- Saturday, 8 October: I scheduled an Uber ride for 0330 to get to IAD for an 0700 flight. The driver showed up around 0315, and I arrived at Dulles at about 0345 (virtually empty airport). Sailed through security and killed a few hours reading (I brought along Oliver Sacks’s “The River of Consciousness”) and listening to music. The flights to Oaxaca [map] were uneventful, and I arrived in Mexico in the early afternoon. On arrival, I discovered that my debit card had expired (it expired in January, but I had used it successfully the day before my departure), and neither of my credit cards worked in the ATM at the airport. I was pretty concerned about my lack of funds and my inability to get more, but on Monday I was able to get a cash advance with a credit card. I checked in to the Hotel Casa Conzatti around 1300, and spent the afternoon wandering around Oaxaca. I had dinner at the Restaurante Catedral (turkey mole), then hiked back to my room around 2200.
- Sunday, 9 October: Slept in on Sunday morning (up around 0830), read for a while, then walked downtown to explore the city center, and to meet a food tour that I had scheduled. The tour group was small (two Indian sisters, the husband of one of the sisters, and an excellent guide). One of the sisters had studied at GW, and used to frequent Chief Ike’s during her time in D.C. The tour was scheduled to take about 90 minutes, but lasted over 3 hours. We toured the Mercado Benito Juarez, the Mercado 20 de Noviembre, and several other nearby locations, after which I was pretty full (no need for dinner). When I got back to the hotel, the staff had a new room for me (the first night I was located next to the restaurant and kitchen), and I was able to stay in the new room until Friday, when I departed for Puebla with the Road Scholar group. Turned in early and got the first decent night’s sleep since Thursday.
- Monday, 10 October: Up around 0800, then walked back to the Restaurant Catedral for a wonderful breakfast (chocolate croissant, mixed fruit juice, coffee, and enchilada in thin mole sauce with onions). After finding a bank that had an ATM able to provide a cash advance, I explored the hills west of the city center, and stopped by the Jardin Ethnobotanical Museum on my way back to the hotel. After a brief rest, I walked to the nearby El Llano Park to read and have some ice cream. I walked back to the hotel around 1700, and stopped by the restaurant where I met Warren Clark and Pam Brown (from California), and Margareta Tuckman (from NJ). Margareta was retired from a career in antimicrobial drug research, so we hit it off immediately (she recommended that I read “Entangled Life” by Merlin Sheldrake, a wonderful book). After a quick beer (Modelo with worm salt on the rim of the glass), I headed back to my room to freshen up for dinner with the Road Scholar gang. The group consisted of me, Pam, Warren, Margareta, Susan Crawford and Jan Miller (from Montana), Kent Granzow and Ella Rae (from Seattle), Tom and Dorrie Mathews (from California), Loong Kong (from California), Belita and Norm Ramsey (from Ohio), Judith Slisz (from Connecticut), and two extraordinary guides, Maria Teresa Peniche and Marina Torres (both from Mexico City).
- Tuesday, 11 October: Up in time for an 0730 breakfast, then met the group in the hotel’s conference room for a very interesting lecture on the culture and history of Oaxaca, conducted by Suzanne Barbezat, our expert guide for the Oaxaca segment of our tour. Suzanne and her husband, Benito Hernández, own a Oaxaca tour company (Discover Oaxaca Tours), that schedules single-day and multi-day tours of the region. After the lecture, we climbed aboard a double-decker bus for a city tour, led by Suzanne, then walked downtown, visiting the Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán and the Catedral Metropolitana de Oaxaca along the way. We had lunch at a restaurant in town (stuffed poblano in walnut sauce, a Oaxacan specialty), then visited the markets I mentioned above. A steady rain had blown in while we visited the markets, so we took cabs back to the hotel. When we got back, Margareta, Judith and I walked to a nearby bank to visit its ATM. The group reconvened at 1800 for a happy hour, then dinner at 1900.
- Wednesday, 12 October: The itinerary for Wednesday and Thursday was switched, so Wednesday turned out to be our day to visit Monte Albán (the site I most anticipated seeing). We departed the hotel around 0930, and drove into the hills to tour the pre-Columbian Zapotec city. We stayed at Monte Albán until around noon, then had lunch at a nearby restaurant (Restaurant Los Huipiles), returning to the hotel around 1600. Back at the hotel, I led Jan and Sue to the nearby (working) ATM that we discovered on Tuesday. On the way back to the hotel, we met Belita and Norm who were also looking for an ATM, so I walked back to the bank with them. The Wednesday night dinner was “on our own”, so I met Kong, Judith, Margareta, Jan, Sue, Warren, and Pam for a brief walk to a nearby restaurant. Returned to the hotel around 2130.
- Thursday, 13 October: After breakfast, we headed out around 0830 for a day-long excursion, starting with a visit to Santa María del Tule to see the El Árbol del Tule, the world’s fattest tree (a 2000 year-old Montezuma cypress). We then drove to the Mitla archaeological site, where we spent an hour or two. After lunch at Restaurant La Choza, we visited the home (and workplace) of a family in Teotitlán del Valle that specialized in weaving rugs, using hand-spun and hand-dyed (using natural dyes) wool. I purchased a small rug (tree of life design) for Susan. We then visited a mezcal “factory”, where we sampled lots of different varieties of the distilled beverage. We got back to the hotel a little before 1800, and then the group convened to walk to dinner at the main plaza in town (Restaurant Asador Vasco). After dinner we attended a Guelaguetza show (a young troupe of costumed dancers doing traditional central Mexican dances). Since it was late when the performance wrapped up, we took cabs back to the hotel. I packed up for the early morning trip to Puebla, then hit the sack around 2230.
- Friday, 14 October: Breakfast at the hotel, then boarded the bus for the 4-hour trip to Puebla [map]. The trip to Puebla was via an amazing highway (Federal Highway 135) that traversed an impressive mountain range and long bridges spanning deep chasms. In Puebla, we drove to our hotel (Hotel Colonial) in the downtown area, where we had lunch and then checked into our rooms. After checking in, we toured the downtown area (including the Puebla Cathedral) with our Puebla expert, Jose Luiz Morales, returning to the hotel around 1800. Dinner was at a local restaurant, Fonda de Santa Clara.
- Saturday, 15 October: After breakfast at the hotel, we drove to the Cacaxtla archaeological site, where Jose Luiz explained the ruins. After the tour we drove to the Chautla Hacienda, were we had a lovely lunch in the old manor house, overlooking the lake and the grounds. After lunch, we walked through the grounds and visited El Castillo, a house built by an Englishman who owned the property in the 19th century. The property included the first hydroelectric dam built in Latin America. The hacienda was obviously a popular place for local families to visit, and the grounds (and “castle”) were crowded. After the visit, we drove back to our hotel. Dinner that evening was a “free option”, but since many of us were still full from lunch, we decided to just meet for drinks in the hotel dining room.
- Sunday, 16 October: Around 0900 we headed to the church of Santa Maria Tonanzintla, San Franciso Acatepec, and the Cholula archaeological site (Tlachihualtepetl). The Great Pyramid of Cholula is the largest pyramid (by volume) existing in the world today. It is thought to have been built over approximately a thousand years, starting around 300BC, and was a temple dedicated to the deity Quetzalcoatl. A Catholic church now stands on top of the pyramid. The ruins were closed on Sunday, but we spent an hour or two touring the grounds and the associated museums. After the visit to pyramid, we had some free time to visit the town and watch the festivities going on there, then headed back to Puebla. I skipped the visit to the Amparo Museum, electing to head back to the hotel to get packed for the trip to Mexico City in the morning. The group got together for our farewell dinner at Restaurant El Mendrugo.
- Monday, 17 October: Several people in the group shared a cab to the airport in Mexico City in order to make early flights. The rest of us departed Puebla at 0800 for the trip to the airport. At the airport, Maria Teresa and Marina guided Pam, Sue, and I to the cab stand, and I grabbed a cab to my hotel, the Marquis Reforma (a little too fancy-schmancy, as it turned out, for my tastes). Since the museum I had intended to visit on Monday (the Museo Nacional de Antropología) was closed, I decided to walk around the neighborhood near my hotel, and scout out the meeting place for my Tuesday tour. Dinner at the hotel.
- Tuesday, 18 October: I had breakfast at the hotel at about 0700, then walked to the meeting place for the Amigo Tours trip to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Teotihuacan, and Tlatelolco When we got to Teotihuacan, we visited a small tourist shop that specialized in selling stuff made from obsidian (I bought a small polished piece), and a tourist shop that offered mezcal tasting. Then we spent a couple of hours touring the grounds of the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon (climbing the pyramids is not longer permitted). After visiting the site, we went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. On our bus, I had been sitting next to a young woman from Columbia who was working on her graduate degree in biology. We had been having an interesting conversation on the bus and during our tour of Teotihuacan, and we dined together at lunch. She recommended the molcajete dish, which was huge and left me full enough to skip dinner that night. On the way back into the city, we stopped to briefly tour the archaeological site at Tiatelolco. I walked back to the hotel from the tour’s drop-off point, and packed up for the flight home on Wednesday.
- Wednesday, 19 October: Up early and had breakfast at the hotel, then returned to my room to lounge around until 1000, when I planned to head to the airport for my 1400 flight. The fancy hotel called a fancy cab (a Cadillac somethingorother, driven by a guy in a suit), and I got to the airport with loads of time to spare. The flights home were uneventful, and getting through U.S. Customs in Dallas was a breeze (due to the Global Entry facial recognition kiosks). I got back to BWI around 2300, called an Uber (which arrived in 4 minutes), and was home by 2345.
Kerry Snow's Travel Blog (and other stuff)
