Day 13: After 10 days of eating scrambled eggs sin carne as part of our limited but free breakfast, we were asked: "Would you like a vegetable omelette?" Yes, of course! The omelettes have been delicious with long strands of green beans, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, and more.

We generally eat breakfast late, around 11 am, after morning exercise and some work time. Cristina still needs her 4 or 5 pm refuel, but Amby can generally get away with just a banana smoothie before dinner. That's $1.25, thick and delicious.

Dinners at nice places have been costing about $25 for two, including drinks. Amby's threatening to go to a few "dives" where two cold beers and some bean and cheese quesadillas would be about $8. Hasn't happened yet, but he's expecting Gary to join the quest soon.

So, as you can see, food is cheap. We're trying to convince ourselves that we're saving money by spending 6 weeks in Oaxaca. No doubt that is true about food as one of several basic expense items.

Yesterday Amby got a haircut for $3. This morning Cristina left for her Houston weekend, and the conference where her grandfather's poetry will be presented.
https://artepublicopress.com/recovery-project/news/recovering-the-u-s-hispanic-literary-heritage-project-25th-anniversary-conference-writingrighting-history/

Breakfast omelette and beans

Days 11 & 12: Getting a bit behind here. Yesterday, was a national holiday, Constitucion Day. At Cristina's new favorite shop, a place where ladies sit around crocheting and chatting, she asked what special activities happen on this holiday. "Nada," they answered. That was pretty much the way it seemed, a quiet day.

Left to right, Luzy, Maria Luisa, Alejandra--the crochet queens.

Monday evening we attended the 65th birthday party of the owner of Las Mariposas Hotel. It started early, ended early, and included live music, but not very danceable. The main instrument was xylophone. There must have been 50 guests with plenty of good food, drink, and postre con hielo.

Today, Tuesday, the gym and English Library were open again for the first time in three days, and life returned to normal. Amby went to a lecture on the political economy of the indigenous groups. The speaker was a retired university professor, very knowledgeable, but his talk was too academic and lacked context.
It was a little interesting to learn that 80 percent of local "communities" are governed by traditional customs and habits, not Mexican law. The communities exist primarily to promote their local fiestas, some very big, many very small. The most important person in the community is the person who has enough money to pay for the major fiesta of the year, honoring the community's patron saint.

Tuesday evening Amby and Cristina went out for dinner alone for the first time since arriving. We ate at a lovely rooftop restaurant with views of the nearby Santo Domingo church and the distant hillsides. 
Strong margaritas, good food, and a still, warm, dreamy evening. We FaceTimed with Gary, who looked cold in his Mystic living room, but mis-connected with Laura.

Rooftop restaurant, Santo Domingo church behind

Day 11: My old Wesleyan friend John Hastings, who has spent five or six winters in Oaxaca, can't run any longer, due to knee issues. But he gets plenty of exercise, including walking and swimming a mile most days. On Sundays, he insists on walking to the Observatory atop the nearby Cerro Fortin. The rest of us willingly follow. A good part of the up and then back down is a long serious of steps called Las Escaleras.

Cristina and John near bottom of Las Escaleras.

We talked all week about making plans for a Super Bowl party at a nearby restaurant, if we could find one that had a TV carrying the game, but made no such plans. Until the last minute. When Jackie and John led us to a restaurant where John remembered seeing part of last year's Super Bowl on a big TV screen. We got there, but no TV. We poked out heads into several dining rooms, and went up to the Terrace. No luck. The owner approached me, asking what we wanted. "Buscamos television para ver el Super Bowl," I said in my best Spanish.

In his better Spanish, he said something like, "Give me five minutes, and I think I can provide it." Next thing we knew, he was climbing a ladder in the main room and installing a projection TV system. A few minutes later, we had the Super Bowl flickering high on an adjacent wall.

Boring game. Until the last quarter. Then quite amazing. With about five minutes to go, I said to Cristina and John: "Okay, if this goes into overtime, we have to buy another round of margaritas." We had already consumed a healthy amount of beer and magaritas with guacamole and chips.

When overtime came, we ordered. The game was over before our drinks arrived, but at least we got one good selfie of Cristina sipping and me hoisting to the Patriots' win. That's our TV projection on the wall above my head.

Day 10: Before dinner we hung out for a while at the big church, Santo Domingo, where there is a lot of Saturday afternoon wedding activity. We caught some action from one wedding. It included bands and dancing outside the Cathedral, including huge puppets called gigantes, then a parade down the street with explosively loud fireworks "bombs."

For dinner, we had guacamole and a big salad prepared by Jackie Hastings at Las Mariposas hotel. We ate outside with Nancy and Bob Johnson. We were joined by a Canadian lady named Laura, who regaled us with tales of her efforts to learn Spanish through one ear before it escaped out the other.

Cristina did an "intercambio" at the Library with a local dude who spoke perfect English. He comes just to welcome foreigners to Oaxaca. He advised ignoring Trump and focusing only on what can be done for good.

Amby ran for 2:40 (2 run, 1 walk).

Day 9: We went to the local Market today. Amby had a licuado, which included banana and papaya, that the woman grabbed with her bare hands and tossed into the blender. It was delicious; so far he's suffering no ill effects.

Cristina bought a very light wrap and another shirt. She has been saying she packed badly--for a hot beach town, not for cooler Oaxaca. Now she thinks she's fully prepared.

She also found a yarn store where the mujeres sit around all day crocheting and placticando (chatting) en espanol. She figures this is for sure her ticket to fluency; she plans to spend a lot of time there.

For dinner, we went to a new place, Zandunga, to celebrate my friend John Hastings's 68th birthday. Cristina sang "Las Mananitas" (the Mexican equivalent of "Happy Birthday," but a completely different song), and we got a few of the other patrons to join in. Fun. Here's a photo inside the restaurant.

Day 8: Today, I'll let the photos do the talking. We went to one of the two "petrified waterfalls" in the world. The other is in Turkey. Hiked about 3 hours to get way underneath everything, then back up, then swimming, then a fresh, delicious lunch prepared by our several wonderful tour guides. Nothing but endless mountains all around.

The petrified waterfalls from below.

Under the waterfall. We have no idea what caused the flash of light.

Amby and one of our guides went far out on a ridge.

Amby, Cristina, and Tanya on little shelf at edge of endless pool. 

On the way back to Oaxaca, we stopped in Tule, home to the world's largest tree (by trunk girth). It's over 2000 years old. A Spanish language explanation said this particular tree maintains a cylindrical trunk for a couple of centuries, but then goes all "capricious." This one certainly did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81rbol_del_Tule

This photo shows maybe a fourth of the tree's trunk.

We had dinner at a lovely new place, El Quinque.

Day 7: Today I attended an astonishing talk on "pilgrimages" at the Library. (Cristina was shopping.) The speakers, a married couple, seem to be world experts on the topic. http://www.gitlitzdavidson.com/home-2
They were organized, professional, friendly, and fun, and I learned a bunch of stuff. They included Graceland among the 4 or 5 popular pilgimage sites they hae visited.
We had dinner at a new place, Cafe de la Abuela, in a second story restaurant overlooking the Zocolo (main downtown square). The chicken was astonishingly tender and the mole wonderful. The waiter put bibs on all of us so we wouldn't splash moles on our shirts.

Oh, yeah, before that Cristina and I did one dance, a rumba, at the dance party going on in the square. I wasn't quick enough to get the first dance with Cristina, however. Some Mexican guy grabbed her when I wasn't looking, and had a big smile on his face the whole time they were dancing together. It wasn't a particular dance, and he wasn't doing anything exceptional--just a shuffle. But he looked very pleased.