Mercado del dis Zaachila means (I hope) that today is market day in the small town of Zaachila. We hopped a collectiva to get out there. If you haven’t ridden in one – basically a collectiva is any mode of transport that follows a set route, and you hop on and off as you need, but only on that specific route. It can be anything from a taxi to a truck!
Our first chore this morning was walking up to AeroTucan to purchase flights down to Puerto Escondido – we had originally planned to rent a car and drive down to the coast, staying in the rain forest along the way. However, after we stayed an extra day in Mexico city for Grant’s recovery we all thought it might be easiest to just fly down there. Vivian and Wilson were all for that, particularly as Vivian gets a bit carsick and that long trip along the ridge of the mountain would be a challenge. She thought it would be much easier to fly …. until she saw that we are going to be on a 9 passenger plane … ha ha – Vivi certainly has risen to a lot of challenges this trip – she’s a trooper though and both she and Wilson have been amazing at this different sort of trip.
On our way down to get the collectiva we saw so many cute kids – all dressed up as either Revolutionaries, caballeros (cowboys), Abuelitas (indigenous women) or Pancho Villa (hero). I did manage to get a couple of cute photos. Today is their national day of celebration of independence and all the preschool and primary school children regularly do this.
all ready for celebrating Independence Day
She was so cute, and happy to have her photo taken.
The market was fascinating. All the indigenous folk come in from the mountains to do their shopping, and their selling. So many fruits, vegetables, chickens, nuts, weavings, pretty much anything you can think of. They even have a lumber section – you can buy your firewood, or charcoal or even building material.
Most stalls are maintained by women, but there are a fair share of men doing the job also – you could buy anything here!
It was easy to imagine these old gals meeting up every week to chat.
I’ve never seen black corn!
Every display is so enticing.
Chicken or turkey for dinner? It doesn’t get much fresher than this.
Picking up the weekly load of firewood.
So delicious. Following dinner we went to a percussion concert – 6 amazing performers – all free.
[caption id="attachment_2501" align="alignnone" width="584"]
Percussionists – amazing.
The most incredible aspect is that you are listening to such brilliant music in an incredible venue – all of a sudden you look up and the ceiling is elaborately finished and you realize you are in a first class art gallery!
And then – imagine our delight when we realized the opera house was hosting a free Shastikovich concert – I tell you that cellist had magic fingers and brought the audience to tears.
We attended a free Shastikovich concert here – stunning building inside and out.
The inside of the dome.[/caption]
no flash allowed – but you get the idea of the grandeur[/caption
Perhaps most Mexican of all was that throughout each concert we could hear the chants of protestors and the beat of their drums while indoors, in these incredible locations, it was a different world.
Things are heating up in Oaxaca – the protestors are all still here – and are setting up camp in many of the streets. It is hard to imagine in Canada that people would just arrive, string tarps across the streets and set up a tent underneath it – on major streets! Obviously they feel very strongly that it is time for a change.
Tomorrow we are off to En Via – this tour will take us to the homes of 3 separate women, operating on micro loans to help sustain their families, and hopefully break the line of poverty.
chattykathychatsandcooks 