UNDER
THE OAXACAN SUN
Travel Tales Index - Pictures
From Oaxaca
Some friends we first met in Peru in 1996 were going to be traveling
in Mexico for two months and agreed to meet us in Oaxaca, a small city about
200 miles southeast of Mexico City. Our plan was to meet in the Zocalo (square
in the center of town), at
Teotitlan Del Valle is a village about 15 miles east of
Oaxaca. Talk about a cottage industry, just about every family in town makes
and sells tapetes (wool rugs). One senora invited us in to see the workshop
behind her storefront. Like many families here, she starts from scratch with
raw wool. They then clean it, brush it to take out the knots, spin it into
yarn, dye it with a variety of natural colors and finally weave it on one of
their looms. Sure, this lady wanted to sell us a rug, but we got the strong
feeling that she was very happy to simply share her craft with us and
appreciated that we were interested in the process. There was no sales pitch,
no hard sell just something we found typical in all of Mexico and the reason we
always return - genuine warmth and hospitality. We bought a small handbag there
and two other rugs elsewhere. When you come visit us, you can check out the
rugs in our kitchen and hallway!
Wood carving is another tradition in the Oaxacan valley.
Alebrijes are hand carved and hand painted animals and fantastical figures made
of Copal, a very soft wood. In San Martin Tilcajete there are two main streets
and about 25 homes selling Alebrijes. At each place we stopped someone was bent
over either carving or painting a wooden figure. The painting was very colorful
and very detailed. The figures ranged from cacti to iguanas to three headed
fire breathing dragons. The prices ranged from $4 to $700 (from a talented, but
still very optimistic artist). We found an antelope and a giraffe to our
liking.
Monte Alban is a nearby ruin on a hill overlooking the
Oaxacan valley. The capital of Zapotec culture and politics, it was occupied
between 500 B.C and 750 A.D. The more ruins you see, the more discriminating
you become. It seems that Monte Alban has a great location, but the ruins
themselves are pretty standard. A few pyramids, a ball court, a couple of tombs
and you're done. More importantly, Paul lay on a bench overlooking the
countryside and soaked up some nice warm sun.
Almost all Mescal comes from the state of Oaxaca and there
are quite a few brands. Mescal is similar to tequila although a bit harsher.
Walking through the market or down the streets, we passed stores selling Mescal
- with free tasting. To those that like to drink an alcoholic beverage (or
two...), this could prove quite dangerous. The stores were happy to give us 3
or 4 shots of different types of Mescal with minimal pressure to buy. Stop at a
couple of stores while walking down the streets and you'll be weaving pretty
soon! Of course, the one Mescal I did like turned out to be $33 a bottle. Since
I prefer tequila, I decided to buy some Don Julio and Centenario and
Conmemorativo and El Jimador instead. (Okay, so I REALLY like tequila).
Food is one of the attractions of any culture, especially
in Mexico and even more so in Oaxaca. The Spanish word mole (pronounced mo-lay)
means meat stew with chili peppers but, when you see the word on a menu, they
are talking about a Oaxacan mole (sauce). We had mole negro (black), mole
amarillo (yellow), mole verde (green) and mole rojo (red). My favorite was the
mole negro, made with a variety of spices, peppers and some chocolate. Some of
the food we ate: tamales filled with chicken and mole negro (a great breakfast)
from the "Mole Lady" in the Mercado; tostadas with refried beans,
avocado, mole verde and some beef from a street vendor in Santo Tomas Jalieza;
empanadas filled with chicken and mole amarillo from a woman in the Ocotlan
market and a great snack, roasted peanuts, garlic cloves and hot peppers. For
total disclosure, we must add that in many trips to Mexico, both Lois &
Paul have been sick for a half a day or so on occasion, but never more. This
trip, we both got sick after returning to the USA. A real bummer and we'll
never know where we picked up the bug but we don't see ourselves changing our
eating habits. You try to be careful, only eat from clean looking places and
only eat hot food, but there's always a risk and this time the odds beat us.
Before leaving for Mexico, we got a few books from the
library including "The Food and Life of Oaxaca: Traditional Recipes from
Mexico's Heart" by Zarela Martinez. For those that are interested, Lois
(who is quite a cook) thought it was the best of the Oaxacan cookbooks she's
seen. It included a list of all the Mexican spices and chili peppers you need
for cooking as well as instructions for seasoning your comal (a flat cast iron
or clay pan for cooking tortillas or empanadas). So, what's next? We went to
the market and bought the ingredients on the list. Can you believe we bought
over 10 types of chili peppers? Plus spices, seeds, cinnamon, chocolate etc.
One hundred grams of this, one hundred grams of that, a bolsita (small bag) of
this and a bloque of that. Once we had the ingredients for our mole, how do we
grind up the ingredients? We needed a chili molero (pestle & mortar). How
do we make the tortillas? We needed a tortillero (tortilla press). How do we
cook the tortillas? Guess we needed to buy a comal. Hmmm, which is better, cast
iron or clay? All the ladies in the market and stalls use clay but the book
says cast iron lasts longer. We'll buy BOTH. When all was said and done, we had
a huge bag of ingredients, the tortillero and the two comals for about $35.
Paul suspects it was a good investment, but won't know until after Lois tries a
few recipes...
Heralding from the sixteenth century, Iglesia Santo Domingo
was one of the more ornate churches we have ever seen in
Unfortunately, after spending six days under the warm
Oaxacan sun eating, drinking, checking out local crafts and sight seeing with
our friends Eric & Karen, it was time to head home. (Of course we needed to
spend one last late night drinking tequila and swapping travel tales...). Going
through airport security they scanned our bags and the guard asked Paul to open
his. He took out the tortillero and told Paul we couldn't carry it on because
it could be used as a weapon. (It's cast iron and weighs 5 lbs.) The comal that
Lois carried on didn't seem to be a problem, nor the pestle and mortar. Paul
didn't want to check his whole backpack, so he went back to the counter with
just the tortillero and talked to the ticket agent. After explaining the
situation, she nodded and asked someone if there was a box lying around. They
dug up a box just the right size for the tortillero, taped it up, put it in a
Mexicana Airlines bag, wrapped it as carefully as a Christmas present with more
tape, put twine around it and put a label on it with our name. Voila, Paul
could check this parcel. And people in the United States think we are a service
oriented country? Can you imagine this ever happening in the USA with an
American carrier? I think not.
By the way, when we arrived at the Chicago airport, Paul
got the tortillero and we went through airport security. They seemed to have no
problem with the tortillero or the comal, but were not so sure about the chili
molero. The problem was that they weren't exactly clear on what it was. So, one
woman took it to her supervisor who took it to her supervisor who happened to
be a man, but apparently a little more of a cook. He looked at it and basically
said, "What's the problem? It's for cooking". Lois nodded in
agreement and promised to cook him a good mole if he comes over for dinner.
When we arrived back in Washington DC, we reflected on all
the crafts we saw, the great weather, the food and sharing travel plans and
dreams with Eric & Karen. All in all, what more could we ask out of life?
Well, maybe another trip....
Travel Tales Main Index Pictures
From Oaxaca