Sylvie's Travels Home

March 22 and 23, 2023

As soon as I started the shower, a spider came out from under the mat so it was another sign we needed to switch rooms. The front desk was extremely accommodating. They showed us another room that was much bigger, the bathroom had double sinks and the tub was lower. It was also on the main floor. We had a continental breakfast which was included and packed our bags. They gave us the keys for our new room then moved our suitcases as we were leaving for the day.

We met Max at a restaurant where she was having breakfast. We then walked to her apartment to look at it and we made our schedule for the week. We walked around the little streets of Centro for a while then had lunch at Casa Taviche. We had the special of the day: a creamy vegetable soup with cheese croutons, peanut chicken with rice and vegetables and guava tiramisu. We also had tamarind agua fresca. All for 145 pesos each ($8.60 usd). After lunch, Pogo went back to the hotel to rest and Max and I did a little shopping. We were supposed to meet Pogo at 4:30pm at the Botanical Gardens but we ran into a parade and one thing led to another, we decided to watch the parade instead. We went to a really cute bar called Selva, rated one of the best 50 in North America. We were lucky to sit on one of the 2 small balconies and witnessed 3 more parades! One was for a school graduation, 2 for weddings and the other one was maybe just because they love parades? They are so colorful and all have monos de calendas (giant puppets) dancing and twirling to the music.

On our way to dinner, we stopped at a strange antique shop. While we were waiting for a table, 4 people arrived and we noticed that they had been at the same bar as us. We started talking to them. We found out that they were from Mexico City but when they found out that we were from Vermont, one of them told us that he had gone to school to St. Johnsbury for 3 years!! Such of small world!

We had dinner at Las Quince Letras and had garnachas for appetizers and chicken with 3 types of mole (chocolate, almond and rojo). They put cute bibs on us to protect our clothings. Very delicious.

We walked back home exhausted, sweaty but grateful to be in this wonderful city with Max.

Saturday morning, I sat in the courtyard of our hotel to write my blog as I needed to catch up. Pogo joined me for coffee, waiting for Max to join us for breakfast. She had a continental breakfast as well and it cost only 50 pesos.

We went to the botanical gardens finally for the 11am tour. You can visit only with tour guides. The English tour was full so we went with the Spanish tour. I didn’t understand much so I decided to just take pictures. I ended up being the mother of an influencer, my favorite photography work.  We were there for an hour.  Max then went to a café to work and Pogo and I went to the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca (Museum of Oaxacan Cultures) in the beautiful monastery buildings adjoining the Templo de Santo Domingo. The most interesting part to me was seeing the treasure found in tomb 7 at Monte Alban, an archaeological site we visited the last time we were here.  Dating from the 14th century and discovered in 1932, a king and his sacrificed servants were found with a stash of silver, turquoise, coral, jade, amber, pearls finely carved bones, crystal goblets, a skull covered in turquoise and lots of gold. We spent another hour there. It could have been longer but without a guide, it was not easy to understand any of the displays. 

We tried to go inside the Templo de Santo Domingo but they were celebrating a wedding. We will try again. 

We went back to the hotel to rest. Oaxaca has been going through a heatwave, it’s been in the 90s and very humid so we have been needing air conditioning once in awhile.  Pogo took his usual nap and I started writing my other blog. It took me forever to go through my pictures, I took so many. Later on, we went for a walk to go to some markets Max had told us about but we went to the wrong ones and they were closed. We stopped at a street stall to have a quick bite to eat and shared a tlayuda. It was humongous and not very good. We had a few bites to be polite but left most of it in our plate. We were back at the hotel around 6pm.  Max had just arrived there as well. She had to do more work so we just hung out, watched another parade, a wedding, go right by our window this time and went to dinner at 7:30pm. We had called a taxi to bring us to a little restaurant called Taqueria Tacomer. We all had the Al Pastor tacos but I also tried a chorizo taco. We then walked to a taco cart where they sold only pork tacos so we tried a pork taco with chicharron (crispy pork rind). On our way back, we stopped at a mezcal bar that had interesting art inside. We just walked slowly, people watched by Santo Domingo and took picture of the almost full moon. We went to a bar. We stop to get a dorilocos, a bag of doritos filled with corn, mayonnaise, 2 sauces, and cheese. It was actually good. We went to bed early because we were planning on getting up early the next day.

We found out that we were having a snowstorm at home, 17 inches!!! so we decided that we won’t come back until it’s all melted.