Thursday, November 17, 2005

Today we planned one of those fit-it-all-in travel days. We checked out of our room, stored our bags, bought bus tickets to San Cristobal de las Casas for 9:00 p.m. and went to Monte Alban, a Zapotec ruin outside of Oaxaca. As with the Tule Tree, the bus ride out was as interesting as the site itself.

We were on a tourist mini-bus, but as we wound upward on the hills at the edge of town, passing houses of which we could only see the roofs, we picked up and dropped off a load of uniformed schoolkids on their way home. After the kids got off, each one saying, "Gracias!" as he or she leaped off the stairs, they started down a dirt path next to the road and almost immediately disappeared, it was that steep.

The deal with the mini-busses is that they sell you a round-trip ticket which gives you two hours at the site. You're welcome to stay as long as you like, but you'll have to either find other transportation back or pay for a second bus ticket. We found two hours to be sufficient, although if we had not been faced with the prospect of paying another dollar or so, we might have sat and chilled longer, because it was a pleasant spot.

Monte Alban was nice. I was coming down with a cold and sneezed through half a roll of toilet paper, but otherwise enjoyed myself. It was no Teotihuacan, but it was a good trip. I won't say much about it here because this is one of those self-involved blogs and if you're interested in the site's history you can find much more complete and accurate information with a quick Google search. I'll just say it was worth the trip.

I wasn't going to mention this, but since Michael already outed us in his blog, I guess I have no choice. On the way back from Monte Alban, we decided to go to Burger King for lunch. Let me just say, I'm not one of those who's ashamed to have a little American fast food in another country, but I did hope to avoid the backlash from posting such information.

But on the way over to BK, we cut through the 20th of November Market and found ourselves in a corridor full of smoke and raw meat. We had no idea what was happening. It didn't look like the butcher section of the market. Further down, we encountered a vegetable section, which also did not look like the market's main produce area. A couple of people asked us if we were going to eat. Then we saw the grills, and I remembered reading about this.

In this part of the market you get a basket, choose meat from the meat people and vegetables from the vegetable people and then bring it all to the grill people and sit down while they cook it all up for you. Much better then Burger King (although I had a craving for the fries) but we had no idea what to do. It was mayhem to us. There were multiple meat people calling out to us and we didn't even know where the baskets were, let alone anything else at all of use.

Some guy rescued us. He made some people get up so we could squeeze past them to the very end of a long, narrow picnic-style table, the bench part of which was pressed up against the next bench. It was difficult for me to sit there, so let us all consider Michael's size for a moment. Once seated, I couldn't even manuever to put my daypack under the table, so it had to perch between us. My back was pressed companionably against the back of the woman at the next table.

After a short while, our friend brought us a pink-butcher-paper-lined basked full of grilled meat and green onions. Then the vegetable lady came asking about our condiments. She said something to us. We smiled and shook our heads. It was very loud in there.

"Mira," she said, and repeated herself.

"No intiendo," we said, making our most smilingly apologetic and self-deprecating gestures.

"MIRA," she said, and said the same thing again.

We smiled and all that, but I started to feel a little irritated. I mean, I understand were in Mexico and it's our responsibility to speak the language, but... Lady, we do not understand you. For your own sake, either bring us what you think we should have or start holding things up so we can point yes or no. You're just going to make yourself tired saying the same thing over again when you already know we can't understand it.

Our friend rescued us with a much simpler speech, making me understand that we could choose things individually, or "combinado."

"Combinado" stood out in his speech like a life-ring and I seized it.

"Combinado!" I said. "Si, combinado, por favor." And they went away and we were very relieved to be off the hook for a moment. Then the tortilla lady came and asked how many tortillas we wanted, six? And Michael asked her for limes. But she was a smart one. She didn't stand around explaining that she was the tortilla lady and not the lime lady, or waste time trying to give us some speech, she just came back and gave us six tortillas.

The vegetable lady then came back with a little styrofoam plate containing salsa, guacamole, sliced radishes, limes, and nopalitos. Nopalitos are chopped, cooked, slimy cactus paddles. If you like okra, youll love nopalitos!.

It all worked out in the end, despite our painful cluelessness. The food was yummy. The grilled green onions were well salted and limed and the meat was very tender. I kept my eye on the meat guys as we ate. They were constantly smoothing down the meat with their bare hands; perhaps this is what gave the meat its tenderness. The only time they took a break from the smoothing process was when a potential customer came by. Then all the meat guys erupted into shouting for him or her to choose their meat and not the other meat. The winner would take the money with his same bare, hands and then go back to smoothing.

The only way in which our friend let us down was that he did not ask us if we wanted a soda. We were afraid to ask because we didn't know who the soda person was and we didn't want a repeat of our faux pas of asking the tortilla lady for limes. So we remained thirsty.

After we ate and squeezed out of our seats, telling everyone "buen provecho" (bon appetite) along the way, it was time to pay. The meat guys got $40 pesos. Mira, aka the vegetable lady, got $24 pesos. The tortilla lady appeared out of nowhere and asked for $10 pesos. Smart again, because we would have had no idea where to find her, if we had even figured out that we owed her a separate amount. So, $74 pesos for the meal, around $7 USD for the two of us. Not bad. We still don't know how to follow the process correctly or exactly what happened to us, but it was fun.

After that we came to Cafe Los Cuiles to sit and take some cold medicine and have some sodas until its time to go to the bus station. At 9:00 p.m. begins our twelve-hour bus trip to San Cristobal de las Casas.

 

Post a comment:

Name:
Email:
URL:
A cow says:
Comment: (HTML is allowed)

Monte Alban, overview of the complex.

The inevitable souvenir sellers, Monte Alban.

Monte Alban is wheelchair accessible... kinda.

This arrowhead shaped building was probably an observatory.

Monte Alban - "Dancers" - thought to be carvings of castrated leaders of enemy groups.

20th of November Market.

Arranging the meat to a more uniform surface.

Apparently the meat must be constantly smoothed by hand.

Choose your meat.

Meat and vegetables on the way to the grill.

Meat grills on the rack, green onions cook directly on the coals.

Woodsmoke rises to the market's rafters.