Some of the leaves, flowers, and other items used to dye the wool in Teotitlán del Valle.

One of the things we like so much about staying in B & B’s is the chatting with other guests at breakfast.  Oaxaca attracts an international crowd, and the breakfast table reflected that.  We met Australians, Italians, French, and Japanese along with Americans.  The ages vary, the knowledge of Mexico varies, but without a doubt you meet people who are really compatible.  One morning we met Tot and her friend Shari from the San Antonio area.  Tot and her husband have two stores in Castroville, Texas (Albros Casa y Garden) and give tours to Oaxaca’s Day of the Dead each year.  She was on a scouting/buying trip and invited us to go with her shopping for huipils and to meet her sources.  Another couple – Anthony & Davida from Australia – also came along.  It was fun to have her explain the differences in quality and workmanship and while I only bought two to her 50 it was a good education.

The six of us went through the Benito Juarez mercado together looking at everything.  Some things are quite different than here in Mazatlan.  The beef is hung in very thin sort of “fillets” in front of each little stand.  Everything looks quite clean and I hardly had to avert my eyes.  At the 20 de Noviembre mercado there are lots and lots of little stands serving food, all constructed out of tile.  There are some meat sellers in the front area that all have fires going and you can choose your meat and have it grilled with onions and other stuff and served to you on a kind of basket. Lots of people were eating enthusiastically.

After our visit to the mercado the six of us headed to the Camino Real hotel to have a drink in the lobby bar.  The Camino Real used to be a convent and it is an amazing building.  They give tours every day which unfortunately we missed every day.  But walking around on your own you will still be astounded.  We had a great time visiting with these nice people (did you know that when you buy a round of drinks in Australia it´s called a “shout?”) and before heading out Paul and I bought tickets for the Guelaguetza, a Oaxacan dance tradition.  It is performed every Friday in the convent’s chapel.

Spinning the wool in Teotitlán del Valle.

The next day we hired a driver – actually the husband of one of the women who run the B & B – to visit Teotitlan del Valle, Tule, and Mitla.  We hit the road a little before ten and headed for Teotitlan del Valle.  It’s about 30 km from Oaxaca through some beautiful countryside.  On the outskirts of town there are many weavers, and you will see rugs hanging from all the porches.  Our driver, Rene, took us to his favorite weavers, and we were given a lesson in dyeing using natural products – plants, flowers, insects, etc.  We also tried carding wool and spinning.

Showing us cochineal insects squished on her hand.

Then came our introduction to the art of weaving a rug.  It is such a time consuming and intricate process… and I am sure they go to bed at night with tired feet and hands.  Their feet move the loom up and down and their hands pass the wool through, back and forth, and then tighten it all down with a comb or press of the bar.  Paul and I bought a beautiful rug for our living room floor, and it looks as good as we thought it would!  There is just something about the natural dyes that give the wool such a soft and pretty look.

Weaving a free form design - trees with birds.

We drove on into town and stopped to visit the church there that was finished in 1751 and was built on top of a Zapotec site, many original pieces are visible as part of the church structure.  When you go out and around the corner, though, you see the actual Zapotec ruins with a church sprouting out of them.  Amazing.

The Precious Blood Of Christ Catholic church located on the remains of a temple dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, Teotitlan Rock in background!

We headed on to the town of Tule, to see their famous cypress tree that is said to be 2,000 years old!  We were looking forward to seeing the tree but we hadn’t expected to meet such a sweet little town, too.  We ate a wonderful lunch in a small restaurant famous for their empanadas filled with chicken and red or green sauce.  Then we headed on to the tree, which is situated in front of their church and surrounded by fencing.  The plaza nearby had neatly trimmed green grass and lovely cannas and roses.  We fell in love with the town, I would love to go back and get to know it better.

Tule tree

The ruins at Mitla are unique in that they share common walls in places with their Zapotec neighbors.  I even saw a woman putting her laundry to dry on the stone ruin walls!  They are newer than Monte Alban (1300 AD) and the stonework seems so crisp it could have been cut yesterday.  There were two tombs on the property that you could enter, but you had to crouch way over and one of them was so stuffy it made me hurry out.  I guess the dead don’t need air flow!

Mitla frieze

We saw lots of little three wheeled taxis everywhere we went outside of town.  Kind of reminded me of our own pulmonias!

One of the many three wheeled minicabs.

It was a wonderful day, and by the time we got back to town it was about 4 pm.  We headed in for a little rest and showers before going to the Camino Real for dinner and the Guelaguetza.  That’ll be tomorrow.

Oaxaca.  Just the word Oaxaca makes me think of beautiful textiles, mole, and ancient ruins.  Oaxaca’s Centro Historico is a delight – wide stone block streets with colonial buildings, almost all in good repair.  Several streets in the center of town are closed to car traffic so you can stroll along almost all the way from the Santo Domingo church to the zócalo.

There are a number of streets in the city center that are pedestrian only. In the evening they are packed... here, a quiet morning.

During the 2006 teacher’s strike and occupation of the zócalo the zócalo itself was badly damaged, so a new kiosko and cement curbs to sit on were installed afterwards.  Thankfully many of the large old trees were undamaged, so the zócalo is still a wonderful and well used gathering place ringed with restaurants and coffee shops.  There are plenty of vendors selling things table to table, so bring your patience if you go.  Small wooden spoons and combs, handmade paper painted in florescent colors, baskets and necklaces are offered.

The kiosko in the zocalo

One unpleasant thing that happened is that I had forgotten to pack my camera.  Not wanting to buy a new one, we realized that my cell phone was three and a half years old and the screen was cracked…so maybe if we bought a new one with a camera in it I could kill two birds with one stone!  So that’s what we did, and the pictures it took are decent enough for the web.  When we got home, though, I had expected to see my camera on the table near where I had packed my suitcase.  It was nowhere in the house, so now we know that it was stolen from my luggage.  As was my laptop power cord and my iPod on the way home.  I guess I should have known better than to pack them, but sometimes everything can’t fit in the briefcase I carry as my purse-carryon.  We flew through Mexico City on Mexicana Click, if you were wondering.

Paul and I usually spend the first day or half day in a new city walking around randomly and bumping into interesting things to come back to.  We stop for coffee or beer – sit on benches and watch people – and walk and walk and walk.  Then we go back to our B & B (we stayed at Casa de las Bugambilias) and only then really start looking through our notes and guidebooks to create a plan for our stay.  I am lucky to have a cyber-friendship with Betsy McNair of My Mexico Tours and she shared with me some of her “must-do and see” Oaxaca tips.  I love all the friendships that have come to me through blogging – especially when we travel.  Christina Potter of Mexico Cooks! really helped us get to know Morelia, Billie & Ned Mercer did the same for us with San Miguel de Allende, and all of the wonderful Yucatan bloggers (especially Theresa) when we visited Mérida.

When you visit Oaxaca in the summer, one of the most delightful experiences is the afternoon rain.  Every afternoon at around 3 or 4 you’d hear a few rumbles, a few sprinkles, and then it would rain for an hour or so.  Our first early evening we headed to the bar at La Olla (which is a part of the B & B) and watched the rain through the open windows while looking at the gorgeous pink blossoms of the pochote tree outside.  We looked at all our guidebooks and started creating a rough outline for our visit.

There was a pochote tree outside our B & B that had a zillion flowers on it. It was amazing!

The next day we headed out to take the bus to Monte Albán. You can take a tour or you can just take a bus there  for 40 pesos round trip.  It’s about a 20 minute ride.  The ruins at Monte Albán are amazing.  The earliest parts actually date to 100 BC!  There is an observatory, and a ball court — although they didn’t play the same kind of game with baskets as they did elsewhere.  The site is amazing – set at the top of a ridge so every direction you looked you saw immense valleys stretching out in front of you.  Rather than recount a lot of information about the site, if you’re interested I hope you’ll click on the link above.  It really is a spectacular place.  I’ve put some pictures here if you’d like to see them.

A new excavation, with Oaxaca in the background.

When we got back from Monte Albán we were tired from walking all over, but not so tired that we couldn’t take a stroll through a couple of the mercados – Mercados de Artesanías, 20 de Noviembre, and Benito Juarez.  We could tell we needed to get a rest and come back!  I did take a minute, though, to visit one of the many Montelayo chocolate stores.  We had read that they were the best Oaxacan chocolate, and it was delicious.  I bought some chocolate and also cacao crudo – the raw cocoa beans.  I had read about them on Kathleen is Cooking in Mexico and knew I wanted to bring some back if I could.

Mercado Benito Juarez

We visited several museums.  The first was the Museo Textíl de Oaxaca.  It is a fairly new museum, and we enjoyed seeing all the fantastic fabrics and rugs.

Traditional dress in the Museo Textíl de Oaxaca.

The Museum of Contemporary Oaxacan Art was closed while we were there – the scaffolding set up outside was actually turned into an art installation using the traditional market bag!  There are more pictures from our trip on the Photos page, above, or here.  Tomorrow, I’ll write about our trip to Teotitlan del Valle to visit the weavers, as well as the ruins of Mitla and the 2,000 year old Tule tree.

We have been enjoying ourselves here in sunny Mazatlán.  During the summer we situate ourselves under the fans and read and read and read.  We love it.  We’ve cut back on dog walking since we can never seem to get out early enough for it to be comfortable, and lately we have brought back a few ticks, too.  So we hunker down here and make short excursions out but have been mostly at home.  We like it, too – very different than winter around here, for sure.

We are heading out for a trip to Oaxaca soon, and are getting pretty excited.  We are looking forward to looking at all the textiles, a trip to Teotitlan del Valle to see the rug weavers,  visit the Museo Textíl de Oaxaca, eat some good food, and also visit Monte Albán.  We’re staying at a B & B in Centro – we love staying at bed and breakfasts since you learn so much about what to see and do from conversations with other guests and the owners.

I got a bit of a wild hair and changed the background of the blog to one of Mexican talavera tile. I like the way it looks… more interesting and Mexican.

Good friends of ours are moving away so tonight for their last night in town we are having them and another couple over for homemade pizza, salad, and (shhhh!) homemade Mexican chocolate ice cream.  We are really going to miss them, but I guess we should just look forward to visiting them when they get settled in their new home.

Next time I post it will be from Oaxaca!