Day of the Dead

I just spend Days of the Dead (1st & 2nd Nov) in Oaxaca city, and it was awesome! The whole city comes alive and has a big party in the cemetary, I kid you not! I wish I could post some photos up, cos it's really hard to describe what happened. The festival is actually about remembering the dead and celebrating the next stage of their lives. People bring flowers to decorate the graves, and bring food as offerings to the dead. At home there'll also be an altar with flowers and food offerings as well, different types of regional food etc. After the offering, the food will be eaten. It's a very colourful and positive festival, not at all like the name suggests when interpreted through a western perspective (which has really negative associations with death). The Day of the Dead tradition is a pre-hispanic tradition, but got mixed with christianity when the spanish came, so now there are crosses and pictures of jesus on the altars and the graves, along with the traditional food.

Speaking of food, there are several food specialties of this state, one of which is chocolate (which is made into mole [pronounced mo-le, not mole, the animal], a sauce made from chilli, chocolate and various other spices. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I'm going to try and buy some to take home.....if my bag will have space), and another is grasshoppers and crickets. In the markets, there are people with selling bags of insects, I think they've been deep fried, or at least fried. They look crunchy. And as ever, flavoured with chilli, lemon and salt. There are also these giant tortillas (about 3 times the size of a normal one) called tlayudas. It's a meal in itself.

Mexico City WOO!

Mexico City is nothing like I thought it would be! I had imagined a dirty, polluted, dangerous and ugly city (from what I've read and what other travellers have told me), but in fact it's quite the opposite! There are really nice buildings here, in the city centre and in some parts of the inner city area, and where I'm staying is really safe (I don't know about the rest of the city). I haven't noticed much of the pollution, although there are a lot of cars here. It's not as evidently smoggy as LA, perhaps that's the problem. It's not thick black smoke, lol.

I'm staying with a friend of Fabiola's (Fabiola and Christian owned the farm I was working at for the last 3 weeks), she offered her apartment when I said I was going to the city for a few days, and she's asking another friend in Oaxaca (where I'm planning to go next) if I can stay with them. What nice people! Patricia (the woman I'm staying with) lives in the inner city area, really close to the centre (if you count the presidential palace and the Zocalo as being in the centre), and is walking distance to all the major museums and galleries. It's very convenient!

So I arrived yesterday, and I went to the National Museum of Anthropology today. It is a ridiculously huge museum! There are 24 rooms in total, and they're all pretty big, with lots of displays and some bilingual captions. Needless to say, I spent the entire day there. I could've spent more time, but I was freezing! When we arrived yesterday, it was hot. Today, it was overcast, windy and raining a bit, it was a complete flip in weather! It's like I'm in Melbourne again. I'm wearing 4 layers of clothing as we speak. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of warmth in the museum, I just had a light jacket, so I was absolutely freezing. In between unsuccessfully trying to stay warm and trying to absorb the information presented to me (half of which was in spanish), I nevertheless was able to pick up some bits of information. The Aztec and Mayan rooms were really cool. I didn't know this before, but they were really big on blood sacrifices. They'd sacrifice animals, people, even children to whichever god who needed it at the time. They also built huge pyramids and temples. It was pretty cool.

On the food note, I've been eating lots of street food lately. I love street food, it's the best food you can get in any country! If only Australia had enough history to have good street food. I know enough spanish (and names of Mexican foods) to know what I'm ordering, and to get it without cheese! Seriously, everything has cheese and/or chilli here. You can get all fruit salads with chilli powder, salt and lime juice, same with corn on the cob, except they put cheese and mayonaise on that too! Regardless, I still love Mexican food, it's awesome! Oh, and they have blue tortillas! They're made from a blue variety of corn, unsurprisingly. They have a million varieties of corn here (ok, not that many, maybe 40 or 50). I thought Ecuadorians were obssessed with corn, that was nothing compared to Mexico! There's always at least one thing made of corn in every meal, most likely tortillas. Anyway, I'm trying lots of different foods, I just get whatever is vegetarian in the stall and ask for it without cheese, and then wait for the surprise. So far I haven't been disappointed!

¡Hola Mexico!

Yay, I'm in Mexico! I headed straight to the farm the day I arrived, because I had no idea what else I was going to do (being without a guide book and all that!). The farm (Rancho el Amate) is almost 2 and a half hours away from Mexico City. I don't have mobile reception at the farm itself, but there was reception in the little town about 5 minutes drive away. Go figure. Currently, my plan is to stay 2 or 3 weeks. I haven't decided exactly how long, and my plans will probably change depending on circumstances. But right now I have no plans, so am just going to play by ear.

The farm is cool. It's located at the foothills of very picturesque cliffs, so I have a good view when I'm gardening! They grow all sorts of stuff here, from ornamental plants like birds of paradise to edibles. The main production here is jams though. They make all kinds of fruit jams and preserves, which they sell at the organic market along with some other seasonal produce. Yesterday, I harvested carrots and weeded the garden bed, and today, I did more weeding and planted kale. It's amazing how long such a simple task takes. It took me the entire morning to weed and plant the entire bed, and by morning I mean until lunch time, which incidentally was at 2.30pm. Apparently people here eat very late lunches, at 2 or 3pm, like they do in Spain. Then they have a light supper at 9 or 10pm. I'm slowly accommodating by eating a late breakfast. It's quite an adjustment seeing as at the farm in Costa Rica, we'd have breakfast at 6.30am and lunch at 12pm, hours I'm more accustomed to. Speaking of accommodating, my body received a shock when I arrived on Monday. I was totally not used to winter weather, nor did I expect it, having just arrived from the Caribbean coast where it was too hot to even think about taking a warm shower! It is absolutely freezing here in the mornings and nights, I can see my breath in the morning, it's that cold! At night, I sleep in my sleeping bag along with 3 layers of blankets on top. But I prefer this than being perpetually dripping in sweat. The noon hours are very warm though. It's a bit like Brisbane's winter actually. I guess it makes sense, seeing as it's autumn here now. Has it been correspondingly hot in Brisbane?

The food here is awesome! I'm totally in my element. The first day I arrived, I had some grain bread and beans. I thought I'd be sick of beans after Costa Rica, but after eating it, I realised I couldn't stay mad at beans for a long period of time! I love them! They are the most amazing food! Also, Mexico is chilli central!!! I've been having my fill of spicy chillies here, and they are awesome, after being totally deprived of them in Costa Rica. The chillies here that I've been having are hotter than the ones in Ecuador! Oh what fun I shall have! The tortillas here are also really good. They're so different from the shitty Old el Paso ones (or whatever the brand name is) that you get from the supermarket. I can actually taste the corn in these ones, which is the best part. I kind of learnt how to make tortillas in the farm in Costa Rica, so I will attempt it when I get home and you can all be amazed by it. Oh, and I ate cactus today! Who knew you could eat cactus! I've forgotten its name though, despite being told several times. I really should write it down. And another thing, I've fallen in love with agave! It's an amazing syrup, and I had it for breakfast today with bread, it's so tremendously yummy! It's going to be my honey replacement. I'm going to see if I can buy a whole heap before I return to Australia, seeing as it is very rare and very expensive there. I think they have shitloads of agave in Mexico, they even make a kind of tequila out of it! Awesome huh!