Sunday is our first full day in Oaxaca. We went to bed around midnight, exhausted from the long series of flights. Our little hotel, La Casa de la Tia Tere is very centrally located and provides breakfast from 7:30am-to 11am! Little bananas, mangoes, watermelon, tea, coffee, cereal, and EGGS made to order! Janet and I have juevos revueltos a la Mexicana....wonderfully scrambled with tomatoes and spicy peppers. We then hit the streets of Oaxaca, heading towards the church of Santo Domingo de Guzman. it is impressive of course with all types of folks lounging around and various street sellers propositioning you mildly. We walk north of the church for a while exploring. Oaxaca's center is easy to navigate, all square blocks with mountain views in every direction. We pass a man playing accordion beautifully...his little girl with a collection plate. I am bummed because I don't yet have the proper change and I always like to tip a musician. I hope to find him again this week.
We come to sort of the edge of the downtown and turn around. The streets here are all beautiful cobblestone or stone and there are countless choices--little shops, street vendors, tiny restaurants. We decide to enter the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca right next to the church above. It is fantastic, tracing the history of Oaxaca---Zapotec then Mixtec, then Aztec, then the pinche Spanish. A huge oil painting of Cortez is spooky. The gold, turquoise, jade jewelry is amazing. Masks, weapons too, but the gold is simply out of this world. They wrapped everything in gold leaf and some of the pieces defy logic---such delicate, complicated, often tiny figures. Everything is in Spanish and we didn't have a guide, we managed to account for ourselves OK. The building itself is spectacular with open views in all directions. The curatorial talent here is impressive. Everything is beautifully displayed and explained with little rooms everywhere filled with treasure. After a couple of hours of walking on all this stone, my lower back begins to ache and we look for a place to sit and eat. We happen upon a nice little artisan mescal restaurant and get a huge order of guacamole and sample the spirits.A guy wheels out a cart, lets us sample a bunch of varietal mezcals...we try a sip of several. I knock down a oaky, inexpensive glass and then we are on to some Anejo, golden, peaty, scotchy almost. Delicious. The guac was supposed to come with chapulines, little fried, toasty grasshoppers, spiced up with lime, chili, salt. This is a no go for my beautiful wife and I ask for it without the chapulines. Still excellent. The service is great and friendly. After an hour or so we head back to our little hotel oasis and get in the pool. We have a second floor room with a fridge, range, and sink overlooking this pool. We while away the afternoon, reading our New Yorkers and planning future endeavors.
We come to sort of the edge of the downtown and turn around. The streets here are all beautiful cobblestone or stone and there are countless choices--little shops, street vendors, tiny restaurants. We decide to enter the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca right next to the church above. It is fantastic, tracing the history of Oaxaca---Zapotec then Mixtec, then Aztec, then the pinche Spanish. A huge oil painting of Cortez is spooky. The gold, turquoise, jade jewelry is amazing. Masks, weapons too, but the gold is simply out of this world. They wrapped everything in gold leaf and some of the pieces defy logic---such delicate, complicated, often tiny figures. Everything is in Spanish and we didn't have a guide, we managed to account for ourselves OK. The building itself is spectacular with open views in all directions. The curatorial talent here is impressive. Everything is beautifully displayed and explained with little rooms everywhere filled with treasure. After a couple of hours of walking on all this stone, my lower back begins to ache and we look for a place to sit and eat. We happen upon a nice little artisan mescal restaurant and get a huge order of guacamole and sample the spirits.A guy wheels out a cart, lets us sample a bunch of varietal mezcals...we try a sip of several. I knock down a oaky, inexpensive glass and then we are on to some Anejo, golden, peaty, scotchy almost. Delicious. The guac was supposed to come with chapulines, little fried, toasty grasshoppers, spiced up with lime, chili, salt. This is a no go for my beautiful wife and I ask for it without the chapulines. Still excellent. The service is great and friendly. After an hour or so we head back to our little hotel oasis and get in the pool. We have a second floor room with a fridge, range, and sink overlooking this pool. We while away the afternoon, reading our New Yorkers and planning future endeavors.
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