Maguey, also known as agave, is grown for making mezcal. Mezcal, while similar to tequila, is made from many varieties of maguey, while tequila is only made from one.
We visited friends of Julie and Paul who bought a 250-year old hacienda in Oaxaca. This is their fountain in the courtyard of their restored home.
We loved the look of their kitchen shelves, with artisan-made clay dishes.
The walls surrounding the house show the stones used to build the house. The jacaranda tree is probably as old as the house itself.
We stayed near the center of Oaxaca. Our visit was perfectly timed to see lots of jacarandas in bloom.
In the background can be seen one of the many churches of Oaxaca, the Templo del Carmen Alto.
This is the Catedral de la Nuestra Señora de Asunción with cantera verde stone. Right away we noticed how much cantera verde stonework there is in Oaxaca.
Here's a closer look at the church door.
Oaxaca's center is a pleasant place to walk. We spotted an orchid tree and more cantera verde stone buildings.
This is museo del arte contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), looking through the doorway into a gallery. It was cool that the museum left some of the original 18th century painted decorations on the walls.
This sculpture by Javier Marín was in the courtyard.
MACO has three courtyards. We liked how the walls were painted behind the trees in this courtyard.
This is a view of a second floor gallery looking out to the central courtyard.
We went back to MACO at night for their 25th anniversary party and really enjoyed listening to the local Oaxaqueño group ByT Band.
This was our first time to visit Oaxaca, and we noticed lots of political graffiti. Here Trump is pictured above Mexico's President Piña Nieto. Both have very low approval ratings in Mexico.
But perhaps it's a stretch to think this is King Trump.
Stenciled graffiti is common in Oaxaca. Here's a protest against the gas tax, which we also saw in CDMX.
We also frequently spotted stickers in Oaxaca.
The king's head has been covered with jaguar sticker. Sonríe means “smile.”
This whimsical sticker shows a cat wearing shoes smoking a pipe.
La Popular restaurant became our favorite lunch spotlight in Oaxaca.
We quickly figured out we could share an order of carnitas and get all these great taco fixings.
Kristina's favorite salsa was guacachile, avocado and chilies. And here's a yummy taco.
This is nopales with eggs, a simple but tasty dish.
We'd seen people drinking jugo verde, green juice, so we tried it. It's a blend of tropical fruit juices and the green color comes from parsley.
A traditional food in Oaxaca is tlayuda. Here we ordered two tlayudas, one with chicharrones (fried pork skin) and one with tinga de pollo (shredded chicken in a tomato sauce seasoned with chipotle) from a street stand recommended to us by our Spanish language teacher.
The cook was making empanada dough as we ate our tlayudas. We were intrigued to try an empanada.
We visited friends of Julie and Paul who bought a 250-year old hacienda in Oaxaca. This is their fountain in the courtyard of their restored home.
We loved the look of their kitchen shelves, with artisan-made clay dishes.
The walls surrounding the house show the stones used to build the house. The jacaranda tree is probably as old as the house itself.
We stayed near the center of Oaxaca. Our visit was perfectly timed to see lots of jacarandas in bloom.
In the background can be seen one of the many churches of Oaxaca, the Templo del Carmen Alto.
This is the Catedral de la Nuestra Señora de Asunción with cantera verde stone. Right away we noticed how much cantera verde stonework there is in Oaxaca.
Here's a closer look at the church door.
Oaxaca's center is a pleasant place to walk. We spotted an orchid tree and more cantera verde stone buildings.
This is museo del arte contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), looking through the doorway into a gallery. It was cool that the museum left some of the original 18th century painted decorations on the walls.
This sculpture by Javier Marín was in the courtyard.
MACO has three courtyards. We liked how the walls were painted behind the trees in this courtyard.
This is a view of a second floor gallery looking out to the central courtyard.
We went back to MACO at night for their 25th anniversary party and really enjoyed listening to the local Oaxaqueño group ByT Band.
This was our first time to visit Oaxaca, and we noticed lots of political graffiti. Here Trump is pictured above Mexico's President Piña Nieto. Both have very low approval ratings in Mexico.
But perhaps it's a stretch to think this is King Trump.
Stenciled graffiti is common in Oaxaca. Here's a protest against the gas tax, which we also saw in CDMX.
We also frequently spotted stickers in Oaxaca.
The king's head has been covered with jaguar sticker. Sonríe means “smile.”
This whimsical sticker shows a cat wearing shoes smoking a pipe.
La Popular restaurant became our favorite lunch spotlight in Oaxaca.
We quickly figured out we could share an order of carnitas and get all these great taco fixings.
Kristina's favorite salsa was guacachile, avocado and chilies. And here's a yummy taco.
This is nopales with eggs, a simple but tasty dish.
We'd seen people drinking jugo verde, green juice, so we tried it. It's a blend of tropical fruit juices and the green color comes from parsley.
A traditional food in Oaxaca is tlayuda. Here we ordered two tlayudas, one with chicharrones (fried pork skin) and one with tinga de pollo (shredded chicken in a tomato sauce seasoned with chipotle) from a street stand recommended to us by our Spanish language teacher.
The cook was making empanada dough as we ate our tlayudas. We were intrigued to try an empanada.
Our empanada was cooked with mushrooms, sauce, hierba santa, and quesillo (string-like Oaxacan cheese).
This dish is called zandango and it includes chicken and plantains served in a guava mole sauce.
We were loving the food in Oaxaca, especially all the different moles, so we signed up for a cooking class. Kristina is modeling her apron at El Sabor Zapoteco cooking school.
This is our teacher Reyna making xocula, a traditional hot chocolate drink made without milk. She is using a molenillo to blend the chocolate, water, and spices. There are baskets of ingredients for the meal on the table too, including tomatillos and epazote, an herb used in cooking beans and rice.
Reyna taught us how to roast chilies on the comal, the traditional Zapotec cooking surface.
Here tomatoes and tomatillos are roasting on the comal. The comal has a ceramic surface for roasting.
Once we had roasted all the ingredients for mole, we used the metate to grind them into a paste. Pete quickly realized he didn't know the grinding technique, but he persevered and in about ten minutes he had ground his ingredients into a fine paste.
This is Christine and her daughter Endi trying to grind on a metate.
Kristina also thought it was interesting to figure out how to use a metate, and was glad for having strong shoulders from yoga!
We noticed that all the cooking pots in Reyna's kitchen were made of clay.
In addition to the traditional comal for cooking Reyna also has a gas-fired cooktop that we used to make green rice, soup and to finish cooking the mole.
Reyna was a good teacher. Here she happily explains that we need to add chicken stock, lard and chocolate to the mole paste, and fry it.
Laughing and enjoying ourselves, we sat down to eat together.
First course was a soup with cactus, dried shrimp and jalapeños called caldillo de nopalitos.
The main course included mole negro con pollo, chicken with a black mole sauce and arroz con chipil that was translated as green rice because the chilpil herb is green.
This the bottom of cups we used to drink mezcal with our lunch. In mezcal production, the plant is smoked or roasted, which produces its distinct flavor.
Looking from the dining area this photo shows a dove planter and the entrance courtyard of Reyna´s home.
Reyna learned to cook from her Mom. We are happy we could take her cooking class and learn more about Zapotec influences on modern Mexican cuisine.
On our way back to Oaxaca we stopped to look at this 2,000 year old tree called thule de arbol. We were impressed at the enormity of its trunk.
Looking up at the branches we pondered the fact that its believed to weigh 636 thousand tons.
Kristina stood in front of the tree. But this picture doesn't really capture the enormity since the top of the canopy is still outside the frame of the photo.
Back in Oaxaca we went to museo de antropología de Rufino Tamayo, an anthropology museum featuring Rufino Tamayo´s collection of pre-hispanic artwork. This photo shows parts of Alejandro Santiago’s modern work called 2501 Migrantes on the roof.
Santiago's Familia Migrantes was in the courtyard.
Rufino Tamayo's museum was really cool because he displayed his collection as artwork rather than artifacts, taking care with the lighting and grouping the artworks by theme rather than location. We liked the expressions on these three seated women from 1250 AD.
This is a sun god that had been part of a building facade.
This figure has moveable arms and legs like a doll.
Also from about 1250 AD, this vessel is a person in a backbend.
The god of death from 200 AD is seated on his throne.
We also visited the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and museum.
The late afternoon light made the cantera verde stone seem to glow.
The interior of the church was recently restored to its baroque grandeur, and the ceiling is covered in gold reliefs.
This photo was taken looking out the window at the adjacent convent.
The convent looks out on a gorgeous garden of historical and native plants.
We spent an hour walking around the garden. Behind Kristina is the convent.
The garden grows some vegetables from seeds that were found in the caves near Monte Albán. In focus is a tomatillo.
The seeds in the cave were thousands of years old and included ancient types of corn.
This cactus is a biznaga and it's over 300 years old.
These are young biznagas.
This type of cactus is called candelabra. We learned that it's at least 200 years old and will probably live 1,000 years.
This channel in the garden represents a river. It was flanked by rows of cactus on either side.
Here are a few other shots of the cool cactus plants and the convent.
It took over 100 years to build the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán and convent. We learned that the garden had lime kilns and drying ponds to make lime, a key construction material for the project. Pete is on a bridge over the lime kiln.
This tree reminded us of Angkor Wat's strangler figs that we saw in 2013 with Cynthia.
There were orchids in the garden like this one growing out of an elephant’s foot palm.
The Palo Verde tree in the background was dropping a yellow carpet of blossoms. The pathway had sharp angles to reflect Zapotec designs called Las Grecas.
Back in the convent we explored the museum that had an amazing exhibit of the contents of Monte Albán's Tomb 7. This skull has inlaid turquoise mosaics.
This figure has moveable arms and legs like a doll.
Also from about 1250 AD, this vessel is a person in a backbend.
The god of death from 200 AD is seated on his throne.
We also visited the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and museum.
The late afternoon light made the cantera verde stone seem to glow.
The interior of the church was recently restored to its baroque grandeur, and the ceiling is covered in gold reliefs.
This photo was taken looking out the window at the adjacent convent.
The convent looks out on a gorgeous garden of historical and native plants.
We spent an hour walking around the garden. Behind Kristina is the convent.
The garden grows some vegetables from seeds that were found in the caves near Monte Albán. In focus is a tomatillo.
The seeds in the cave were thousands of years old and included ancient types of corn.
This cactus is a biznaga and it's over 300 years old.
These are young biznagas.
This type of cactus is called candelabra. We learned that it's at least 200 years old and will probably live 1,000 years.
This channel in the garden represents a river. It was flanked by rows of cactus on either side.
Here are a few other shots of the cool cactus plants and the convent.
It took over 100 years to build the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán and convent. We learned that the garden had lime kilns and drying ponds to make lime, a key construction material for the project. Pete is on a bridge over the lime kiln.
This tree reminded us of Angkor Wat's strangler figs that we saw in 2013 with Cynthia.
There were orchids in the garden like this one growing out of an elephant’s foot palm.
The Palo Verde tree in the background was dropping a yellow carpet of blossoms. The pathway had sharp angles to reflect Zapotec designs called Las Grecas.
Back in the convent we explored the museum that had an amazing exhibit of the contents of Monte Albán's Tomb 7. This skull has inlaid turquoise mosaics.
The next day we visited Monte Albán to see the Zapotec and Mixtec ruins that date back to 500 BC. This is a statue of Alfonso Caso who found Tomb 7 in 1932.
We first saw the Main Plaza, which is impressive at 200 by 300 meters.
Like the ruins we visited in the Yucatán, there were ball courts at Monte Albán too. We saw a number of school groups at the ruins and had fun talking with the kids who wanted to practice their English.
Behind Kristina are several ceremonial platforms in the Main Plaza.
Pete is heading toward the south steps.
And climbing up.
It was a good view of the Main Plaza from up top.
This arrow shaped building in front is believed to have been an observatory.
From atop the south steps we could also see the west buildings.
Monte Albán was the political capital for the Zapotecs for over 1,000 years.
This is the north part of the site. Behind Pete is a sunken courtyard that was used for ceremonies.
The style of the temples at Monte Albán includes a design detail called double shoulder blades that you can see near the top of the temple.
Many temples have been restored, but there were several unrestored that resembled mounds with stones and plants.
Pete is mimicking the replica stone carving on the left of a person who appears to be squatting. Originally called dancers, the carvings are now thought to represent tortured and sacrificed war prisoners, including identifiable leaders of competing centers and villages captured by Monte Albán.
We also visited the on-site museum and were able to see the original stone carvings.
Another day we visited the Yagul ruins. These are residences that date back to 1250 AD.
Behind Kristina are the residence walls.
This photo shows the walls in the desert landscape.
Pete is by stairs that weren't stable enough to climb.
Kristina is atop the ball court.
Near Yagul are the Mitla ruins, including this Catholic Church built by the Spanish who dismantled the religious temples of the Zapotec to build it. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, the Zapotecs had a writing system with calendars and grew food through a terraced agricultural system with irrigation that supported a mostly urban population of 500,000 people.
Mitla was the religious center for the Zapotecs, and these columns are believed to have been part of a temple.
What makes Mitla unique are these intricate stone mosaics called Las Grecas. We had never seen walls like these and found them amazing and beautiful.
Made without mortar, the stone mosaic blocks are still in beautiful shape, in spite of being more than 1,400 years old. The patterns never seemed to repeat.
Inside the buildings were Las Grecas too.
There's so much to see in Oaxaca that in ten days we barely scratched the surface. We also spent five days in Spanish school. Here we are with our teacher Miriam, holding our diplomas.
Next we head to Nicaragua to volunteer on a solar installation project.
