Oaxaca Day 2 and 3
Halloween and Dia de los Muertos in Oaxaca were a lot quieter than I expected. I thought there would be parades and people crowding the streets, but there were more cars crowding the streets than people. There were a few roving bands with tubas, clarinets and drums and we found one of them that had those huge paper mache skeletons and people that are 3 times the size of a regular person. But there was also a lot of people wearing masks of satyrs and clowns and even that octopus villain from Pirates of the Caribbean, and vendors of blinky light horns and all that felt far less authentic. The Zocalo (town center) was surprisingly uncrowded, despite it being around 11pm when we were there.
During the day we saw all the various skull sculptures made out of sand and found many floral altars in entryways of buildings. Tonight we might go to a cemetary to see the decorations there.
Otherwise, we've just been wandering the city seeing things, enjoying the good food (with a few exceptions -- the first day we ate at 5 restaurants because two of them were bad and we left still hungry). Last night we had dinner with Christian's friend Michael and his wife and young daughter. They recommended a restaurant with fantastic food: I had a wild mushroom soup as an appetizer (good mushrooms but the hot chili peppers overpowered them) and a tortilla wrapped thing with cheese and squash blossoms drowned in huitlacoche. I was glad to finally try huitlacoche after having the attempt in San Antonio ended with a hunk of raw chicken. This Oaxacan restaurant had the good sense to translate "huitlacoche" not as the correct "corn smut", but rather "corn truffle". Also, there's a disconnect on WP -- the English page says it means "raven shit", but the Español page gives the actual etymology from Nahuatl as basically "sleeping shit". Time to get Christian to fix this! Christian had an absolutely delicious octopus and clam dish with delectably fresh seafood and venison as his main course. Dessert for me was natilla con chicozapote -- a delicious mousse with strange fruit at the bottom.
Other memorable foods: easy over eggs covered in melted quesillo, drowned in a watery tomato-chili sauce; isthmus-style tamales in banana leaves with a red chicken and beef mixture; quesadilla with quesillo and epazote. Impressively, unlike the last time I was in Oaxaca, I still haven't had any stomach issues from the change in bacterial flora.
During the day we saw all the various skull sculptures made out of sand and found many floral altars in entryways of buildings. Tonight we might go to a cemetary to see the decorations there.
Otherwise, we've just been wandering the city seeing things, enjoying the good food (with a few exceptions -- the first day we ate at 5 restaurants because two of them were bad and we left still hungry). Last night we had dinner with Christian's friend Michael and his wife and young daughter. They recommended a restaurant with fantastic food: I had a wild mushroom soup as an appetizer (good mushrooms but the hot chili peppers overpowered them) and a tortilla wrapped thing with cheese and squash blossoms drowned in huitlacoche. I was glad to finally try huitlacoche after having the attempt in San Antonio ended with a hunk of raw chicken. This Oaxacan restaurant had the good sense to translate "huitlacoche" not as the correct "corn smut", but rather "corn truffle". Also, there's a disconnect on WP -- the English page says it means "raven shit", but the Español page gives the actual etymology from Nahuatl as basically "sleeping shit". Time to get Christian to fix this! Christian had an absolutely delicious octopus and clam dish with delectably fresh seafood and venison as his main course. Dessert for me was natilla con chicozapote -- a delicious mousse with strange fruit at the bottom.
Other memorable foods: easy over eggs covered in melted quesillo, drowned in a watery tomato-chili sauce; isthmus-style tamales in banana leaves with a red chicken and beef mixture; quesadilla with quesillo and epazote. Impressively, unlike the last time I was in Oaxaca, I still haven't had any stomach issues from the change in bacterial flora.