Oaxacan Wanderings

We woke up fairly early and had breakfast at the hotel. It was a buffet as I had expected, and it was about as good as I expected. Still, it was pleasant enough sitting there having coffee overlooking the garden. 

We went into the city and found our barbershop. I am not quite sure why we did not get any pictures here. The people who cut our hair knew little English, but they knew far more about cutting men’s hair than the folks at our local Great Clips. I must admit to a certain nervousness whenever a straightedge razor is applied to my neck, but the cleanness of the trim is amazing. 

We went to one of the most famous churches in Mexico after this, Santo Domingo de Guzman, the old Dominican monastery church. This structure covers most of a large city block and it was once larger. The facade of the church is beautiful, 

but it is the interior that is truly the most impressive. 

It is not simply the amount of gold leaf that has been applied here, but the charm of the carvings which mix both Spanish and indigenous styles. 

It’s not surprisingly a popular spot for weddings.

But we were not here primarily for the church. Instead, we were interested in the state culture center that now occupies the old convent. This is a fairly recent addition to Oaxaca’s cultural treasures. The Dominican monastery was closed in the 1850s as part of La Reforma, and in the aftermath of the Conservative defeat in the three year civil war that followed, the friars’ quarters were turned into military barracks. While the building was returned to the Dominicans during the administration of President Lázaro Cárdenas, the building was generally leased to the local university for  classrooms. In the late 1990s plans were made to restore it as much as possible and to make it an important regional museum. Additionally, the old cloisters and walled garden enclosures have been turned into a botanic garden showcasing the native plants of the state.

It’s interesting to wander through this old building. Parts of it are still somewhat ornate.

But most of it is quite plain. But that is interesting, too.

Looking at the views out the windows may be the best part.

Of course, there is a lot of religious art here.

The museum houses Oaxaca’s oldest library, an important source of information about the colonial era and the early years of independence. 

The botanic gardens are available only by guided tour. English tours are offered only two days a week, and today, alas, was not one of them. So we went along on a Spanish tour. Our guide, fortunately, knew how to speak clear, simple Spanish that people like me would understand. So I followed the tour and felt prtty good about my skills in this language. 

Oaxaca had many different ecosystems. The state is largely mountainous. On the south, Oaxaca is open to the Pacific and has the typical climate of Mexico’s southern coast — hot, wet summers and warm, dry winters. Much of this summer precipitation falls on the mountains which is still fairly thickly forested. Another mountain ranger is found on the north east side of the state bordering Veracruz. During the summer tropical storms drench the mountains here. In the middle of the state is a long, fairly flat, central plateau. On the lee side of both ranges, this valley is fairly arid but sustains a significant amount of agriculture. 

Cactus is one of the most iconic plants of the central valley. The garden showcased the cactus quite effectively. 

Cactus is amazingly photogenic. 

The section devoted to tropical plants was interesting, but other than a few bromeliads, it just looked like big trees with a lot of leaves.

There was also a large section devoted to cultivated plants, particularly corn. This is what corn looked like before people started to cultivate it. 

Doesn’t look much like an Iowa farm, does it? The native peoples of this area learned to alter the plant until the ears looked like this 

or this.

Certainly much more interesting than those big yellow things you find in an American grocery store. 

Along the way, as our guide talked, we rested 

and admired the historic building.

After the tour, we stopped by the Camino Real hotel. This was once known as the El Presidente, and when John and I stayed here twenty odd years ago it was the first time we had ever stayed at a hotel where they turned down your bed and put a chocolate there! It was once a convent for Dominican nuns and has been exquisitely restored. The courtyards are particularly lovely

and appealing to different kinds of guests!

We went back to our modern hotel and rested. In the evening we went back to town. We somehow found ourselves on a square we had never seen before. This area was not quite as well-restored.

But as night fell we noticed that this area was kind of a trendy area, not four tourists but for locals.

Today is the night before The Epiphany. In Mexico this holiday is Three Kings Day and it is the culmination of the Christmas season. Mexican children get presents on Three Kings Day, not Christmas. So the plaza area by the cathedral was packed with families. There was a place where the kids could get their pictures taken with the biblical figures. But others seemed more interested in having a family photo with superheroes for the day. 

Tomorrow, it’s back to Los Angeles and reality.

Welcome to Oaxaca

We left Puerto Escondido early in the morning. The sun had just come up when we arrived at the airport. When we had first come to Escondido nearly thirty years ago there was only a small airstrip here, only big enough for prop planes. It was not long after that it was widened to be large enough for jets. Today there are at least a couple flights each hour, most headed for Mexico City. We were not on one of those, however. Instead, just like the old days, we were on a small plane headed straight over the Sierra Madre del Sur toward the city of Oaxaca. 

Our flight on AeroTucan was indeed an adventure. It was even smaller that the plane we had taken all those year past. Our flight was full, and I think I counted all of 18 people. I saw almost directly behind the pilot. I was a little unsure how exactly he could see over the instrument panel, but it was nevertheless an almost perfect flight. Looking down at the mountains, I could see a maze of winding roads and I was grateful we were not taking the other option for going to Oaxaca, a twelve hour bus ride. Here I am rather inelegantly exiting this tiny plane. 

After getting our luggage, we caught a collectivo to our hotel. We chatted briefly with a woman from Canada and a couple guys from Seattle. We were the last to be dropped off. Our accommodations in Oaxaca are at the Hotel Victoria. John and I had stopped by this place years ago on one of our first visits to the city. I remembered it as being sort of at the edge of town and sort of 1950’s modern. As the taxi dropped us off, it no longer seemed so far away from the center and if anything a bit bleaker than I had recalled.

It was pretty early in the morning, so our rooms were not ready yet. We hung around the pool for a while even though it was pretty chilly.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he had been so obsessed with getting a room here, even though its Presidential Suite was about the cost of a standard room at the Camino Real, the most upscale hotel in the area. But when we finally got into our room, I decided John was a genius. Of course, you all knew that already, didn’t you? The room itself was absolutely huge. I used the iPhone’s panorama setting to try to get a feel for it, but of course it distorted everything. But you will still get the idea.

But the real attraction of the Presidential Suite is the view from the balcony. You can see the entire Valley of Oaxaca from here. This picture does not do it justice. 

As we were tired and the room was so wonderful, we decided to nap for a bit. 

After we were rested, we went into town. We stopped by a barbershop. They were full at the time, but happy to make a reservation for tomorrow morning. We walked around looking at some of the places we remembered. For some reason, neither of us took many pictures today. After a bit of that, we went back to the hotel.

In the evening, we went back into the city for dinner. We had made reservations for one of the area’s most talk-about restaurants, the Pitiona Cocina de Autor. This is one of those places with a multi-course tasting menu. We do not normally do that in Los Angeles, but Oaxaca has become famous not only for its traditional foods but for its emerging fusion food scene. And, besides, we knew this experience would be far cheaper in Mexico! And it was more or less what we expected. There were lots of largish plate with not much food on them, and the food was usually some rather odd mixture of things.  

Most of the dishes we liked, though we did not fall in love with any of them. Probably what I will remember most of all is that we were wondering if the package we had sent from Virginia had arrived at home. We checked the security camera footage and not only saw the package being delivered but a few hours later saw a young woman stealing it! I guess we’ll deal with this when we get home though I doubt we can do anything. Sigh. 

Chacahua

Today was the last day at the beach. Having had such a good experience with our previous excursion — at least the part not involving the overpriced hotel — we decided to book a day trip with the same people. We looked over the options and decided that Chacahua Lagoon National Park looked the most interesting. This is a large brackish lake located about an hour north of Puerto Escondido on the road to Acapulco. As you can see from the map below, there are actually three lakes here and a river. As I understand it, at the height of the rainy season the whole thing can become one large estuary. 

The area is famous for the amount of bird life there, and our trip was to be devoted first to looking for birds and after that for some recreation. It sounded good, and it was overall a fairly good experience. Our guide picked us up at the hotel in a minivan. His name was Ivan.

He spoke a little English, not nearly as much as Job. We were not sure yesterday whether there would be other people as well. But when we looked at the van, we were pretty sure that would be. We made three other stops. As it turned our, there were eight of us. I should have noted down people’s names and taken pictures of them. We had a young couple from Querétaro. They were very cute; both of them were finishing university. There were two woman traveling together from Mexico City. One of the had spent some time studying at UCLA and spoke better English than my Spanish. And there were two men, one a younger Mexican, and the other a pale European whose English was flawless but slightly accented. We think they were a couple. He was Swiss but mostly worked in England teaching Latin. Not being particularly clear on the difference between the dative and the ablative, we talked about other stuff mostly. 

The ride to Chacahua seemed to take forever, and the little towns were passed through reminded me that while the city of Oaxaca and the coastal resorts are reasonably prosperous the rest of the state is one of the poorest in Mexico and sends many migrants to the United States. Oaxacans, not Koreans, are the largest ethnic group in Korea town.

We finally parked and were put on a powerboat. The lagoon is enormous but quite shallow. There are numerous mangrove “islands” in the lake and the are home to different kinds of birds. 

We law lots of herons.

But there were also cormorants, pelicans, and hawks. 

And there were some birds I can not quite sure what they were. Our guide names them all in Spanish. 

After we had been on the lagoon for about ninety minutes, we were taken to a rather depressing center for the conservation of crocodiles. Even though it was supposedly run by the national park, this was nothing like the tortoise facility. It seemed like the worst kind of third world zoo. The poor creatures seems crammed into pens that were far too small for them. I took pictures anyhow. 

I also had to take a picture of this sign. I am surprised somebody even thought it was necessary to put this up.

After this, we went back in the boat and had a short ride to an area right by the place where the lake opened to the ocean. On both sides of the mouth of the lagoon were beaches covered with restaurants. As usual with these things, there seemed to be a connection between the tour operator and a particular restaurant. What made this area interesting was that the tables were so close to the water.

In fact, when the tide started to come in about half of the tables were actually in the water. Yet nobody seemed to care … or even notice.

We spent more time here than I wanted to. The food was okay. I did not much feel like swimming in the water here. Around four in the afternoon, Ivan led us up a long path up a hill. I thought we were returning to the van, Instead, we found ourselves at a small lighthouse. Walking up to the top, we did have a great view of the lagoon and up and down the coast.

As we were leaving a group of local boys scrambled to the top and acted like … boys.

After this, we finally went back to Puerto Escondido. It was dark by the time we were back at the Santa Fe. I was strangely exhausted. John and I went to a like restaurant on the beach that billed itself as sort of a biergarten. The food was pretty mediocre.

We have an early morning flight to Oaxaca tomorrow and I need to pack. I have overall enjoyed our time here. 

Quiet New Year

It was a pleasant, but quiet New Year’s Day. We had breakfast at the Santa Fe, and went back to our room to do some packing. For some reason — I am not sure if it was our choice or what was available — our reservation called for us to leave the Santa Cruz Bungalows and to spend our last two night here at the hotel. So we went back to the room. John watched the Rose Parade en español for a while and also napped a bit. I worked on photographs. Finally, as it grew closer to noon, we finally pushed everything into our suitcases and went over to the main desk. Our room would not be ready for a while, so they told us to put leave all our belongings in front of the desk and promised that when the room was ready that would be transferred to our new room. 

John and I went down to the beach. We were surprised by how quiet it all was. We figured on a holiday like this lots of people would be down at the beach. But instead there were few cars on the road and only a few people on the sand. John looked in some of the stores that were open for a something more classy than a small trash bag to carry all the stuff we were bringing with us for the afternoon, and he finally found something that should probably also be useful for farmers’ market shopping later. 

We walked all the way down the surf beach to Punta Playa Zicatela. John found a little palapa that had a chaise longue and a table. He pulled over a chair. It was not particularly comfortable, so I spread out my towel on the sand. After spending a little time in the water, I came back and fell asleep. I woke up a little later when some snacks and a Coke Lite arrived. I read for a bit. Even though somebody had a radio playing at a nearby table, it seemed enchantingly peaceful. 

We took a cab back to the hotel. I was really irritated to see that our bags — which contained my phone and wallet and other important stuff — had been left sitting in front of the desk for six hours. The younger man showed us to our room. We are on the third floor. There is a small balcony, but no particular view. The room is fairly spacious however. I did some unpacking while John napped.

In the evening we went to Fresh again. The food was good, but not quite as wonderful as it had seemed a couple days earlier. As often happens in Mexican restaurants, it took forever at the end of the meal to get la cuenta. It took a while to find our room again, too!

Now, off to bed. 

Huatulco's Bays

As we had made arrangements to meet our tour guide at eight o’clock, we had an early breakfast. Once again we were one of the first people in the restaurant, and once again buffet food proved to be nearly inedible. Had I paid far less for this room than I did, I might forgive all of this. But when the price charged rivals that of the best hotels in the capital cities of Europe, I do not think that asking for more than rubbery eggs, soggy French toast, and limp bacon is too much. 

After a short wait, we met Juan again. He was accompanied by another young man who drove us in an SUV to the marina in the town of Santa Cruz Huatulco. At the dock, we were introduced to our Santiago who would actually be our guide for the day. Santiago had a small powerboat, with several fishing rods attached to the roof. He pointed these out to us, but I told him politely that we were more interested in sightseeing, swimming, and snorkeling. He seemed quite agreeable to this and we paid him the rest of the money.

We left the marina and sailed around a point towards the national park. Las Bahias de Huatulco is among the dullest of Mexican resort areas, yet Fonatur, the government agency that developed these projects thirty years ago, made a couple good decisions here. One of these was to set aside a large area that included some of the best beaches as a national park. We stopped along the way to the park at another cove where we rented some snorkeling equipment.

We continued on to the national park. We came to an place with a stunning white beach, but Santiago went a little further out towards a large rock in the water. A large area, maybe about an acre, was marked with floating balls. “Aquí está el coral,” he told us. We put on our masks and fins and without much grace jumped into the water. 

Normally, I do not find snorkeling as rewarding as most people do because my eyesight without glasses is pretty bad. But for some reason, I just had an amazing experience this time. I swam around for several minutes without seeing much of anything. But then, all of a sudden, I was floating over a blanket of purple and green surrounded by brightly colored fish.  Continuing on, I found a hole amid the coral and there were phosphorescent blue fishing daring in and out of the coral caves. I experiences a sharp stinging sensation on my arm and realized that I had probably been stung by a jellyfish. I started to swim back to the boat, but decided to risk more stings in order to see more. I soon found myself swimming with a huge school of small gray fish. It was an astonishing experience.

When I returned to the boat, John had been been waiting there for quite a while. He had not seen nearly as much as I had, and it sounded like he had had an even worse time with the jellyfish.

We continued on to a small beach in a nearby cove. There were only five or six people there. We walked the length of the beach. John sat on a rock and I splashed about in the water. After thirty minutes or so, we were ready to go. I was up for exploring another beach, but John needed to eat. But when I told Santiago that “mi compañero tiene hambre,” he seemed to know right where to go. On our way there, he pointed out a famous stone formation that looks something vaguely like a human face. 

As we approached the beach we noticed a number of different restaurants. But we were met on the beach by a very friendly lady who immediately told us to follow her to her restaurant. We figured out that there was probably some connection between Santiago and this woman, and we decided not to protest. She gave us a prime seat right at the front of the restaurant on the sand and we had a very pleasant meal there. After we ordered we noticed a meal in a styrofoam container being delivered from the restaurant to Santiago. 

We were supposed to check out of our expensive hotel at one o’clock, and as we finished eating our meal we noticed that it was already twenty past twelve. I paid our friend and tipped her generously. She motioned for Santiago to bring his boat to the shore. As we were getting on the boat, someone from the restaurant came running over to give us John’s wallet. Apparently I had left it on the table. There are plenty of places in the world where he never would have seen that again.

Back at the marina, they put us on a taxi and delivered us to the hotel. We went up to the room and we packed our stuff. Just before two o’clock, I check out and Job was there waiting to take us back to Escondido. He had told us yesterday that the return trip would take about two hours and fifty minutes, but it about an hour less than that. I napped for part of the time. John was a little nervous as Job whizzed past trucks on this two lane road, and he closed his eyes and tried not to look at those little shrines to people who died in automobile accidents that line Mexican roads. 

In the evening, John went to a meeting. We met up afterwards and had a pleasant meal at a small restaurant on the beach called Fresh. It was quite pleasant.