Looking Back This Week

Tomorrow we fly from Oaxaca to Mexico City, a few days there and then home. Bob took the week off from Spanish instructions and I ended up with four hours a day with homework and edging towards the final stretch of speaking Spanish with some ability.

This past week, after recovering from last weekend's foray into the mountains (more about the mountains soon), I dug into a book Entre Caracoles, (Between Snails), fictional interior monologues of five women that take place as they are attending a recital. I had to finish reading most of the book so as to not appear like a knucklehead when I met the author, Lety Ricardez, in her home this morning. 

       by Lety Richardez

              Un Caracole 

I had bought the book during our first week here on the recommendation of the hotel manager and during the course of that week asked her help to understand some of the symbolism. Ultimately, the author, who is also the hotel owner and a poet, invited me to her home for breakfast. It was a super treat, also a challenge to talk with Lety about her writing.

   Our big breakfast -- tamales with vegetables and rice.

    Lety autographing my book.

   This is a 75 million year old snail , a caracole, found in Alberta.

      Going Back to Last Saturday Night

We stumbled back to our cabin, grateful for a hot shower, after an amazing experience and the luck to be still in one piece.

        Entre Caracoles came with me.

           Our spiffy cabin in the mountains.

We stayed in bed again for twelve hours Saturday night to keep warm and slept the whole time. Crazy. Here are some photos from our Sunday hike to a lookout.

      200 year old trees.

             From the top of a mountain.

The bark of these trees is like our B.C. Arbutus trees, all peeling.

        A small ecotourism community.

         "Welcome to the lungs of the World."

    Mountain flower.

        A beautiful home being built with the help of family members living in the U. S.

  The eight year indigenous girl who later gave of a tour of her new home to be.

The Sierra Norte is an important area because of its 400 species of birds, 300 species of butterflies, cactus, and animals such as the jaguar and ocelot. It goes from 100 to 3,300 meters above sea level and is Mexico’s largest natural corridor of preserved forests and jungles. But as with so many other places in the world, many of the species are endangered.

The people in the six Mancomundados live very simply. They have electricity and running water, but grow their vegetables and raise the animals they eat. They dress simply and replace their clothes when they wear out. After two days there I realized how much I'm attached to comfort. I'm a creature of comfort and always have been. I couldn't live so simply and I feel badly about that. 

            Back in our starting point town.

    Saying Goodbye to Oaxaca

The city grows on you. It's diverse, lively, rich in culture and history. Tonight we saw a stunning performance by the Oaxaca Symphony Orchestra with a full choir and four soloists about 100 performers.

        Tonight's performance

        Making Tortillas 

               Pressing round balls of dough.

If you lived here you would invite lots of people into you home and for large occasions would cook in huge pots like these below.

   With Claudio one of our favorite servers.

   Another favorite server.

     Our favorite restaurant.

  Wiring leaves a lot to be desired.

          Alebrijes

I almost bought this beautiful creature. We were told it took the artist almost a year to complete. Alebrijes are brightly coloured Oaxacan-Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical creatures. They are first carved from a local wood called copal. After a few more laborious treatments, the wood is ready to paint.

      Making delicate jewellry.

         See you in Mexico City!!!

 

   

Reflections on the Sierra del Norte

We arrived home last night aching and feeling as though we'd been in another world for two days. Which we had. Initially we wanted to experience the mountains to the north of Oaxaca. It happens that there is an indigenous ecotourism cooperative in the mountains to the north of here, six villages of Zapotecans connected by the desire to live simply in harmony with nature. It's an ecotourism business but also an example of how different are our lives in the developed world from these.

We had hoped to hike between villages. But the distance between our two chosen villages is 22 kilometres. Then we thought we'd bike it. But we saw the cross section of the mountain trail and it was hardcore mountain biking. Since we'd only been on flat Caledon trail ways and roads almost forever, that was out. So with the help of an organizer we arranged for an 8 kilometre bike ride from Benito Juarez, the first village to another with a horse and guide to carry our back packs. Sounded like a piece of cake.

But everything was an astonishment! We stuffed as much as possible into our small carry on back packs for the weekend, not having packed at all for mountains at 10 000 feet before leaving Caledon. Late Friday afternoon we arrived by car to the first village. But there had been a terrible and unusual storm, severe wind and rain that frightened the villagers, cut power and made things a challenge for us.

That night when the sun set, we were in the dark except for our headlights. The village is on a steep incline and supper served at seven after sunset. So we had to climb steep hills to the small dining room and back to our cabin in the dark. We tumbled into bed at eight shivering in six layers of clothing. Bob wore one of my brightly coloured scarves around his head. I wore gloves as the temperature dropped to zero in our unheated cabin. We stayed in bed for 11 hours until the sun came up. 

   Village of Benito Juarez.

Bob walking up from our cabin.

A village of 750 very spread out indigenous inhabitants, animals and hills. Nothing more. No stores or any of our comforts.

  A woman lighting a fire outside to sit beside.

Benito Juarez the only indigenous leader.

       All I had with me.

   Leaving our cabin made of only natural materials.

Saturday a taxi delivered us to our departure village. We had hired a guide with a horse to carry our back packs and to make sure we didn't get injured or lost. As it turned out we had a 16 year old guide on bicycle and a man with one of his horses, a mare and her 15 day old colt to help us out. 

      With our guide Carlos Miguel

          The mare and her colt.

Despite our careful planning, the trail turned out to be spectacularly unsuitable for cycling for a bunch of reasons. It was covered by branches, trees downed by the storm, rocks, tree trunks and agave at the side which narrowed the trail that already was no more than two feet wide, sometimes with steep drop offs on one side. The trail was also covered with slippery pine needles.

The trail profile didn't show the steep inclinations. The colt walked faster than we progressed and we had to push our bikes more than half of the 8 kilometres. We had a lot of laughs and many talks with the guides about life and such during our rests over the four and a half hours it took to get to the second village.

    The colt lay down a lot during our many stops.

  In trying to avoid a rock, I fell into a prickly Agave plant escaping though thr whole misadventure with only cuts and scrapes.

  Arriving in one piece on Saturday completely tuckered but glad to be there.

        To be continued. Hasta pronto.

San Filipe

Often this is the way money changes hands in Mexico. Newspapers are full of stories of corruption here. The photo above was on the front page of a local newspaper yesterday. Today there were student protests in the streets because it was discovered that a a respected Oaxacan university is accepting bribes from parents to gain admission for their kids and also to increase their marks. 

There's a restaurant in town, "La Casa de la Abuela" (Grandmother's House) that routinely ties bibs around your neck for everything you order.

Yesterday I suggested we go north to a well off residential city, San Felipe, to see nice houses because we were told it was a wealthy town. But we were disappointed to find just dusty streets. I forgot that of course the wealthy people live behind huge gates or have houses off in the hills. So instead, we found a hacienda that touted itselt as five star on its website. It was a good 3 star. 

         The dusty main drag.     

     On the street as well.

          The hacienda.

         The servings. 

        Lots of blooms.

The Sierra Madre

The Sierra Madre mountains run parallel to the Gulf of Mexico and form the southern part of the Rocky Mountain chain. Finally our weekend ecological trip there is planned. It turned out to be a bit complicated because you can get from one village to another on horseback, mountain bike or on foot. 

We optioned for mountain bikes forgetting that we'd actually have to cycle in the mountains and somehow get our stuff from one village to another. Duh. So now we've chosen a less steep route and have a guide coming with us on horseback to carry our backpacks because it's no fun cyling on rough paths with a lot of stuff on your back. 

The scenery, flora and fauna is supposed to be magnificent. So I should have lots of photos for you. We leave by car up to climb another 5 000 feet to the first village late Friday afternoon and set out by bike Saturday morning for the next village.

   

      The mountains (internet photo).

            Hasta luego.