We had planned to be on the road Sunday but we got delayed. We have purchased a Starlink satellite receiver to accompany us across Central and South America.
The Mexican cost is a lot less than the US at $415 for the receiver hardware and $75 a month for unlimited service from Alaska to Argentina. Travelers we have met tell us service is close to universal south of Mexico where it is already widely used and attracts no attention.
For us we have no need of Starlink in Mexico where our US phones work as they do at home but from Belize onwards we have to buy local SIM cards in each country to get phone service. Starlink will be an excellent back up for mapping and communication. So there it is, now we wait a few days for Starlink Mexico to deliver our antenna.
As we await our Starlink we continue our tourist tour of Oaxaca State. Sunday we went to Tlacolula de Matamoros 45 minutes south of the El Rancho RV Park.
It is decidedly a locals’ market. We did pass a handful of other gringo visitors at the stalls but the streets of the village were packed with Mexicans including lots of Mixtec Indios. Our walk was in large part a step aside to avoid clumps of eager shoppers.
Above mangoes in a sweet sauce and below salted fish!
Bread is far more visible than I remember it from years past. Corn or wheat I like tortillas or buns.
This woman selling her nuts thought I was a goofball with my camera but her young daughter fascinated by the foreigner shook her head at the thought of her picture being taken. So there.
We bought one of these etched gourds to decorate our home.
I spotted the husband, below, rolling his princess home in his tricycle carrier.
This lady was offering fried chicken taquitos and some fried meat crisps which was what we went for in the right dish below.
Of course when we sat down the meat ball things were smothered in lettuce and salsa. Crisp and filled with spicy chorizo meat.
We drank rice milk (“horchata”) with crushed pecans floating on it. Sweet vanilla flavored and delicious as a contrast to the well spiced food.
A word about Rusty: he coped brilliantly. We left GANNET2 at a public parking lot a short distance away and my thought was I could take Rusty back when he got fed up with the crowds. However as usual Rusty surprised me. He managed the people and wheels and smells and sights with ease. I was so proud of him as he used to be scared of any crush of people especially in Mexico where dogs wander. Instead he had a great time.
Most of the market was quite shady thanks to the awnings pulled across the various streets. This one below was at my eye level and I’m 5’6” so you can imagine it was hanging low!
It was actually pretty tough walking the shady alleys while keeping an eye on Rusty and trying to make pictures in varying light. In the end I had to put him on a leash to keep him in the glow of foot traffic and make sure he didn’t pee on any objects for sale. My camerawork suffered as a consequence.
After a while Rusty started leading me back in the direction of the way we had come. I too had had enough of market day.
I sat for a while with Fabian sitting on a step next to me and we discussed the relative merits of temperatures in Miami (none) versus the nice cool nights in Oaxaca.
Then the others caught up and we walked a black together back to the public parking lot.
From left to right we brought Duwan, Omar, Angelica, Layne, and Greg. They went on.
Rusty and I had a rest in the parking lot waiting for them to finish their tour.
I cleaned the kitchen sink and sorted out a storage bag that was a mess and listened to some music from over the wall. 
We got wedged in by so many parked cars but miraculously there was a way out when the time came…in Mexico every problem has a solution.
