Annie & Safe Go West

Day 7.  Our time spent in Oaxaca (ph. War-Hair-Care) has been a never-ending feast. Here’s a list of the most interesting food and drink we’ve sampled. These have been categorised in the most sensible way for Mexico … (a) foods with chilli and lime (b) foods without chilli and lime (c) foods with chocolate:

Foods with chilli and lime:

• Chapulitas (grasshoppers)
• Peanuts
• Sueno Beer (marguerita style with salt)
• Cucumber
• Mixed barbeque meat platter
• Barbequed spring onions
• Elotes (corn on the cob with cheese)

Foods without chilli and lime:

• Mamey milkshake (dubious looking fruit reminiscent of pumpkin pie)
• Tuna sorbet (sounds fishy, but tuna is prickly pear)
• Nopal salad (cactus … not the Flemish variety)

Foods with chocolate:

• Breakfast hot chocolate with water or milk served in a clay dish with corn bread
• Tejate (drink of the gods … an Aztec drink made with roasted cocoa beans, corn, mamey seeds and rosita flowers)
• Seven types of Mole of all colours of the rainbow
• Atoles (hot chocolate thickened with maize)
• Eating chocolate (crumbly and sweet)

Cucumber with ... chilli and lime

Mamey (to be said in the style of Al Jolson)

Tejate

The next piccy is for James.  Would you like us to bring any seeds back?

Red chill, black chilli, Jamaican chilli, chipotle chilli, costillo chilli ...

Safe decided to get a hair cut and shave today, mainly to prevent being patted down more than once before getting onto a bus.  He didn’t quite bank on getting as close a shave as he did … pretty sure you’re only supposed to remove the hair and not the skin.  The bleeding did stop eventually, though it’s debatable whether the neat alcohol rubbed into the skin post-shave helped with that.

Thought: Does the  insurance cover close shaves?

A close shave

After a heavy day’s eating, we parked our bums on a bench to steal some free wifi from a bar nearby.  We were accosted by a bunch of children who claimed to be trying to sell us a hand-made orange scarf, but were really more interested in playing the latest golf game on our iPhones (which we’ve never played ourselves).  Thanks, Jonathan for installing the game apps on our phones.  We made a lot of friends today!

Anyone for golf?

Factoid: Although we spent most of the day sampling food, we did manage to visit a pile of rocks in the morning.  Monte Alban (not to be confused with Ricardo Montalban who lived much later) was built by the Zapotecs on a mountain, the top of which they flattened by hand.

Monte Alban

About to get onto an overnight bus to San Cristobal. Very glamourous!

By the way, Happy Birthday, Ron!  Tonight’s refried beans will be eaten in your honour!