Biker Madness

Having neglected to ride a bike for the first five months of our trip, I will indulge in a second blog entry about riding this month.  The reason I cannot resist is that I just completed one of the most incredible rides of my life.  It actually was a two-day ride, which I took while Max was away on a school camping trip.  I was going to go with my biker friend Miguel, but he went incommunicado a day before the trip so I went alone.  I thought he had had a change of heart about the ride, but it turns out he was sick.

On Monday, I rode to the community of Benito Juarez, which we had visited in March (blog entry here), and then on to the community of La Nevería for the night.  These towns are part of the “Pueblos Mancomunados,” a group of seven communities in the mountains near Oaxaca.  The communities are surrounded by spectacular mountain scenery, and each one has comfortable cabins with hot water and a fireplace.

 

The cabin where I stayed in La Nevería.

I highly, highly recommend the Pueblos Mancomunados to anybody who visits Oaxaca with time to spend a couple days in the mountains.

Getting back to the ride, on Tuesday I made an adjustment to my route to avoid backtracking.  Instead of returning to Benito Juarez, I continued north to intersect with a different highway that leads back to Oaxaca.  The scenery was breathtaking.

The road up the mountain to Benito Juarez.

A view from the ride. 

Most of the ride was on dirt roads, but part of it was on small trails like this one.  About five minutes after taking this picture, my back tire slipped on a wet rock or piece of wood and I fell.  Fortunately, I was not hurt.  The derailleur was slightly bent, but it held up for the rest of the ride.

Unlike home, where one of the thrills of being in the woods is getting away from civilization, here it is fascinating to see traces of civilization -- like this stacked firewood -- in the most remote places.  People have lived and farmed in these mountains for 10,000 years, but you would hardly know it. 

I learned a few important lessons about planning an overnight bike trip in the mountains, such as:

1.  A topographic map (which I did not use) portrays the hills on a route more accurately than the local population does (which I did use).

2.  When a local -- who lives in extremely hilly terrain above 8,000 feet and spends his or her entire life walking, running, and working on steep slopes -- says a route is “pura bajada” (“all downhill”), do not believe it.  Even when it appears you are at the top of a mountain, there is always more uphill on the trail ahead.

3.  Beware of any route through a town called “La Cumbre,” which means “the summit.”  Over two days of riding, I spent about nine of the twelve hours on the bike going up mountains.  I estimate that I climbed somewhere between nine and ten thousand feet.  If you are coming to Oaxaca and you like hills, here is the route.

4.  Disk brakes can wear out during a 10-mile high-speed descent.  By the time I reached the city of Oaxaca, I had to use my shoe as a brake.

5.  When riding into the mountains during the rainy season, use a plastic bag inside your backpack to keep extra clothes dry.

6.  If you do not use a plastic bag and it pours for the last one to two hours of the ride, do not dry your clothes too close to the fire -- especially if they are made of synthetic fabrics.  I melted the front of a pair of pants and I toasted a pair of underwear.

7.  When passing through a town with a phone, on your way to spend the night in a town without a phone, call your loved one to say you are ok.

On that last point, I did not follow my own advice.  As a result, Natalie was pretty nervous.  She had all night to imagine the things that could go wrong.  When I got home, she confessed to having considered staying in Oaxaca if I did not make it out alive, where she could afford a “muchacha” (i.e., a girl to help with the kids).  Notwithstanding, she was glad to see me when I got back.

Changing subjects, does anything look out of place in this picture?

That is a man sticking out of the top of the tree.  He is trimming it.  Natalie took the picture while we were having coffee one morning.  Warning to our camellia trees at home:  we have grown to like the look of highly manicured trees, which is the norm here.  --Harrison

Mexican Stuff

I like stuff.  When I find some thing I like I find it hard to buy just one, what if I can never find that shirt, bag pair of shoes, tchotchke ever again? It makes sense to at least get two. They totally get that here in Oaxaca and in fact I would say they even market to people with my sort of stuff disorder.

Bags? Yes, please. I won't say how many I have already, suffice it to say I think all of our backpacks may stay behind because we might need to use our new bags as a carry ons to get them back to California.

So far we have owned a pink, blue and red ball. They are very easily popped if your brother and his friend decide to play world cup soccer in the garden. Fortunately there are always more.

As many of you know Harrison is making hammocks. This rope is not for making hammocks, but it is for hanging hammocks. And good rope is just... good.

They even display the produce in a way that makes you feel that buying just one mango would be kind of insulting and frankly not worth the energy.

And the roses. I don't usually buy fresh flowers because I am the sort of person who puts them in a vase and doesn't remember them until they start to smell funky.  Also our cat Oscar used to eat them all, until he passed away. But here in Oaxaca it just seems rude not to buy 2 dozen fragrant, long stemmed roses for $40 pesos (a little less than $4 usd.)

Don't get me started about the plastic. After years of weaning myself off of the stuff, here in Oaxaca it is ubiquitous. We try to avoid it when possible, but there is an undeniable appeal to the stalls filled with the all the brightly colored shapes and sizes in the weekly markets.

Ah, and the cooking utensils. Who wouldn't want a metate or a molcajete? Unfortunately, it is absolutely beyond me to figure out how to get these home... Unless we get a large crate and ship lots of stuff home, in which case I'll take two of everything!

--Natalie

Miracle in a Boot

Last week, Natalie and I went to the town of San Martin Tilcajete on our way to the Friday market in Ocotlán.  It was our first trip to San Martin, which is known for its alebrijes (painted wooden animals).  We could not resist buying a couple more to add to our small but growing collection.  

Alebrijes and other pieces we have bought or made.  (Max and Natalie made the dragon on the right for a school project.)

Otter by Narciso Gonzalez Ramirez; Penguin by Maria Jimenez Ojeda.

Armadillo by Cirilo Rios, who lives and works at the farm across the street.

In general, the alebrije painting is reminiscent of Natalie’s painting, but we visited one workshop where even Natalie could not believe the detail.  The painters used brushes with perhaps five hairs to create intricate designs based on Zapotec motifs.  We ended up splurging on a sea otter – which they called a nutria – carved and painted by Jacobo and María Ángeles, who own the workshop.  It is an incredible piece, and Natalie says the painting will be an inspiration.

Alebrije carving at the workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles.

Station where natural colors for the alebrijes are mixed.

Painting station.

Sea-otter/Nutria

Detail of the details. 

Happy artists, happy buyers.

Unlike most alebrije workshops we visited, the Ángeles' cater mostly to foreign collectors.  One benefit:  A ride back to town with Jacobo after we made our purchase.

We did not know if we would get back to Oaxaca in time to pick up the kids from school, so we asked Mercedes to do it.  She brought them to our house to change, and then to the soccer field, where we met them.  Max and I went to soccer practice, while Natalie, Helen, and Mercedes went to the shopping mall to wait for us.

Here is where it gets interesting.  From the time they left the house until they reached the mall, about a half hour later, Helen complained about a mosquito in her boot.  Nobody paid much attention because it seemed unlikely.  Helen also said there was a plant growing out of the lace hole.  Finally, after Helen, Natalie, and Mercedes sat down at a coffee shop in the mall, Mercedes took off Helen’s boot to take a look. Mercedes gasped and told Natalie to come outside, where she poured something out of the boot onto the sidewalk.  The picture tells the rest:   

Boot and scorpion.

Mercedes thinks it was a miracle the scorpion did not sting Helen.  She attributes it to a small pin with the Virgin of Juiquila Helen was wearing – a gift from Christie.  The less religious explanation is that the scorpion’s stinger (and not a plant) got stuck in the lace hole, which prevented it from stinging Helen.  The two explanations are not incompatible.  Whatever the explanation, we were extremely lucky, and relieved.  If the scorpion had stung Helen, she would have experienced severe pain and flu-like symptoms for two or three days.  She also would have missed her Hawaian and Tahitian dance performance the following afternoon.

Dance performance! 

Watching the big kids dance -- and imitating them.  (Helen is on the right.  Video to follow.) 

One the subject of bugs, this is an interesting time in Oaxaca.  Every morning there are large flying ants in the air and on the ground.  The ants are called chicatana.

A chicatana measures about two inches from tip of antenae to tip of wings. 

Max learned firsthand what Oaxacans like to do with chicatanas.  One morning at school, Max saw his friend, Pedro, collecting the oversized ants and putting them in his pencil case.  Max thought Pedro would use them to scare someone.  Wrong.  At lunchtime, Pedro took them out and, in Max’s words, “he just shoved them all in,” i.e., he ate them.  Wings and all.  We subsequently learned that people fry the chicatanas and eat them whole or grind them into a powder for salsa.  Pedro is the only person we know who eats them fresh.  --Harrison

Holy Mole, Part II

Here's the thing about mole negro.  It tastes great, but it does not photograph well.  A better camera would help, but even then it is not easy to make a thick, black, pasty sauce look appetizing.  Or maybe I am being overly critical because I just ate.  Pictures of any kind of food would not appeal to me at the moment. Whatever the case may be, as promised, here is the final shot of the mole negro, served with chicken, rice, and vegetables.  (The mole negro is on the left.)

Our last post ended with a picture of a marching band we passed on a busy street on our way to soccer practice.  I wrote that seeing things like that is something I will miss when we go home.  Continuing in that vein, here is a picture of something Helen will miss.

Being fitted for a special dress for the last day of school.  Helen's class is dressing up from the 1940s.  When Natalie asked another mom where in Oaxaca to get a 1940's dress for a five-year old, she answered, "from a seamstress."

We were happy to learn that Doña Tayde, of radish fame, also makes clothes.  Usually she sews costumes for regional dance groups, but she offered to sew this dress for Helen.  Helen is loving every minute of it, which is good, since I do not know when she will get her next custom-sewn dress.  Big events, like graduating from second year of preschool, happen only so often.  --Harrison

Holy Mole

Oaxaca is famous for its food.  One of the best known dishes is mole negro, or “black sauce.”  The name is deceptively simple.  The sauce contains a rich variety of ingredients and flavors.

The most common way to prepare a mole negro meal – at least, in the city – is to buy a bag of the concentrated sauce at the market, mix it with a little chicken broth, and eat it over chicken or pork.  Christi showed us how to do this a few months ago, and it made for a delicious meal.  But when I asked Christi how to make the actual mole, she just chuckled, listed some ingredients, and said it is complicated.  That sparked my curiosity.

When our tutor, Mercedes, told us her aunt occasionally makes mole negro from scratch, I jumped at the opportunity.  Last week I spent two afternoons at their house seeing the process from start to finish.  I offered to help, but quickly it became clear that my role was to watch and learn.  So that is what I did.

Tia with the ingredients, including three kinds of peppers, six Ritz crackers, a stale roll, and more.

Boiling the peppers and sauteing the tomatoes.

We used a blender, but when Tia learned it from her mother they used a mortar and pestle. 

The traditional ceramic (lead-free!) casuela was a gift from Mercedes' student, a potter from Canada.

Day 2 was for making the mole black.  These tostadas served the purpose.

When Tia said to "burn" the tostadas, she was not kidding.

                              

                               Adding chicken broth as the final ingredient.

I will add a picture of the final dish to another post, since I will not taste it until later today.  It takes a couple days for the mole to turn as black as it should be.

Changing gears….  Here is something Max and I saw from our taxi on the way to soccer practice last week.

This looked like a funeral but there was no coffin, so it must have been for something else.

When we get home, we will miss seeing things like a marching band with its entourage marching down a busy street during rush hour.  –Harrison

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike

It took about five months, but last month I finally borrowed a bike.  Originally I was going to buy a bike for transport around the city, but Oaxaca is very hilly and the traffic is a little crazy.  There also are lots of diesel-spewing buses with exhaust pipes at ground level.  And so much happens on those same buses – like clowns telling jokes or itinerant musicians crooning out-of-tune-ballads for spare change – it would be a shame to miss it all by going solo on a bike.  So I decided to rely on buses, walking, and taxis instead.  I have not regretted that decision.

But as with so many other aspects of our trip that have turned into highlights, a fantastic biking opportunity presented itself at the farm across the street.  One night while making pizza and drinking mezcal with Gabrielle and her friends, I met Miguel, who is married to Gabrielle’s cousin.  Miguel is an avid road biker and mountain biker.  We got to talking, and he offered to take me on a ride.  He also lent me a bike, helmet, and gloves.  That is all I needed.

Me and Miguel at Monte Alban.

Oaxaca is located at the intersection of three wide valleys surrounded by spectacular mountains.  The valleys and the mountains are criss-crossed with paved and dirt roads that connect the hundreds of villages and communities.  This geography makes for ideal bike rides, and Miguel knows a lot of them.  We set out “early” (i.e., about 8:00 a.m., which really is early in a city where most things open at about 10:00 a.m.), then spend a couple of hours riding dirt roads through hills and up mountains to the villages, where we do a little sight-seeing before turning back.

Do not get me wrong.  In the Bay Area we are blessed with some of the best bike rides in the world.  While I love the rides here, riding through the Oakland hills or over Mt. Tamalpais is equally as spectacular.  But there are a few things I have done on rides here that I could not (or would not) do at home.  Such as...

Visiting the site of a city that was abandoned 800 years before Europeans arrived in the Americas.

Riding through a natural tunnel formed by cane-like shrubs.

The tunnel was about a half mile long.

Weaving through a group of bulls on their way to market.

One of the bulls.

Posing in front of a 450-year-old convent where General Vicente Guerrero, who briefly served as president in 1829, was executed.  The convent is in Cuilapam de Guerrero, near Oaxaca. 

Stopping at a market on my way back from a ride in the San Felipe hills, above our house, to pick up some fried pork skin.

Ok, I stand corrected.  I could do several of these at home.  In fact, I already have ridden through a herd of cattle at Inspiration Point in the Berkeley hills, and they sell pork rinds at plenty of stores in the Bay Area. Maybe one day I will stumble upon some ancient ruins there, too.  --Harrison

Horse and Geeses

Although we still do not understand the connection to science, Max spent the last month in his science and geography classes studying traditions of the Central Valleys region of Oaxaca.  Other kids in his class studied the Isthmus region.  The project culminated last week with a cultural fair that celebrated both regions.  

The fair was great, but the process leading to it was not easy.  It seemed that every other night Max had to prepare a report, or a brochure, or a poster, or something else, on his specific topic, which was the Night of the Radishes – a special night in the city of Oaxaca when people construct dioramas out of carved radishes.  He also had to stay after school a few days each week and sometimes on weekends to rehearse the song and dances they performed.  Often we did not learn about the rehearsals until we went to pick Max up from school and found out he would be another hour. 

Rehearsing a song the kids sang in Spanish and in Zapoteca.

Rehearsing the Sandunga dance.

Meanwhile, Natalie attended meetings every few days with the other mothers to plan the event.  Some of the meetings got contentious, mainly because nobody really knew what the teacher or the school director envisioned for the day. As it happened, the teacher and the director had different visions, which the mothers ultimately had to divine and then try to reconcile and implement.

Our own contribution to the fair – we thought – was going to be to hire a radish carver to sit and carve radishes with the kids during the fair while Max and his partner explained about the tradition.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, our tutor, Mercedes, lives across the street from Doña Tayde, a radish carver who agreed to help us out.  About a week before the fair, however, the director decided nobody should spend money on the event, and Max’s teacher decided to let the kids try radish carving in advance of the fair.  That meant they wanted us to lead a radish carving workshop. After Natalie patiently, if desperately, explained to the teacher that we are not from Oaxaca, we have never been to Night of the Radishes, and we have never carved a radish sculpture, the teacher agreed Doña Tayde could lead the event.  She kindly did not ask if we planned to pay her.  (We did.)

In preparation for the workshop, Doña Tayde and I bought 250 of the biggest radishes we could find at the Abastos market, and then we all spent Sunday afternoon learning how to carve them at Mercedes’ house.  A few days later, Doña Tayde did a short demonstration for the kids in Max’s class, and then spent an hour carving with them.  The event was a big success.  People came up with some very creative ideas for their radishes, and everybody had fun.

Doña Tayde adding a toothpick crown to her radish version of the Virgin Mary.

Getting ready for the workshop at school.

The workshop.

Radish elf.

The actual fair, which happened the next day, consisted of the music and dance performances and an exposition.  While it all was impressive, the best part was seeing the kids in the regional costumes.  The girls were striking, and the boys were quite handsome.  Max looked just like a Mexican campesino with his "trajes típicos."  Natalie and I could not put down our cameras.

The exhibition -- No small affair.

Max and his partner used the radishes everyone had carved the day before for their display.

Max and his Spanish teacher, in costumes from the Isthmus.

Waiting to dance the Sandunga.

Two of Max's classmates. 

The Sandunga is a wedding dance, and includes gifts of money to the bride and groom.

It was easier to outfit the boys.

Dressed for the Ejutla, a dance from the Central Valley of Oaxaca.

Dancing the Ejutla. 

During this part of the dance, the boys chase the girls, who shoo them away with their skirts.

Yesterday there was an entirely different event at the school.  Helen’s class put on a pre-Father’s Day show for the dads.  They sang and danced for us, then we danced together and played games.  It was a treat, and the costumes were much simpler than they were for last week's fair.

Jeans, a plain shirt, and matching tennis shoes.  Helen is on the far left.

Kids lead dads in a dance.

The best part of the show.

Another highlight of the show was a song they sang in English to the tune of "Jingle Bells."  Helen practiced it at home, so I got to hear it in advance.  I am pretty sure the line toward the end is supposed to be “hugs and kisses,” but Helen insisted this is how it was taught:

Thank you Dad, Thank you Dad,

Thanks for loving me.

Horse and Geeses, Horse and Geeses

Come to you from me.

Sure enough, that is how they sang it at the show, and that is how I will remember it.


Today Helen needed to bring a picture of the two us to school.  Here is the picture we sent.  Helen did her own makeup.

Decorations for the Father’s Day show included sayings about fathers enlarged and hung around the yard.  Natalie’s pick:  “THE GREATEST THING A FATHER CAN DO TO HIS CHILDREN IS TO RESPECT THEIR MOTHER.”  --Harrison