Oaxaca-waca-waca

Oaxaca is a city that is hard to leave -- great food, beautiful buildings and nice people. Of course that's an apt description for most of the places we have been on this trip. As we started sightseeing day number one we were promptly buttonholed by Yolanda and Carlos who had a school assignment to interview people in English. The exchange was a bit stilted but a lot of giggling kept things from getting awkward. From our interview we went to explore Santo Domingo and the enormous museum of Oaxacan history attached to it. This museum includes some of the cache of remarkable funerary offerings found at the nearby Zapotec site of Monte Albán. My favorite was the turquoise encrusted skull.





























Monte Albán is at once similar and different from other ruins we have visited. The buildings have well-preserved square double friezes around them and the landscape of the site is much drier than others we have seen. When we visited it was also the setting for a shoot for Mexico's Next Top Model -- Mike got a shot of the begowned contestant and the tiger with which she was passing a ho-hum weekday morning.












We spent a number of evenings in Oaxaca sitting on the Zócalo (the central plaza in Mexican cities.) The sidewalk cafes and park benches make for great people watching especially when the evening marimba concert starts and white-clad Oaxacans dance to the traditional music.










Returning to the subject of food, Oaxaca is famous for its seven types of mole. I can't claim to have tasted them all but the ones I did were outstanding. Below is a photo of another Oaxacan specialty, chapulinas or roasted and spiced crickets! Mike tells me they're a bit oily but good.


Leaving Oaxaca we geared ourselves up for an invasion of the dauntingly immense Mexico City.