Campeche

Morning began with an after breakfast walk on our own along the seaside promenade. It was good to get out and walk at pace, and the weather was gorgeous.

We set out with our tour leader toward the main plaza of old Campeche, but stopped briefly at a coffee shop that sells a drink made from Chaya. Sometimes billed as "Mayan spinach," the plant, which grows wild in this region, is supposed to be full of vitamins and antioxidants.

Unfortunately, it's rather tasteless, and is usually mixed with a fruit juice of some kind. Ours was mixed with pineapple, and it wasn't bad. But we only had a small taste, not a full order.

At the plaza we began a trolly tour of Campeche. We rode an open air bus, made up to look like an old trolly car, and listened to a pre-taped narration in both Spanish and English. It wasn't as bad as it sounds.

We saw several neighborhoods or "barrios" of the old walled city, and learned something about how they got their names. Campeche has been adding sculptures and monuments at a fast pace over the past decades.

We made only one stop, and a church that houses a "black Jesus" above its altar. Supposedly the ship that brought the sculpture from Spain survived a storm at sea, and it was chalked up as a miracle attributed to this piece.

Returning to the plaza, we paid a visit to the museum of Mayan antiquities. We had a local guide at the museum who did an OK job, but it was too much information to process.

The most important piece in their collection is a jade death mask that was quite extraordinary.

The local guide also took us to the top of the old city wall in a portion only accessible from within the museum. We were actually able to stand on top of the Gate of the Sea where the waterline used to be, just outside the wall. The water shore is now at least 100 yards farther out.

The included lunch today was at a seafood restaurant, and it was quite good!

After lunch, the group was released to free time. On our own, we visited a free cultural museum which was a house along the central plaza that had been restored and refurnished as it was in the 17th century.

It really would be a pleasant place to live, even today. We were surprised at how comfortably cool it was, even in the heat of the day and without air conditioning. The Spaniards knew how to build for the climate.

Briefly, we stuck our heads into the cathedral. Of all the cathedrals in the world, this is one of them. Nothing terribly distinctive.

Finally, we visited an arts and crafts cooperative that markets products created by local artisans. Some of the items were very interesting, but also very pricey. Other items were reasonably priced, but too awkward to bring home -- such as furniture.

By this time, the day was becoming hot, and we needed a siesta. We spent some time lounging beside the hotel pool.

We have noted as military presence at our hotel. Army trucks, some with machine guns mounted, have been manned and parked in both the front and back parking lots. Other soldiers walked the perimeter. Inside, officers in fatigues were everywhere, most with general's stars. Apparently, a conference between generals of the Mexican and the Guatemalan armies was taking place in our hotel. The Guatemalan border is less than 100 miles from here.

At 5 p.m. we met our tour leader for an optional walk to a free museum about pirates of the Caribbean -- not the movie ones, but the real ones.

The reason that Campeche was a walled city was because it was constantly attacked by pirates. Piracy was a military tool of European governments opposed to Spanish and Portuguese domination of the new world.

Governments such as France, England, and the Netherlands actually "licensed" pirates to harass Spanish shipping. They were mercenaries of the seas.

We watched a very nice sunset from the promenade, then we returned to the old city for a beer and a snack before returning to the hotel for the night.

Aeromexico

Last night was the "farewell dinner" for the main trip. Of the 34 travelers in that group, only 13 of us are continuing on to the post-trip in Yucatan. This is more like a typical OAT trip. Balam continues with us as our tour leader.

The shuttle to the airport left at 5:30 a.m. with a somewhat questionable "box" breakfast consisting of a sandwich, an energy bar, and a can of apple juice. Fortunately, we had liberated a couple of apples from yesterday's breakfast buffet, and those became lunch later on.

There are no direct flights from Oaxaca to Campeche, so we had to fly west to get east, and endure a three-hour layover at the Mexico City airport. The first flight was about 40 minutes, the second about an hour.

Landing in Campeche, we immediately noticed the change in climate. All of our previous stops have been at elevation. Campeche is on the gulf formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico. The temperature when we arrived was 90 F with about 50% humidity.

Our hotel is right on the water (well, there's a 4-lane street between us and the promenade, but as close as one can get). It's a very nice room with a balcony overlooking the sea. It's also just a couple blocks from the gate in the walls of the old city, where most 18th and 19th century buildings still stand.

Balam took us on a brief orientation walk around the neighborhood, which ended at our restaurant for dinner. The meal was good, but we were surprised that no seafood was on the menu.

Tomorrow we'll see more of the city with a local guide.

Monte Albán

Seems that I skipped a day in my blogging due to fatigue and hot weather. On Sunday we capped the main tour by visiting the archaeological site of Monte Alban outside of Oaxaca.

This Mayan ruin is spectacular! Our local guide was a woman from Denmark who moved here decades ago to work on the digs here. Her knowledge was very comprehensive.

The site has at least 23 temples to various deities. Some of the pyramids can still be climbed. The views at the top are spectacular.

The oldest structures, dedicated to ceremonial art and dance, are at the southwest corner of the temple complex. This site was active for more than 1,000 years, so there was plenty of time to add on.

There were residential buildings here, but the only residents on the mountaintop were the families of priests and rulers. Lesser servants had to carry water and food up to them from the valley. Tombs are found in the residences -- the Mayans didn't believe in cemeteries. Dead family members were buried under the house.

Unfortunately, one of our group members took a fall and scraped up his leg rather badly. Fortunately, no broken bones.

The day was very hot and the sun was unrelenting, so even though the site was so intriguing, it became difficult to concentrate on all of the information being shared.

One significant feature was the ball court. The Meso-American ball game evolved from Mayan culture and continued into the days of the Aztecs, taking different forms over time.

At Monte Alban, the ceremonial ball court is in the temple complex, but at least four other "training" courts have been found around the perimeter.

The most spectacular discovery at Monte Alban was the "Tomb 7," a Mayan burial site that had not been looted over the centuries, but remained intact until it was unearthed by archeologists in the last century.

The treasures of Tomb 7, and other artifacts, are back in Oaxaca in the cultural museum. After resting from the heat for a bit, we recovered sufficiently to visit the museum, which is in a former convent adjacent to one of the churches we had visited earlier.

The convent is architecturally interesting in itself. It was seized from the church during the Mexican Revolution and used as a military barracks, causing some damage.

But much remains, including a rather extensive library, as well as the chapel areas. Individual cells in which the nuns lived have been converted into smaller display rooms.

The most important treasure of Tomb 7 is a jade death mask. But there was also a great deal of jewelry of various kinds on display, including pearls -- even though Monte Alban is far from the sea.

At dinner in the evening we got to meet our tour leader's wife and son. His daughter was visiting her grandparents, so we didn't get to meet her. Dinner was a buffet. The food was good and very plentiful, but much of it wasn't very Mexican.

Teotitlan de Valle

We drove to the village of Teotitlan de Valle for a home visit with an extended Zapotec family. The couple met us in the village center and provided us with baskets. Balam, our tour director, divided us into small groups and gave each a shopping list.

Because the village is remote, cell service was poor and our Google Translate apps didn't help us figure out what we were looking for on the list. We just had to keep asking in our very limited Spanish.

We finally acquired at least a little bit of everything on our list -- peas, roasted grasshoppers, potatoes, herbs, and a limestone paste that is used in place of cooking oil. We still hadn't spent our allowance, so we started filling the basket with random vegetables.

Then we were placed in tuk-tuks, which in Mexico are called "mototaxis." These taxis took us to the home of our hosts where preparation of our noon meal was already well underway. Our groceries would simply be gifts to the family, not used for today's lunch.

At least six women, all members of the extended family, were involved in the preparation of the meal. Our hostess conducted a demonstration of how the mole was prepared, though what we would actually eat had already been completed. It's a complex recipe with many ingredients and many steps!

Lunch was quite good, and we had "chocolate caliente" (hot chocolate -- prepared in the traditional Aztec way) for dessert.

Our host makes his living primarily as a weaver, so we walked to his shop for a demonstration of how fibers and dyes are prepared. Then we got the sales pitch. No rugs are coming home with us.

The bus then took us a short distance to a mescal distillery. Mescal, like tequila, is made from the agave plant. We walked into the agave field to learn something about the plants.

Then we saw how the harvested agaves were cooked, pressed, and distilled. Then we had a rather generous tasting of several varieties of mescal. We aren't bringing any of that home, either.

After returning to the hotel, we walked on our own back toward the old city center. We came upon a wedding parade.

It's apparently typical in Oaxaca for the couple to hire a band, dancers in costume, and character mannequins and for the wedding party and guests to go dancing in the streets.

This was obviously a very prosperous young couple, and the entire company of wedding guests were dressed to the nines!

We briefly visited a free museum of contemporary art. It wasn't very inspiring. We also got inside the cathedral, and it wasn't too inspiring, either. It was much more plain than some of the other churches.

As we enjoyed a beer and snack near the central plaza, another parade came by. This one appeared to be celebrating Chinese New Year, but we saw no one who looked Chinese.

On the way back to the hotel we saw yet another wedding parade, although this one didn't appear to be quite as high class as the first.

San Martin Tilcajete

Today's activity was an optional tour for which we paid an extra fee. The destination was the village of San Martin Tilcajete, which became sort of an artist's colony for indigenous Zapotec craftspersons.

First stop was at the home of Jesus and Roxana Hernandez. Jesus is a carver of copal wood. The copal is a tree that grows only in this area and is considered sacred in Zapotec culture. The wood is burned as an incense to ward off evil spirits, especially after the birth of a child.

The wood is also used, traditionally, for the carving of "alebrijes." These are fantasy animals, sometimes inspired by dreams or by visions engendered by ingesting hallucinogenic plants or mushrooms. Because of the way the wood is dried after carving and before finishing, each piece requires many weeks to finish.

Roxana is an artist who paints alebrijes, often employing the same sorts of geometric symbols that we saw yesterday in the stone work of the ancient Zapotec temple. The artistry is a family business, with their children, nieces, and nephews working as apprentices.

The finished creations are interesting, but quite pricey. That didn't stop members of our group from taking quite a number of them home. However, we don't need more stuff at our house, so we bought nothing.

Lunch was at a nearby restaurant, and was one our best meals. Mine was a stuffed chile pepper with a wonderful mole sauce. Other items were equally good and interesting.

Next stop was the next village over, San Bartolo Coyotipec, where the pottery studio "Dona Rosa" is located. Dona Rosa is long dead, but her grandson provided a demonstration of the Zapotec pottery technique that has been passed down for centuries.

The most distinctive thing about the pottery is the clay, which yields a glossy black finish without the use of any sort of glaze.

The distinctive thing about the technique is the use of the Zapotec pottery wheel, which simply consists of two plates, one upside down on a table and the other holding the clay and rotated by the potter directly, without the use of any foot wheel or motor.

The color and texture of the pottery was interesting, and the prices much more down to earth, but we again saw nothing worth bringing home.

After returning to the hotel, Balam, our tour leader, led a walking tour for those who wished to go, into the neighborhood or barrio of Oaxaca just east of the old Spanish city center. In colonial times, this was "the other side of the river" where non-Spaniards were permitted to live.

Today, this barrio known as "Jalatlaco," is a thriving area for art galleries, restaurants, bars, shops, and artist studios.

It is especially known for the murals that decorate the streets, and as a location for enthusiastic celebrations of Mexico's "Day of the Dead" in October and November.

Many of the murals use the Day of the Dead as a theme, emphasizing the concept of the afterlife as a place of celebration.

The spirits of the dead, represented as skeletons, enjoy dancing and drinking, music and flowers. And they nearly always have their pets with them.

After enjoying the street art, we enjoyed some street food. We happened upon our bus driver having his dinner at a "torta" stand (basically a food truck) at the corner of the small park near our hotel. He helped us order chorizo tortas "Para llevar" (to go). Two large sandwiches for less than five bucks, and they were delicious! The only others in the group brave enough to join us were Tom and Jane Buch from Ohio. They have traveled extensively in Central and South America, and we enjoyed comparing notes with them about our travels as we ate our tortas together on a park bench.