Buenos Dias de San Cristobal de las Casas

Hola Amig@s,

Well I have left the home away from home we had created in Oaxaca, and have arrived here in Chiapas. I don´t have too much to report on Chiapas yet. I am still new to everything, and just trying to find the right place to be. It is a beautiful and cool (as in temperature) mountain town. And I am excited to begin exploring.

My last day in Oaxaca was bittersweet. I felt ready to move on, but sad to leave friends I had mae and the security I felt there. The last few days I have been getting a lesson in futbol, watching the European Cup games with the guys at the learning center. I saw the semi-final and final games, and discovered that the Spanish team was NOT popular in Mexico. As one guy said to me, which was later more or less repeated by others was, "I don´t care who wins as long as it´s not the pinche Españoles". Well, guess who won? That´s right Spain. I was personally rooting for them in secret.

It turned out it was a good thing that I bought my ticket for yesterday, because the people who were supposed to arrive today to take my room arrived last night. They were waiting when we returned from Sunday vegetarian buffet. That finalized the feeling that it was time to go. Luckily I had everything packed and was ready to go. Jorge dropped me at the bus station, and 12 hourse later, here I am, in a totally different place.

Y ahora, sola...

This morning a new chapter in the adventure begins. Or perhaps the better way to describe it is that today I transition from vacation to adventure. I woke up early to drive with Don, Dobbe and Jorge to the airport. Goodbyes on the curb always happen so quickly - a hug and a kiss and they were gone. The ride home was quiet, as I absorbed this new feeling. After being with family for almost a month, I was finally by myself, a condition I´ll be in for months to come. We rode along listening to Jorge´s French/English/Spanish mix tape, and I looked at the scenery out the window in a new light.

The first change I will have to make is to stop using vacation as an excuse to eat whatever I want. I have developed the not so fantastic habit of drinking bowls of hot chocolate, accompanied by pan dulce. It is a truly sensuous experience. You can´t help but put your whole face in the bowl. And when you dip the bread into the bowl it comes out dripping, barely holding together the distance between the bowl and your mouth. This is a Oaxacan tradition I have embraced wholeheartedly, but perhaps one that is better enjoyed a vez en cuando, rather than as a daily pleasure. Yesterday, being Don and Dobbe´s last day, was a day of pure chocolate indulgence, beginning with a morning walk to our favorite bakery, Pan & Co. where Don and I had to share one last pan chocolate, to fortify ourselves for the search for the ever elusive music shop. This treat was followed a few hours later with a last luch and La Soledad Hotel Chocolate, where we ate mole (a sauce made with chilies and chocolate), followed by steaming bowls of chocolate. Which is, we have been told, likely to make you feel like you are madly in love. "Hmm... I thought I was in love with you, but I guess it was just the chocolate..."

I am starting to know my way around Oaxaca well. I spent some time wandering around with Don in different neighborhoods, helping him find beautiful doorways and gates to photograph. He had decided this would be a fun project, and it is amazing how you start seeing so many details of a place when you look at every single building, and every door. The neighborhood close to where we are staying is beautiful. The streets are cobbled and quiet, and we found many doors to photograph there. I also took to looking for funny signs and names of businesses. Some of my favorites are: "Donas Homer", and "Wine Phoo y Amigos", the name of a preschool with a picture of Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet etc on the wall out front. I think that Winnie the Pooh will now always be Wine Phoo to me.

In response to dad´s comment on my last post, I am happy to report that despite all the chocolate my stomach has been holding out quite well. Maybe it´s the acidophilus, maybe I am finally stronger than I used to be, maybe there aren´t too many dangers here. I suppose time will tell...

Art and Graffiti

A lot of the anger people are feeling comes out in the art and graffiti around town. According to the people at the learning center, before the clash two years ago there was almost no graffiti anywhere. Now it is seen on almost every building, particularly in the downtown area. There are many places where you can see layers of paint, where people have tried to cover graffiti, and where it has again been graffitied, over and over. Most of the graffiti calls for some kind of action, such as Oaxaca Resiste below. Others call for the ouster of politicians that some believe are corrupt.

La Marchas De L@s Maestr@s

When we first arrived in Oaxaca the downtown central plaza, the Zocalo, was a tarp city where thousands of teachers from all around Oaxaca were taking turns sleeping. This teachers movement, in which they are struggling for better wages and conditions for the schools in the state of Oaxaca has been active for 26 years. Every year in the beginning of June the Zocalo is overtaken in this way, and it all culminates with a huge march. Two years ago, on June 14, the teachers were teargased in an effort by the police to clamp down on the movement. Violence erupted that year, and several people were killed. This year the march was held again on the 14, in commemoration of June 14, 2006. Although this year was very calm in comparison, the tension is still present in those who were involved.

Chacahua

Here are pictures of our adventure to Chacahua, narrated below. We traveled by boat through tunnels of mangroves. Sometimes it was a near miss with the low branches, especially for extra tall Ray.

Otra Vez Monte Alban

Monte Alban, Oaxaca

Los Ultimos Dias

We have reached Friday, the last day that my mom and Ray will be in Oaxaca. Our plans for the day are returning to the markets, and a date at La Soledad Hotel Chocolate. Yes it truly is a chocolate factory with a hotel above where they serve delicious mole and large steaming bowls of frothy hot chocolate. Here they claim that chocloate is divine, full of vitamins and minerals, and GOOD for your complexion. I could get into that kind of thinking.

Since I arrived we have truly been on the go. Last night I walked into the kitchen of El Centro de Aprendizaje where we are staying and was greeted with ¨¡Eva, que milagro!¨ (what a miracle) They haven´t seen me around here much. After I last wrote, mom, Ray and I decided to go on an adventure to the coast. As a landing place we went to Puerto Escondido, where we stayed in a hotel run by an expat known as Don Pablo. In his hotel we had a penthouse with a view of the ocean and were served up ´splendid´breakfasts every morning. The hotel had a family feel, for although Don Pablo is single, he allows all of the people who work for him to bring their children to the hotel. Kids were almost always playing in the courtyard. One boy, a 4-year-old named Carlos, quickly became my friend and we played school. He was the teacher, and I was the student, and he taught me times tables and Spanish phonetics using posters that he had for practicing.

From Puerto Escondido we decided to go a little farther west to a beach called Chacahua. We chose this place because we had read that it had once been populated by Africans, and that their ancestors still lived there. The journey to this place was arduous and involved riding in 5 different modes of transport. We went first in a taxi, then a ´suburban´which is what they call small buses here, then a colectivo (taxi that takes as many people as can fit), then a colectivo boat across a vast lagoon, and finally a camioneta ( a truck that will take as many people as can fit). Once we had reached the shore of Chacahua we rode in the camioneta for 45 minutes through dry cactus-filled land, among emaciated looking cattle. The trip was extended a bit by the fact that our driver stopped every time he saw a crab scuttle across the road. He jumped out of the cab with plastic bag in hand, grabbed a big stick, and poked the crabs into the bag, which he then hung on the stick shift. As th e bag filled, one of the crabs managed to escape and was running around the floor of the cab. The driver had bare feet and was moving his feet around and kicking at the crab so that it wouldn´t bite him.

Mom and I rode in the cab of the car with another woman who insisted that we get off with her to come and look at her cabañas, where we could stay the night. The guidebook had said accomodations were rustic, and hers certainly fit the description. The cabins she showed us were painted seafoam green, with purple doors, but inside were dark and dingy. There were no windows and a single lightbulb hung over the center of the room. She offered it to us for 100 pesos (10 bucks). Mom thought she would probably suffocate sleepoing in there, so I had to politely decline. So far I have enjoyed my role as translator because I can just tell people that I am not the decision maker and that the poeple that I am with want to do something else. She was of course very disappointed, thinking she had made a score by meeting us in the camioneta. It´s not tourist season now, so income is lean for those in that industry. When I explained that we were going to check out a place further up the beach, she told me that it would be very expensive, they would cahrge us 300 pesos to stay. Nevertheless, we made it up the beach to the siete mares, and though they did charge us the 300 hundred, that did include a large window, a direct view of the sea, and a bathroom with a toilet (minus toilet seat). This was a kind of rustic that was a bit easier to deal with.

The Dueño of the 7 mares immediately, wihtout our even asking, began to tell us about the African ancestry of the place. According to him, two ships carrying slaves sank off the coast, and those who swam to shore made their homes on the Costa Chica. He said they were from Sierra Leone. It was true that many people in this fishing village had very dark skin, and they greeted Ray as a long lost cousin or brother.

After drinking large, fresh coconuts, we decided to take a boat ride around the lagoons, and into the mangrove forests. Enrique our guide maneuvered the boat skilolfully through narrow tunnels of roots, and we saw many herons and crabs. Apparently little crocodiles live in some parts of the lagoon, but we didn´t get to see any of those. The boat ride lasted for three hours and was amazing until the fresh coconut caught up with me. There we were in the middle of a huge lake, with nothing but mangroves in sight, and I had to pee RIGHT THEN. I asked Enrique if there was a place to stop anywhere along the route and he started laughing. Can you wait 20 minutes? he asked. I said yes, but I wasn´t really sure. We fianlly pulled into a marsh and I leapt from the boat to shore, the mud sucking in my shoes. It was a huge relief, and I was able to avoid an incredibly embarassing situation.

Okay, gotta go for now. More later.

El Primer DIa en Mexico- Monte Alban

Hola Amigos y familia!

Sadly my blog always seems to be neglected when I am immersed in my regular life. That is either a sign that I need to be doing more interesting things on a egualr basis, or that I need to not keep myself quite so busy so I can find the time to share. Starting today, and over the next several months I am going to be posting quite a bit because once again I have hit air and road on my next big life adventure.

Last night I arrived in Oaxaca, Mexico with very little plan and a ticket to stay in Mexico and Central America until November, 2. Strategically planned so that I will be home for this most important election, since I missed the last election on my LAST big adventure.

My mom, Ray, my uncle Don and his wife Dobbe were all here to greet me and help me feel comfrtable and at home right away. They have been here for a few days already and have been wnadering around, getting familiar with this colonial city. SInce they had been waiting for a few days to begin doing the really fun stuff. So my first day started early with a plan to go to Monte Alban, an ancient Zapotec ritual-ceremonial site. This was the first time I had ever been to see mesoamerican ruins and the pyramids, temples and stonework were truly amazing. I took some pictures which I am going to try and figure out how to post because I feel my descriptions will not do justice to the beauty and immensity of the place.

OKay, got to go for now. Parents want to try and eat at the outdoor restaurant that appears after 9:30 on the corner up the street. We`ll see how it goes. I have started taking my acidophilus. My goal is to make it through the first week without getting the runs.