A Facelift

Ha ha.  Gotcha.  Not going to happen, except to our house.

Here are Juan and his cousin repainting the front of our house.  It is still the original color, Mescal, but with a sealer and two more coats. 

They painted the new construction on the rooftop as well.  Such a lovely, buttery color in the sunset light.

And finally, we added the beautiful hammock we bought this last trip to 

Zihuatanejo.

Perfect!  Come visit us sometime.

Talavera in Puebla

Walking around Puebla can give you a neck crick.  Sara found a walking tour map of notable tile covered buildings in town.  Talavera in Mexico originated in Puebla and the more wealthy used these tiles to cover the facades of their homes.  To me the architecture was reminiscent of some of the buildings I saw in Holland.

This is the shop, a cantina actually, where they sell a delicious raisin liqueur called Pasita.  Founded in 1916, La Pasita is open only for a few hours in the afternoon and after our first bottle we came back for more. Looks like these tiles were applied in the year it was opened.

The Uriarte family has been creating and selling talavera pottery and tiles since 1824. We stopped in the shop to admire their handiwork.

And here are the three patient guys who took the walking tour with us and went to the shop with us. 

 Good work, guys. Thanks.

Alebrijes from Oaxaca

Alebrijes (ali-bre-haze) are fantastical animals carved from copal wood found in Oaxaca.  After Monte Albán we went to the nearby town of Arrazola to visit the workshop of one  of the carvers, Pepe Santiago.

They first chop the soft copal wood with machetes into rough forms.

 Then they shape it more finely with small knives

 and set their carvings to dry in the sun.

Each sculpture is unique and can take from days to weeks to complete, depending on the complexity of the form and painted designs.

Here is Rohan posing with the artist, Pepe Santiago, and his own colorful choice.

We took this little praying mantis home with us.

and this monster came home with us from the market in downtown Oaxaca.

Each part of these sculptures is designed to be packed to fit safely in your luggage, so his wings, tail, and even tongue are removable.  He arrived without damage.
 

Monte Albán, Oaxaca

Yup, pretty interesting,,,a human skull covered with a mosaic of turquoise stones.  This was in the collection of the museum in the Santo Domingo church in central Oaxaca.  Many of the artifacts in the museum, like this one, originated from the tombs in Monte Albán, on a hilltop about 6 miles outside of Oaxaca.

Here is Rohan peering down into a small tomb.  Most were emptied of their treasures by the late 1800s but one tomb, Tomb 7, was discovered untouched in 1932. 

I was captivated by the detail of the necklaces and other ornaments that were found here. 500 pieces of jewelry and art made of almost 8 pounds of gold and turquoise, conch shell, amber, and obsidian were uncovered, signifying the wide trade that must have occurred.

These pearls were brought from the coast, over 100 miles away.

Monte Albán flourished from 500BC to around 1300AD and was inhabited by the Zapotec people.  It covers a mountain top that was leveled in a process our guide told us took over 200 years just to flatten. 

Here we all are, catching our breath after climbing to the top of a pyramid.

If you do make it to Monte Albán, be sure to make a stop first in central Oaxaca at the museum in the Santo Domingo church to get a glimpse of the riches that were there.

Tlacolula Sunday Market

We're in Oaxaca for a few days with niece Sara, her husband Munier and our grand-nephew, Rohan.  We arrived in time to go to the beautiful Sunday market in Tlacolula, about 30 km from Oaxaca.  Here is Rohan considering whether he would like to sample a crunchy grasshopper.

One of the highlights of this market is that women from surrounding villages wear their traditional dress.  Their colorful scarves, blouses and skirts are unique to their villages.

I've never seen peeled pineapples for sale but when we walked back a couple hours later they were all gone.

Also loved these carved dried gourds filled with seeds with a handle added. Maracas anyone?

These chickens came with their own carrying handles ready to be picked up. 

We took the 2nd class bus to reach this market, the  buses we used to call "chicken buses."  Our bus was chicken-free but I did see some packed in boxes with air holes waiting to be loaded on a different bus.  This shot was taken in the live foul section of the market.

Michoacan Coast

We ended up spending another 3 nights in Troncones. Maybe it was the sunsets or maybe it was because we found a different hotel with a 360 degree view from our terrace or most likely it was just a pleasant place to sit, read and relax.                                           

 

Leaving Troncones, we headed north along the remote coast of Michoacan where we saw beaches we couldn't even figure how to get to, reminding us of the Big Sur coastline in California

or the expansive beaches along the Oregon coast.

 

We stopped for a night in Caleta de Campo where our hotel overlooked the light house and the pangas of the fishermen as they went out to catch at night.

To our left was more rocky coastline. The thing on the balcony rail is our XM satellite radio antenna.

  

Lunch and breakfast were at the beachfront restaurant where each table had it's own hammock.

 

We spent one night in the old center of the port town of Manzinillo where the pangas were lined up for the night's catch.

Our drive home through the state of Colima took us alongside Volcán de Fuego, the most active volcano in Mexico.

It looked ashy and barren and then suddenly responded to my request for some action by emitting a large plume of white smoke which lazily drifted down it's west side.

Adios little Tortuga

Here is a batch of babies in a plastic bin ready to be released.  A hotel near ours digs up the turtle nests and reburies the eggs in a protected area.  Once the eggs hatch their protectors wait until a near full moon and release them around sunset.  Tonight was the night.

These are Olive Ridley turtles, in Mexico known as the Golfina.

A small group of well-wishers gathered to see them on their way. 

We were each invited to choose one to send off.  I didn't name mine as bonding isn't a good idea at this point.

Ours were more than up to the challenge and turned to the setting sun and the waves.

 Good luck little turtles.