ingredients for guacamole

Mexico City

On the road again!

You know how you have an image in your head of a city based on tv, history class, etc?  I always pictured Mexico City as a sort of Southwestern Metropolis, with lots of sandstone and adobe on the buildings.  With carts on the corners of food for sale and people driving old cars.  Boy was I wrong.

Mexico City is as modern as any city I've visited.  It's glass and steel and concrete, with lots of green space mixed in.  Cars were new and clean, and I was able to zip around with Uber as easily as in the US.  I was completely impressed.  There was still a lot of food on the corners though, delicious food.

I arrived after dark, and the first thing that happened was an ATM ate my card.  OY.  I was able to turn it off with the app, so I wasn't too worried about being robbed, but it was hard not to see it as an omen of bad things to come.  I was able to get some cash with my credit card (and had a spare packed in my luggage to use for the rest of the trip) and took a cab to the hotel. I was staying in the Roma district, which meant driving by all of the tacos al pastor stands.  I was in love from first sight.

The first day, all I wanted was to be outside in the gloriously warm weather.  I think I walked 10 miles.  I started at a few small parks by the hotel, seeing the statues and fountains in each.  I worked my way over to Chapultepec park, which was incredibly lively.  It was still school holiday here so everyone was out and about.  I spent a long time just people watching, checking out the carts selling chicharones, toys, popcorn, and drinks.  Eventually I made my way over to the Anthropology Museum.  I LOVED this museum.  It highlighted human activity from evolution through migration and through the many tribes that inhabited what is today Mexico up until the Spanish conquest.  I loved the mix of indoor and outdoor space, and the combination of recreation with artifacts.  Seriously, this was a great museum.  I felt my archeology classes from college coming back to me.  Olmec!  Toltec!  So many great artifacts here.

After the museum, I took the long way back to the hotel. I saw a bakery selling the famous cakes for 3 kings days.  Some of them were HUGE.

On the second day, I headed for the historic center.  WOW was it busy!  There was a huge carnival set up on the Zocalo for the holidays, and so many people were there.  I skirted the edges and headed for the Tenochtitlan ruins at the back of the square.  I was not expecting to see such a crowd.  The ruins were phenomenal.  I paid to walk through them and the attached museum.  The museum was phenomenal, a good compliment to the Anthropology museum.  It was surreal to walk around the ancient temples right in the middle of the modern city.  It felt a bit like Rome or Athens in that regard.

From there, I visited the Cathedral, quickly because a mass was occurring.  I walked down the pedestrian street to the Museo de Bellas Artes, with its beautiful glass domes.  I got to talk to some children practicing their English in the nearby Dali sculpture park, and watched many more playing in fountains nearby.  I saw a massive Diego Rivera mural in a tiny museum, and watched a political protest on the way to the Revolution Plaza.  From there, I wandered home, stopping for delicious churros back by the hotel.  It was a long day out and about, but the weather was beautiful and I got to see a lot of the city.  The next day was a holiday, Dia de Los Tres Reyes, so I celebrated like a Mexican, with cake in the park, coffee, and sunshine.

Day Four was all about Frida.  I used Uber to get to the Coyoacan neighborhood, south of where I was staying.  It didn't take long to get there. The line was crazy long to get into her house, so I booked online tickets for later in the day and set off for lunch.  A blog had recommended going to Mercado de Antojitos Mexicanos Juanita for fried quesadillas, so I braved the crowds, got a seat at the counter, and ordered two amazingly delicious quesadillas.  I watched as they pressed the tortillas before filling them with cheese and chicken.  They were then folded and fried in a shallow wok-like pan, and served super hot right out of the oil.  YUM.  After lunch I explored the parks and cathedral there, then made my way through the markets back up to Frida's house.

Friday Kahlo always makes me think of Ms. Pelaggi's high school Spanish class.  I'm so glad that my language classes involved so much art instruction.  Her home was fascinating.  There wasn't a lot of art there, but it highlighted the challenges of her life and gave a lot of insight into Mexico during the early 20th century.  The gardens inside the blue walls were beautiful.

The rest of my time in Mexico City was spent wandering around, visiting the many parks and taco stands, just soaking up the sunshine.  I loved this city, despite the air pollution that left my throat scratchy, and I'm so happy I had this time to explore.  It gave me a much better understanding of modern Mexico, broke down some stereotypes, and definitely broadened my horizons. 

Parque Mexico

from the Museum of Anthropolgy

Snake sculpture ruin from Tenochtitlan

Main Cathedral Entrance

Cakes for Three Kings Day

Fountain in Coyoacan

Frida Kahlo's house

Teotihuacan

I love me some ruins.  Not necessarily the ones you are supposed to climb, but those are ok too.  Teotihuacan had been on my "need to get there" list for a long time, probably since my college archaeology classes.

I ended up on a group tour, because the ruins were outside of the city. I was with a couple from London and a couple from Costa Rica. Our guide was an older man missing a lot of teeth, but he knew his stuff.  The actual site is large but doesn't have any signs or descriptors.  You are completely reliant on the guide or a guidebook.

We started the trip with a visit to a nearby Mezcal factory, learning how the liquor is made from a type of cactus.  Then we went to the historical site.  There were several small rooms to walk through before the main plaza.  We could see remains of carved art on the walls and some of it still had color on it.  The rooms were used mostly by priests and travelers to the site.

Our first big task was the Temple of the Moon.  It was at the left end of the long open court.  You could only climb halfway up this one.  The stairs were really steep!  Each one was about knee-high, and not very wide.  Definitely a "stop and breathe" kind of climb.  But the view from the top was pretty impressive, looking down at the smaller temples leading to the Temple of the Sun.  The higher sections are still being studied and not open to the public.

The walk to the Temple of the Sun seemed long, and once there the guide said we would reconvene in 45 minutes after climbing.  I looked at that pyramid in shock.  45 minutes? It would take at least that to climb it!  But I was wrong - even stopping to breathe a lot, it only took 20 to go up and about 10 to go down.  From the top you had a 360 degree view of the valley.  It was very hazy but still impressive. Some people were jumping for photos, but the surface was sloped and very uneven with rocks so that seemed like a death trap to me.  There are no fences or guardrails here!

I wish that I knew more about the sites before going-the guide talked a lot about construction but not much about the people who did the building.  I'm reading now, hoping to get more information about these mighty monuments.

After lunch we stopped to see Our Lady of Guadelupe, the miraculous image of the Virgin that inspires so many Catholics worldwide.  It was moving to see so many people attending mass and venerating this lovely icon.