At 6:00 in the morning of our departure Don from Windward Luv delivered us from our boats to shore so we wouldn't have to leave our dinghies on shore. Ellen found a taxi that we all piled into and we were off. At the bus station we boarded a luxury Estrella del Oro bus for the first leg of the trip to Acapulco. We watched the first half of two movies dubbed into Spanish and admired the scenery along the coast. Once in Acapulco we caught a taxi to get to another bus station since this bus line didn't go any further South. We purchased tickets for the next leg to Puerto Escondito minutes before a bus left. One of the ticket agents escorted us to the bus and we were off. Perfect timing. The Estrella Blanco (White Star) first class bus was not nearly as nice as our last one. Since we purchased our tickets so late, we go the back of the bus that was hot, noisy and had partially broken seats. We managed the 8 hour bus ride and were greeted by a nice lady at the Puerto Escondito bus station. She was completing some bungalows near town and wanted to know if we wanted to stay there. Being somewhat exhausted and not too excited about walking around town to find a hotel we took her up on it. A short taxi ride later we were showed a cute place to stay at a reasonable $8 US per person. Later our hostess, Senora Cortez, called the bus station and found the bus to Oaxaca left at 3pm the next day.
In the morning we walked to a local panaderia (bakery) for coffee and breakfast. The juice and pastries were wonderful. Alberto, a son of the owner, was happy to have someone to practice English with. I had a good conversation with him while I practiced my Spanish. Once we got into town we purchased our bus tickets then walked to the beach as we had some time to burn. We checked out a few hotels in case we needed to spend a night in Puerto Escondito on the return trip.
We took a fabulous first class bus to Oaxaca (pronounced Wa ha ka). It was almost too good. Because they showed three movies back to back (in English with Spanish subtitles), most of the curtains were closed over the windows. So it was difficult to enjoy the fabulous mountain scenery. Or maybe it wasn't so bad that we didn't see just how washed out parts of the road had been from the hurricane that hit in October of 1997.
We arrived in Oaxaca at 10:00 at night and found a hotel with barren, but clean rooms for $10 US a night and cold showers in the morning. At 5000' elevation the cold water was COLD. We fortified ourselves with breakfast and coffee on the Zocalo (main plaza) and then found a much nicer hotel, La Reforma, for the same amount of money. Hurray! Now done with the logistics of travel, it was finally time to have some more fun.
Five days were spent in the gorgeous Colonial City of Oaxaca and the surrounding countryside. Our first venture outside of the city was to the ruins of Monte Alban. A short bus ride from near the bus station took us to the visitors' center of Monte Alban. From there we purchased tickets and hired a guide to show us around and translate. The immensity of Monte Alban is hard to grasp. In its first stage the top of a mountain was leveled off to make room for the buildings, surrounding courtyards and playing fields. After the buildings were completed and occupied someone decided the place needed updating. So they built another layer of buildings right on top of the first one. This happened a total of five times, all of which you can see in different places. Petroglyphs of human bodies were used as a method of teaching medical science. There is also a celestial observatory building easily noticed because it is oriented differently from all the other buildings. They placed it so that the sun shines down one hall on the shortest day of the year and another hall on the longest. It's outside was decorated with petroglyphs of constellations, moon stages and even comets. While Monte Alban is large and interesting to look at, there was an earie feeling that we didn't get at Mitla, the next ruins we saw. The Mitla ruins are much newer than Monte Alban and the decorations much more intricate and intact. We enjoyed walking around these much more human sized buildings. Sunday was a good day to visit as almost all museums and ruins are free.
Oaxaca City is the capital of the state of Oaxaca. Our hotel was between the Zocalo and La Iglesia de Santo Domingo (the church of Santo Domingo). This area is the heart of Oaxaca with beautiful and historic colonial buildings many of which artisans from the surrounding countryside have converted into art galleries.
Connected to La Iglesia de Santo Domingo is the old convent that is now the Regional Museum of Oaxaca. Outside the north wall of the old convent, Indian women have a row of stalls set up selling fabrics and dresses they have woven on a telar de cintura (back-strap loom). "In simple terms, the warp, (long) threads are stretched between two horizontal bars, one of which is fixed to a post or tree, while the other is attached to a strap that goes around the weaver's lower back; the weft (cross) threads are then woven in. The length of a cloth woven on a back-strap loom is almost unlimited, but the width is restricted to the weaver's arm span." (from the Lonely Planet Guide Book). Most of the fabrics we saw from a back-strap loom were about a foot wide. On display in most of the stalls were huipiles. Six lengths of cloth are first woven on the back-strap loom. The material is then intricately embroidered. The lengths of cloth are then sewn together along their long edges leaving holes for head and arms, three panels of cloth create the front of the dress and three panels create the back. The finished product is a loose rectangle with a round neck. This garment is worn over other clothing.
Huipils are still worn by the indiginous women. The embrodery on the weavers' personal huipil covers almost all of the fabric. On ones made for sale to tourists the embrodery covers the entire length and width of the huipil, but is usually not filled in to cover all of the fabric. We talked with a weaver about her huipil and found out that it took her a year to make it. Such a huipil sells for about $150 US. We told her it was worth more for so much work.
The Spanish introduced the treadle loom into Mexico. It is capable of weaving wider cloth than the back-strap loom and like the back-strap loom is capable of intricate designs. Rugs, blankets and wall hangings are woven on the treadle loom. Mexico's most famous rug-weaving village is Teotitlan del Valle, an hour bus ride outside Oaxaca City.
Half the fun of travelling in the countryside of Oaxaca was taking the bus. To get to Teotitlan del Valle, we had to transfer buses in another small town. Sitting on the bus waiting to go, there didn't appear to be much to look at except other busses. But wait, look on top of the bus next to ours; there's a little lamb bleating away up there! Baah! Baaah! In a country where the bus is the way to get around, everything gets transported on the bus. Before we left the station/dirt lot, a vendor came aboard the bus selling popsicles. When we arrived in Teotitlan, a woman walked off carrying two live chickens by their legs and a goat was brought down from the roof. Ah, we have finally gotten into rural Mexico - we rode a bus with livestock.
But the best part about this bus ride was getting invited to a weaver's home to look at tapetas (rugs). Four women were occupying two seats on the other side of the bus and a bit in front of us. One asked us (in Spanish) if we were going to look at tapetas. Tapetas? Hmm, get out the phrase book. Oh, tapetas are rugs, kind of sounds like tapestries, eh? Si, si, Quiremos mirar tapetas (we want to look at rugs).
Flip, flip, flip. Still looking through the phrase book. Todd and I are sitting behind Doug and Jennifer, looking over their shoulders. "Hey! Here's a good phrase." Jennifer points to a phase and we practice, in unison: "Solo estoy mirando" (I'm only looking). Four pair of American eyes look up into four pair of dark brown Mexican eyes. We grin, they grin; we feel silly, they seem to be thinking that we are very curious. A good laugh was had by all.
Upon arriving in Teotilan, the woman who invited us to look at rugs put us under the charge of a girl around 12 years old whose name is Sonja. She spoke to Sonja in their native Zapoteca language and then hurried off and dissappeared. Sonja wandered us slowly down a street chatting with us in Spanish. Sonja thought it was pretty cool that Todd had a sister with the same name. When we slowly turned the corner, we saw the woman well up ahead just turning into a doorway. How did she do that? Turns out the woman took the shortcut along the stream to warn the family that potential buyers were on their way. I think Sonja had instructions to walk nice and slow with us.
Imagine our delight upon turning into the doorway to find a courtyard filled with little goaties running around, four treadle looms along one wall under a roof and an cookstove in the far corner. Two more young women greeted us and invited us into a large room where they store their rugs. We were looking for a runner for the boat. Through words and sign language we conveyed the dimensions. They only had one rug in the size wanted and I (Ellen) fell in love with it immediately. We had looked at rugs in Oaxaca City, but didn't see anything we really wanted. The price was about half of what we had been quoted for the same size rug in Oaxaca. We spent several more hours at other stalls in the main rug market looking at an amazing variety of rugs before we decided we wanted the first one we saw. But they wouldn't sell it to us, not today anyway. If you come back tomorrow, it will be clean. It was absolutely not possible to buy it before they picked it clean. So we said we'd be back mañana.
The next day the rug was clean, the father was back from a trip, and we spent several hours communicating through Spanish and sign language. Spending time with this Zapoteca family and buying one of their rugs was definitely the highlight of the trip. Of course, we had been invited to yet another home on the bus out to Teotitlan, and we bought one of their rugs too!
The only first class direct bus back to Puerto Escondito left Oaxaca at 10:00 at night. Arriving in Puerto Escondito at 6:20 the next mornging, we discovered a bus left for Acapulco at 7:30 am. Of course, no breakfast places opened before the bus left. In Acapulco, we had just enough time to buy some sandwiches across the street before hopping on yet another but to arrive in Zihuatanejo at 7:30 pm. Oof! Doug, Jennifer and I deemed dinner to be a two beer event while Todd drank his favorite agua fresca. We then found a panga out to the boats and crashed. Was the 22 hour bus ride in three legs worth it? Absolutely! If you have the chance to visit Oaxaca, don't miss it!
Todd and Ellen Mandeville
S/V Mandolin
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