Day 15

After a couple weeks here exploring the city and surrounding areas, we are ready to move on to the coast. We have 3 more days in the area and plan to explore a town with natural springs that are filled with minerals and have apparently created some beautiful formations that look like frozen waterfalls. There are some more ancient Zapotec ruins we’d like to visit too.

Although Oaxaca has so much to offer it is a pretty gritty city, and the dirt and smog has started to wear on us. I didn’t quite expect how dirty and crumbling so much of the city would be, and I’ve truly never seen so much graffiti in my life. I think every building, fence and wall has been touched. We are staying in a town that is a few kilometers outside of the city and it’s been an interesting experience being here. This town is also covered with graffiti and many shops and buildings are large cement blocks with completely open fronts. At night there are metal doors that pull over the openings, but in the day every shop is completely open. At first we had no idea what to make of the town. On the one hand, there is graffiti everywhere, the sidewalks are broken and crumbling, there are stray dogs wandering around and the buildings are dull cement slabs. On the other hand, the town is bustling with every type of shop, during the day when the metal doors on the shops are up the graffiti is less visible, and the family we are staying with seems pretty affluent. We have no idea if it’s a poor, medium, or somewhat affluent town. Hot water both with our host family and at the first place we stayed is intermittent and we probably only have one hot shower for every four we take. Being here definitely reminds us just how clean and comfortable life is for us back home.

The last two days have been more challenging. Yesterday we needed to get organized, make travel arrangements and reservations, and run errands. Needless to say, that is all rather difficult with two young boys in tow. Yesterday’s big adventure was a trip to the hospital with Hugo. We were in an internet café, trying to bribe the boys with hot chocolate to give us a few minutes to look up hotel web sites and check email. Hugo got up from the table, tripped and fell. Have I mentioned that everything here is tile or cement? It’s like the boys are always playing in the bathroom, with hard surfaces everywhere. He split the skin on his right browbone open (just like Jasper’s cut on his chin two weeks ago, also on tile). There was blood everywhere and the cut was deep. The café staff was wonderful, running for ice and towels, and while I ran out to a pharmacy for band-aids and yet more iodine ointment (we now have 2 big bottles) another patron in the restaurant went to a shop next door and brought Jim a washcloth for Hugo because she said it was better than a paper towel. We cleaned the cut and tried to gauge just how bad it was. I get faint at the sight of blood and this cut was enough to make me nauseaous. We headed home and our host Salvador kindly brought us to the hospital. It was night time and Jasper chose to stay at the house and go to bed.

The hospital itself was a bit dingy and rundown looking, but the doctors were friendly, there was no wait, and the examining room itself was very clean. After a thorough cleansing and checking they determined that the wound was superficial and didn’t need stitches, so they sent us on our way. The whole visit cost us $20.

Jasper had apparently felt a little strange being in their home without us though, and locked the bedroom door before falling soundly asleep. When we returned from the hospital we couldn’t get in the room. We went in the yard and could peek in the room and could see Jasper in there, snoring away. Anyone who knows Jasper knows that he sleeps like a rock, and it took us 10 minutes of constant knocking on the door and yelling to wake him up.

Today, all patched and rested we headed to the town of Teotitlan which is famous for its woven rugs. It’s a cute town and the rugs and other handicrafts there were amazing, but going from workshop to boutique was an arduous ordeal for the boys. When they get bored they start picking on each other, and today was day two of boredom for them so the antagonism level was high. We had them run races in the streets which helped a bit.

Now we are back and Jim has a fever. He’s in bed and thankfully it didn’t rain today. They boys played in the backyard for hours playing soccer, pushing each other down a ramp in a little plastic car and playing Frisbee. Hopefully tomorrow’s activity will be more interesting for them, and Jim will feel better.