Please forgive the interruption of transmission, gentle reader! I’m afraid I fell prey to a bit of turistas on Sunday night. I was really out of commission for just half of today, Monday, but it took me most of the rest of the day to recover my energy…so here I am again.
We had an early flight to Oaxaca, which turned out to be delayed for an hour because Aeromexico had an airplane but no crew! The flight was otherwise uneventful…and very short, just over an hour. A van brought the B.’s and the J.’s to the hotel; David and Patti were on a later flight.
There was some unfortunate signal noise at the hotel. When Patti and I had tried to book rooms for the trip, our first ten choices were full. The Casa de Sierra Azul looked fine, and we booked four rooms. But then I found out that David and Patti had to leave a day early, and that the reservation had to be changed. Patti, our Spanish translator, had called the hotel and they had assured her that everything was in order. It wasn’t. There was no room for Sasha after the first night, so she switched to the (much nicer) hotel next door. And, while our room was very nice, with a large terrace and chaise lounges, David and Patti were at first put in a dungeon and then, after protesting, to an adequate but not lovey room. OK, there, I’ve gotten that out of my system.
In the early afternoon, Sue, Connie, and Sasha took off for some preliminary shopping reconaissance (Oaxaca is a dangerous space for eager shoppers). Vladimir and I opted for a quick siesta. When David and Patti arrived, I joined them in a search for the others. On the main pedestrian thoroughfare, Calle Macedonia Alcala, our path was slowed by a street event that may have been a wedding, or may have been a political protest…or both!
Once we had joined the others, we decided to walk toward a really interesting corner of the city, the former aqueduct that carried water from the mountains to the north of Oaxaca. The way there leads through gorgeous streets and squares, like this one.
Or this one in front of a small church.
Our way led us down to the Calle Rufino Tomato, whose brightly painted houses, street art, and charming home built under the arches of the aqueduct make it one of the most picturesque parts of the city.
At the top of the street is a state-sponsored store for folk art with a lovely courtyard.
The houses here are delightfully colorful, even by Oaxaca standards.
And the street is home to one of the most interesting pieces of street art in the city.
And here is a small sampling of the houses built into the aqueduct.
Dinner was at Criollo, the Mexican star chef Enrique Olvera’s outpost in Oaxaca. This is a definite part of every trip to Oaxaca. The setting is idyllic; you sit under a veranda that surrounds an open patio with a bubbling fountain and look out onto a lush cactus garden. There is no menu: the chef creates six new courses every night depending on what is in the market. And this week there was obviously a lot of fish; even the tamales, let alone the tacos and tostadas, were filled with fish in many guises. It was a fabulous meal and reset the Bans’ understanding of Mexican food.