Random Thoughts on Oaxaca
Random Thoughts on Oaxaca
January 29, 2006
----When we first arrived here, the street system drove us batty. As we tried to orient ourselves to the Historic Centre, where we lived, the names of the streets kept changing. Rayon Street was suddenly Aldama. Arteaga became Mina, Bravo became Abasolo, Fiallo became Reforma and so forth. Now that we have become accustomed to this oddity and of course carry a map at all times, we find this ever-changing name pattern quite fascinating. The Historical Centre is not that big and measures only 19 blocks by 17 blocks at its extreme boundaries. Perhaps there weren’t enough streets to honour all of the heroes, politicos and grandees who once graced this city and the streets had to be carved into pieces so that each and everyone could be equally rewarded in posterity. No doubt, if you took a street map to the library, you could find the full history of the city by searching every name.
----The families of Oaxaca always seem to be out together in the evenings. Toddlers, babes-in-arms, boys and girls, teenagers, mom and dad can all be seen in the zocalo, particularly on weekends. They sit and enjoy the free entertainment, they play games, they eat in open-air restaurants or they just stroll about. This is such an alien experience north of the border and yet such a wonderful thing to see. Perhaps we have a lot to learn.
----The police presence in Oaxaca is extraordinary. Being from Canada, I find it very extraordinary. There are police of every variety. There are traffic police, tourist police, regular police, military police and some that looked like ninja police. The traffic police are the most prevalent. You will find them on foot directing traffic with their high-powered whistles, patrolling in small Nissan Sentras with emergency lights always flashing or roaming the streets on motorcycles. These fellows are omnipresent. They don’t seem to be armed and they don’t seem to enforce any traffic laws should such things exist. Motorists run red lights with impunity, double-park wherever they please, never yield to pedestrians and create general mayhem. In the month I have wandered through the Historic Centre, I have never seen a motorist stopped for any infraction.
The Tourist Police mostly inhabit the area around the Zocalo. Typically, they are nicely uniformed young women who congregate together to chat. I haven’t the slightest idea what their job is. I have never seen them speaking to anyone that looked like me and I look like a tourist.
The regular police are also pretty visible. They carry guns and nightsticks.
Another group of police look more like army regulars. They dress in camouflage fatigues and are heavily armed. They are usually found in groups of four at large gatherings such as the Zocalo on weekends. One of the four will be carrying a machine gun and the others have lesser armament. Other than shock effect, I can’t imagine what their function is. What is the use of a machine gun in the Zocalo with a crowd of thousands of children and their families?
Finally, there are the ninjas. These guys are right out of the movies. They are dressed entirely in black including black silk headscarves. They wear full body armour and they carry side arms and machine guns. I don’t know if they have anything to do with the government. The last two I saw where guarding a site where two men where digging a ditch. Perhaps they were looking for Mexico gold. These chaps don’t look warm and cuddly. They don’t smile, they don’t like being stared at and god forbid you take their picture.
----The Mexican people seem awful gracious to their less fortunate neighbours. There are not a lot of people begging for money in Oaxaca. It is not like San Miguel de Allende at all. There are enough, however, and they congregate around the churches. It is amazing the number of ordinary folks from this town who give a peso or two as they pass by.
----Tourists in Oaxaca are not at all like the tourists in places like Acapulco, Cancun or the other Mexican hotspots. Those tourists tend to blow in for a week or two and fry their bodies on the beach and their brains in the bars. The Oaxacan tourists seem a more introspective and mature group. They seem intent on finding a new experience and not forgetting an old one. They tend to stay for much longer periods of time and as a result tend to be retired or the very young without work commitments. They come from every corner of the world. Although Americans and Canadians predominate, we have met large groups from France, Germany, Holland, South Africa, Britain and New Zealand. Some travel in packs and are likely on organized tours and some are alone or twosomes. I am amazed by the number of young women who are traveling Latin America on there own and simply going where the wind blows them. These are bright, attractive and articulate women who have wonderfully interesting stories to tell in the most carefree and welcoming fashion.
----Oaxaca is a great place to be a sinner. I am often at the Internet Café and usually order a cup of tea while going about my business. I am surprised that a spot of tea costs $1.40 or forty percent more than in Canada. By the same token, a bottle of beer costs $1.40 compared to $5 or $6 in Canada. Social engineering hasn’t yet reached Mexico and the taxing authorities don’t give a hoot if you drink beer or tea. What a novel idea.
For all you sinners out there, you might be amazed to know that a carton of cigarettes costs $18.20 and a 750ML of vodka runs just over $5. If you insist on drinking imported scotch or Bombay gin, you will pay the same prices as in Canada but, hey, that’s your choice. It is of course necessary to drink more down here since it can be quite hot in the daytime and it is absolutely necessary to drink before bedtime to dull the noise of the traffic and firecrackers. Drinking can dehydrate you so you are advised to mix your vodka with orange flavoured Gatorade.
----For a country that spends so heavily on public security, there is almost a wilful disregard of public safety. A great adventure can be had just walking down the sidewalk. Infrastructure such as phone lines, hydro, and street lighting is often installed under the sidewalks. Sometimes metal covers are built into the sidewalk to provide access to services. Other times it is necessary to dig up small sections of the sidewalk to get at the desired service. Public works must be highly fragmented in Mexico to satisfy union rights. A group of men may arrive one day and cut open a sidewalk accessing some pipe or wire. Two weeks later another group may arrive to connect the service and two weeks after that another group will appear to fill in the hole and re-pour the cement. (I am not sure if the last group has yet been formed) Regardless, the gaping hole in the sidewalk remains open and unprotected. There is a never-ending supply of such surprises throughout Oaxaca. I think it would be a great service to mankind if the tourist police were re-armed with wheelbarrows and bags of cement and assigned the task of filling in all the holes in the sidewalks.
----It has been reported to me that Mexicans are quite a modest race. This observation is based on the premise that you will never see a Mexican wearing shorts. It is such a well-entrenched cultural norm that even tourists are reluctant to be seen in such attire. By contrast, the young women of Oaxaca wear the latest fashions in hip hugging jeans and rib tickler tops permitting me to become more than an expert on the anatomy of the female belly button.
The Mexican modesty in dress is not as evident in personal relations. Mexicans are a touchy feely group and this is most evident among teenagers. There is no end of hugging, kissing and caressing on public benches, on church steps and under the lamplight. I guess there is not the same access to dad’s car as north of the border and they get their fun wherever they can. Oh, to be forty years younger again.
----If the sun is up it is a good day for a protest in Oaxaca. Never a day passes that some group with a bullhorn is not calling the faithful to a rally. The groups are not large; maybe fifty or less. The message is unclear to me but the enthusiasm is not. There is always a plentiful supply of Bristol board signs that are hand-written and available to the committed and there is invariably a short parade down some main street producing enough horn honking by frustrated drivers to drown out the message proffered by the protesters.
----I have commented before on the character of Mexican drivers. As a rule, Mexicans on foot are the most gracious and unassuming people. Put them behind the wheel of a car and they are Caligula re-incarnate. It is much easier to run a pedestrian down than wait one second longer. Heaven forbid the driver can’t advance a further twenty feet in the congested traffic.
Whenever I must cross the street I put on my best imitation “Dirty Harry” sneer and my eyes bore into approaching drivers saying, “go ahead and make my day”. If you bounce me over the hood of your car, I’ll rip off your windshield wipers on the way by.
----Don’t leave home without a Skype account. If you are not familiar with that service, it is voice-over-Internet-protocol. That’s right, you can telephone from your computer and it costs next to nothing. Phone costs in Mexico are outrageous; especially long distance calls. A twenty-minute call to Canada will cost thirty dollars. Skype will bring the Mexican phone bandits to their knees before long.
----When you’re on an extended holiday, it is normal to talk about the things you miss back home. Marie and I have gone through the list carefully. She has concluded that the only thing she “really” misses is her Jacuzzi bath. I miss the casino. The conclusion is that we both need a good soaking every once in a while.
January 29, 2006
----When we first arrived here, the street system drove us batty. As we tried to orient ourselves to the Historic Centre, where we lived, the names of the streets kept changing. Rayon Street was suddenly Aldama. Arteaga became Mina, Bravo became Abasolo, Fiallo became Reforma and so forth. Now that we have become accustomed to this oddity and of course carry a map at all times, we find this ever-changing name pattern quite fascinating. The Historical Centre is not that big and measures only 19 blocks by 17 blocks at its extreme boundaries. Perhaps there weren’t enough streets to honour all of the heroes, politicos and grandees who once graced this city and the streets had to be carved into pieces so that each and everyone could be equally rewarded in posterity. No doubt, if you took a street map to the library, you could find the full history of the city by searching every name.
----The families of Oaxaca always seem to be out together in the evenings. Toddlers, babes-in-arms, boys and girls, teenagers, mom and dad can all be seen in the zocalo, particularly on weekends. They sit and enjoy the free entertainment, they play games, they eat in open-air restaurants or they just stroll about. This is such an alien experience north of the border and yet such a wonderful thing to see. Perhaps we have a lot to learn.
----The police presence in Oaxaca is extraordinary. Being from Canada, I find it very extraordinary. There are police of every variety. There are traffic police, tourist police, regular police, military police and some that looked like ninja police. The traffic police are the most prevalent. You will find them on foot directing traffic with their high-powered whistles, patrolling in small Nissan Sentras with emergency lights always flashing or roaming the streets on motorcycles. These fellows are omnipresent. They don’t seem to be armed and they don’t seem to enforce any traffic laws should such things exist. Motorists run red lights with impunity, double-park wherever they please, never yield to pedestrians and create general mayhem. In the month I have wandered through the Historic Centre, I have never seen a motorist stopped for any infraction.
The Tourist Police mostly inhabit the area around the Zocalo. Typically, they are nicely uniformed young women who congregate together to chat. I haven’t the slightest idea what their job is. I have never seen them speaking to anyone that looked like me and I look like a tourist.
The regular police are also pretty visible. They carry guns and nightsticks.
Another group of police look more like army regulars. They dress in camouflage fatigues and are heavily armed. They are usually found in groups of four at large gatherings such as the Zocalo on weekends. One of the four will be carrying a machine gun and the others have lesser armament. Other than shock effect, I can’t imagine what their function is. What is the use of a machine gun in the Zocalo with a crowd of thousands of children and their families?
Finally, there are the ninjas. These guys are right out of the movies. They are dressed entirely in black including black silk headscarves. They wear full body armour and they carry side arms and machine guns. I don’t know if they have anything to do with the government. The last two I saw where guarding a site where two men where digging a ditch. Perhaps they were looking for Mexico gold. These chaps don’t look warm and cuddly. They don’t smile, they don’t like being stared at and god forbid you take their picture.
----The Mexican people seem awful gracious to their less fortunate neighbours. There are not a lot of people begging for money in Oaxaca. It is not like San Miguel de Allende at all. There are enough, however, and they congregate around the churches. It is amazing the number of ordinary folks from this town who give a peso or two as they pass by.
----Tourists in Oaxaca are not at all like the tourists in places like Acapulco, Cancun or the other Mexican hotspots. Those tourists tend to blow in for a week or two and fry their bodies on the beach and their brains in the bars. The Oaxacan tourists seem a more introspective and mature group. They seem intent on finding a new experience and not forgetting an old one. They tend to stay for much longer periods of time and as a result tend to be retired or the very young without work commitments. They come from every corner of the world. Although Americans and Canadians predominate, we have met large groups from France, Germany, Holland, South Africa, Britain and New Zealand. Some travel in packs and are likely on organized tours and some are alone or twosomes. I am amazed by the number of young women who are traveling Latin America on there own and simply going where the wind blows them. These are bright, attractive and articulate women who have wonderfully interesting stories to tell in the most carefree and welcoming fashion.
----Oaxaca is a great place to be a sinner. I am often at the Internet Café and usually order a cup of tea while going about my business. I am surprised that a spot of tea costs $1.40 or forty percent more than in Canada. By the same token, a bottle of beer costs $1.40 compared to $5 or $6 in Canada. Social engineering hasn’t yet reached Mexico and the taxing authorities don’t give a hoot if you drink beer or tea. What a novel idea.
For all you sinners out there, you might be amazed to know that a carton of cigarettes costs $18.20 and a 750ML of vodka runs just over $5. If you insist on drinking imported scotch or Bombay gin, you will pay the same prices as in Canada but, hey, that’s your choice. It is of course necessary to drink more down here since it can be quite hot in the daytime and it is absolutely necessary to drink before bedtime to dull the noise of the traffic and firecrackers. Drinking can dehydrate you so you are advised to mix your vodka with orange flavoured Gatorade.
----For a country that spends so heavily on public security, there is almost a wilful disregard of public safety. A great adventure can be had just walking down the sidewalk. Infrastructure such as phone lines, hydro, and street lighting is often installed under the sidewalks. Sometimes metal covers are built into the sidewalk to provide access to services. Other times it is necessary to dig up small sections of the sidewalk to get at the desired service. Public works must be highly fragmented in Mexico to satisfy union rights. A group of men may arrive one day and cut open a sidewalk accessing some pipe or wire. Two weeks later another group may arrive to connect the service and two weeks after that another group will appear to fill in the hole and re-pour the cement. (I am not sure if the last group has yet been formed) Regardless, the gaping hole in the sidewalk remains open and unprotected. There is a never-ending supply of such surprises throughout Oaxaca. I think it would be a great service to mankind if the tourist police were re-armed with wheelbarrows and bags of cement and assigned the task of filling in all the holes in the sidewalks.
----It has been reported to me that Mexicans are quite a modest race. This observation is based on the premise that you will never see a Mexican wearing shorts. It is such a well-entrenched cultural norm that even tourists are reluctant to be seen in such attire. By contrast, the young women of Oaxaca wear the latest fashions in hip hugging jeans and rib tickler tops permitting me to become more than an expert on the anatomy of the female belly button.
The Mexican modesty in dress is not as evident in personal relations. Mexicans are a touchy feely group and this is most evident among teenagers. There is no end of hugging, kissing and caressing on public benches, on church steps and under the lamplight. I guess there is not the same access to dad’s car as north of the border and they get their fun wherever they can. Oh, to be forty years younger again.
----If the sun is up it is a good day for a protest in Oaxaca. Never a day passes that some group with a bullhorn is not calling the faithful to a rally. The groups are not large; maybe fifty or less. The message is unclear to me but the enthusiasm is not. There is always a plentiful supply of Bristol board signs that are hand-written and available to the committed and there is invariably a short parade down some main street producing enough horn honking by frustrated drivers to drown out the message proffered by the protesters.
----I have commented before on the character of Mexican drivers. As a rule, Mexicans on foot are the most gracious and unassuming people. Put them behind the wheel of a car and they are Caligula re-incarnate. It is much easier to run a pedestrian down than wait one second longer. Heaven forbid the driver can’t advance a further twenty feet in the congested traffic.
Whenever I must cross the street I put on my best imitation “Dirty Harry” sneer and my eyes bore into approaching drivers saying, “go ahead and make my day”. If you bounce me over the hood of your car, I’ll rip off your windshield wipers on the way by.
----Don’t leave home without a Skype account. If you are not familiar with that service, it is voice-over-Internet-protocol. That’s right, you can telephone from your computer and it costs next to nothing. Phone costs in Mexico are outrageous; especially long distance calls. A twenty-minute call to Canada will cost thirty dollars. Skype will bring the Mexican phone bandits to their knees before long.
----When you’re on an extended holiday, it is normal to talk about the things you miss back home. Marie and I have gone through the list carefully. She has concluded that the only thing she “really” misses is her Jacuzzi bath. I miss the casino. The conclusion is that we both need a good soaking every once in a while.
posted by John and Marie | 1:42 p.m.
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