Monte Alban, North main platform: Here’s squinting at you, kid

Like most ancient ruins of ancient civilizations, the Zapotec/Mixtec ruins of Monte Alban are filled with big rocks. Built on a large mountain overlooking the modern city of Oaxaca (the priestly/ruling caste of the Zapotec had a thing for being able to overlook their subjects), Alban has a serene, tranquil feel to it even during the post-Christmas high season. Christine and I took a 60 peso shuttle with a bunch of American-Mexicans on vacation to their homeland to the site and were dropped off in a parking lot filled with vendors hawking cowboy hats, combs, and masks. Admission was a mere 59 pesos each, or about 4 dollars – a far cry from the 70 dinar – or was it dollars? – that one had to pay to see Petra back in 2010.

Visually, Alban isn’t as impressive. Exposed to the constant sun and summer rainy season, and to the fact that a modern city is only 15 minutes away by car, a lot of the big rocks are missing, leaving only the foundations of the most important buildings, jagged rocks that if you were to lay on them, would either be great massage therapy or painful torture. The homes of the common people would have been built into the hillside below us in terraces (ancient Mesoamericans love them some terraces) and out of mud or daub, and have long since been eaten up by time and the brambles of cacti and scrubby trees.

To me, Monte Alban could be summed up into three main parts – the central ‘field’, and the north and south raised platforms. We didn’t hire a guide and the English/Mixtec/Spanish informational signs were few and far between, but the empty field seemed to me like it would have been where simple markets and vendors would have set up little tiendas and stands to buy and sell things, with the priestly temples and important political houses surrounding them on the sides. In the middle of the field were a large rectangular raised area which again, was probably for announcements and rituals, but more interesting to me was the angular, offset base off something which the signs thought might have been an observatory. A common theme of every part of the ruins was that it was straight lines, perfectly arranged in north-south alignment. Everything was either squares or rectangles. But if you look here, you can see that the only thing that didn’t fit with this is this ruin, which would make sense if the scientist/priest caste was using it to track particular stars or constellations that didn’t fit with north-south alignment.

We toured the north platform first, climbing up the steps to high points (which originally had shrines and temples on them) and getting some good pictures and wondering to the farthest north points to see some houses. The guide signs referred to almost everything in the far north by “Tomb Number XX” -> after the Zapotec civilization fell apart around 600-800 AD, the Mixtec people slowly moved into the newish ruins and made the stone buildings into tombs for their important dead. The signs used the words “residencies” and “tombs” interchangeably – it didn’t seem like the Mixtec were much into building their own stuff, preferring to use the probably-still-impressive buildings left behind by the politicians and priests. And of course, they seemed to be happy to cart off some rocks from other buildings down the mountain to begin to create what would eventually be the modern Oaxaca, where plenty of Mixtec-speaking people still live today.

After lunch at the gift shop’s tasty outdoor restaurant (Christine eating a tamale and me with Oaxacan quesadillas) we briefly stopped by the south platform, which was more of the same but notable mostly for the massive set of steps that were necessary to climb. It seems common in most religions that steps to climb upwards are needed; in order to keep from breaking your neck, your head must be bowed, looking down at your feet, and not looking up and perhaps disrespectfully making eye contact with the religious icons at the top of the steps.

Christine Carefully Climbs

A common theme with Christine and food here in Mexico has been that she will save a few tortillas or, if I let her, a bit of my meat. She’ll wait until no one seems to be watching her, then quickly stuff everything into a napkin or two and into her purse. We haven’t seen a single cat in Oaxaca. Not even one; street cat or otherwise. But there are plenty of hungry street dogs who are almost always frightened of humans and slink away as Christine inevitably crouches and calls pleasantly to them to be petted. Monte Alban was no exception; down near the parking lot where we were to meet our shuttle bus again 3-5 skinny dogs lounged in the shade. I don’t speak much Spanish, but I can hear people talking about time in Spanish and I’m pretty punctual. Our return shuttle was for 4pm, and Christine let a bunch of other people with stubs for 4:30 or 5 take our spots on the bus – I teased her that it was for the express purpose of having more time to feed the dogs the tortillas and meat she had in her backpack! The dogs were, of course, extremely grateful and one of them even consented to be petted. The others guilty grabbed the food and hurriedly retreated away to glonk it down their throats (glonk is the verb I have created to describe how a dog attempts to eat, snake-like, a big piece of food by just swallowing it whole when they’re in a hurry).

Yeah, both me and the dog are onto you, Christine!

Continue reading this post…

The slightly deranged look in Christine’s eyes is most likely the fear that a firecracker would explode on our heads

It’s not proper IPA spelling, but hopefully Christine the linguistics Masters degree holder will forgive me. It’s been quite awhile since the last post, and instead of addressing things consecutively as I usually do, I’ll handle the food of the Oaxacan region first.

On New Year’s Eve, Christine and I went out from Casa Giron to see the festivities on the Zocalo, the main square in the city. We stopped to watch a fast speaking clown called “el Tonto” (the Fool) who had drawn a crowd at its edge, but of course as soon as he spotted two foreigners in the crowd, he just had to pull us into his act, and literally into the center of his act to speak in rapid fire Spanish while blowing up balloon animals for us. Christine told me later that it was mostly dick jokes regarding Mexicans and Americans, so I guess I didn’t miss out on too much. We were stuck with the balloon animals for the rest of the long night; we ended up giving them away to some begging children on the edge of the square (along with a peso or two as well). The rest of Tonto’s act was something that drew some wry amusement from the Americans in the audience – Tonto pulled two little boys and a girl out of the crowd and (apparently, according to Christine) was going to have them reenact “the classic love tragedy.” One of the boys was given a poncho, the other a sombrero, and the girl a dainty red lace umbrella. And then both of the boys were given cap guns and Christine said, “oh geez, this would never fly in the USA.” Tonto told the children exactly what to do – the girl was to deliver a passionate speech regarding “I love both of you, how could I ever choose!” and then the two boys were to circle each other menacingly, threatening each other with child-level threats (“your hat is dumb!” “you look stupid!”) and then open fire on each other with the cap guns. One boy was “killed” immediately (although he had difficulty remembering to stay dead, much to Tonto’s derision) and then the girl threw herself down at his side, shouting that it was actually he that she had loved the most. Then she grabbed the gun, shot the other boy, and then shot herself, and all three lay on the ground twitching theatrically.

“Kids, resolve your problems by shooting each other the way you see them do it in old movies!”

The crowd of children, parents, and young people in our age group just ate it up. Tonto’s off-color jokes probably helped too. Christine and I enjoyed it as much as two non-native speakers could, but of course our perspectives were colored by the fact that if any children’s clown tried this in the USA, screaming parents would be hurling themselves at him, shielding their own children’s eyes, and he’d probably be imprisoned for willful endangerment of children’s minds or some other similar charge. Continue reading this post…

We ate our way around some of Oaxaca’s plentiful taquerias and food stands. Second breakfast (after the omlettes served by Concepcion) was at Oaxaca’s number one rated restaurant, a bakery conveniently located only a couple blocks from Casa Giron. The owners were both there, two young Mexican men who spoke perfect English and made us some great sandwiches on ciabatta and focattia and served them with a mug of homemade kombucha.

Coin Candles just don’t have the same effect for me.

The large and impressive Temple of Santo Domingo was nearby, so we stopped there. In my opinion, the edifice and its insides were much more impressive than the Cathedral we had seen the day before, and it appeared to be a hangout spot for both vendors hawking goods and university students who were handing out free maps of Oaxaca to anyone who looked slightly foreign. As it was a Catholic church (and really, they all probably are in Mexico) there were several of those “pay a bit, light a candle” stations, except with a modern twist – you could drop in either 2, 5, or 10 pesos into a slot on the front of a box, and then one of about 40 electric candles on the top would light up and flicker dimly. Christine and I agreed it was a rather tacky replacement.

We were walking back down one of the main streets when I saw a sign that called out to me – tacos for 5 pesos each, or about 33 USA cents. Both of us were a bit taken aback by the thumping club music emanating from the establishment, and the emptiness of the place, but it seemed to be a dance hall that didn’t really do much business until the late hours, so we tried the cheapest tacos we’d ever seen….they were about as spicy as the “Porky” tacos in the airport, which I’m starting to realize now is probably a bad thing, but the taste was also BBQ chicken, so it was at least recognizable. At some point I tried to ask in Spanish “what bird meat is this” but Christine told me I said instead, “which airplane meat this?”

At that point, I started wondering what the taco quality gamut might run. If five pesos was the lowest, then what about ten pesos? fifteen? We were doing so much walking around the city (about seven miles by the end of the day, I estimated later on) that I was bound to be constantly hungry. After reserving our spots for a two-day overnight bike ‘n hike, we came across a little taco cart called El Flamazo which had amazing smells coming off from it. I couldn’t resist taking a seat at the cart and ordering a “plata” of five tacos for 38 pesos. What meats do you have, I asked, and the three young men running the cart told me that my choices were tasejo, tripe, and cabeza; head meat. Christine was looking at me nervously, and I knew why; it was a street cart in Mexico, which meant that the water quality was going to be suspect. Everything was cooked but the cilantro, but the smells were so wonderful I threw caution to the wind and ordered two tasejo (which is just ‘regular’ muscle meat,) two tripe (stomach/intestines) and a single head meat taco…which I guess I’m assuming is cheek meat? I suppose it could come from any part of a cow’s head that has meat on it. They came to me smothered in fried onions and cilantro, with (of course) two lime slices on the side. They were absolutely amazing and I made numerous attempts to tell the high-school age workers that in my broken, mangled Spanish.

One of Christine’s photos where I’m wildly and exuberantly gesticulating about the food

Next to us, a somewhat-off looking guy was arguing with one of the employees about how much money he should pay. It seemed that he was short 10 pesos, or about 60 cents. My meal was going to be 38, so I paid with a 50 peso bill and told the employees I would pay for the guy’s last ten, too. They refused and made the guy pay anyway, so I tossed them the 10 as a tip (the man begged the remaining two pesos off me, which I gave him, to the eye rolls of everyone else at the cart. What can I say? I was filled with delicious taco and probably would have kept giving small change to people all night if pressed). The young man reached under his cart and pulled out a t-shirt bearing the logo for El Flamazo and gave it to me, saying “for you.” I told him I would wear it proudly, and asked if they had other carts around the city, or if this one moved. I was told that there were 3 other carts, run by other brothers in the family. Now, my Spanish isn’t so good, and they might have been kidding us, but when I asked how many other brothers they had, they said “there are twelve of us, three each with a cart.” Maybe they meant “hermanos” in the metaphorical sense – aren’t we all brothers on this taco-cart of a planet? – but maybe they actually meant 12 biological brothers running delicious taco carts in Oaxaca.

Cheers to El Flamazo!

I don’t know, but I got a sweet shirt out of it, which I’ll be wearing today when we go to Monte Alban, the archeological site a few kilometers to the southwest of the city.

Two trips to the Spanish-speaking world in one year! When Christine suggested it a couple months ago as our post-Christmas vacation, she said she could always use the language practice, and I agreed on the account that I could always eat more cheap tacos (I’m not kidding, that probably was my first thought).

After spending a lovely Christmas with my family in Brodhead (during which my uncle got engaged) and then later in the day, with Christine and her extended family (during which my cousin got engaged, or at least I received an SMS with that information), we were ready to take our red-eye bus ride from Madison to O’Hare for our 7:15am flight.

We flew to Mexico City for a brief layover in the airport, the highlights of which were, for me, eating a “tres tacos platter” from an airport restaurant (I thought $10 was a pretty good price) but which Christine told me (after taking a single careful bite) that they were actually horrible and they just used a lot of hot sauce to cover up the taste. I guess that explains why they were called “Porky tacos” on the restaurant’s sign (not kidding) but at least the airport’s rat problem mysteriously stopped. Christine and I then briefly napped on the extremely worn and comfortable couches in the airport’s “eagle museum,” which had hundreds of large portraits and photos of the nation’s “royal eagle” that adorns the Mexican flag.

The 40 minute flight to Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-hahk-ah, resulting in my usual attempts at alliteration in the title) was over in a flash. In a sad memory to how things used to be in the United States, when we stepped out of the plane onto the tiny airport’s tarmac, families were right there at the fence to greet their loved ones. Ah, for the old days.

Our first homestay for the next three nights, Casa Giron, was only 15km away from the airport but due to 4pm traffic, took us an hour to reach. As is to be expected in these old cities, the roads were cobblestone and extremely narrow, leading to traffic jams every few feet. At least Oaxaca didn’t have the horrific haze of smog visible from the air that Mexico City had wreathed about it; we were happy we didn’t have to leave the airport back there!

After checking into the homestay and meeting our hostess, Concepcion and her son Juan Carlos, we got dinner at a little tacqueria named La Lolita. Afterward, we visited the main Cathedral at the Zolaco (the center of town) and watched the post-Christmas, pre-New Years festivities – Peruvian flute bands (Christine says that she’s never been to a place in Central America that didn’t have them tootling away madly wherever people that could tip them are found), children playing with massive cylindrical balloons, and more somberly, a tent-city in the middle of the square with hundreds of tents, with signs and pictures up regarding the 43 young students slain in last month’s cartel-related tragedy. They were literally butchered, put in garbage bags, and set on fire. The president and local politicians are being decried as corrupt, and Christine was a little nervous to be walking through the tent city. “I wonder why they haven’t been tear gassed in the middle of the night and had their tents bulldozed,” she mused.

Everywhere, sets of things numbering 43 (photos, cut-outs of doves, peace signs) were hung

Center dome of the zocalo, covered in signs

We walked back to the homestay, and got a couple beers at an eccentric bar that looked hip (although Christine and I have never been good judges on what is “hip” in any country, really). Inside, there were hundreds of hand-drawn pictures all over the walls; from what Christine could tell they had all been done by the same woman who was thanking/blessing every saint there was for things that had gone well for her in her day to day life.

Christine translates some of the many blessings the artist has received

Today so far, we’ve had a tasty (included) breakfast cooked for us by Concepcion; omlettes spiced with verde tomato salsa with frijoles and coffee. Then it’s off to wander the town!

Seems like only yesterday I was writing about being in this show, Two Diabetics, but the video’s finally up on Youtube! And embedded below, for your convenience.

Stereotypical tropical beach sundown time!

Our last flight home, from Houston back to Milwaukee (we didn’t leave the airport this time, with only an hour layover) has about an hour left in it, and so I’ll try to briefly summarize some of the interesting facets of Roatan, Honduras – probably one of *the* most heavily touristed areas we’ve ever visited together.

First and foremost, either the government of Honduras or the local leaders of Roatan need to figure out whether or not they’re officially backing the Honduran lempira, or the US dollar, and stick with it. It was rather crazy to see that the majority of hotels, restaurants, and other random businesses we frequented not only often accepted USD primarily, but then also would randomly put the prices for other things down in lempira instead. Some hotels would list their prices in USD, for example, then have the drinks in their bar in lempira – and vice versa at other places. The exit tax we paid to leave the country, for another matter, was even charged in USD, not lempiras – but yet, all the credit card machines in the country will *always* do the transaction in lempira, regardless of whether the price was given in USD or Lemps. By the way – the government of Honduras doesn’t seem to see fit to have an easily-findable, up to date list of what the exit tax is – well, as of June 1st, 2014, everywhere else on the internet is wrong – it’s precisely $39.72 for foreigners (to leave by air; from Roatan). Thankfully some elderly British gentleman in the line behind gave me the last 200 lempiras I needed (about $5) otherwise I would have needed to get out the plastic – and all of the fees that would have entailed. Continue reading this post…