Oaxaca, Mexico Trip

Church of Santo Domingo de Guzman

Our trip to Oaxaca, Mexico has been a long time coming. Scott has spent months at a time traveling Mexico back in the ‘90s and for just about as long as he’s been going, he’s encouraged Verne and me to visit Oaxaca. We were very close to going in the fall of 2014 when Jana was diagnosed with cancer and the trip cancelled. Last spring Scott called and reminded me that if we waited much longer we’d probably be too old to go. We committed and before we could renege he made all the reservations.

To sum up our vacation: It was amazing! We would not change a thing if we could.  We visited ancient ruins, artisan villages, local markets, and even took a cooking class. We walked, and walked, and walked some more, averaging eight or ten miles a day. For the first five days we stayed at the Quinta Real Oaxaca located in the downtown historic district. It was built in the mid-1500s originally as a convent, later a prison, and now a luxurious hotel with beautiful courtyards, gardens, and fountains. 

Quinta Real Oaxaca

Room rates double and triple on the weekends when the hotel is often booked for weddings as was the case during our stay there. Consequently, we spent our final three days at Casa del Sotano, more modest than the Quinta Real and without the colorful history, but not without its charms, such as this beautiful view from its second story cantina.

Casa del Sotano

Having been a crafter most of my life, if I were to choose one experience as a favorite, it would be our visits to the artisan villages. Teotitlan, a town north of Oaxaca City is known for its beautiful hand-dyed and woven rugs. The wool is washed, carded, and spun into yarn. It is then colored using natural dyes from local plants, such as chamomile, indigo, and marigold. A red dye is made from crushing cochinilla (a parasitic insect that feeds on the cacti). It is considered by many as the perfect red. The yarn is then woven on large pedal looms. The designs range from simple, yet ancient geometric patterns to more complex designs that reflect the history of the local area (Zapotec and Mixtec). A large rug with a complex design can take several weeks to complete.

Dyes from local plants

Weaver working the large floor loom

Another day we traveled to Tilcajete, a small village about 20 miles south of the city and known for its brightly painted wooden animals called alebrijes, which are made from the wood of the Copal tree. Interestingly, the resin from this tree is also used to make incense. The figurines are carved and then brightly painted using the very smallest of brushes to create intricate designs. That same day we stopped at a village where the beautiful Oaxacan burnished black pottery originated and is still made today. Much of the pottery that we saw was the same from shop to shop and nothing as beautiful as the piece Scott brought back to me over 20 years ago.

Largest folk art store in Oaxaca

Wood carvings for sale at small village shop

We toured two archeological sites, both within an hour of Oaxaca City, Mitla and Monte Alban. Each was a day long adventure with incredibly knowledgeable guides, one a former archeologist and the other a former tour guide for the government. The most important of the two sites and also the largest and oldest is Monte Alban. It is located on the top of a mountain with several of the buildings excavated, including a ballcourt, palace and tombs. Mitla, built several centuries later, was Oaxaca’s main religious center. The walls are covered with geometric mosaic designs of the Zapotec, patterns that are still used today in the weavings, on the painted wood figures, and on the pottery. Interestingly, the blocks forming the buildings at Mitla were not mortared, but fit together like puzzle pieces. This is the only example of its kind in Mexico.

Up from the burial chamber at Mitla

Beautiful mosaics at Mitla

Monte Alban

Scott at Monte Alban

The markets in Oaxaca were another highlight and like nothing we’d ever experienced. The sheer size of the markets, noise, colors, smells were at times sensory overload.  They are enormous with hundreds of stalls offering fresh produce, dried peppers, fresh meat, baked goods, tortillas and other prepared foods, crafts, clothing, shoes, and more. They cover what felt like was a square mile. We made it part of our routine to walk through markets several days we were there, which included an indigenous market in a nearby town that is only held on Sundays. They were a foodie’s paradise and I must admit an American’s horror as we saw stall after stall with freshly slaughtered, unrefrigerated meat hanging from racks or lined up on counters with an occasional attendant whooshing flies away. Most memorable are the bright yellow chickens lining countertops of every meat stall. When we took our cooking class from a local chef we learned that the chickens are fed a strict diet of corn and marigolds thus producing the skin’s bright yellow color.

Yellow chickens at the market

Meat at the local market (note the pig heat on the counter)

Our six-hour cooking class started with a visit to one of the local markets where we purchased the ingredients required to make our masa, tamales, mole, guacamole, and salsas. Afterwards, we drove to our teacher’s home to make our five-course dinner. 

At the local market with our teacher

Ready for our cooking class at our teacher's home

We sampled chapulines (fried grasshoppers), dried worms (I found them a little chewy), and discussed the fermented corn (huitlacoche) that we’d be using in one of the dishes. After four years of making and drinking kombucha on a daily basis, I felt prepared to see and eat the swollen fungus-covered corn that is considered a delicacy in Mexico. Wrong! It was quite off-putting. But, we were there to experience the culture, food being a large part of it, and I tried everything. 

Fermented corn

The fresh corn (not the fermented ear) had been removed from the cob and treated with a lime water solution. It was dried and ready to grind. Where’s Bob’s Redmill Masa Harina when you need it??? Skipping ahead, we made the ground corn into a masa and used it in our banana-leaf wrapped tamales stuffed with shredded chicken and mole and then steamed while we prepared the rest of our dinner.

Verne and Scott grinding corn for masa

Oaxaca is known for its mole, seven different varieties to be exact. We made a red mole sauce that was actually more yellow in appearance. The color depends on the type of chiles that are used. We are a family of pretty experienced cooks, including Scott and Lauren, so the many steps to making mole was definitely not troublesome to us. Verne could have taught the section of the class on working with dried chiles, as it’s his part of making and canning salsa every summer. Just as our chef taught us, Verne cleans the chiles of the top and seeds, leaving only a few for heat, heats them over an open flame or sautes them in a pan, covers them with boiling water until they’re soft, and voila! – they are ready to use. We were not in the least intimidated by the process of making mole and Lauren and I plan to do it when she’s home at Christmas. We bought several bags of chiles that are not available to us locally, although we could probably get them at the Grand Central Market in Los Angeles (next door to Jana and Andy), as they have a large section of Mexican imported food items including a few dozen bins of dried chiles. However, they were inexpensive, light in weight, and fun to bring home as a reminder of Oaxaca’s markets and our wonderful culinary experience.

While corn is a basic staple for Oaxacans, there are two other culinary items that come to mind with the mention of Oaxaca – chocolate and mezcal. Oaxaca is one of the Mexican states that produces and exports cacao and chocolate. Cacao is used in food, such as mole, and as a drink. Lauren recently started eating chocolate again after a 15-year hiatus (that’s another story) and fell in love with Oaxacan hot chocolate. She went home with bars of chocolate and a molinillo , a wooden tool like a whisk that is used to make extra frothy hot chocolate. Oaxaca is also known as the mezcal capital of the world. Like tequila, mezcal is made from the agave plant. It has a smoky taste that varies from light to intense depending on manufacturers. One of our dining experiences on our trip began with a complementary mezcal-espresso drink I’ll never forget. It reminded me of kalhua, a coffee flavored liquor that was popular when I was much younger. We brought home a bottle of mezcal and I’m determined to make something similar to that kahlua-like drink I had. If I can’t recreate it, I may just get back to an occasional glass of kahlua.

We spent a week immersed in the culture of Oaxaca. Even after becoming a tourist destination since Scott first started going there, it remains authentic. Little English is spoken and a day didn’t go by that we weren’t appreciative of Scott’s Spanish. I could write pages about our experiences, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so will let the following photos tell the rest of our memorable story.

Streets of Oaxaca downtown historic district

Streets of Oaxaca downtown historic distric

El Tule, biggest tree trunk in the world

Botanical gardens next to Santo Domingo Church

Cacti reflection pool

Sunday indigenous market

Banana leaves at market

Hawaii

The "Fam"

Verne and I are a couple of homebodies. Until recently I’d never been outside the continental United States and Verne’s travel experiences were limited to his four years in the Navy, which took him to Hawaii and Japan. To celebrate my 70^th birthday a few months ago, Jana decided to take the family to Hawaii. She had enjoyed a week on the big island last fall when she and Andy traveled there for a case she was working. In between depositions they explored the island and she used the opportunity to complete her scuba diving certification. Andy was already a certified and experienced diver. Their enthusiasm for diving led them to give this same experience to Lauren as a birthday/Christmas gift. It included an online scuba course, confined water training in a swimming pool, and the four open water dives with a certified trainer. She completed the pool work and ocean dives on our trip.

View from Kona condo where we stayed

We stayed on the Kona side, or western part of the Big Island, about 100 miles from Kilauea, which has been in the news since the day following our return home from vacation when the volcano erupted. It has continued to erupt for the past several weeks with the lava flow recently crossing a major highway on the eastern side of the island making its way to the ocean. It happens to be the highway we took on our first outing when we travelled from Kona to the eastern side of the island to visit a couple of waterfalls and the Jaggar Museum in the Volcanoes National Park, Mt. Kilauea. While at the Museum, we viewed the crater and Kilauea (then tame) through a telescope that showed a small, pulsing flame spouting lava. Interesting, but nothing quite as impressive as the pictures and videos dominating the recent news. We hiked the footpaths around the park, which offered a varying landscape of lush rain forests to desolate fields of fissures spewing steam and gases. We finished our day with a walk through a lava tube, which is a cave-like formation created from hot lava. Amazing!

Walking to Kahuna Falls and Akaka Falls

The following day we toured a coffee plantation. Actually, plantation suggests something much more sizeable than what we found at Rooster Farms. And, what we found when we arrived, pictured below, was really no indication of the quality of the coffee, which in 2016 won 3^rd place amongst over 650 coffee farms in Kona. Also, it is one of the few certified organic coffee growers in the area. Our tour began with tastings of their medium and dark brews and a discussion of the owners and operation. The tour guide was a member of WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). I first learned about this program from the owner of the Amador County farm, Abbondanza, I visited in March. The owner also uses exchange students to work and learn organic farming. I’m sure this proves to be an inexpensive source of enthusiastic labor. Our tasting took place in the open-air residence used for the exchange students. It was open to the air as well as all the local critters. A local gecko lizard joined our group for the tour. Following our lecture, we walked the farm to view the coffee bushes and a large open structure with a wood floor where the beans are dried. We concluded the tour at the roasting room, where the current owners still use the roaster and formula used many years ago by the original owner. This was an excellent tour of a hands-on operation (no automation) with lots of local flavor. I’ve not been a coffee drinker for over 20 years, but I’d take this tour again.

Rooster Farms

Jandy at Rooster Farms

WOOFer guide discussing coffee bushes

Jana and Verne looking for coffee beans

Verne and I had a few mornings to entertain ourselves while the kids spent their mornings diving and communing with the fish. One of the mornings we visited a chocolate plantation for a short tour. Interestingly, cacao trees have a year-round season offering a perpetual harvest for the farmers. From pod to my favorite dark chocolate requires several steps, including a period of fermentation. Since making my first fermented food, sauerkraut, in the Master Food Preserver program back in 2014, and learning of the beneficial bacteria fermentation offers, I’ve had a keen interest in all things fermented. It was a happy day I learned that chocolate is one of those special foods that is healthy to eat!

The five of us joined for a tour of Big Island Bees. My exposure to bees prior to this tour was limited to one sting the first and only year we had a garden, the dozens of boxes in the fields along Jackson Highway going towards Sacramento, and the bee display at the Amador County Fair each year. This tour was exceptional, presented by an educated and experienced bee keeper and ending with a tasting of Hawaiian honey, such flavors as Macadamia Blossom and Wilelaiki Blossom.

Our guide, Joe

Our final Hawaiian experience was to be a night swim with the Manta Rays. Lauren had done it when she and her college roommates spent two weeks in Hawaii following graduation. She’d even come home with a video of the Manta Rays rubbing bellies with her. She loved it! The plan was for the three kids to scuba dive to the ocean floor (about 60 feet down) to view the Mantas and for Verne and I to snorkel for a top view of them. Neither of us had ever snorkeled. Nor am I a strong swimmer (actually, the most I do in the water is to doggy paddle in an effort to stay afloat). And, the water was choppy. And, it was at night – dark and ominous. Did I say the water was choppy? There were large waves (whitecaps) that would fill our snorkels, causing us to swallow the salt water, clear the snorkel, and do it all again. To sum it up, it was terrifying! We were in the water no more than 20 or 30 minutes. Back on the boat may have been worse as it was now listing at about 30 to 35 degrees. Sea sickness! While I kept my eyes on the horizon to avoid getting sick (and it worked), Verne hung his head over the side of the boat until his stomach was emptied of all food and salt water. The next few hours were spent feeling very, very old (I had turned 70, after all) and wishing for land. It was a 3-hour swim and we had 2+ hours to go. In hindsight, it’s laughable. I can still visualize us trying to get into our wet suits (the first big hurdle) and can imagine the stories the captain and our baby sitter, Marc, tell of that night. Mother Nature certainly worked against us, but she did give us a funny story. On a positive note, the kids swam with a Manta Ray.

The scuba divers

It was a great trip and we thank you, Jana, for making it happen!

Kona sunset