Oaxaca, Mexico
Click on photos below to see full size
Day of the Dead 2003
The Dia de los Muertos,
“Day of the Dead”, is a uniquely Mexican and very important holiday, which
celebrates the continuity of life. It takes place in Oaxaca with more ceremony,
ritual and flair than in any other town in Mexico. We decided to take a
week to visit this historic area. An added attraction was the opportunity
to visit Monte Alban and
Mitla,
and to sample the area craftwork and cooking. (Our favorite pastimes – shopping
and eating.)
We flew from San Diego to Oaxaca with a stop in Mexico City to change planes.
We had arranged for the hotel
well in advance, in expectation of the large number of visitors at this time of
year. We found it was in an excellent location, an easy walk from the main
part of town.
With
several days available to us, we decided to tour the area a few hours at a time.
Friends in San Diego had given us the name of a reliable guide, Constantino, so
we contacted him and arranged our visits. He showed up with a spotless
Chevy Suburban with air conditioning and a well-stocked cooler. We let him
know our preference for Corona, and he always met our needs!
Our first
visit was to Monte Alban.
We were appropriately impressed with this site. It is really much
larger than we expected, and very well maintained as a tourist destination.
The link at the top of the page will take you to more pictures.
While we had the car available, Constantino took us to the village of San Martin
Tilcajete. The people in each of the surrounding villages seem to
specialize in a particular craft. Here it is woodcarving. Although the
carving is impressive, the painting of the carvings is of
greater
interest. Many of the carvings are painted with acrylic paint, and these
are what you see in most
of the local
markets. The original technique was to make the paint with an extract from
a local beetle (cochineal), which is a vibrant red, and then add other natural
products
such as lime and honey to
change the
coloring.
The end result is pretty amazing. We visited the home of
Jacabo and Maria Angeles.
Jacabo is a fairly well known artist whose work has been displayed in San Diego.
We decided to
buy a carving of a cat. It was one of those impulse buys, but is the kind
of impulse I seem to get at least once every trip we make. Rather than
loading up with lots of souvenirs, we prefer to just buy one or two nice things
for ourselves, and take lots of pictures. (The grandkids get T-shirts.)
Returning
to the city, after working our way through a village traffic jam, we stopped at
Cuilapan, the site of a 450-year-old Dominican monastery. Mostly in ruins,
it is still impressive with its basilica design (copied from the
Romans).
As we
walked across the field to the monastery, we were attacked by hundreds of
grasshoppers. They didn’t bite, just bounced off our legs. Now we
understand why there are so many
grasshoppers
available in the markets as chapulines. These are usually prepared with
ingredients
such as garlic, salt, lime juice or a red chili powder coating. They’re
really quite dangerous to eat, as they have a very high lead content. You
see them offered all over Oaxaca, either as “munchies” or in
tacos. (We skipped them.)
During the week around Dia de los Muertos, all of the restaurants and stores decorate to celebrate
the holiday. There are plenty of tourists and the
town
does its best to entertain them. Every evening there is entertainment in
the form of parade
s,
plays, and general fun. The city cemetery is the center of attention, as
families decorate the graves with flowers and offerings of food. In
addition, musicians and stage entertainment are part of the celebrations.
We had the good fortune to have chosen a hotel within walking distance of most
of the fun. We picked a different restaurant evening for dinner, and then
walked off the meal with the crowds of locals and tourists.
Each day we were able to visit another of the surrounding towns to see what
their craft specialty looked like. One of the most interesting was our
visit to San Bartolo Coyotepec, a village famous for its tradition of making
black pottery in the technique preserved by the inheritors of this Zapotec
craft. The famous matriarch of this craft is Dona Rosa, who lived here
from 1900 to 1980. Her family continues the tradition today. We
received a
demonstration given by one of her sons. Naturally, we had to buy a few pieces to
bring home with us.
Our
next visit was to
Mitla, and
on the way we stopped at the village of Santa Maria del Tule. (The
Tule Tree is one of the
world’s largest and oldest trees– 53 meters round, 41 meters tall and over 2000
years old).
The
Mitla
archeological site is famous for the fineness of its many geometric mosaics
decorating the palace walls. Quite different from Monte Alban, and
fascinating in its own way. We were able to enter a couple of (small)
tombs. Carvings inside, but nothing else – just tourists.
As
we were returning to Oaxaca, we stopped at the village of
Teotitlán del Valle,
famous for its weaving since pre-Hispanic times
.
Another chance to do some shopping! The ladies seemed to find more
interest in this village for
some reason.
We finally
returned to the city for another round of evening entertainments, visits to a
chocolate store and a taste of Mezcal.
Busy as our schedule was, we still seemed to be able to work in more shopping
and an occasional nap (to recover from all that shopping). The final
challenge – how to get the souvenirs home
on the plane
without breaking anything.
All in all, another wonderful trip.
