Today is our last full day in Mexico, we have an 8:30am flight to the USA tomorrow.
We were picked up at 8am this morning for an early visit to the ancient Zapotec ruins of Monte Alban. The Zapotec were/are called “The People of the Clouds” and they built a large facility at the top of a hill in the Oaxaca area in about 500BC. In a lot of ways it reminded me of the Teotihuacan Pyramids site but on a much smaller scale, but not any less impressive. The layout of the main area consisted of pyramid type structures and the north and south ends of a large plaza, with either side lined by smaller temples and homes of the elite.
Near the southern end was an astronomical observatory from which they developed a 365 day calendar (they also knew of the requirement for leap years. They had 18 twenty day months, plus 5 evil days!
On the NE corner there was a “Ball Court” where they used to play a ball game where the object was to keep the ball in the air using only your elbows, knees and hips, the ball was solid latex. It was played by two teams of 3 (in this court – it was smallish) and it was said that the Captain of the winning team had the pleasure of being sacrificed to the Gods (Only the best for the Gods!).
They built this facility on top of the hill as it made it impenetrable to attack by the other indigenous people, but they didn’t count on the Spanish and their canons and guns.
It was fascinating walking the ruins, and even better doing it before the crowds arrived.
From there we took a drive south of Oaxaca to look at the local traditional artisan crafts. (read tourist traps 🙂 ) We were taken to areas that specialised in fabric back strap weaving (Santo Tomas Jalieza), black pottery – made without a wheel (San Bartolo Coyotepec) and wooden carving and painting (San Martin Tilcajete).
The last name in each place is the indigenous peoples culture/civilisation name. There are some 16 different indigenous ethnic peoples in Oaxaca, with the Zapotec making up about 10% of the total population of the State. (400,000 out of about 4.2mil)
When we got back to the city we were dropped off by Manuel and said goodbye to Gabriel (our guide). We get picked up at 6am tomorrow to get to the airport for our flight(s) to New Orleans. Dinner tonight is at a local Mexican Restaurant Las Quinel Letrus (The 15 Letters – there are 15 letters in the name) For starters we had Quesillo Las Quince Letras (A haloumi type cheese wrapped in a spinach leaf and stuffed with Chapulines (Grasshoppers)) 
We had a couple of tasting plates for mains, Trilogia de Moles ( with 3 different Moles) and the other Plato Oaxaqueno ( a couple of beef dishes and a Chilli stuffed with pork plus an enchilada with black mole). A great way to finish our Mexican adventure.
So that’s it for Mexico, we leave here tomorrow morning to meet up with our great friends John and Georgie tomorrow in New Orleans (and all that Jazzzz).
A little bit of trivia for you: 🙂
The Spanish were very clever when they started converting the local people to Catholicism. They used a system of Icon replacement to help convert them. Eg For the Zapotec people they used a replacement of Jesus for their Lightning Bolt deity, for others they used the similarity of sacred names to replace indigenous with Spanish Catholicism, and the replacement of similar looking imagery with the Catholic one.
In Mexico they celebrate “The Day of the Dead”, no nothing to do with Zombies!! On Nov 1 & 2 they celebrate those passed, even to the extent of full on parties in cemeteries! It is a celebration, there are many skeletons here, they are for, The day of the dead.
Oaxaca is placed in the intersection of 3 valleys about 2000m up in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Ranges.
There is a lot of pollution in Mexico, it is interesting the way the locals describe it. Our guide today said it was the water evaporating after the rain yesterday, haven’t heard that one before. We have found tour guides all over the world will never admit it is pollution.
The majority of streets in Oaxaca are cobblestone.
There is a lot of graffiti in Oaxaca, more than we have seen elsewhere in Mexico and there doesn’t appear to be any effort to remove it.
It’s about a 5 hour drive from here to the coast and Acapulco Beach, which is where Mexicans holiday, as it is cheaper than Cancun where the tourists go.
During our travels we have had a few conflicts of information given to us by various tour guides. Like one guide said to us once in Italy. “if you don’t know the answer make up one that sounds reasonable and deliver it with confidence, the average tourist will never know if your wrong!” A truth world wide!!
The people here are much shorter than at home, Lyn you would be right at home here!
Mexico was never on our list of places to go to. We had to fly here out of Cuba to get to the USA, so we thought we might as well look around. Glad we did, the people are lovely as they have been everywhere we have travelled, there is so much interesting history here, and we have loved the food, it has been an enjoyable week.
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