Oaxaca

Monday’s classes were called off late last week. Why? There are a lot of excuses flying around. The beginning of spring; Xalapa is celebrating Carnaval (Ok, Xalapa, you’re a few weeks late. You do know Carnaval is before Lent, right? Like, that’s the point); students need to study for mid-terms. Take your pick. Pretty sure the real answer is that we’re in Mexico, where holidays are gladly taken with or without reason. In any case, the GOVERNER made a declaration Thursday that no schools were to be in session, at the least Monday, preferably Friday-Wednesday. Apparently the schools actually get fined if they have classes.

The cancellation fell at a pretty good time for me, though, because this weekend Rob scheduled a weekend trip down south to Oaxaca, one of the poorest cities in Mexico. We boarded a bus at midnight, and got to Oaxaca around nine in the morning Saturday. It was a cold and sleepless ride, so I had trouble being very alert for our discussion about Oaxaqueño current events with Rob’s anthropologist friend. We visited another archeological site, Monte Albán, that afternoon. The pyramids aren’t as big there as other sites, but there is still a pretty good view and also intact hieroglyphs of men with mutilated genitals, so it was probably worth the sunburn and dehydration headache.

Sunday, the group went to La iglesia de Santo Domingo and El museo de las culturas de Oaxaca. The latter used to be the monastery section of the church. Inside were displayed lots of Mesoamerican jewelry, cooking utensils, and religious idols with huge snouts or long tongues. Outside was a beautiful garden of different plants typical to the area. That is to say, rows of different cacti.

I hung out in el zocalo (the center of town) and various marketplaces for the rest of the afternoon because I can’t get enough of colorful tourist-trap artesania. Below is a traditional Oaxaca dish. It’s rather large.