Tlacolula

We did the market at Tlacolula last time we were in Oaxaca but it’s a Sunday morning tradition and we had some friends who’d not been before.

The outer approaches aren’t so crowded so after we parked the van in a rather tight lot we went looking for breakfast. Meat tacos may not be your first choice of breakfast if you aren’t at the market but when among locals…

It was actually very good with spicy flavored meat and a surprisingly soft pliant corn taco. I do miss the soft flour tortillas of north Mexico. 

Deeper in, the market gets shoulder to shoulder crowded and the voices of local dialect and Spanish jumble against your ears in a cacophony of sound. It’s not unusual for the Mayans in these communities that show up at the market to not speak Spanish at all. 

Consequently this is a tourist attraction too, and we weren’t an outpost of adventurous gringos lost among locals. We saw lots of tourists like us including well dressed middle class Mexicans enjoying the atmosphere. 

I took Rusty to give him a chance to stretch his legs and to my amazement he navigated the crowds like a pro, pulling me on his leash, stopping when he felt like it and fending off curious local dogs when they got too intimate. One dog kept sticking his nose up Rusty’s butt and on the third attempt Rusty saw him off in no uncertain terms. I was quite proud of my dog who seems to be learning Mexican culture on four feet. 

Like Hobbitts we had a second breakfast when offered chicken in mango sauce. We’d never had that before and it was quite delicious, a sweet and spicy mango flavored chicken leg with rice of course. We found room at the table to share our second breakfast together. We also shared the table with a neighbor was having a more conventional breakfast of chorizo and eggs and he also kindly helped out changing a large peso bill for us! 

I like the food at these places, tasting whatever the locals enjoy as long as it’s not patently gross! I don’t consider myself an adventurous eater but we have tried fried grasshoppers previously and felt no need to do it again! They just taste like extra salty saltines that don’t break up when mixed in salads or scrambled eggs so I don’t think of them as a treat, they feel like something inedible got in your food. 

Cheese is one flavor I do enjoy a great deal, and the local stuff is  not at all bad but if you want a change from the usual Queso Blanco, perhaps some hard cheese as some travelers we have talked to crave, you have to go a long way to find it. Most Mexicans don’t get to eat Parmesan or cheddar or similar exotics so you will need to visit Walmart not the local market! 

We never buy meat from butchers and don’t often cook it in our own meals. When we eat out and we usually do lunch rather than dinner, we buy meat dishes. We’ve traveled with vegetarians and the concept is pretty well understood in Mexico but at the street level it rarely produces memorable meals which I can’t help feeling is a little unfair. Beans cheese and tortillas are the basis of Mexican food and could easily be enlivened with vegetables and suitable vegetarian ingredients but not often are they offered. 

We need a cook and a general employee say the signs, below.  “Cocinera” ends in the letter a which leads me to conclude she will be a woman, while the successful “empleado” ends in an “o” so he will probably be a man. Gender free hiring is not yet known around here. 

Bread is everywhere for sale though often it is soft and slightly sweet like Hawaiian bread. Crisp savory bread can be found but most often at Walmart. 

“Tasty Nanches” are pitted fruit with a slightly tart lychee like taste and they aren’t my favorites though you can see Mexicans like them. I’m not a fan of tamarind either as I find life tart enough without having to eat tart fruit. 

A third breakfast was not on the cards but you can tell my palate is faulty when I like the idea of Mexican hot dogs and French fries! 

Whoever they are talking about should be worried…they were having a great Sunday morning at the breakfast stand: 

Layne rounded up a roast chicken with onions and potatoes for our fridge while Rusty dragged me down the market, my little Panasonic camera at the ready. 

Greg buying some pulque, a fermented barely alcoholic coconut-like drink actually made from agave.  It’s yeasty and not sweet and has an earthy flavor like mescal not yet distilled. 

Greg and his partner Duwan are going back packing after they get their ailing Transit van back to the States. I expect after being broken down for months, not days as in our case, van life pales. 

I had to have one. I love custard, crème patissiere more formally, and in Mexico the cream is not too sweet. Layne got a couple of nearby kids some treats after we asked their Mom. I shared a bite of mine with Rusty and he seemed to like it. You never know with him. 

You can get anything you want in miles of winding teeming shady streets devoted to pedestrians one day a week. 

Crispy fried pork skin? Buy it by the yard…

“New York Yankees” - you’d be snaked how many Mexicans have spent time in the US before coming home to be with their families with the money they earned. Most want work not residence. 

I want neither work nor residence as I enjoy being a traveler and as much as I enjoy Mexico id I have to settle down I want it to be in the States. You are always a foreigner here. 

Never too old for a phone I guess. I wonder what technology will start to get away from me. Already I find I have no interest in videography which is popular and artificial intelligence neither interests nor bothers me. 

Layne made a donation to a shopkeeper with a dog bowl out front. She organizes a weekly round up of street dogs, rescues them and neuters them in an effort to reduce the population by finding them homes. 

On the way home a glitch reappeared when the air conditioning stopped blowing through the vents into our faces. Ron the engineer our neighbor showed me how to tear down the front of the van (scary) and reset the blower. Then I taped it in the blow position. It’s a complicated repair for some reason and I have a spare motor which unordered in Belize when we got the new radiator but setting it up to work didn’t seem to fix the problem of no air in our faces. It needs further investigation! 

USA here we come… slowly. June 17th we’re guessing with some home travel on speed bump free roads and wild camping in cool mountains. Oh and a couple of maintenance items too.