Rug maker from Teotitlan del Valle 
Comparsa dancers
Oaxacan offrenda
Day of the Dead in Oaxaca is fabulous. We got here on November 1st, the second day of the three Days of the Dead. We immediately headed down to the Zocalo for some Sopa Azteca...Aztec soup. A rich tomato broth with pieces of fried tortilla in it. On the side, a plate of pork rinds, avocado and Oaxacan cheese that you stir in. Nothing is better.
Refreshed a bit, we headed down to the Pantheon San Miguel, the main cemetery in town. Folks were just starting to dress up the graves with flowers. All around were beautiful offrendas....three tiered alters covered with skeletons, sculls, food, drink and flowers. Many were quite gorgeous. In fact, you see these all over town...in the hotels, restaurants and all around the zocalo. Right next to the cemetery, in the street, were several stalls selling yummy food. We had some quesadillas filled with zucchini flowers, Oaxacan chees and epazote, a wonderfully tasty local herb.
We took a tour in the evening out to Etla, 15 miles out of town. Here we were to see some ´comparsas´, which are some very strange dances where people dress up in some great costumes, devils, skeletons, bishops, Mexican wrestlers, Elvis, and some pretty ladies (although all the dancers are men). Then the brass band starts up, playing quite out of tune most of the time, and the dancers hop around in a strange kind of dance, dancing by themselves, never with another person. It was great and quite unique.
The next day, Nov. 2nd, we went to a lovely little cemetery that Amy had read about, San Felipe del Agua, about 5 kms north of town. Very small, maybe only a couple of acres and very few tourists in site, this turned out to be the perfect place for a Dia de los Muertos experience. Around noon when we arrived, the folks were just starting to set up their families graves. Lots of flowers, fresh paint on the grave, model skulls and sand paintings depicting skeletons. We walked around, trying to be as quiet as possible, but nobody seemed to mind.
We came back in the evening, around 8pm, and this is when things were really hopping. We wandered around the gravesites...people were sitting around granny´s grave, drinking mezcal, eating dinner, and just enjoying the place. We heard a guitar trio over in one corner and wandered over. The music was great...traditional Oaxacan songs played by three men. At the grave next to this, we met a lady who´s brother had died four years ago. Her family offered us some mezcal. When Amy told them that her mom had died a few weeks ago, they invited us to join them. We sat around for an hour or more, singing Mexican songs...the only one I knew was Celito Lindo, but all the others were traditional local songs. This was an awesome experience.
The next day we headed up to the high mountains above the valley of Oaxaca to a town called Cuahimolyas. We did a four hour mountain bike tour, which turned out to be quite difficult since at 10,000 feet your lungs just don´t work all that well. So we ended up riding downhill and doing a lot of walking uphill. But the views were superb and the pine forests lovely. At the end of the day we had a ´Temescal´, which is a Zapotec sauna. We went to this old lady´s house, which is a shack on the hillside. On the side of the shack is a little brick room with an oven on the side. So you take off all of your clothes and slide in feet first (it´s only about four feet high this room). You then lie down stark nekkid on a rug and it´s HOT inside, full of steam in which herbs have been boiling. The old lady is in there fanning all the steam around you and then takes this mop like thing and starts beating you with it. I guess this is supposed to help get the toxins out, but she isn´t all that carefull where she is hitting you with it, if you know what I mean.
The last couple of days we´ve just been kind of hanging out, doing lots of shopping in the market and around town in the various stores. Yesterday we took a bus out to Teotitlan del Vallee to do rug shopping (this is the rug town) and Amy got a couple of nice rugs.
The last two nights we´ve had some amazing meals. The best restaurant in town is called La Cathedral, near the Zocalo. I had a great Aztec soup and Amy had a marvelous soup of alote and chile poblano. For a main course I had roasted pig which was to die for...tasted a lot like kalua pig from Hawaii. Amy had some wonderful chile rellenos. These were downed with the help of some tequila anejo and a couple of margaritas. Last night we went to El Naranjo, a famous place that was recently bought by an American. I had a pork mole in red sauce.
About the moles, there are at least seven here locally. My favorite is the Coloradito, which is kind of between the negro and the rojo. Very spicey and rich and good over pork or chicken. The making of mole is incredibly complicated, but you can buy some really nice ones in the market here, which we did. We also got a LOT of chocolate, as they make it fresh for you on the chocolate street here in town. But you have to buy 2.5 kilos, so we have chocolate for anyone who wants some.
Tonight we´re taking the all night bus to Puerto Angel and we´ll spend the rest of the trip on the coast. I´m really looking forward to the warm water, fresh seafood and palm trees.
Hasta Luego, Craig
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