Monday, July 29, 2024
Yesterday, at dinner, we all placed our breakfast orders and planned to meet at seven in the adjacent cafe. They usually open at nine but agreed to open an hour early for us as long as they knew what we wanted. As seven approached Jan and I decided to check out the neighborhood and were joined by Barbara and Betsy. We never found a coffee place but we were back to the cafe right on time, so we went inside and completely confused the waitress! We were only four and she was expecting eight and didn’t know what were doing there! It all got straightened out and presently we all assembled and were treated to the most lovely and HUGE fruit bowls. Too much food since most of us were expecting the few slices of fruit we had had at our previous hotel! Juan canceled some of our orders and I had just a couple of bites of Barbara’s ham and cheese omelet.
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| The zocolo |
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| He's got his scale and is open for business. |
Jan is always up early and today he has bought Mexican bananas for us to try as well as avocados and grasshoppers. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing!! They’re salty and a little too squishy for my taste; but travel is all about experiences!!
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| So sweet!! |
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| Tiny avocados and you can eat the skin! |
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| Yes, they're what you think they are! |
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Yes, she did! And so did we all!
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| So clever since the hot chocolate is sooo hot! |
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| Sharing is caring! |
Our first stop is a church right in Mitla that is a perfect demonstration of how the Spanish used an already existing Zapotec worship space and completely changed it for their purposed. You can see many of the Zapotec structures around the outside while the interior is completely Catholic.
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| I just love these signs! |
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| This is a much simpler church than many we've seen. |
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| Another black Jesus |
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At one point this lady picked up one of the candles and cleansed the young person with it.
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| Love the Christmas lights! |
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| Restoration in progress. |
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| So many varieties of cacti! |
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| The Spanish used many of the original structures as monasteries for the monks. |
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| The original ornamentation can still be seen in many places and the stories told. |
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He was the original archeologist who worked here. He was very proud of himself,
even though he did a lot of damage! |
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| Thanks, Barbara, for the reminder that most people had to duck! |
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| Some of the designs are made up of individual pieces... |
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| Others are made of much larger pieces. In this section you can see the original red and white. |
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| We'll all still know that Barbara was there, even though she's behind the camera! |
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| See the drainage hole in the floor? |
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This is a tomb. The steps lead down to the burial chamber which you
can't see in this photo. |
On to another ruin called Yagul. We can see the palace and the ball court and get a feel for how large a community this was!
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| Just a bit of this building has been restored. |
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The ball court. In this game, the ball had to be deposited in the hole in the center of the field.
But the consequences for the winner were the same - sacrifice to the gods. |
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| Notice the tomb to the right. |
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There were six of these central patios or courtyards. Each opening off the patio leads
to the living quarters of one part of the family. Getting from one place to another
was a maze to provide security. |
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| Lynette and Ginger exploring the maze |
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| Barbara provides the overview. |
It’s lunchtime and we return to yesterday’s place, the one with the good food and the gorgeous singer!
But that Sunday and today isn’t!
So it is less crowded and there’s no singer;
but the food is lovely still.
I have a tuna salad but can only eat about half of it. The beverage of choice is hibiscus tea or jamaica.
It’s a stunning color and delicious.
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| Great furniture! |
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| And Barbara's funky chicken |
Almost right next door is an artisanal mezcal distillery. Juan translates for the young man who demonstrates the process and then, of course, there is the tasting!
But nothing really called to us.
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If I'm in the picture, you know it's Barbara's!
This place gave us oranges to cleanse our palates! Hadn't seen that before!
They had beautiful bottles on display!
Like this one!
That says what you think!
Everyone is ready for some down time so we go back to the hotel and agree to meet for dinner at seven. I go up to our room and crash for a couple hours! Several of us just order the Sopa Axteca and after dinner we disperse to our rooms, agreeing to have our suitcases downstairs at eight thirty. Juan and Ginger will have gone to the bakery for breakfast goodies and people who want coffee or hot chocolate can go out earlier and check out the OXXO or whatever other place they can find.
While we were waiting, we saw a man feeding the stray dogs!
Sopa Azteca with jamaica! |
I go straight to bed and don’t even try to blog. I can’t download photos anyway, so it will wait until morning!!
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