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.
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.
posted by Eva Hathaway at 8:21 AM
1 Comments:
So after 2 weeks how is the acidophilus working? Do tell!
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