Hierve El Agua and Teotitlan del Valle

So here we are at Hierve El Agua, a beautiful place that sits about an hour outside of the actual city of Oaxaca. I had never heard of this place before but Vicki and Tami wanted to visit Hierve so we came here and I'm glad that we did. It was really pretty and we felt like we were one with nature for about 20 minutes (just kidding!). But it was a nice place to see and there were quite a few other people there. The petrified waterfalls were interesting and I enjoyed our visit here.

Here are some more pictures of Hierve El Agua. You can see the petrified water that appears to be falling over the side of the hill but that waterfall is actually not moving at all. This was a very pretty place with a remarkable landscape and I'm glad that Vicki and Tami found out about it because I had never been here before. Vicki, like all of my sisters, does not really care much for nature but she wanted to be able to say that she did this activity, that we went out into nature. And I'm glad that we did. I also included a few pics of the springs at Hierve and a few panoramic views.

So here we are in Teotitlan del Valle which sits in the Oaxaca Valley, about half an hour outside of the city of Oaxaca. It's a small little pueblo known for its weaving! This was the second time that I was able to visit Juan Ramon Martinez Vasquez and his wife at their art gallery/workshop called El Caracol. They are definitely true artists and Juan speaks Zapotec (the introduction of his presentation of the whole process was in Zapotec!), Spanish and English (which is very rare). He and his wife are so friendly and hospitable. Here are some pictures of us trying to take part in the process of brushing out the wool (Vicki), spinning the wool (me) and on Tami's hand is the actual cochineal (a bug that grows on cactus that provides the natural color for the wool). Juan crushed the cochinilla (that bug in Spanish) in Tami's palm to show us the different colors that can be procured from that bug (when adding lime juice the color can change). It's an interesting process that takes a month or two to complete the tapete (or more time if the design is much more intricate). This was part of my first experience of being in Oaxaca so I'm glad that we had time to stop by Juan's place and see this again. Vicki and Tami even bought a tapete so I think that they really enjoyed this experience as well.

And then Juan showed us the loom which he uses to weave the intricate designs and patterns into the tapete. The first time that I came here (back in 2007) he mentioned that the Zapotec weavers of Teotitlan del Valle have been doing their weaving this way since pre-Colombian times. But the loom was brought over by the Spaniards so the Zapotecs have not been doing their weaving this way for millenia! We talked about this aspect of weavers' tales in Teotitlan del Valle in the one Anthropology class that I took at UC; the professsor, Martha Rees (who I just adored!), said that it's quite common for the weavers to try to perpetuate this myth but it just isn't true. The Spaniards brought the loom! Anyways, Juan and his wife are very friendly and true artists! Someday I will be able to afford one of these tapetes and perhaps be able to study the Zapotec language! That would be a dream come true. The last few pics are of Juan's great showroom. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Juan and his wife again and seeing their artistic knowledge and skill at work.

Lambityeco, Oaxaca and Teotihuacan Revisited

I feel so lucky to be here in Mexico! And I absolutely love Oaxaca. Each time that I visit this favorite place of mine, I get to see a new place or archaeological site. This time I went to Lambityeco, a Zapotec site that is really quite small but fascinating. It's surrounded by mountains that just add to the site's mystique. I cannot stress how small this site is compared to other places that I have been to, but it was interesting and a quick visit. But, after all, I was in Oaxaca and I was so excited to be able to visit another ancient Zapotec site.

Lambityeco was one of the Zapotec city-states that flourished as Monte Alban began to collapse. It's located in the middle of the eastern Tlacolula arm of the Oaxaca Valley and probably had a population of about 4,000 by 800CE. The Zapotecs here also incorporated the pattern of having tombs as part of their residences. Lambityeco's ruler, the coqui, and the chief priest (or bigana), had elaborate residences here that followed the pattern of tombs underneath their own houses. The last occupants of the coqui's house seem to have been Lord 8 Death and Lady 5 Reed, whose remains were the last to be interred in the multi-occupant tomb. There are some plaster portraits of Lord 8 Death's grandparents and great-grandparents on the tomb's facade. Lambityeco's flourescence lasted only a bit after 800CE before its decline.

And here are the famous "mascarones" found at Lambityeco. Although it is a very small site, these two mascarones really made it a worthwhile visit. The more I learn about the Zapoteca, the more interested I am in this culture's iconography, religious, and ideological beliefs. Tami and Vicki alerted me to the fact that built into the low walls at Lambityeco were shards of pottery so I included a picture of that (we found that to be quite interesting). Also, what a setting for this small little site! I looked around and all that I could see were mountains off in the distance. It's very beautiful here in the Oaxaca Valley!

And here I am (again!) at Teotihuacan! I posted quite a lengthy entry last year on Teotihuacan so I won't go into the scholarly details of this great, ancient city, but I just wanted to post a few pics of the "city (or dwelling) of the gods". We still do not know what languages were spoken here (although Nahuatl may have been one of them, perhaps another would have been a language imported from Oaxaca), who the people were that lived here, etc. but I just find this place so fascinating (and I think Vicki and Tami did as well). I had to include a picture of the pyramid of the sun (the largest of the three pyramids at Teotihuacan), a picture of me with the pyramid of the moon behind me, and the incline that one has to ascend in order to get to the top of the pyramid of the sun (it's quite the climb!). I enjoyed being able to come here again. I am perpetually intrigued by this place; perhaps one day we'll have more answers than questions about Teotihuacan!

More Day of the Dead!!

So I thought that I would need two entries for Days of the Dead in Oaxaca and I was right! I could probably do a third one but I think that with these two entries, we can all get the picture, right? My good friends Vicki and Tami came down to Mexico to visit me and go with me to Oaxaca (where else?) for Days of the Dead. We had a great time and I enjoyed being able to spend some time with Vicki and Tami again. They even brought me this skeleton hoodie (and we could have zipped up the hood to look like real skeletons but we didn't do that). So we were the three amigos during our trip to Oaxaca. Here are just a few pictures from around Oaxaca (I love how even at restaurants they decorate with these big glowing orange crosses!). I thought that I would include the picture where three guys are trying to kill me! I couldn't really keep a straight face so it looks like their tickling me with their weapons and not trying to really kill me, but it was a funny moment anyhow. It was a great third year in a row in Oaxaca for Days of the Dead and I enjoyed it immensely!

The night of November 1st was truly a busy one for the centro of Oaxaca. There were several corteges, there was a presentation, kind of like a play, and various groups of people all dressed up walking around the zocalo. And kids kept coming up to us asking us for their "calaveritas" (which means 'little skulls' but actually they meant that they wanted candy or money!-one kid even suggested that I give him my sunglasses so I think that they wanted some kind of gift, no matter how large or small). But it was interesting to observe all of these different kinds of celebrations that were happening simultaneously in Oaxaca. I particularly liked the group of people that were all dressed up but had the skeleton masks on. Aren't they so cool?

Here are some pictures from the night of November 1st. Vicki, Tami and I were walking around the zocalo taking pictures and all of a sudden I noticed this cortege was forming and we ran to catch up to it and take some photos. I just absolutely love the centro of Oaxaca because of this. This procession came by and there was music and obviously dancing and these crazy costumes! And all of these people just started taking pictures and falling into the tail-end of the procession as it went around the streets of Oaxaca.

And lastly, here are some of the famous tapetes found in Oaxaca. This year, the tapetes were absolutely enormous! I remember that last year they were much smaller and there were several more of them because the people that make them could fit them much more easily into one city block. But I was very impressed with these; the colors, the designs, the time and the effort it took, and the proud and open display of the tapetes are all truly impressive components of celebrating these special days in Oaxaca. This first image is from what used to be the government municipal building of the city of Oaxaca but has now been converted into something else. I really enjoyed being able to spend this third year in a row in Oaxaca for Days of the Dead!!