We had a light breakfast in acknowledgment of the eating ahead, and met our guide and driver outside the hotel at 9. The guide was Riccardo, the same young man who had picked us up from the airport; the driver Raoul…both were delightful.
The road to Monte Alban rises steeply from the valley floor; Oaxaca sits at 5100 feet, Monte Alban just over 6000. The van dropped us off below the archaeological zone, and we hoofed it up. On our last visit, we had gone right to the plaza, arriving at its southwest corner near the ball court; it turns out that we had missed a good deal! The tier of the mountainside just below the plaza was the site of a number of large residences and tombs belonging to the Zapotec elite, and many of these have been excavated.
David led us up a steep set of steps, and we found ourself at the back end of the enormous north platform. The platform, which sits high above the main plaza, is an enormously complex site, with several building complexes and temples behind the main feature, a huge sunken patio that was originally fronted by an enormous portico supported by twelve massive columns.
Looking down over the plaza and the edifices that frame it, the achievement here is stunning. Starting in 500 BC, a civilization leveled a granite mountaintop and built these enormous structures without the wheel and without any tools not made of stone. Just as remarkably, we know almost nothing about a civilization that stretched well beyond today’s Oaxaca State. This is a view of the main plaza looking down from the north platform.
There were five ball courts, but only one has been excavated.
The main plaza is littered with steles bearing complex pictographs. This is one of the largest, sitting beside one of the large building complexes comprising an edifice in front with a large patio behind it and a tall platform behind that which would have held a temple. None of the temples themselves have survived.
One of the most intriguing structures is called the Temple of the Dancers (Danzantes). The original building had its facade decorated with many incised stones. The figures depicted on these stones were originally thought to represent dancers, given their mobile arm gestures. There is now consensus that they represent captured enemy warriors who have been tortured—often genitally mutilated—and sacrificed.
We sat for quite a while on top of the south platform enjoying the splendid view.
We then climbed down to look at the arrow-shaped Building J. That’s it directly behind Sue. It was long thought to have been some sort of astronomical observatory, but of what kind wasn‘t known. The recent discovery of a building with an identical orientation in a second mesoamerican civilization suggested that the building points to one of the brightest stars in the low night sky.
On our way out we learned about several trees: the copal that furnishes the carvers, the jacaranda that came from Japan, and the Cazahuate whose white flowers gave the mountain its name.
Riccardo and his family live in Aztompa, the town at the foot of Monte Alban; he offered to take us to his neighborhood restaurant, which proved to be a gem. Como en el Pueblo (like in the village) was lovely, and they fired up the woodburning comal for us. Most of us had an order of three huaraches, longish thick tortillas in the shape of a sandal, one with chorizo, one with „taco beef,“ and one with mushrooms.
Next stop was San Antonio Arrazola, one of the two famous woodcarver‘s villages. First stop was the workshop of Manuel Jimenez Ramirez, the master credited with the translation of the fantastical animals—alebrijes—created in paper mache by Pedro Linares in Mexico City into wood. Don Manuel died in 2006, but his family carries on his work.
His son Isaias gave us a tour of the carving area, a small museum dedicated to Don Manuel‘s work, and finally the gallery. Isaias walked us through a number of testimonials to his father‘s importance. He was very concerned to make two points. The wooden alebrijes originated with his father, making his father the most important Oaxacan carver. And they originated in Arrazola and not in San Martin Telcajete, which is now the much better known carving village.
Origin myths aside, we were enormously taken with the family’s work. the style here is somewhat simpler, more direct, more colorful than that developed by the Angeles family and other carvers in San Martin Telcajete…probably much like the earliest alebrijes.
Mary Lou bought a spectacular bird; David bought a highly ornamented bull, and I bought a companion for my raccoon: a fabulous snake. We also bought various gifts to be revealed in person. It was a wonderful visit to a special place.
In the course of our visit, Riccardo had given us a comprehensive introduction to the Nahual, or spirit animal, so important to Zapotec culture. Each person has one Nahual who protects him or her during life, and a second to protect them after death. This is perhaps the central aspect of Zapotec religion: Nahuals are shape shifters, and there is a frequent transmigration from human to animal form and back. Don Manuel’s Nahual was a dog.
Back in town, we had time for a brief siesta before our return to Criollo, which we remembered as one of our favorite restaurants anywhere. Like much of Oaxaca, the restaurant has become enormously successful, and had opened a vast garden space behind the main restaurant. We we’re initially seated in this garden, but we pleaded successfully for one of the lovely tables on a terrace beside a verdant cactus garden.
The meal was splendid: palate teasers of crispy cauliflower in a peanut mole and a ceviche of dorado, watermelon and chiles; an appetizer of paper-thin pineapple slices covering slices of quince accompanied by an unusual and delicious apple butter; a tamale with quessio, the wonderful Oaxacan string cheese and a mole Colorado; a tostada with a piece of fish nestled into a pile of chorizo on top of a bed of lentils (a surprising combination that worked extremely well); a tostada with a ribeye Tatar, nopal (cactus) buttons, tomatoes, and chiles; and a complex dessert that included a glass of coconut / almond milk; yoghurt ice cream with berries in a tuile, and a piece of tres leches cake.
We made a fundamental mistake that took a bit of the luster off the meal. We opted for the menu option that included drinks. In our boomer naivite we thought that meant wine courses and perhaps a margarita. We should have looked around at the other diners: all millennials downing “cocteles.” And that is largely what we got. Yuck.