Woo! Finally, an internet connection good enough to upload pictures with! I only have to camp out right next to the router. So much to update you all on but I’ll start where we left off. Oaxaca.
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In Oaxaca we were staying at the Casa Angel Youth Hostel. I have no complaints, the staff were lovely and very helpful, our room was nice, and it was in a great location. I’m just mentioning it so I can post this photo of Callum and the dog, called Doggie, that had apparently adopted the hostel as its home. It seems out grand plan for Mexico is finding all the vaguely friendly dogs in Mexico and petting them.
So day two in Oaxaca started with us getting up early and signing ourselves up for another tour. Since the one in Mexico City went so well, we figured this would be a good chance to socialise and learn some more about Mexico. It was a semi-success. The day didn’t start off too well with the tour guide talking for about 10 minutes straight in Spanish and then giving us the two second English version. His general “tour guiding” followed much the same route. Which was annoying as there were only two people who spoke Spanish well enough to follow.
Thankfully though when we got to the stops our mob of English speakers was usually fobbed off onto whoever was showing us around. We made five stops, a two thousand year old tree, a rug place, a mezcal distillery, a city of the dead, and a solid waterfall.
The tree was a two thousand year old cypress tree that sat in front of a church. Behind it sat a one thousand year old cypress tree. The tree was amazing. Huge, willowy, and it completely dwarfed the modest church it sat next to. Callum asked me how old trees lived for. I have no idea. Do they die of old age or are they like elves and are immortal if they’re careful? How old is the oldest tree in the world?
After the tree we all hopped back into the mini bus and travelled further out to a small nearby town that was home to the rug makers. Apparently everyone in that village learned to make rugs from the age of five. The man also showed us how they create the colours in the rugs. There were many variations but the most amazing was the colour red which came from tiny dried insects they took off the cactus. Dried they looked like little stones. But they would dry them, crush them, then add the powder to the water, lime juice, and create over a hundred different shades of red. They could add limestone powder to the mixture and create a stunning purple. Theoretically I know a lot of dyes come from this kind of thing, herbs, flowers, roots etc. But it was awesome seeing it first hand and watching them mix the colours. He also showed us the weaving process, but he had his little daughter with him who stole the show. She was apparently about four and she had her own mini machine which she showed her mad skills on.
After that adventure it was off to the Mezcal distillery to attempt to try their 24 flavours of mezcal. Mezcal is the forefather of tequila. As the woman who showed us around explained; all tequila is mezcal, but not all mezcal is tequila. It depends on how they brew it but mezcal is known for its smokier flavour. It comes from an agave plant and the youngest plant they can harvest to produce the mezcal has to be ten years old. The oldest is twelve (potentially older, I can’t really remember). I won’t go into the distilling process because to be honest the whole thing seems very complicated and I can’t really remember it. But a horse was involved to crush the plant, and they cooked the plant in huge underground ovens for days at a time, plus at least four or five other steps. Then they would throw the mezcal into barrels and let it age for years. The whole process seems to take an awfully long time. It’s something you don’t really appreciate about spirits, any spirit really, is how long they take to make. A lot could happen in the 8, 12, 30 years it takes to flavour the spirit. Not sure if I would have the patience to brew spirits. How would you even start?
We then moved on to trying the mezcal, which in this country is sipped straight. With, if you couldn’t take it, chasers of orange dipped into a paprika and salt mixture. Mezcal also can have the worm in it. Apparently the worm, which lives at the base of the agave plant, adds flavour to the mezcal and is also good to chew on as it tastes like mezcal, if you’re lucky enough to get it. And yes, someone asked, you do chew. Don’t just try and swallow it whole. Apparently that’s just not done.
We were slowly meeting the others travelling with us on the tour. It is really amazing how many Australians we have met in Mexico. In Mexico City there were four of us staying in the hostel. Besides the Americans that was the biggest group of foreigners from the same country. In Oaxaca there were four New Zealanders, and four Australians on our tour alone. Three of us were all from Perth. It’s really bizarre when you think about it. Especially since most Australians we’d spoken to before going on this trip hadn’t even considered Mexico as a holiday destination. So we figured it wasn’t really somewhere Aussies ventured very often. But here we all are, on the other side of the globe, from a huge country with a tiny population, and we are the biggest majority group of foreigners (beyond Americans) staying in hostels at any one point. There’s no big groups of Germans just awkwardly gathering in Mexico, this is just apparently reserved for Australians. Very weird.
Anyways, so after the mezcal distillery we wound up at the City of the Dead, otherwise known as Mitla. The Zapotecs used the palace we visited as a retirement place for their priests and kings, and the city as a burial place, thus the name. Mitla was also conquered twice, once by the Aztercs, and once by the Spanish. The Spanish, as we know they were wont to do, built a church with the stones from the temple near the palace. So the temple was gone, a church in its place, but the palace itself remained. The palace had thick stone walls with patterns carved into them, the meaning of some he explained. What was really interesting about the palace was between it and the church that sat next to it the church had been repaired more times due to earthquake damage. In the region earthquakes are apparently a dime a dozen on average, according to our guide, there were around 800 a year. This year alone, an outlier, there had been over 2000. The Zapotecs were well aware of this and built their palace accordingly. There is no cement, or anything sticking the stones together. They were just built to fit together. So the whole thing is a jigsaw of custom made pieces each one made to fit perfectly with the other and some with wrap around corner carvings of complicated patterns. All so when the earth does decide to see if it can knock anything down the palace will remain standing. Apparently this wasn’t a tidbit the locals shared with the Spanish.
After the city of the dead we grabbed lunch, and were then driven up a winding mountain path to a solid waterfall. Now our “tour guide” for the day actually ditched us before we even started the long drive up so we just had the driver at the waterfall. He didn’t exactly explain anything about why the waterfall was solid or where to really find it. So we wandered through some stalls selling us food and drinks and then down a slope. At the bottom we found some huge empty pools. Water trickled around them and at the bottom but not a lot. Beyond the original pools we found the one that was filled with water. It bubbled up from inside the mountain we were perched on and trickled out holes filling the lowest pool. In the distance you could see the solid waterfall cascading out of the mountain. The pool just seemed to end on the cliff face. It would be pretty easy to fall off of it, but hey the lack of safety barrier makes for good photos.
Now apparently, which I’ve learned from the fam (thanks Dad) the phenomenon is basically this. The water itself is high in calcium carbonate so what happens is the water trickles out and tiny amounts of carbon crystalizes out. So what we’re seeing is actually the same stuff stalactites and stalagmites are made out of. Because its ground water this means it’s rich in minerals and heat means the saturation level would be higher.
So there you go. I showed my dad a photo of the solid waterfall and he described it as ‘a bunch of stalactites slumping down a hill’ which I guess it technically is. But I’m sticking with calling it a solid waterfall. A natural phenomenon that we were stomping all over and taking selfies with.
Our day came to an end there. The sun was setting when we left the mountain and by the time we dragged ourselves back to the hostel it was way past dark. Callum and I had some tacos from the same place we went to the first night. They were not as delicious, no idea what we ordered the first night. Google translate didn’t really help us as most of the taco fillings translated into things like ear, and tongue, and other unappetizing things. I have a feeling it was Google translate failing us. But who knows, maybe we had tongue tacos on the first night and loved them.
Also, as a side note, we found this adorable newborn puppy and its mum lounging at the top of the pools. What a cutie pie.
Over and Out,
Rachel
Travel Bee 