OKAY, I admit it, I am a bit of a Grinch. Yes it's true! Me=Grinchy.

It's not really that my heart is two sizes too small or that I don't care for Whoos or anything like that it's just that well...

I have to say I've had some pretty hard Christmases. Bad things seem to happen at that particular time of year. I've seen the bad side of the holiday season where so many people get their hopes up only to be let down or stressed out or bunged up. Family dysfunction abounds this time of year for so many people, others are alone and lonely, while others celebrate in grand fashion with thier small circle of invites only. *heavy sigh* I guess being on the wrong side of the bar for so many years I saw a lot of holiday baggage.

Every year I tell myself that I will be Christmassy, damned it! (kinda like I'm Gumby Damned it- remember? Eddy Murphy? Saturday Night Live? the 80's? C'mon peeps work with me here!) Every year I get overwhelmed by the whole holidayness of crazy crazy rush rush visit eat buy consume AAAAAAAAAAA! I always do things like buy Christmas cards in November and then realize on December 28th that I never sent the dang things out! I always want to have a little holiday gathering and then end up tired, running around, and having a dirty house.

It's not that I truly want to be a Grinch, it just seems to work out that way! That is, until this year... Look at me go! I put up lights! I decorated the house! There is even a big freakin' red bow on the door damned it! *said like Gumby* I have had peeps over for drinks in my decorated house, I bought presents, and I am having a little soiree on the 25th. Look at me go indeed.

Can you even believe it!? It is all the fault of three little innocent boxes of Christmas lights, with the help of a girlfriend who also suffers from a similar accidental Grinchiness. She told me that she had bought lights and was going to force herself into the spirit this year, I said, Yeah I really should do that too! The next time I was in the Chedraui I bought me some lights. Well if those boxes of lights didn't just sit around staring at me and collecting dusty cat hair for weeks and weeks until I declared that- THIS SATURDAY IS PUT UP THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS AND SMILE DAY DAMNED IT *said like Gumby*! Well, no one put up lights on Saturday. Hee hee! But we did bitch about it. Sunday, lo and behold, I opened the box of lights and strung them all over the house, while bitching around and definitely not smiling. When it was all said and done the house was decorated, clean, and the laundry was done- I swear aliens must have invaded my body that day!

On top of all the other holiday joviality, I have even already been to two Christmas parties! Thankfully, I won a big 'ol basket o' booze -n- treats at Roberto's Christmas party so I had stuff to serve to my first holiday drop in! Whoo hoo! This week we had my office Christmas party. It was really fun! We went on the Pirate Cruise.

Arrrrggh! Shiver me timbers, Matey! Happy Holidays!

So we draw to the end of our road trip. Sadly the day had come to leave Oaxaca and start the long drive back to Cancun. We loaded up the car and filled our thermos with coffee, of course, we ate in the market one more time also before heading out. We had planned to drive and drive and drive and drive almost straight through to make it home in time to get ready for the next day’s return to work. We drove up mountains for hours on tiny twisting roads; by far the most twisty turny roads we had traveled to date! We drove through Ixtlan (for those of you who have read Carlos Castaneda’s books), we even stopped to snap one quick pic. We drove up up, up, and up some more and we still had not reached the top of the mountains, we drove up through the clouds, through thick fog, and through ever changing forest. The fauna changed extraordinarily with the change of altitude and climate. Coming down the mountain the fauna became more and more tropical as we neared Vera Cruz. We really thought that we could make it all the way to Tabasco and stay somewhere near the capitol city of Villa Hermosa, good thing we don’t get too hung up on expectations! We did actually make it through Vera Cruz, things were looking good when we entered the state of Tabasco. We made it to La Venta, which is about 4 hours shy of our originally programmed destination for the day. We pulled up to the military check point, there was a tope-a particularly brutal speed bump, we stopped in font of the speed bump to speak to the machine gun toting officer and the car died. Right there, with the whole freeway worth of cars behind us, blocking traffic, and surrounded by military official types with huge guns strapped on them. I’m sure I mentioned before my fear of the police, especially the ones that carry humongous guns. So this was, in my world, a less than desirable place to have car issues- although looking back at the situation, I must say it was a real stroke of luck!

A group of military guys slung their guns around to their backs so they could help us push our car out of the way. Then they popped open the hood and tried to figure out what was wrong with the car. Of course by this time it was dark and late at night and there were no more buses to the next town. Here we were stuck at the military base check point place, thinking we might have to bunk down with the officers or sleep in our poor little broken down car. The military guys tried almost everything they could think of to try to start the car, almost like kids that didn’t have anything else to do, like hmmmm what can we try next?

The town of La Venta was just down the road, but we had no way to get there. The oficiales in their routine stops of the cars passing the check point usually ask where people are going and coming from so, they obligated the next car going to La Venta to take us and drop us off at a hotel. We hopped in a car with strangers, instructed by police type military guys to do so. One of the oficiales recorded the license plate number and phone number of the driver- that made me feel safe in some weird way that really doesn’t make any sense- so we were off to La Venta anyway. La Venta is a petroleum town. Like many towns in Vera Cruz, the main industry is the petroleum refinery. The only hotel in the town obviously caters to the workers cuz eeewwweee! It was one of the most expensive and icky hotels on our whole trip.

We managed to sleep without actually touching the sheets and the next morning we started the adventure of finding a mechanic on a Sunday morning. There was quite a bit of activity in the town for a Sunday. Typically in Mexican towns not much is open on Sundays. The majority of the movement that happens on Sundays usually is related to going to church or hanging out in the local taverns, but in La Venta there were taxis and people rushing off to work. I guess the petroleum plant keeps the town working pretty much around the clock. We managed to find a mechanic that wasn’t drunk (yet) and was not on his way to church. We caught a ride from his brother with his wife and kids (they were on their way to church) to our car –yes, we hired a mechanic that has no car himself (in these types of circumstances I guess these things make sense somehow). The mechanic (with the help of a whole gaggle of oficiales) diagnosed the problem with the car and we hitched another ride back into town, with some other local guy friend of the mechanic, to go to the auto parts store. I think we met the whole town that day. We met the mechanics family, his wife, kids, pets, his neighbors, etc.

So we had hoped to have time in Campeche to visit the archaeological site there, but that was not looking like it would be an option after now being so far behind schedule. We had about twelve hours of time lost when it was all said and done that we needed to make up for. A huevo we had to be back in Cancun to work on Monday morning, but as long as we were in La Venta we figured we could go check out the archaeological site there. Obviously this was not a scheduled part of the trip; once again, it appears to me, that the car knew what we were supposed to do better than we did, because the archaeological site in La Venta was not only amazing, but it was also one of the most informative visits I’ve ever had to a ruins site. The mechanic decided he was our friend and wanted to come with us to the archaeological site. So as soon as the car was fixed up we said goodbye to the oficiale and piled into the car with the mechanic to see the site. The site at La Venta is one of the oldest in Mexico. It was inhabited by the Olmecs, the first recorded civilization in Mexico; approximately 1150 B.C. The Olmecs were very different from other civilizations; carvings of the Olmec are distinctive. As my friend Stef commented, the famous Olmec stone heads look like Cabbage Patch kids. Haha. The Olmec figures often have helments, which lead researches to believe they were warriors and they often depicted people kind of crouched with their hands up near their head. One of the huge stone heads was found at what would have been the entrance to the site, along the ancient road that would have led to the stairs of their pyramid. It is thought that the head was a way of stating who they were and saying welcome. There are only three known Olmec sites in Mexico. I feel very fortunate that we just happened to stumble upon on of them. Roberto had never seen an Olmec site either; what good fortune for us that the car broke down, we would’ve just driven right on past! In order to make up the time we lost in La Venta, we had to drive almost straight through to Cancun. We drove through Villa Hermosa the capitol city of Tabasco, which is not looking so hot since the recent flooding. We saw on some of the buildings the line of water damage as high as the second story. There were a lot of closed businesses and piles of water damaged items on street corners. We crossed into Campeche, and followed the coast. In Ciudad del Carmen we saw the glow of the oil platform in the ocean; in all of its splendor against the night sky. When we finally crossed Campeche into Yucatan we were relived that it would only be about another 6 hours. The drive was beautiful with its constant variety of scenery, but it was long! We made it back to Cancun tired, cranky, and with sore backs, but we made it back in one piece. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We learned a lot about life, ourselves, and our relationship. I guess everything happens the way it’s supposed to… Life is what happens when you are making other plans…? I don’t know really all about life. I do know about myself. I do know, that after that intense moment on the beach in Puerto Escondido, my perspective dramatically changed about my life in ways that are not so easy to describe. Don Juan explains to Carlos Castaneda that a warrior lives his life with his death sitting on his shoulder and he is always aware of it. Paulo Coelho talks of being a warrior of the light and confronting ones’ death in his book, “The Pilgrimage”. Maybe I have a better understanding now of what these authors are trying to tell us about life. Or not. I believe fully, that this trip was more enjoyable because of the “bad” moments, perhaps we appreciated them more. Or perhaps, we appreciate life more knowing its frailty. Regardless, the good outweighed the bad, the ups were equally intense as the downs, and all in all we had a fantabulous time and came away with stories to tell our grandchildren.

The next day started with a drive to Mitla. Mitla is an archeological site with a Catholic church built smack dab on top of what was the main temple. The church is largely built of the stones of the conquered Zapoteco temple. The church is typical with its colonial design and domed top. The ruins are interesting for many reasons, one of the most famous being the tombs underneath the main plaza. One of the other details this site is famous for, is its well preserved decorative frezes and preserved red paint in some places. The surrounding land is arid, there were cactus and agave scattered around the site. From Mitla we drove to Santa Maria del Tule to see the oldest tree in Mexico. When we arrived in Santa Maria del Tule what do you suppose was the first thing on our agenda? Yes- you guessed correctly! Eat in the market is, of course, the correct answer! We made our way to the market in the center of the little town. We had consume de chivo = goat soup. Yum! Maybe it sounds yucky to you, but that’s just cuz you haven’t tried it! Mmmmm! So we walked over to see the tree. At first our reaction was like, oh that’s it? I mean we did drive all the way there just to see this tree, but then, once we got closer to it and realized how humongous it is, we were like, WOW! The tree is said to be over 2000 years old. It is incredibly huge! It makes the church next to it look like a doll house by comparison. The trunk is so large it’s almost impossible to fit the whole thing in a picture. It is said that in its shade, there can be sheltered more than 500 people and it takes about 30 individuals, holding hands, to circle its base. We ended up being pretty impressed by the oldest tree in Mexico and the good vibes in the small, tidy, town of Santa Maria del Tule. We had planned to go to Mitla then Santa Maria del Tule and then go all the way over to the other side of the Oaxaca City to the ruins site of Monte Alban. Upon leaving the huge tree of Tule we realized that we had more time to kill than we had anticipated. Yay, for us! That gave us the opportunity to stop off at Yagul! Yagul has tombs similar to Mitla. It also has the largest ball court found in the Oaxaca Valley, fretted stone mosaics, the ruins on the acropolis, and the huge defensive walls of the fortress at the top of the hill. There were a few archeologists there working, but there were no other tourists. The dessert scenery all around was as impressive as the archeological site. The next stop on our agenda for the day was Monte Alban. I know, ambitious weren’t we! –three archeological sites and the oldest tree in Mexico all in one day! Monte Alban is nothing short of incredible! It was the rival city of Tikal at one point in history. The ancient city rests in the Oaxaca valley, atop a mountain. The valley is surrounded by mountains. The view is fantastic! I couldn’t help but try to imagine what it would have been like to live there over 1000 years ago. It would have been a large and powerful city. The normal class citizens would have tended milpas and animals in the valleys to support the religious and important social and governmental persons that resided in the city on the mountain. The city would have been well protected, no enemy could sneak up on Monte Alban without being noticed, to say the least. Monte Alban was inhabited at different times by the Zapotec and Mixtec, there is evidence of both styles present. Monte Alban is a very large site. After tromping around Monte Alban until the security guards booted us out, we made our way back to the city, to the market to be exact. We ate at one of the butcher sections of the market. Yes- the butcher section. There is a row of meat venders, we purchased meat from them and then we purchased onions, peppers, salsas, and fixin’s from another nearby stand and one of the Señoras busied herself grilling all of the ingredients on a wood fire. We sat at a table and bought tortillas from a woman selling them, still warm, from a basket and beers from a kid who offered to run and buy them for us on the other side of the market. We ate like kings! After eating we lugged our full bellies to the cantina for Mezcal and the fútbol game (soccer). Yet another successful day of vacationing…

So we were off and running to Oaxaca City. *Side Note* I must eat and have COFFEE within minutes of opening my eyes or I am a crabby crabby girl! Roberto told me that there was no eating until we reached Pochutla and that it would be well worth the wait. So after about 2 hours of me whining and being crabby and whining and being crabby and whining and… (well you get the idea) Roberto was starting to ask himself if we were almost there yet too! When we finally did get there, of course, I’m like that lady has tamales stop the car! Roberto exercised enormous restraint and did not kill me, he merely stated that I should wait a few more blocks; it would be well worth it. We pulled up to a market area. There were food vendors everywhere! Tamales, hot chocolate (yep we were back in the mountains again and it was a bit chilly), atole, enchiladas, taquitos, carnitas, barbacoa, not to mention all the stuff that I have no idea what it’s called, oh yeah and all the yummy fresh breads!
It was like being a kid in a candy store except maybe cheaper and without parents telling you not to be a glutton! Since we were poor and worried about said poorness, we stocked up on yummy cheap food. I will refrain from telling you what is like to eat a cold greasy tamale at the end of the day, suffice it to say they were two for 10 pesos! We decided to spend the night in a town at the very peak of the highest mountain on the way to Oaxaca City. The town in called San Jose del Pacifico and it is famous for magic mushrooms. Yes, they grow there in the wild. No, it is not the season right now. So anywhooo- we were freezing cold, we even slept with our jackets and hats on.
The views from the mountain top were the most incredible I have every seen- really! Fortunately my sunrise pics that day were phenomenal; however, I didn’t have as much luck with the sunset. Truly, I have never seen a sunset like that, the mountain peaks poked up from the clouds below us. At the height of colorful display the sky was a lake of pinks, oranges, purples, and blues with islands of mountains and trees sticking up. It seemed like you could see forever, to the sea, beyond the sea… It was more than incredible. The townspeople were genuine and warm and friendly.
The family that owned the little wooden cabañas we stayed in, treated us like we were blood- even the dog wanted to sit in my lap and chew on my sleeve while we drank hot chocolate and watched telenovelas with the family in the evening. We left the next morning, like waking up from a dream and not being able to shake the image, that place- that sunset will be forever etched into my memory. In Oaxaca City we found a decent hotel and by decent I mean NICE (especially compared to our previous lodgings) where we could pay with a credit card. We wandered the city for the rest of the afternoon.
Oaxaca city has two huge market areas one is all FOOD and the other is everything else under the sun all jumbled together. We hung out in the markets and ate champulines= grasshoppers and people watched. We wandered the chocolate scented streets and visited museums, galleries, and the cathedral. Whoa- back up- did I say chocolate? Yes, I surely did. Oaxaca is famous for mole sauce, a spicy sauce made from chocolate. On almost every corner there is a chocolate shop selling mole, hot chocolate, and usually fresh picked, roasted and brewed coffee. Yes- my own personal heaven! I heart Oaxaca!
In the evenings we went to the cantinas *heavy sigh* I heart cantinas! Seriously we walked through the swinging cowboy doors and into a dark elaborately wood carved room full of people laughing, yelling, and drinking Mezcal. Mmmmmm Mezcal!
The cantina we adopted has the reputation of being the oldest in the city, well over 100 years old. Of course we drank Mezcal; it’s cheaper than beer for goodness sake! 20 pesos for a shot of pechuga Mezcal with orange slices to chase it down- ya wanna be really Oaxacan?- douse the oranges in chili powder and crunch on some more grasshoppers as you are swilling your Mezcal. Ahhh the life is good!