Mole, Mountains and Mezcal
Mole, Mountains and Mezcal
Mexico #5: Oaxaca de Juarez and the Sierra Norte
This week’s podcast episode is an audio version of Orienting to the Dawn, launching a series on the four directions with my piece from last year about India. In print, though, I continue in the west - with more musings from my Mexican trip.
I arrived in the state and eponymous capital city of Oaxaca on Christmas Day. Fortunately the big family night is the 24th (which I strategically spent on the bus) so there were slow crowds building up in the streets and places open to eat in by the evening. Oaxaca at Navidad blended style and taste remarkably peacefully. After the constant fit-inducing flashing fairy light things of Villahermosa's festive stalls, it was a bit of a relief. The city seemed on some levels to be like a considerably bigger, more self-confident version of San Cristobal, with an old centre that sparkled. Carefully executed paintings and textiles lined the main streets, and artisan Christmas markets closed others off. The most frequent new crazy item I hadn't seen in San Cristobal were alebrijes. This is an example of what I'll come back to in the course of my Oaxaca journey and I'll call the “cultural mycelium network”, just to make it feel a little more alive than Dawkins' clever but overused term, “memes”. It's how creative ideas travel and shift in Mexico and elsewhere, but with the impulse I now knew of the ever-creative rainforest, cultural mycelium is how I'd see it: invisible image-roots and channels leading mushrooms to pop up in the most unexpected places.
Alebrijes, I discovered (on an unrelated wall later in Cholula) were dreamt about by an artist and writer from Mexico City. How they ended up being so dominant in far distant Oaxaca, is something I haven't yet traced, but no doubt there are threads, including that recent kids' Hollywood-meets-Mexico movie ‘Coco’. They're exquisite wooden animals, decorated in the most outrageous Bermuda shorts colours, and varying from the smallest pieces artists can still differentiate dots on up to extraordinary gigantic jaguars and axolotls and things. (Axolotls are another cute Mexican animal I haven't met but have seen on plenty of designs: amphibian salamanders who formed the basis for Toothless the dragon in ‘How to Train Your...’ And a critically endangered national symbol of Mexico, because they live pretty much exclusively in the Aztec lake that is now almost all covered by Mexico City).
After all the delicious food I'd already met, I wondered what more Oaxaca might have to offer me. Tlayudas was the first answer. Extra large tortillas negras! One Mexican told me that all the varieties of local foods are basically "variations on a tortilla theme" but they're usually a good theme. I also tried exquites, basically cob-corn scraped off into a disposable cup after being boiled with a sauce, your basic street food available all over the place. But of course on Christmas night the main answer was more chocolate. However in this case it was a traditional hot chocolate in the fanciest chocolatey place with camareros in tuxedos, stirring it for you at the table with cinnamon and other good stuff. A rich Christmas treat to savour, while carols played in the background.
Except they weren't the kind of carols I remembered! And this was a really interesting Christmas realization. On the bus I'd been woken by dramatic, troubled Mexican voices on the screen, which was a little disconcerting when I recognized the US actors. Although Mexico has a sizeable film and television industry of its own, there must be a lot of work for local actors dubbing stuff from north of the border, and many Mexicans must go through life blissfully unaware of what Leonardo and co really speak like. And then all those Victorian Christmas carols, and other popular Christmas songs, have been rewritten and sung with Spanish lyrics. Besides these there were a bunch of local villancilos I hadn't heard before, some of which are apparently quite risqué, so I’m not sure what baby Jesus would think. I was becoming more aware of just how extensive and varied is the Latin American recording world, able because of the language frontier to be comfortably independent of the US-dominated landscape, even as it interacts with it. My cousin tells me the industry in Quebec also insists on French Canadian voices doing all their dubbing. I guess if you can't keep the crap stuff out, at least make some bucks out of it for locals. Anyone up for remaking Harry Styles songs in isiXhosa? You're welcome.
I looked over the city from my hostel, on a hillside outside the centre, near a pretty local Catholic shrine. Above was the huge open air Auditorio Guelaguetza, most famous for a July gathering of traditional dances from all over the state, which began life a century ago as a morale-boosting community exercise after one of those earthquake terremoto things. I'd already seen dancers in their costumes in the zócalo, the leafy central plaza, and would see more in the coming days of festivity. There were buskers all over the place too, generally pretty high quality. Probably the best was a seriously hip young mariachi-style group with their own dance routines, performing outside the spectacular church of Santa Domingo. (You may have noticed this name pop up already in an article: the Dominicans were the first friars off the boat and consequently laid claim to some of the top real estate in Nueva España). And I later discovered that right next door to the hostel was a pretty exclusive little restaurant, set up by a Grammy-winning Veracruz traditional singer, and featuring quality musicians from around the country every night. It was obvious that Oaxaca had money, history, culture and good food. It also had a vibe (though I was quite pleased to be able to sleep up on the hillside). On the Day of the Innocents that week - a charming day in the Catholic calendar commemorating when Herod's supposed murder of babies took place, and in Mexico turned on its head to become the equivalent of April Fool's Day - practical jokes went off, inevitably including loud daytime street fireworks and one or two over-exuberant encounters with the law. And every day there was the huge mercado 20 noviembre, which makes a summer Friday night at Muizenberg’s Bluebird market seem like a quiet evening out. I found it a bit overwhelming and escaped in the wrong direction, via the ‘corridor of smoke’ - the ‘pasillo de humo’ – where meat was being smoked at every stall! Finally I bought myself an aguacate (avocado) and retreated with some bread and a little delicious artisan cheese and lettuce.
Quite important to check the bread is salted though. Mexicans love their pan dulce, which is what I got each morning, in far more varieties than the normal range of croissants in a mainstream patisserie. At least Oaxaca has plenty of vegetarian and organic options; La Cosecha was another daytime market that was a bit of a refuge for me, with a huge variety of drinks and meal possibilities on offer. This was where I first tried pulque: mildly more alcoholic than kombucha and also with reputed benefits for the stomach in its ferment. A local who swears by it told me it had a bad name for years because a bizarre rumour went round that it was made with dung for poor people; perhaps this was to increase middle class demand for more alcoholic products. In Mexico City I had some with a mango flavour in a pulqueria in Garibaldi Square, and to be honest I think if I had had a few more I might have been rolling home.
Pulque is made from agave sap. On the switchbacks through the mountains from the east, my first sights of the state were agave fields, which quickly got me thinking. Here’s yet another Mexican crop that’s made it to South Africa without us really clocking its origins, as it grows in gardens and farms close to our indigenous aloes. Up there with all those other imports from the Americas, like prickly pears (and I had a delicious vegetable soup made with nopal pads – the same prickly pear cacti), as well as the avos and vanilla and... and... In our health shops you might well find agave nectar as a sugar alternative. But actually, the agave was principally being grown for mezcal, which South Africans have yet to cotton on to. (Oh, cotton is originally another Mexican crop, of course).
Oaxaca’s centre is remarkably unspoilt, especially when you get up in the hills and see how far down the valley the outskirts spread. The story behind that is largely put down to Francisco Toledo. Names don’t come much more Spanish than that, but Toledo was an indigenous Zapotec, and ‘Oaxaca’s Picasso’. Except rather more direct with some of his political activism. When MacDonald’s and Starbucks tried to move into town, Toledo successfully protested by setting up a tamale stall, and threatening to keep making them naked if the multinationals didn’t get out. He stood up vehemently against genetically modified crops; damage to sacred sites; and missing persons in the neighbouring state of Guerrero, his protests always incorporating culture – in that case launching traditional kites with images of the disappeared. La Cosecha was a market he started; perhaps more obviously he had a profound influence on Oaxacan art. The enormous free library of art books near Santa Domingo is all part of a cultural centre he set up for local artists. The wonderful work at the museum of local art and the general networks for artists in the city are all something he encouraged directly and funded with the international sales of his work. Toledo passed away a few years ago, and one of the many murals in the city is a small image on his old house, featuring the artist with his dog – a tonal in life, a nagual in death, the animal spirit always with him. Other murals around the city are done more as engravings, another artistic style Toledo really promoted locally, sometimes breathtaking (such as a jaguar corn goddess I saw close to La Cosecha).
Still, I was really feeling the need to get away from it all, as the year drew towards its conclusion: I wanted some New Year’s Eve JOMO (Joy of Missing Out), as I expected the city centre to be pretty intense; so I set off into the Sierra Norte mountains, to the north. This was also because I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the solitude in the city, and felt the call of nature might be restorative for my spirits. Thanks to a lot of support from locals on WhatsApp groups, I’d managed to make a plan for myself in the Pueblo Magico of Capulalpam. Two small colectivos (in this case just shared private taxis) and two hours of switchback driving later, I arrived in a much larger and prettier village than I’d dared to expect. It had taken multiple Spanish conversations by phone and WhatsApp to track down how to book anywhere, including walks, but somehow I had ended up with a cabaña up in the peaks. This wasn’t, however, a perfect arrangement. The large stone cabin looked great but got next to no sunlight; it had a fireplace designed for braaiing meat rather than heating the bedroom, and I had to head up to the workers’ hostel to boil up any water for tea. Sometimes hospitality in the region left something to be desired even though there was clearly willingness: bathmats and shower curtains in particular being rare occurrences, as well as bedside lamps, though I got given enough different soaps to keep me going through the coming year. Still, it was great to arrive somewhere a little quieter, with a beautiful old church, and easy access to forest walks in the hills. I went up and meditated in the trees, which was always a good way of remembering I was actually in the tropics (on this occasion it was a green mosquito that took the gap while my eyes were closed).
Later I wandered through the reserve grounds, to a sweet restaurant next to a suspension bridge and a lovely flowing river. It was there that I somewhat regretted having had to leave my trombone back in the city. It turned out to be a local’s birthday, and the celebration was to start during the course of my late lunch. The valley’s high school wind band, all twenty of them, came and started playing for him and his guests to start dancing. In Cape Town, this would have been a private function and the restaurant would have closed to the public, but in rural Oaxaca, this was a social democratic occasion. Everyone was allowed to be there, as long as we put up with the community spirit just getting on with their lives. I liked it, very much, and not just because the music was excellent. Mexico really is a land of brass and wind instruments: I’d heard some great stuff in the Christmas festive marches through the city, and now these youngsters were playing classics from the national repertoire. Mexican marching bands started with the imports of nationalistic European military styles in the 19th century, but really branched out across the country into their own frenetic forms. Everyone seemed to be encouraged to take part, to pick up an instrument. It was something I feel has been really lost in many supposedly more ‘sophisticated’ places, where computer screens have been set up instead as weak substitutes. I headed out again a while after into the forest, leaving the party going but with more of a spring in my step. The village dogs and their midnight howls were not enough to disturb my dancing equilibrium.
The next day I set off on a fast-paced hike with my local guide, Jairo. He powered us through the 20+ kilometres, through the familiar oaks, pines, bromeliads, and orchids, over multiple streams, and past a lot of noisy pavas – wild turkeys – flying up in the branches and feasting on bromeliad seeds. He was going too fast to see the white-tailed deer I spotted, or the long-tailed birds; and I think I was perhaps the only one to spot small bubblegum-pink mushrooms popping out of fallen branches. I forgave him because, firstly, he had been born here but spent much of his life in Mexico City, where his favourite pastime was trail-running in the surrounding mountains. And secondly, because it was his 76th birthday! On New Year’s Eve I did a shorter trail with him up to some cliffs and waterfalls, this time in the company of a US American whose Spanish was more confident than mine. We also went via a vista over Capulalpam and Jairo explained that it was an autonomous pueblo – its council largely running its own affairs, in a network with other local valleys; and the whole mountain reserve was communally owned. A big sign on the way into the village pointed out that no land was for sale; so the small-scale, democratic and communitarian principles I’d seen in Chiapas were quietly true here too. The local Zapotec dialect had, however, died out, and a neighbouring dialect was being taught to those who wanted to regain a connection with cultural roots. There was a centre for ongoing studies in indigenous medicine, which looked like a vibrant place. At one point he invited us to walk barefoot, in silent contemplation and gratitude for the earth energies below; I had personally been longing for this, and was delighted that even this very practical, previously big-city man was ready to invite us into something more spiritual.
It was in the relative peace of Capulalpam that I tried out mole negra. Moles are rich sauces made with many spices and other ingredients, which I had in this case with tortillas and rice; the mole negra is made with cacao, though it’s a savoury dish. (Guaca-mole is a mole made with a-guaca-te). This was delicious, and so in the evening I returned with Matthew (the US guy) to Oscar’s place to try our luck once more. There was method in this: having watched the last sunset of the year, later for us than for almost everyone I know, we realised that Mexicans actually usually spend New Year with their families and all food options were disappearing. Oscar was persuaded to step away from his folks and made us an awesome spicy stew with trout from the streams we’d walked beside earlier, and then he cracked open my first couple of tastes of mezcal, one with a granadilla base, and one with a pear base, both from gigantic bottles of fresh artisan stuff he kept on the bar. It was smooth, not burny, and I could sense it was potentially very enticing.
Two shots of mezcal, however, were enough to have us take a few more risks. First we got Oscar to show us some of his salsa steps before we departed, as it turned out he was also a dance teacher, like so many Mexicans. And secondly, Matthew took it upon himself to purchase some of those infamous cohetes so we could join the locals in being a little dangerous in the streets – all available at a specially set up stall near the village square. The prize item was a large plastic firework in a familiar shape, called the ‘Omicron Coronavirus’. I pointed out that this was South Africa’s gift to the world a couple of New Year’s back and we had to let that one off too, though as with the original, it was a bit underwhelming. I didn’t quite make it awake to Mexican New Year, not least because I had a 7am colectivo to catch back to the city – the only one on New Year’s Day. But it was a thoroughly different way to spend the evening, and to break a bit more out of my shell in communication with the locals. Matthew, who had travelled extensively in South America, was a great help with setting me up renewed for the 2024 leg of my trip! He shared about his afternoon down at the soccer field, watching an end-of-year tournament full of slightly inebriated players; and his evening before, politely gatecrashing somebody’s Quinceanera in the village hall (the traditional whole-community party to celebrate a girl turning fifteen) where he was welcomed in for the evening; and how he’d previously crossed an unorthodox route from Argentina to Chile, simply by asking questions and striking up conversation. I boarded the morning bus, grateful and inspired.