I have to give Sebastian directions. More fun!

Today the Boyd’s and the Warren’s scheduled Sebastian to take us to the Villa de Etla market, not because we aren’t very familiar with getting there, but so we could use him as our expert in identifying all the unusual fruit and vegetables, for the education of Mall and Mary Ann.  This plan worked out great as it put him to the real test explaining the food items and how to cook and eat them.  The Wednesday Etla market is really a good one to visit as it is very manageable.  The huge village markets of Tlacolulu and Ocotlan are so big they can be a bit overwhelming.

Following Sebastian’s rule, we did not do our fresh item buying until on the way out.  You don’t want to carry those heavy bags too long.  Pineapples, watermelons, cantaloupes and all the rest can add up the weight fast.  Tom and I escaped the most of it (leaving it to poor Sebastian) by heading for the nieves stand.  We dug into some tuna (prickly pear) flavored iced deserts (like snow cones in a Dixie cup) and waited for the shoppers.  As it turned out when Sebastian and the ladies got back to us, Sebastian was carrying his own bag of food items.  He called Elizabeth and took the order!  They then joined us with nieves and discovered from Sebastian that you can ask to mix the flavors.  I tasted his pecan flavor which was excellent.

After the market we were off to our visit of Vista Hermosa.  Sebastian had not previously been there so I had the pleasure of showing him the road.  We had fun laughing about needing to always turn at the Corona sign.  At most intersections there is frequently a small grocery and Corona beer has surely bought every sign for every store all over Oaxaca.  We followed the same ruta that Mary Ann and I had taken a few days earlier.  This time we stopped at the Instituto by the church which we had missed.  It is a fascinating building which was a former paper factory and has been lovingly restored as a cultural and arts center.  Now various crafts are being taught including paper art, pottery and study areas with a library.  We picked up one of their schedules showing that exhibitions and events are being continuously scheduled. 

You don’t want to get to over worked with all this touring, thus back to the casa for comida and an early afternoon trip to the supermercado.  Finally we topped off the day, as you should on a southern Mexico vacation with some pool time.

 

The church & Institute grounds of

Vista Hermosa/San Agustin Etla

 

Entrance ponds and boiler to the Institute

which formerly was a paper factory

 

Quirky Living Note

 

The 7:15 a.m. public announcement truck – After awhile you get used to the early rooster crowing and the donkeys braying, but the speaker truck is truly unique.  Because of my limited Spanish I had no idea what the purpose of this was.  When talking with Sebastian he explained that this is the morning newspaper sales truck, and they were giving the morning headlines.  The day I asked him about it, he said the lead story was that the car arsonist had been caught, and that the criminal was a resident of San Pablo Etla, so there was a local connection.