This city just keeps drawing me back, and after ten winter visits it feels like home.
As usual, the city calls out for photos and I cheerfully comply.
The texture and cracks in the damaged walls of Boulenc, one of the most popular restaurants and bakeries in town, are delicate and lovely. I think that's what the Japanese call Wabi-sabi, seeing beauty in imperfection.
Appreciating things that show the passage of time. And such a pleasing colour palette, as my friend Deb A. says.
I'm always watching for new murals.
Even the soil up in the hills where we hiked a few days ago is reddish.
I seem to find interesting people every year I come here. The characters in the pictures below are in the Urban Sketchers group I just joined. I did a watercolour with them in Parque Tequio, a large park by the airport that I had never visited before.
Very enjoyable and lots of Spanish conversation as we checked out our seven, very diverse paintings. Compliments for everyone, and then we went for lunch at a restaurant on the street. I'm feeling quite happily fluent, more or less, in spite of my last Caboose post.
Dave came too and found a quiet corner in the park to play guitar and is working on a beautiful Spanish song.
My friend Rachel is an amazing and accomplished sculptor. She invited me to her terraza to paint while she worked on her clay man.
Have a look at her wonderful work at www.rachelmorton.art
We don't bike in this city, too much traffic usually and the gutter on this bike lane looks like a trap. Could be life-threatening if you weren't paying attention.
But Sunday morning bike rides to the town of Tule are nice and safe on an old railway bed that's now a pleasant bike path.
A bonus was meeting Judy, a local family doctor who loves biking but speaks no English. We had lunch with her at the mercado and enjoyed the consomé de barbacoa, memelitas and horchata that she recommended. Mexican food beyond tacos!
So that's what we do in Mexico when there's no beach to play on.
We see old Mexican friends and gringo friends who come here as snowbirds, and always seem to meet new ones.
Oh, and there's music. We heard Chilena music at a new venue called Foro 8 Temblor, and watched young people in the audience dance up a storm, waving handkerchiefs in traditional folk dances with fancy footwork.
What were all these young Chileans doing in Oaxaca??
A pretty young dancer eventually cleared up our confusion; the music had nothing to do with Chile, but is the traditional music and dance from a coastal region of Oaxaca and Guerrero states. There's a resurgence of the dance, part of the identity of that region, and kids are learning it in school. Nice.
The people in the audience were going to university or working or maybe on vacation in the capital city, and having a great time dancing with joy and passion.
The tourist legend says that if you eat chapulines in Oaxaca, you will return. Maybe that's the reason I keep coming back.
They're the salty, fried little grasshoppers on the plate beside my tacos. I've eaten a few over the years, and sprinkled a spoonful in these tacos. Tasty enough if you can get over the idea of eating insects. I can barely do it.
Hasta luego! Gracias por leer mi blog.
