20th March Oaxaca

This morning we visited a very special wood carving concern. Rosaria defied her father to become the first woman to carve. Women usually only paint. They use the copal tree which has male and female trees. The male is harder with a pink sap and fragrant while the female is white and soft. The timber pieces take a long time to cure and then are treated to protect against termites. Finally they are painted. This family do special spirit animals and so I decided to find out what was my spirit animal and my protector animal. I am a jaguar and iguana. They carve these beautiful wood into these imaginary mythical Alebrijes animals, and decorate with Zapotec symbols. I have ordered mine. It will take about 5 months!

Before she gave us the demonstration she had a smoking ceremony to purify our thoughts.

We later saw other examples of this woodcarving but we all believed her work really stands out. No one else does the spirit animals.

The rest of the day was spent exploring Oaxaca, getting hotter and hotter. We eventually ended up in the street art area and had the most delicious drinks. Mine was a local Tamarinde slushie. Totally reviving.

We explored the street art which was both humorous and charming. By the time it was four we grabbed a taxi to get back to the hotel. There had been an accident and the roads were clogged so our taxi driver took a diversion which brought us out to the road near the gates of the hotel but it was barricaded with police. He explained and they cleared the barricade for us.

Earlier in the day we had been held up by protesting taxi drivers and delivery scooters who were blocking traffic.

Back to the hotel for a quick refreshing swim and then back to town with Chris and Rob . We found a very cool place Hotel Indigo and enjoyed aperitifs until a light rain fell and they ushered us across the road to their roof top restaurant. Very contemporary food and atmosphere. Oaxaca continues to reveal many modern aspects. I am enjoying the experience.