The black clounds and thunder that we had seen in the afternoon yesterday, turned into a big thunderstorm at 4 am this morning. Rain fell on the roof made of palm trees like crazy and thunder and lighting broke over the village that made the earth shake (literally!). I enjoyed it for a while and then put in my earplugs again and slept until 6:30.
Our van left at 8 for Oaxaca, our next stop. We arrived there 7 hours of extremely curvy mountain roads and 120 Mexican love songs later, at 15:30. We had to drive up the southern crest of Mexico which is 3000 m high and down again on the other side. Up there it was nicely cool (still warm), behind the mountain, the landscape seemed more deserty, with less green and more cactus. Oaxaca was hot again and we checked into our hostel in the center. The city reminded me extremely of Arequipa in Peru, it was almost as if I had been here before.
After getting settled, we strolled a little through the center, stepped inside a few churches and had some food on the street. Our destination was a typical food market and we reached it just before getting completely soaked by the afternoon rain. This market had one particular street for grilled meat which is called “street of smoke”. The name was to be understood literally and the system worked as followed: we got assigned a piece of a table and got a big basket. Then we walked through the stands and chose from the fresh meat that was lying there and an old woman grilled it for us on the fire next to the stand and gave us tortillas. At a different state we had to choose our complements, like avocado, lime, grilled Chilis, onion or Salsa. Then, everything was brought to our table and eaten without cutlery or plates. I didn’t trust the tortillas entirely and had meat with avocado and lime which was delicious and complemented the two corn dishes I had had on the market outside (elote and esquite) with some protein. The place was 100% authentic and cool and we enjoyed this different procedure of having lunch. Again, intense would be a good word to describe the experience. Everything full of smoke, intense smells, hot chilis, lots of noise from people talking and yelling and clapping and yelling and playing music and singing, many colours of vegetables, meat and traditional clothing.
As a dessert, I bought a cup of mango with papaya, but the mango was not half as good as the ones on the coast (still super delicious and better than in Europe however).
Our next stop was a chocolate shop, where we tried the traditional chocolate from Oaxaca. There were many different types and you could order them as a hot drink with milk or water or as a cold one with milk or water and ice cubes. I had the traditional hot one with chocolate cinnamon and sugar but the ones with cardamom were very nice too.
As we strolled through the streets, we could observe the wide squares with trees, the colonial arquitecture, the colorful houses and many food stands and people everywhere. The feeling of the city was much more relaxed than DF. Oaxaca has only about 250.000 inhabitants and is much less stressed than the capital. People smile more often and don’t rush. Also, we observed quite a lot of art galleries and cultural places and stepped into a gallery of Jacobo and Maria Angeles who make absolutely amazing alebrijes (photos were forbidden unfortunately). In general, the city seems more touristy and wealthy than DF.
Our next plan after the chocolate was to go to a feminist protest against a violation of a 16-year old by some Mexican policemen two weeks ago. We walked up 12 blocks to where it should take place but didn’t find anything. In the end it turned out to be on the other end of the city, where we had just came from. We took a public bus back there and I felt pretty okay about the walk through this neighborhood and the bus ride with open doors and the feeling of everything falling apart with every hole in the street (I didn’t think protesting against the Mexican police was a very good idea anyway).
It was already dark when we came back and we went out for a drink at a very luxurious place with a roof terrace where we had some cocktails.
