The November Market and Evening in Oaxaca.
Early morning shopping with Rachel, preparing for her party tomorrow night, and then a little blogging on the roof top. I just downloaded the almost 600 photos I’ve taken since leaving Oaxaca for Mazunte, and now face the formidable task of editing, organizing, and naming them.
After a while, I was joined on the roof by Jane and Carla, and soon after the three of us headed back into the city center where Jane was going to meet a friend, and I planned (this time successfully) to visit the November Market.
This time, I knew just where the November Market was, just a couple of blocks south and to the west of the Zócalo.
Carla and I went to the market together, and spent maybe an hour, maybe a little less, walking this giant indoor market, filled vendors selling fabric, clothing, leather craft, hats, shoes, trinkets, belts, and other wares, with definite sections for each type of goods, as well as food vendors. There is a lot of stuff here, and I mean a lot. Noisy, colorful, full of aromas, bustling, full on. Classico.
Around 4 pm I left Carla at at a massage place, right by the market, where
she and Jane had an appointment for a massage at 4. I waited for Jane to show up, and then I headed back to the market, but now walking the streets that form the outdoor perimeter of the indoor market, which was equally crowded, noisy, bustling, and full of life.
The indoor market continues on the other side of the street, but this side is mostly food and sit down places to eat, and lots of them. I walked around the market and neighborhood for maybe another hour, before heading north back toward the Zócalo and, beyond that, Xochimilco.
I am increasingly enjoying/loving walking these streets and feeling the vibe and the ambiance of the city. I can see how you could stay a while, and perhaps learn to speak basic conversational Spanish. I’ve picked up a little, of course, but it’s the replies that are more difficult. I can ask, but I can’t necessarily understand the response.
The streets are vibrant, but when you see heavily militarized police and national guard in pickup trucks with police manning mounted machine guns in the back of the pickup, you wonder what’s going on. So out of character.
Oaxaca is a city with a history dating back hundreds of years. It also has a pretty radical contemporary history, and a history of protest, sometimes with government violence against protestors. As recently as 2006, several protesters were killed when then President, Vincente Fox, ordered the police to attack and break up the teacher’s strike in the city. Indeed, protest seems part of the lifeblood of the city, and perhaps Mexico overall, and teachers, for instance, have been holding annual tent city strikes here annually since 1989. Even today, I passed through a tent city teachers’ strike in one of the streets directly off of the Zócalo.
Just as I arrived back at Rachel’s and went up on the roof, lo and behold, it started to rain, coming down steadily, but not too heavily, for maybe 45 minutes. It sure brought the heat down.
Around 6:30, Rachel and I headed to Centro Cultural San Pablo, once a convent, then a military fortification (not unusual, it seems), and now a renovated cultural center in this beautiful old building, where we met Carla and Jane, and attended a concert of classical guitar performed by the Cuarteto de Guitarras quartet. Lovely music in a beautiful setting, although I must have fallen asleep 20 times (I’m not exaggerating).
Walking back, it was a beautiful evening in the city, the streets still filled with people and performers, still vibrant and inviting, lit by an almost full moon. Classico! Wonderful.
Home, and soon after to bed.