Beautiful Smashed Insects and Other Photos

Monday's ride began by following a totally becoming bicycle trail out of Oaxaca. It was down the center of the highway and totally charmed me.

The widest tree in the world! Arbol del Tule. It is a willow species. What an amazing creature. I love traveling by bicycle because we could get there to bask in it's awesome presence before the tour groups tumbled out of their buses.

So many scenes feel like the wild west. On our way into the town of Teotatlan de Valle, a village of weavers using only natural dyes for their craftmanship.

At the village of Teotatlan, we visited a women's cooperative weaving studio. All the dyes are from natural materials. Here she is holding a little wool bag, dyed with the color of smashed red insects in her palm. I was so taken by learning about this whole process, and it reminded me of playing incessantly in Rockville as a child, where we ground up bits of clay pot and made rock paintings.

Although I couldn't buy and carry this one on my bicycle, i gazed at the intricate delightful birds for as long as I could. Again, all these colors come from things from nature!

Cacti with mountain views. On one of the hillsides, near the ruins Yagul, we could see a petroglyph from the road.

Night aliveness

Puebla of Mitla

We are staying in the puebla of Mitla, a village near the ruins of the same name. 

The thing to do tonight is to eat snacks and hang out in the town square. I participated in this wholeheartedly, with a boiled ear of sweet corn stabbed with a hefty stick handle, spread with mayonnaise, and then dabbed thickly in flaky cheese and chili. I don't know what half these food items are called, and rarely are there menus. But I got by with some food voyeurism and then asking, "uno de eso, por favor." The corn was the most delicious corn. 

Other snacks are eaten, little cups of flan or torta sandwiches, and children run in groups or squeal in a tent of air hockey and arcade games. Two little ones are collecting dirt and stones in their shirt fronts and excitedly filling in a hole in the town square. The main event is a basketball game of various teams of teenage girls, a very enthusiastic announcer rolling his Rs and sounding to me just like an incomprehensible auctioneer.  Strings of lights hang in zigzags across the streets and little epiphytic plant puffs grasp the electric wires like spikey green pom-poms. Orange three wheeled tuk tuks with canvas roofs drive around, some playing music softly and none bothered me for a ride, bless them. A white pickup truck drives slowly by, police sitting upright in the back, automatic rifles in laps.  

This mix of seemingly anxiety-producing police presence and family fun seemed not to give anyone else a second glance. That just may be the way it is here. It could have made me feel nervous, but I have felt a general feeling of relaxation being here. Nobody has bothered me, I am mostly ignored, not stared at, and mostly the people who do interact with me are incredibly polite or encouraging.

Oaxaca city

I must also share about the night life in Oaxaca city. Nightlife while traveling has predominantly felt inaccessible to me, but there was something about Oaxaca that felt welcoming and compelling, a mix of locals and tourists. The Zocolo, the biggest town square, with a church and huge shady trees and benches, has restaurants and shops bordering it, and is the center of everything; it was such an alive place. This concept of a community space, like the Ithaca Commons, is enchanting to me, and seems to bring a simple richness to life, which comes from simply enjoying pleasures and relaxing and being human all together in the same place.

There's a Marimba band entertaining one particular restaurant but which can be enjoyed by half the square, enormous bunches of tacky balloons for sale, hawkers stretching scarves out to buy, two women dancing a sort of authentic looking dance outside the marimba band, large groups in suits or heels walking slowly and amicably. A couple on a bench completely involved with kissing, a small speed-walking boy offering beaded necklaces to the sitting relaxers, families sporting lengthy blow-up tube toys. The place feels like a fiesta, a giant party where everyone is invited, dressing up or not, with party favors of those large plastic balloon things, complete with live music, food and drink. Huge trees stand sentry over the whole experience. And a salsa brass band from across the park wafts thru to contrast with the marimba. 

A bicycle gang, ruins, and two boys

"I'll stand _near_ the shade", said Avid Alex, of our sparsely treed road with sharp sides and no other shade to be had. This was yesterday, and we had formed a bicycle gang, Avid Alex of Box Storage, my Serendipity Kathy, and Local Artist Wendy, a friend of Alex's. I felt the long-lost joy of wheels heightened by being in a group of us, pedaling along together. And with Alex as guide, we didn't have to spend time being lost. 

We started with a dusty bicycle trail (rails to trails! In Mexico!) along the highway, then through to a neighboring town, Atzompa. Having Artist Wendy along offered us a behind-the-scenes peek into a potter's workshop, one of her connections. The area is famous for green and black clay, sold in many shops along the road, and we stopped into a workshop of a Mrs Potter, with 9 children, all of whom crafted pottery also. Bowls, napkin holders, tiny intricate figurines, large surreal creatures. Somehow bicyclers and potters all got together for a huge family portrait. 

It was to be a very authentically Oaxaca day, for after the craftsmanship, we were off to the ruins of Atzompa. Which involved a huge shade-less climb, the ruins overlooking the valley, all high and extra holy in that way. 

Preparations for the Climb (with bicycle tour system commentary in parentheses):
I left my bike on the sidewalk, unsnapping from the handlebars my Crying Bag (with me at all times, containing phone, passport, money, and named thusly because if I lose it, I will cry. Also called: Executive Bag), and ducked into a shop breifly to get a cold orange drink and some Emergency Cookies (always have backup food and emergency backup food; packaged cookies purchased from a dusty uninteresting tienda are more likely to remain uneaten and thus available for when I really need them). 

"Hay agua?" I asked Mr Tienda, hopeful to fill up from the spigoted container behind him. "ah no, es mescal!" he said and we both laughed. THAT could have been the most surreal and sickening hill climb ever, ha. 

Then I came out to discover my bicycle gone. 

But turning the corner, I found Avid Alex about to load it into the back of a taxi. "Thought we might get a lift up and save us the time and heat of the day", he said. 

Absolutely no way was I going to cooperate with that.  

I explained: "It's been three days of nothing but enjoyment and pleasure! And now it's time for some suffering and earning." They could taxi up but I was going to ride. Everyone decided to ride anyway. 

So my first riding, after months of being off the bike, was heading 1000 feet up in a sun oven, at the elevation of Denver Colorado. Needless to say, I sounded like the bellows on an old pipe organ and got loopy on endorphins. I played in Spanish with Alex: "I'd like to eat patacones in Patagonia with peacones (pedestrians)!" 

At the top we took photos and gloried in ourselves and the views. I felt fabulous. I was so high on endorphins and the effort and the heat. I learned the words for climb (sube), optimistically small climb (subito), sweat (el sudor), and "I encourage you!" ("Animo!"). 

The ruins were basically deserted, just the sky, dry dusty ground, the unhampered wind, the ancient stones, and us. I got chills regarding the structures, especially having the place to myself. I sat alone for a while on a rock, gazing out over the valley view and watching the grass weeds on the ruins wave in the wind. Just meditating on the mind-boggling age of this place, and the tenacity of the people who built it up here. 

Lunch was at a little roadside place: a hot grill, a parrot, and a large loud television. The cook there grabbed a wad of corn dough from a block and smashed it in a press into a flat round tortilla. Then she took pumpkin blossoms, stringy squeaky cheese famous in Oaxaca, mushrooms, and beans and put them inside and folded it. A real empanada. 

Lunch cost $4. For three of us. Plus hibiscus drinks. Wow. So delicious and healthy and original-to-this-place feeling. 

After flying down from the ruins, served as bliss concentrate with a side of thrill, we climbed another 1,200 feet to another ruins, Monte Alban. Why not? When in Oaxaca, climb ruins, enjoy views of the valley, and then eat so well afterwards. 

For dinner we had vegetable mole, and Mrs Mole, patient for a while to answer our many questions about the many miles, ended up bringing us a plate with individual splots of all the different ones to try. Ones made with chocolate and chilies, some with chilies and sesame seeds, fruits and chilies...herbs. The variety of flavors continues to amaze me here. (A culture based off so much more than just different types of meat, like some of the places I've traveled before) We exclaim that each meal IS the best meal and that we just cannot wait to be hungry again. 

How is this much enjoyment and pleasure and experience even possible? I think Oaxaca may be evidence that heaven does exist. It's on earth though, here in southern Mexico. (I haven't even raved about the nightlife and live music and community commons space yet either!) 

 
This one made me laugh: 

I overheard one of the other hostel dwellers, an older gentleman who is an inspiration that one can still be out being adventurous at 70, ask Kathy:  "Are you traveling with two boys?" 

I heard Kathy respond, "No. But I am traveling with one woman. She has very short hair." 


Great. I've been mistaken for a lot in the past, but never before have I been two boys. I kinda like that.

We're a bicycle gang!

At the pottery studio, of black and green clay. This is the kiln.

Figurines, intricate and bizarre.

Regarding the weeds in the wind at the Aztompa temple, completely alone.

Hand-smashed corn hunk to make an empanada with squash blossoms in it. The string cheese pleases me hugely.

Endorphins and sun on the climb.

The massive jaw-slacking stretch of ruin complex that is Monte Alban.

Splats of tasting mole, a taste painters palette

Two Tornadoes: Oaxaca city

I woke up this morning and laughed; it was basically a one-night stand. We had just met and then slept in the same bed. 

After emails, phone calls, planning, and a lot of anticipation, my bicycling partner Kathy Retired Math Teacher from California and I united yesterday, at our pre-chosen meet spot of Hostel Pochon (sleeping arrangements in hostels are such that two beds are pushed together to make one large one, thus the sharing of sleeping space).

Amazingly, February 9th 2016 was the day we had randomly met in Colombia (meaningful only later, when she figured out this random girl on the warmshowers network was actually indeed the traveler she had chatted up in Colombia) and today is February 9th 2017. Exactly a year later.  

How was your journey?! When did you get here?! Can I see your bike? I can't wait to show you the town! I love your bag! You travel so light! I can't wait to go out for food! It's so beautiful here! It's so great to meet you! 

All these and more exploded out the moment we saw each other, and we didn't stop exclaiming and enthusing and eagerly interupting each other until we were both slack jawed upon seeing the full moon over the cathedral. 

S: (in a moment of observing)"We are like two tornados!"  
K: "I know! I get so excited! But you are more calm."
A: "But I am not, really. Which says something about YOU." 

Kathy is unapologetically outgoing, with expressive playful salt-n-pepper hair, wired with muscle. We're both incredibly excited to be in Oaxaca, in a blender of beautiful input from this place and enthusiastic output to each other: blender speed Liquidate, we're talking so fast. 

I simply don't have the words to describe the charm that is Oaxaca. Famous for its hot chocolate, mole, mescal, and architecture, I felt like I was in a national geographic upon seeing the full moon in the clear sky above the intricate cathedral last night. 5,000 feet above sea-level, mountains are visible stretched above the narrow brick streets, brightly painted orange and blue and pink houses are studded with wrought-ironq balconies. Parks and cathedrals are plentiful, lending itself to congregations of relaxing or busy humanity. The place is spotlessly clean and feels impeccably safe, locals and tourists padding about. The town was alive with music and lit streets last night; nightlife usually feels inaccessible to me when I travel, but I felt I couldq participate here. I sat on a wee cushy chair and had mescal and enjoyed a live bluesy-jazzy gig, Ms Blond Gloria Yoga Teacher introduced herself to me and shared tips about the town, she's been here 11 years. 

A crowd gathered in the dark around the cathedral: a drum-ful beatsy soundtrack played filling the park and echoing off the buildings as colored lights were projected in patterns on the stone edifice of the church. A humongous skull was traced, as if in the antiquated Paint on PC computers, then colored in with red, pink, blue. I gaped through the agave plants at this exhibit: never have I experienced art in this way, so central, on a church, edgy like Frida Kahlo, slightly macabre but not threatening, compelling because of the driving drums. 

Nighttime art on the cathedral, drum soundtrack fills the air as this skull is traced on the edifice

Accessible nightlife, beautiful humanity congregating in the plaza

Oaxaca is famous for its food: Kathy and i ate in this restaurant last night. I arbitrarily chose something from the Ensalada section and was served a tender bed of kale (Fred!) topped with grilled pina triangles individually wrapped in a local herb. And there were figs. Heaven.

The lights inset into the bricks indicate a bike lane

Assembled ikea-style from its box

I am finally no longer carting around a humongous wheely box. I'd arranged with a warmshowers host in Oaxaca to store it for the next 30 days for me. From the airport I caught a publico taxi to his house, dragged my box onto the front porch, and set about unpacking and reassembling as Avid Alex avidly talked to me during the entire process. Handlebars reconnected to front fork, seat slid back in, wheels coaxed into place and aligned, brakes adjusted, rack screwed into place.

How bizarre to mount and pedal and ride a mechanism that had just been in a pile. I hooked on my paniers and rode into town (like a fledgling bird, astounded at itself in first flight) to find my hostel and meet Kathy, box happily left behind.

I am so grateful the bike had traveled well and that the assembly was straightforward and that Avid Alex would store my box and that I am in this excuisite town.

Mexico City, both expansive and smashed

A day spent exploring Mexico City. 

From the sidewalk I smelled the coiling beckoning waft of hot baked wheat. With practically no volition of my own I stepped into a tiny bakery. I wound around the woman hefting a massive wooden spatula into an oven, and regarded the shelves of buns. No prices, no labels, no instructions. But I found a tray and some tongs and chose a flakey log. She wrapped it deftly in a square of plastic, swinging it in the air to twist the ends, and asked for seis pesos. 

Which is 30 cents. I'd need ten times that for a small flakey log in Ithaca. 

Good thing I'll be biking so much or else I might turn into a flakey flubby log myself. 

I set out for the metro, to ride into the Roma/Condeza neighborhoods, across the city from where I was staying by the airport. My ticket cost my 5 pesos, which is 25 cents. (you can tell I am enjoying the price points of things here)

The metro slapped and swayed along the track while a woman stroked mascara on her lashes. I was a head taller than all and afforded superb people watching. But I am also constantly poking thru the clouds of my experience to realize, oh my goodness I am in Mexico City. Riding the metro. When I was a child, I slid out the heavy M volume of our encyclopedia and read about Mexico City in awe and disgust. The most populous city area in the world. This fascinated me at 10. I never, ever, ever, envisioned myself going there, though. Which makes me all the more thrilled to be here now. 

Spider Plants, much?

I think this is someone's garbage collection system, on wheels, believe it or not.

The Roma neighborhood felt expansive and unhurried, totally unlike what most of us imagine Mexico City to feel like.

The color and decorations around this city, just for the sake of expression, makes me happy

A taco from a covered wheeled taco stand, the businessmen in nice shoes congregating around, a stack of flimsy paper napkins suspended in a hanging dispense system. A selection of toppings--from glistening fried onions to guacamole to blackened jalapenos--were arrayed in little covered pans to go with. I ordered something that I didn't know what it was, Nopal Con Queso, and was served what looked like flaccid canned greenbeans. But tasted tangy and beguiling. My next guess was roasted green pepper? No matter: tasty, filling, 75 cents, with bottomless quacamole for my own helping.

I had eaten cactus for lunch, I learned later.

I sat there on a stool on the sidewalk, sucking air through my over-spiced mouth (the guacamole here is CALIENTE), blowing my nose into one of the flimsy napkins, and feeling utterly present and alive and so happy to be in my situation. I was also completely ignored by all the men, which I hugely appreciated, except for being asked if I wanted something to drink. I did not, but I watched every single one of the others choose a glass bottle of cold colored sugar water to go with their tacos. They popped the caps onto the sidewalk and wiped the rim with one of those napkins.

There are systems here like this, this sugar water ritual, wholly simple and unnoticed, but to me I am fascinated.

I bought a tangerine from a stall, eager frugivore that i am, and the stallkeeper gave me my change and said as I left, "De nada. Yes. Hello!"

Dogs are hugely popular in the Roma neighborhood; this man's pack was especially varied.

Poopy hair. For my cowlick days.

The golden oldies

Smash hour selfie

I knowingly rode the metro at rush hour, which is unadvised by the guide books because that is smash hour. It was like stepping into a wall of bodies. The door slid closed upon me, and there were still bums and elbows sticking out; this was enough activation energy to get me into the interstitial spaces of the smash however. Handles were not accessible but I didn't really need one. The press of bodies was enough to keep me afloat. Plus, I could reach up and steady myself by pressing against the ceiling, which no one does.

I had a lovely conversation in that pile, with a Hispanic man from Seattle. What a small world, even in that tight world.

The Two Things I Really Wanted

With every unit of my desire, I wanted Mexican pesos and a wifi connection. 

It feels amazingly destitute to arrive in a land, at night, where I can barely communicate, and find my debit card spat back rudely from the ATMs and without wifi to call my bank about it (I knew enough Spanish that I gathered it was a card problem not an ATM problem). Come on, networks. Come on, ATM. Pleasepleaseplease I mantrad. I've been spoiled usually to arrive into a foreign airport that includes a waiting friend or contact person. But not this time. I was very much in solitude with this problem.

There was the option to lay sideways my massive bicycle box (hey! It arrived safely!), sit upon it, and wail for a while in the middle of the emptying airport. 

But instead I tried the ATM one more time, looked resentfully at the pay phone that I could not pay (no money without wifi to call my bank and no calling without money without wifi), and rolled over arbitrarily to ask a Mr Taxi Stand for help. He couldn't help with the wifi or the ATM, but he was able to get my card to go through to pre-pay me a taxi to my hostel. 

Which was my saving grace. And why I am not currently sitting at the airport on my box. 

Being driven through Mexico City at night as my first introduction was a surreal experience, the dark quiet streets, the forgeigness made more poignant by lack of sight. I was ecstatic to find the hostel actually in existence (at this point my burned brain was imagining all sorts of unfortunate occurances) and then not ecstatic to find that their wifi was non-functional. ("solomente ahorita", they explained, and I loved the diminutive "-ita" on the "now", as if it actually weren't a problem)  Then I got to explain, in my Neanderthal Spanish, that I had no money to pay them. 

Bless them, they let me stay my first night without paying. I slept in a six bed dorm, all to myself, each bed equipped with a darling reading light and a curtain. The place was so pleasing and like climbing into a nest; I forgot about wifi and money and descended into the dark and silent space in sleep. 

And the next morning the wifi became functional and I called the Bank and told them not to obstruct me from using even "highly doubtful" ATMs, which is what the ones at the airport had been. Even though I had called the Bank yesterday and told them I'd be in Mexico. 

Then I opened the hostel front door and set out for money. Stepping out of the womb and into the street, quiet Mexico City neighborhood, gently sunny, a whole new world. I did a wee dance at the door and strode out. 

And then to have a little fistful of colorful money finally pushed at me through a slot, was the most satisfying thing. 

My first couple hours here have been truly thrilling as I watch myself navigate the Spanish language. I have traveled in Spanish places before, but had never studied it. But this past fall, I took a joyful free-lance Spanish class for 6 weeks in Ithaca, designed for a snow-bird traveler. To now be in it, and trying to apply what I learned then, is that inarguable human satisfaction of learning. 

I can barely say much and I understand little--but even the tiniest pronouncements I can make, and the few words I do recognize, and the bravery to open my mouth and my ears at all, has me in delight. 

Mr Hostel gave me directions to get to the market. I listened, with that attention that comes when trying to grasp a slippery thing that I don't understand. Words I recognized studded themselves above the flow of unrecognizable sounds, and I got it. The lefts, rights, continues, behinds. I loved my Spanish teacher so much in that moment. It was working. At least for this. 

So much of communicating here for me is about regarding a wobbling foggy mass of sound that someone has just put into the air for me, deciding I comprehend a few key bits of it, and then ESTIMATING and INTUITING what is actually communicated. This is so different from how I speak English, going for exact perfection, the key apt phrase. A bemused look from me also goes far here, as the patient speaker trying to tell me a thing tries again, or puts forth some English, or we start a round of charades. 

It just breaks my heart to be among these beautiful helpful people, and to think how Trump is being so offensive to them.

My sweet hostel nest, even without money

Eggs On A Plane

(posted a day late, I made it to Mexico City!, I will post this one before I write about the rest of my journey; I feel I need to nod to the airline travel experience)

A hard boiled egg can be eaten with such thoughtlessness ordinarily. 

But not in my current situation. 

When I travel on airlines, no detail goes unplanned. This is a vestigial trait from the first flights I took alone, at 19, on my early journeys-without-parents where I was deeply anxious and thrilled by the whole operation and thus planned each detail as my coping mechanism. Details like packing the ideal snacks high energy but compact, the most comfortable clothing, the best diverting reading material. Whatever it may have been was an important journey and I had to have met it with readiness! 

I also do not believe in purchasing food while being held in a terminal or, while on a plane, that overly advertised $5 cardboard snack box containing 3 peanuts in a plastic packet, a single spear of beef jerky in a second parcel, and half a raisin in a third wee cup. 

So this is how I came to be regarding my hard-boiled egg, now doubting my snack choice, surrounded by beautiful Mexican people in the back of an airplane. What I had thought: "what a tidy compact high protein unit an egg is!" What I was thinking now: "how am I possibly going to get into this shell?", and: "how is everyone in rows 22 thru 25 going to assume the sudden onset of old egg smell isn't something else?" 

I also laughed to myself with this possibility: what if this egg had been misfiled in the fridge and was actually raw? Imagine yolk and white flowing wetly where it would as I was buckled into coach. I wouldn't be able to reach the Air Motion Sickness Bag fast enough. 

I tapped the egg tentatively on the plastic armrest, highly self-conscious; the smart smack needed to get into the shell would undoubtedly concern my neighbors. Nothing happened. Way to go, organic chickens. 

Have you ever tried to crack an egg by squeezing it? This is much more difficult than I had imagined. Nothing gave. So I tried the Single Thumb Pressure Method and suddenly found myself with white all up my thumbnail and an egg looking like it had just experienced a violent blowout. 

Success. Thank you, protein. 

Here I am on my way to Mexico City, abundantly obvious that I have too much time for needless egg writing. I trust my bicycle is in its massive hard-sided case beneath me. For this third bicycle tour of mine I am not flying with a cardboard box (having been refused boarding to a flight last time), instead with this case that I will leave with a warmshowers host while I loop around southern Mexico. It weighs 70 pounds with the bike (and it's kickstand, yes, Uncle Greg) inside it. That this box has wheels makes me incredibly grateful, and once it reaches cruising speed we could easily wipe out a family of four. 

I will have 1.5 days to walk and gape and eat my way around Mexico City, and then I cart my box and myself back to the airport for a short and incredibly cheap flight to Oaxaca. There, amazingly and serendipitously, I meet Partner Kathy exactly a year to the date from when I met her randomly in Colombia. (If you haven't read the post about how she came to be Partner Kathy, it really is highly recommended) 

It seemed impossible until we did it, fitting my bicycle in this thing. My dad woke up from a nap and announced he had figured out the puzzle. Hint: it has to do with wheel placement.