A few days ago when I arrived at the Oaxaca airport after an unexpected one day layover in Mexico City, I was placed in a van in order to be transferred to my hotel. The vans are organized by zones and I recognized that our van was filled with people who were very familiar to me. We were all people who had been bumped from the original flight and spent the night in Mexico City. We are all tourists,mostly from the USA. I guess it makes sense to bump the tourists rather than the local people. They have jobs to get to. We don't.
Although Oaxaca is a popular international vacation spot, most of the tourists who were on our plane are enrolled in language institutes. Their hotel of choice is Las Mariposas. It's a small family owned eco-hotel located close to the Lending Library. Since our first hotel had absolutely no authentic Mexican feel to it, and my attempts to find an apartment in Spanish have failed, we decided to move to Las Mariposas yesterday. We spent the last three days at Hotel One which is designed for business travelers. It's very clean, comfortable and modern but has no Mexican feel to it at all. Las Mariposas has the traditional exposed brick ceilings, archways and fountains. Throughout the hotel are multiple seating areas, each featuring a different vignette. It's a mecca for English speaking guests. which is not exactly what I came to Oaxaca for, but it is only temporary until I find an apartment. It is an excellent place to stay if you are not quite ready for total immersion in the culture, yet want feel that you are in Mexico. The family who owns this authentic boutique hotel are from local lineage. They are bilingual, but you will also hear plenty of Spanish spoken here.
Today is July 4th. If you are from America, you will recog which is Independence Day in the USA, and the hotel owners have planned a few activities for the Americans. We begin the day with a homemade tortilla demonstration.
where some of the people from our plane are staying. Most of the guests are American, so our hotel provided a special Independence Day breakfast. Outdoors, several women rolled and cooked home made corn tortillas over a wood fire. It was very authentic.The van was filled with all the people who were bumped from yesterday's plane. I guess it makes sense to bump the tourists rather than the local people. They have jobs to get to. We don't. Most of the people we talk to are enrolled in language institutes.
TITLE Have you seen the bottle of tequila with the sinking worm? Here is the rest of the story
In the afternoon we took a taxi to a different town to attend another 4th of July party with the library ex-pats. It was a mad-cap adventure. Along with a crude map, the directions that had been given to me were written in English and they went like this: Turn right at the big tree, drive for awhile then turn left at the fifth fence post, etc. My translation was inadequate so he was trying to follow the map instead. I have never seen a cab driver try so diligently. The only information I was able to communicate is that the party is in the city of Huajuapan at a place called Casa Linda, which is some sort of charitable organization. Our driver sought help from every pedestrian on the street, went into shops to ask, and made several phone calls. As we zeroed in on the location, I heard him ask a guy about La Gringa Linda. If you are familiar with the word gringa or gringo, you know what's coming next. After an hour of driving, we arrived at the house of an American named Linda, but Linda was not having a party today and didn't want to have one just for us. I finally told the driver to bring us back to town. I was concerned that even if we did find the party, we would have trouble getting back to Oaxaca. I could see that he felt badly about the whole thing but it really was not his fault. I gave him a big tip and began looking forward to the evening 4th of July party at Las Mariposas. I'd been told that someone's dad was going to be providing Mezcal. TITLE Have you seen the bottle of tequila with the sinking worm? Here is the rest of the story
The owner cooked several Mexican dishes for us and the mezcal, which I was told is not tequila, was flowing. You know how margarita glasses are rimmed with salt? The mezcal was served the same way, but this particular salt tasted a little funny. Can you guess the secret ingredient? Have you seen the bottle of tequila, I mean mexcal, with the floating worm? Guess where else the worm comes into play. That's right, on the rim of the glass. The funny taste of the salt was the addition of dried worms! We exchanged emails with some of the guests since we moved to our new apartment tonight.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment