Yesterday afternoon I spent a wonderful couple of hours on the guided tour of the botanic gardens of Oaxaca. This is so worth a visit if you are here - even though the tour is only in Spanish. The garden has some amazing specimens of enourmous cactus saved from road building projects. A cieba tree or caypok - sacred to meso-american culture as it grows up to 70 metres tall and was considered the link between heaven and earth. Marigolds, like we know back home but that grow as tall as me and who`s orange flowers are the reason that the chicken here is such a bright yellow colour...
This morning I went to Mitla. The other main pre-colombian site in the Oaxacan central valley. It is later than Monte Alban, which was built by the Zapotec civilisation. Mitla was built by the Mixtec people. Mitla translates as place of the dead, being predominately a burial ground. It is evidently less well financed than Monte Alban and its slight incongruous that a catholic church was built amidst the ruins. But then the shambolic nature of the place lends a certain charm.
What Mitla has that Monte Alban lacks is artistic detail. The classic Mexican design - like the Greek key pattern - that you often see in Mexican jewelery and art is all over these ruins. Something I wanted to take photos of to make drawings of for the book.
Thanks to Jaime`s help and introductions a large proportion of my last days in Oaxaca are going to be spent in kitchens! Yippee! I have met with some of the other restauranters and talked about my ideas and have been recieved graciously and generously. so starting tomorrow 9am sharp I`m in the kitchen!
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