In the late morning, armed with a map of Oaxaca’s central area, I headed out to discover the town. I walked over to the Zocalo (the main square), and before I reached it, I came across protesters who were occupying the square and some of the surrounding streets. At the beginning of my trip, in Mexico City I’d seen that protests in Mexico were not necessarily the massive marches and rallies I’d expected when people told me about them. The weeks long protest in Oaxaca that I came across was pretty mellow. The protesters were camping out in the Zocalo and had put up banners with their messages and strung up tarps as protection from sun and rain.
Squares in Latin America are great for people watching and getting a deeper sense of where you are. I sat down and observed. The air smelled of plastic—balloons, inflatable plastic toys and the tarps of the protesters. A mother was sitting across the walkway from me with her two children. They had the separated parts of a whole cooked chicken in a bag and it was covered in a red sauce. It looked like it could be a cumbersome meal to eat while sitting on a bench, but no utensils or plates were necessary because they had tortillas which served as both. The woman’s son finished the food he had in his hand and then rummaged through the bag of chicken for his next helping. He pulled out a drumstick and held it up. It wasn’t what he wanted. He put it back, searched some more through the bag, and found what he was looking for—chicken feet.
It was a Sunday, and all around the Zocalo there were people who looked like they had been hanging out for hours, and would continue to hang out there for several more hours doing nothing but enjoying the day and the sunshine. A man in a cowboy hat and boots walked by, holding the hand of a toddler who was dressed as a miniature version of him. The toddler stumbled alongside the man, appearing to be challenged by both walking and walking in clunky cowboy boots. Another toddler rode an inflatable plastic horse with wheels on it and his parents pulled and pushed him along. A group of kids played and fought and got dirty like kids do until someone’s mother momentarily abandoned her vending booth to scold all of them.
Back at the hostel, I headed up to the roof for the barbecue I’d signed up for before I went to wander around Oaxaca. When I arrived, there weren’t many people there yet. It felt a bit awkward. But as more people showed up and we dined on chorizo and tortillas and quesillo Oaxaca, the atmosphere became looser, more festive, more social.
The gathering did not end as the rain began; it just shifted with the direction of the wind so we could get a little less wet while we continued to chat away. We talked until the brothers who run the hostel sadly informed us that we had entered quiet hours. We returned to our respective dorms and I thought, “I’m gonna like it here.”
This day was the day Oaxaca opened up to me; it was a day of letting go. I resettled into hostel living and let go of feeling like I was done with dorms and small spaces and shared bathrooms. I let go of being annoyed that the hostel had just four hours of hot water per day. If you’re open to it, travel can help you more clearly define “need” and “want”. Extra shower time was definitely not needed. Loneliness was pushed aside to make room for new travel friends and the numerous shades of Oaxaca. As I let go of my hangups, Oaxaca responded and let me in.
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I didn’t want the drive to end, but after about an hour, our driver slowed down and came to a stop along a river. A sign in front of a sketchy bridge made out of rope and wood read, “Ginger’s Paradise”. We had arrived. With our heavy backpacks, we decided it was best to go one at a time across the precarious bridge to decrease our chances of it breaking.
After a couple of hours cramped into one seat, we were relieved to arrive in Santa Cruz. I parted ways with the last member of the group I’d spent the past few days with.
With giant ferns, looks are deceiving. What appear to be tree trunks are actually decomposed plant parts. If you touch one, it feels like dirt rather than wood. This “trunk” made of decayed organic matter protects and supports the palm tree-like fronds that sprout up from the top. Clever and resourceful beings.
The scenery was new, but it was like the other hikes I’d done on the trip- unexpectedly challenging. Though we were at a lower elevation, we were still relatively high up. My lungs still struggled with the thin air. And it was incredibly muddy. The sun was bright and shining that day, but thick vegetation often didn’t allow many of its rays to poke through and dry up the ground. So I slipped and slided down slopes and tried to hold onto the few plants around that were stable and not prickly.
After a muddy struggle, we reached the top of the mountain I wasn’t aware we were climbing. There was yet another panoramic view of beautiful mountainous landscape. We perched on the edge to eat lunch, the most amazing spot to eat our random assortment of snack foods.
