Zen and the Art of Knee Maintenance

This morning we left the flatness of the valley and hefted into the climb up into the Sierra Madres, south towards the coast. 


We began with breakfast from a wheeled tamale and etole establishment, sitting on the curb while I ate and being admired by two street dogs. My tamales were filled with mole--a classic Oaxacan dark sauce made from so many ingredients it seems like a child was making a potion: fruits, seeds, chocolate, chilies, all ground together and prepared with utmost detail--and they were hot and completely delicious. I had a steaming cup of champurrado too, a viscous drink made from chocolate and corn, gently sweet and unabashedly rich. 


Breakfast cost less than what you'd tip a bartender in the states. 


Full confession: I have realized I am not invincible (and I'm right on track to learn this in my late 20's). I've kept my body moving as much as I could this winter--hot yoga, some stupid runs, hiking to work--but my knees were surprised to encounter that first climb up to Monte Alban that early day of riding. I was eager to charge up to the ruins, and clambered away. But I found a pinch of pain in those knees; they were grumpy. Not an injury, simply not being acclimated to riding, though the rest of me yearned to be. 


So this trip has turned into a practice of Acceptance and Patience, rather than an opportunity to express Bravado and Machisma. My only choice, unless I want to bounce along in the back of a helpful pickup truck to destinations, is to move as slowly as a sloth at the DMV (or my Granddaddy cutting pie) to protect the knees from stress. No ramming anywhere for me. 


It's perhaps rather Zen: I can ride, but if I push or rush, my knees complain and they shut me down. 


I was devastated at first, that I might not be getting more than a few hundred meters up the mountains. Pride is strong, the ego wants to witness the strength of the body it inhabits. But what is sad or bad can always be learned from: next winter the stationary bicycle will be my friend. 


Partner Kathy lives in southern California, and doesn't have to reacclimate to riding because she never stops. (She also has the base tan.) But she is having utmost patience and encouragement for me. 


Fortified with tamales, I gingerly began the ascent. The road opened with a gentle slant, and then curved to tack up and into the mountains. "Sube, sube! Es muy arriba!" ("climb, climb! It's very high!") the locals said of our journey. Cars tapped encouraging honks as they passed us with gracious space, a woman wished us, "that you may travel well" in Spanish from the bus stop. 


A few miles into the climb, a speedy twig of a man with jerseys and a bright bicycle passed me like I was a parked wheelbarrow. I pretended he was an Olympic cyclist and that it should not bother me.


I gently churned upwards. The road on the map looked like the small intestine, all coiled uponq itself. 


With my slowness, my knees stayed quiet and mollified, but my soul was singing. What views! I could see the valley spread behind us, the mountains rising on my sides. Traveling at this excruciatingly slow pace made any increase in height absolutely poignant. "I feel like a BIRD!" Iq sang to Kathy, at our first plentiful serving of vista. 


I was thrilled to witness the changing of the ecosystem as I gained in elevation. The stark scrubby soil and agaves morphed gradually into pine forest. The shade was delicious. To have trees draping the road was a happy novelty, having ridden for days with nothing near the road offering more shade than a dog poop. 


I also learned that the whisper of wind in the pines IS a thing. So faint, but inarguably there. I wasn't even breathing hard because I was being a sloth, and protected by the mountain sides there was no way a loud wind could come up either. I rode in silence through murmuring trees in speckled sun on smooth roads and it was delicious. Knowing now that working knees is a gift, for the first time I was actually grateful to be climbing, where in the past I've resented the placement of mountains, wanting instead to move fast. 


I love how it feels both dizzying and grounding to be up here: looking over the side of the road toq diving drops but knowing I'm standing upon a magnificent upheaval of earth. I am so lucky to be up here. Thank you, knees, and patience. 


We climbed 4,500 feet today and are currently at 8,300 feet elevation. 


We reached our destination of San Jose Del Pacifico, and we are in the clouds. This tiny town perches on the mountain and is distinctly a backpacker haven. Being not the only foreigner feels unaccustomed after the past few towns. Little buses came and went from the single intersection, depositing beautiful dusty tanned white people in layered clothing, a group of European looking men smoked abundant cigarettes and three German girls tapped messages using the only wifi in town. This place is famous for mushrooms (they grow well in this ecosystem), both hallucinagenic and medicinal, and quant mushroom art graces everything from railings and edifices, to the headboard of my bed. I did like the other backpackers and had a lazy coffee (real espresso! there is no "proper" coffee to be had in the pueblos here, it is all instant and pre-mixed with sugar to form an insipid sludge) while watching new influxes of backpackers come in. 


I felt not unlike one of the brown dogs sleeping in the road, at ease, comfortable, endlessly patient. For it was only because of Patience that I could arrive here myself. 

My face says it: I am a bird!

How to truly appreciate a cuisine

Breads, in Bread Aisle, of the Friday Market

Friday morning and I step out of our hotel into a changed world. The streets are gone, instead replaced by a microcosm of tents. It's Friday market! The first tent I encounter is all bedspreads, fleece blankets, decorated with roaring tigers and jungle scenes. Then the panties tent, scanty to grannie style, then western saddles and spurs and bridles, smelling of fresh leather. Enormous bags of chilies, in unimaginable varieties of reds, tiny dried fish, bags of peanuts. A woman walks by carrying a bag of tomatoes, a giant drooping bag of greenbeans balanced on her head. A man carries a long stack of blue and yellow 5-gallon buckets. I sit in the middle of it all, drinking hot atole (corn drink) with some dry bread for dipping. Selections of buns, little puffy ones with mottled tops, expansive ones shaped like a mountainous continent: stand after stand of these breads. All in the same place; you hit the bread aisle, you find the Plastic Junk aisle, it always amazes me that people sell their similar things all in the same place (what if the southeast corner of the market happened to have a demand for bread?). An old woman carefully unpacks a selection of heavy green clay pots. I wonder how far she had traveled for this market with these?

Street perro regards our lunch break

We rode to Miahuatlán today, which is the last town within reasonable riding conditions, before we hit the knee-masticating mountains that block us from the Pacific coast. 

Yesterday we took a complete day of rest, thanks to me needing to lunge for the toilet (then questioning which end to put over it first) in the middle of the night Wednesday. A momentary stomach flu? A spot of food poisoning?  But sleeping most of the day Thursday, sleeping as if an enormous hand was pushing me down, sleeping in this involuntary deliciously overcome way, was the best medicine. 

There is nothing quite as disappointing as having no appetite in this heaven of food culture that is Oaxaca, and there is nothing quite as jubilant as regaining it again, eating a tamale in bed, and having it be the best tamale in the world. (Bless Kathy for taking such good care of me, as tamale huntress)  Feeling well is poignantly meaningful after feeling unwell. The tamale was wrapped in a corn husk, and inside the corn mush read the striations of the husk, and the beans were just spicy enough, and there was a mysterious green tree leaf (which I still have yet to identify) gracing the whole thing in there. 

By the way, I can imagine no better place to be creating an appetite through cycling, than in Oaxaca. It is the first regional cuisine to be designated by UNESCO as a World Cultural Treasure. Mountains and Moles, mm! 

 We found a cafe, which had salads!, for dinner tonight. Funky fonts with words about coffee graced the walls, the place was tall-ceilinged and airy, and an espresso machine spissed at the counter. "This place feels so American!" Kathy remarked. "Not with THIS on the table it doesn't", I said, indicating this egregious balloon heart. Thus we posed for silly selfies. (Also the over-produced Latina soaps playing on the two TVs) 

Notes on photo problems

Footnote: I wish I could post my loads of photos on blogger, but the thing keeps choking on them.

Please see my album on Facebook, "Peeing with Cacti and Other Photos" for the recent collection. I do hope you enjoy. 

Fun With Spanish

On Drunken Hotels:
It was Finding A Hotel Time and I was viewing some rooms that Mrs Hotel had on offer. I asked her, "que habitacian esta mas borracho?", "which room is more drunk?"  She laughed and corrected me, "barata", not "borracho", which is actually what I wanted: "cheap".

On the Color Purple:
I sat one morning in the market, having a hot chocolate (in a bowl large enough to bathe a child) and an equally large bun to dip (bathe) in it, and I was listening to the music on the stereo. A singer was crooning away, "estoy en morado", and I thought: oh excellent, I get to practice my colors! "I am in purple!" I love wearing purple, but huh? After some research, I realized, "estoy enmorado" is "I am in love."

A Threesome:
One of my favorite moments, early on in coming out of my Spanish shell, was after a dinner with Avid Alex and Partner Kathy. Someone had snarkily pointed out the Orgasmo De Chocolate on the menu for dessert, even though none of us were actually willing to express an interest in consuming something rich enough to be called "Orgasmo".

But I said to the waiter, using the "would like" conjugation of "to want" in fluid Spanish and pleasing my dining companions muchly: "Please, we would like one orgasm of chocolate, but three spoons."

If you're not part of the solution you're part of the precipitate

This bicycle tour so far has been destination-based; there are so many Sites To See in this area, that we choose ones and then set out towards it, even if it's not on "our route". Other trips my partner and I start at point A and push towards a distant point B, setting blindly out often times, not as willing to leave our route to see something. But this time, I suppose, everything is on our route, because or route is designed for Seeing not for Distance. 

Yesterday our destination was Hierve el Agua (literally, "the water boils"), a true wonder: a waterfall now solid and stationary because it was made from spring water so concentrated with calcium carbonate that it precipitated out into its own form. 

It was only about 24 kilometers away, but across mountains, so we spent half the day riding and climbing a total of 3,700 feet. 

If I'd come there in a tour bus, sat for all that time, I feel there would be all this pressure for the destination itself to be worthwhile. But on a bicycle, taking half the day to arrive, the destination was occuring continuously all morning. The grinding climb, the sweeping mountain views, admiring the cacti, staring at the goats and cows and burros crossing under the highway with their wide-hatted keeper. Stopping toq eat guavas (for the price of what I usually leave in the Take A Penny Leave A Penny cup at the pharmacy), throwing my arms wide at the valley mountain vista spread out after a climbing curve. "I could be in an OFFICE right now at a COMPUTER," I crowed, as a small truck drove by and gave me strange looks. W

The last bit before Hierve el Aqua was a dusty descending track abundantly studded with hunky stones and gravel. I'm usually a road biker, so I feel especially sensitive to anything less smooth than velvet. But I gave into the gravity, even though it was like riding on Legos, and trusted in my fearless wide tires. There was no scenery gazing during that time, just concentrated focus on staying upright. The experience was so jouncy I felt my triceps flapping and I was amazed I still had any screws left in my bike

The super-saturated now stationary waterfall

The intestine-like formations near the pools

The top of the waterfall was a series of teal pools for swimming, set starkly against a steep drop into the valley. The Sierras loomed behind. Around the pools it appeared like someone's intestine, all with curved nooks and intricate cilia from the deposited, curving calcium bright against the teal water. It was surreal how beautiful it was. Like some brighter-than-life Pixar movie, set on another planet. 


I sat by the shade tree and was delighted to find a brigade of leaf cutter ants working on it. They zipped along the tree, the empty ones touching heads with the ones coming down hefting leaves, "tell me where I'm going again?" Regarding the whole scene, it was more like green shapes trundling along, the ants themselves barely visible. I felt like David Attenborough was right there with me, and I was so happy to be there. 


Along our ride there and back there were Agave crops growing roadside, for mescal yet. It is dry and dusty feeling here, like Arizona perhaps, cacti and blistered rock outcroppings. The Sierras rest in the distance, framing our passage into a desiccating wind. This place feels so foreign to me, from cold be-treed NY state. 

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.