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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