Puerto Escondido

Our first impression of Puerto Escondido was not a good one. We took an amazingly beautiful, long, scary bus ride from Oaxaca City (enjoying the incrediable steep vistas is difficult when you can see your bus tires mere inches from the edge) and arrived on the coast at about 9pm. Bus stations are never the most inviting but as we hustled across the Pan-American highway to our hotel it struck us. This puerto was not escondido (hidden). We parked our bags in our room and went out to the chained off street that serves as the main tourism center in Puerto. Midway through dinner Sarah observed, "This is kind of like a Mexican New Jersey shore, I think we should move on soon." Puerto Escondido attracts many different kinds of tourists but primarily it is a surf destination. There is a huge crowd of international surfer boys who own no shirts, have great tans and a uniformly stupid looking shoulder length, bleached blonde haircut. There are also plenty of Mexicans getting out and enjoying the lovely beach, sportsfishing and the imported gringas. There is also probably the most international selection of awkward, pale white tourists in any place I have visited. I agreed with Sarah that this wasn´t really our scene but we stayed for a couple days and strolled down the very long beach. The length of the beach turned out to be Puerto´s saving grace. As we meandered further and further out the people thinned out, the waves became less crowded (that is to say, not crowded at all) and the main road running next to the beach turned to dirt. We have found lovely, cheap lodging and are thinking of passing some time here with no real goals other than getting a nice tan and improving our surfing (I refuse to get the haircut, though).
-Dirk

La Lucha Libre

I have been fascinated by Mexican wrestling for some time so when we came across a poster for La Lucha Libre I had to swallow my misgivings and buy tickets. As the event drew closer everything seemed to indicate we were in for a wild ride. My teacher and I talked for half an hour about La Lucha and while he never said so, I could read on his face that he was shocked that Sarah and I we going. Two days before the show we checked out a free movie that happens here in Oaxaca every weekend night and the main feature was Santos Contra Los Zombis. Santos was and is the most popular wrestler in Mexico, popular enought to warrant starring roles in many horror flicks. His schtick was even though he could be beaten his mask was never removed and thorugh that he still had his pride. A bit more history here. Tuesday rolled around and we drank a healthy amount of the courage juice before the show. I knew we were in for a ride but I had no idea. The two options of tickets were in the bleachers or for a bit more you could have a guaranteed seat in the rows in front of the ring. We went for the guaranteed seats and lucked out with a front and center view of the spectacle. Favorite moment? Hard to say. When the wrestlers came out of the ring and proceeded to use my chair to whack the piss out of each other I was pretty thrilled (I can vouch for the realism, my ass was in someones head print for the rest of the show). The girl on girl match was pretty fantastic. Unlike female wrestlers in the states who look way to topheavy to walk, much less fight, I really belived that these girls could kick some ass. There was plenty of dirty dealing and a corrupt referee. In the second to last match I was checking out the crowd and was falling in love with this old Mexican couple who apparently hadn´t gotten the message that this was all staged when I noticed the two young kids next to me darting to the side. I had time to think "oh shit" and look forward to see two wrestlers collide and fly over the ropes and in my lap. Audience participation redefined.Even after that, my chair was only the second most abused chair in the auditorium. My favorite wrestler was either the bad guy who trash talked the audience as much as his opponents or the midget or child who had a full body fur suit and whose main move was rubbing his fuzzy ass in fallen wrestlers faces. This was definitely my kind of cultural experience. -Dirk

Teotitlan de Valle

We stepped out of the car to cool desert air scented with fragrant woodsmoke on an afternoon trip to Teotitlan de Valle, 30 km east of Oaxaca city. Oaxaca state is full of different types of artisans, and many nearby villages specialize in one type of craft. In this pueblo, the families use large wooden looms to weave tapetes, or for those of you who don´t habla español, rugs . The homestead of Don Isaac Vasquez, Master Weaver, is situated around a brightly painted courtyard full of flowering trees. To the back of the courtyard various dyes made from natural materials (including bugs called Cochineal, mosses, mesquite seed pods and indigo) bubbled in huge vats over wood fires while skeins of freshly dyed yarn the size of my torso dried from the rafters. It was hard to observe the simplicity of the lifestyle, the beauty of the tapetes and the warm presence of the people and the surrounding mountains without wanting to give up my modern life forever and join the apparent utopia of Teotitlan. But such amorous impressions are hardly apt to last if followed through upon, so I promptly left behind my sketchbook and headed back to Oaxaca City.
Coda: We made it halfway back, to the town of El Tule, where grows a cyprus tree so large that 47 children can hold hands around its trunk, and is locally considered one of the largest living organisms on earth. I realized my mistake and we all dutifully trooped back to retrieve my sketchbook while I melted in shame. Haven´t left it anywhere since.

-Sarah

Day of the Dead

We timed our arrival here to catch the Day of all Saints and the Day of the Dead but we needn´t have hurried. As seems to be the case with most Mexican festivals (and there are lots of them) the goal seems to be to enjoy the holiday as long as possible. We are still running across impromtu parades and festivals. Every restaurant, store and home has a lovely shrine to the dead in general and to specific loved one lost in many cases. Besides flowers, candles and pictures the shrines include candy, pan de los muertos (bread of the dead) and beer or mezcal. We enjoyed a great Ballet Folklorico de Oaxaca with the history of the traditions around the holiday. Unfortunatly our Spanish wasn´t up to par with the explanation but the dancing got the gist across. At the end of the show every participant got up and danced while fireworks blazed. Many of the children in the show came down into the crowd to draw friends and family up to dance. The mother sitting next to us didn´t want to dance and insisted that her little boy invite, "La gringa! La gringa!" Sarah found her self in the middle of the festivities with a very handsome (if a bit short) dance partner. I was jealous... but only a little. -Dirk

On the Road: The First Two Weeks

New York to Oaxaca was a breeze. Sarah and I managed a little more than 30 minutes of sleep on the 31st and I still had a fairly good amount of alcohol in the blood as we boarded our first flight. For those of you who don´t like flying I can highly recommend our post-Halloween method to you; what you can´t remember can´t hurt you. We spent our first few days here in a daze, none of it seemed very real. Mexico is a world apart and it took a little time to acclimate our ears to the language, our eyes to the intense colors and our minds to the attitude. We pretty quickly settled into a lovely room with a great view of the mountains and our Spanish classes at Amigos Del Sol. The nice temporary housing and the fantastic schooling (seriously, highly recommended) made us feel very at home here. Can you fall in love with a country in only 4 days?

-Dirk