Monte Alban

 

Looking across the main plaza

Thursday’s outing was to Monte Alban, a large ruin about a 30 minute drive east of the city.  We opted to take a taxi and ended up with a very nice driver named Francisco.  He offered to come back for us in two hours for a reasonable price as there aren’t a lot of unclaimed taxis waiting for customers there.  It’s a lovely spot high on a hilltop.  We opted to go it alone rather than on a guided tour.  There are signs in English, Spanish and Zapotec but I’m sure a guide would have pointed out more than the signs did.  Still, I was quite impressed with the size and layout of all the buildings.  It is a very open site and quite warm during the day.  The visitor’s center museum was inexplicably closed.

One of several stelae recording important events

Perhaps showing male captives who were castrated

Francisco arrived to pick us up at noon, right on time.  We had asked him to take us to Arrazola, a little town that specializes in carved animal figurines and the famous fantastical alebrijes.  He had a long conversation with someone on the phone about road conditions and directions and we set off down the hill and onto dirt roads.  After asking directions multiple times, he successfully found the back route to the town and we were quite entertained with traveling through the little villages on the short trip.  Francisco knew people at a few workshops and took us to two, very high quality ones that were quite pleased with.  I got a hummingbird at the first one and Jake got a turtle/eagle alebrije at the second.  By then it was about 2pm and we were ready to head back to our hotel.  The cost for the whole trip was 900 pesos, about $45.

I found Francisco’s observation that Americans are often more solitary than Mexicans quite interesting.  Most of the weaving and wood carving workshops are family operations where everyone in the family helps out and lives together.  And in general Mexican families tend to have multiple generations living together or in close proximity.  My family in contrast live in many different states and we see each other relatively infrequently.  At least two of Francisco’s children now live in the US and I didn’t think to ask if he had children living in Oaxaca still, but he has siblings and parents in the area.  One of his brothers and his father died of Covid unfortunately, his brother before a vaccine was available and his father because he refused to be vaccinated.