Sunday, February 10, 2013

How many little wooden animals can you fit in a suitcase?


Today Geoff, our son-in-law was off mountain biking with the Oaxacan bike fraternity.  Apparently you find these crazy people all over the world by clicking on the magic sites of the internet.  That left enough seats in the car for all my ladies, and yours truly as the chauffeur.  Katy, who is an archeological ruin nut planned the itinerary and was my navigator.  For all but Katy, the real goal was Arrezola, a quiet village south of Monte Albán and about 14 km from downtown Oaxaca and where all the wooden craft animals are created. Woodcarving was introduced in the 1950s and within a few decades reached global acclaim. It is with great pride that the city refers to itself as the cuna de alebrijes (cradle of fantastic wooden figures).

As is our habit here, we got on the wrong road only once and soon found our way back.  Getting into Arrezola is on a nice rural road where they are determined to test your fortitude with a topes (speed bump) about every 50 yards.  If you make it with your muffler intact, you get to declare an excursion victory.  The village is dominated by individual families who are creating the mythical and monster animals right in the sales shops.  It was a Monday and the town was very quiet.  As we entered various shops they had time to show us the family members carving and painting the animals. Apparently there are about 80 families involved in the industry all starting from one family. Different shops have different qualities and prices.  We tried to spread the wealth around, with purchases and selections by all of the shopping team, your writer included. 

We weren’t planning to stop at too many places in the south, but did have to feed the cravings of the pyramid ruins trip planner.  We headed to Zaachila where there is a site of Zapotec tombs to explore.  Much of the ancient city is covered by the current modern town, but they have a small site and unexcavated temple.  There are two tombs to explore which the ladies walked down to, while I enjoyed the cooler small photo museum.  I think I got the better deal!

Our lunch spot was at La Capilla, which is written up in the guide books.  It has a huge capacity, but on this day we were nearly the only ones present enjoying the ambience of long wood tables, open fire cooking stoves and dirt floors.  The lunches were good, with us trying Gigante tacos with cheese, chorizo, mole and avocado, chicken enchilada, and quesadillas.  It was a good comida with unusual presentation of the entrees. 

On the way back home we visited Universidad Avenue where all the new box stores are located.  There is an Office Depot, Sam’s Club, shopping centers, and Soriana’s Supermercado.  We shopped there to restock the casa and came up against their parking lot mystery.  You get a plastic card when entering the lot from a mechanical machine and arm.  Being stupid gringos, we assumed we would put it into a machine when exiting and put in the proper coins.  That was not it at all.  You had to code the card back at the store with two huge machines that were mostly so confusing we thought we were going to have to live there permanently.  We did (or at least Katy did) finally figure it out, and escaped the lot and an easy trip back to the casa.
 
 
The wooden dragon we purchased in Arrezola
 
A wonderful living note!
This afternoon we received an email from Florencio, our casa manager that he is a new father of a beautiful baby girl, that they have named Itai.  Mother and daughter doing fine.  Let the neighborhood fireworks begin!
 
 Itai & Mom

 

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