Saturday late morning. We left to explore the town and saw, as we
passed the entrance, that the botanical garden was open. This is
inside the walled grounds of old Dominican monastery and we had heard
both that it is very good and that it has limited timings, so we went
in. It turned out that the only way to enter is as part of a tour so
we joined the one that had left a few minutes before we arrived.
It turned out to be a very long tour indeed, 2 hours long in a space
about 100 square metres, with far too many people, around 50. The
garden itself was beautiful and very interesting, divided into
Oaxaca’s many climatic zones, so we passed from rainforest to cactus
forests. The guide was a pleasant young fellow, but his promise to
talk enthnobotany didn’t go far beyond describing the uses of
maize.
Though the wild maize certainly was remarkable, an envelope of husk
the size of a small peapod enfolding three or four hard grains like
ball bearings, sitting loose one atop the other.
We managed to leave early and dashed off for a quick lunch, as at 2
the Champion’s League final was to begin, with the Gentleman Friend’s
team, Liverpool, competing. There was a goal in the first minute and
then a long slog, another goal towards the end, and yes, Liverpool
won. A great delight for the GF, who has not, perhaps, suffered the
trauma of being a Pakistan cricket fan, but has certainly seen a lot
of disappointments. (Speaking of which, Pakistan’s first match in the
world cup – sigh.)
We went for coffee to celebrate and then strolled on to the gallery of
modern art. This is located inside a beautiful old city building with
a central courtyard and rooms leading off it. The first exhibition was
a peculiar one and the artist’s statement combined the anthropocene,
movement and Baltic gods in an inscrutable jumble. Many of the rooms
were very stuffy indeed so I found myself feeling unable to breathe in
one and dashed on to the final one, which had a curtained door to the
outside letting in some air. I sat there for a moment, watching a
projection, tilted, on the angle in a wall, which felt like falling
into another world.
This was confirmed when we went into the rear courtyard which was
planted with graceful trees with soft green leaves dappled against the
blue sky. Beneath the trees were set four pillars with little trays of
sand, and a fifth with a little wooden chest of drawers. Music played
softly on hidden speakers and from outside came the sound of a brass
band. As we watched, trying to get a sense of the installation, one
person walked to each of the sand trays and added a tiny spoonful of
black sand. At one she paused and smiled knowingly at us. The GF
nudged and indicated towards one of the trees. There was someone
standing still behind it. We walked around, she stayed there. It was
indeed rather like that portal had taken us elsewhere.
At last the people left and we investigated the little chest of
drawers. I opened one and found three ball bearings of various sizes
and an instruction: drop on the sand. So I took the ball bearings over
and dropped one on a sand tray and jumped as the sound, amplified,
echoed over the hidden speakers. It was delightful, like finding a key
to something that seemed unknowable, and I went around the pillars,
dropping the ball bearings on the sand trays, listening to the
different sounds that came. Other drawers had different instructions –
one was to scatter green sand on the trays, another was to tickle your
own ear with corn silk.
Upstairs there was a show of collaborative work between international
artists and local craftsmen and women. The brass band grew louder and
we looked out of the window to see a large procession, a couple of
hundred people, many of them dressed to a t, two giant figures
dressed in white, a man holding up a white sphere, four women dancing
with baskets of yellow flowers on their heads, a small person in a
large witch’s hat with a handerchief hiding his features and a young
woman in a ball gown.
We went down to look and realised it was a young girl’s birthday party.
We walked on and came to the church of Our Lady of Solitude. There was
a graduation ceremony and a boy scout convention going on outside
(separately) and inside a service so we didn’t go in. The side chapel,
though, had the image of the virgin in the distinctive black
triangular cloak, very odd and iconic especially when we realised it
was everywhere. Most of all in the church’s tiny museum, which, rather
like the Hezbollah museum in Baalbek, seemed to have everything
related to the Lady of Solitude, deemed worthy of collection because
of this association rather than any inherent interest. A fascinating
type of collection, in my view. Here there were all kinds of things,
from statues to salad forks.
We were getting hungry and decided to walk on to the restaurant
Criollo, reputed to be very good. We arrived to find something more
high end than we’d expected, but it looked good and they had a table
at the bar, so we stayed. It was a set menu, claimed to be seven
courses but actually seven dishes of which one was a sort of mezcal
punch served along with dessert, but all very tasty. My favourite
being a superb salad with a chorus of flavours, while the GF
particularly enjoyed the softshell crab taco. We mostly had the bar to
ourselves through our meal, a long black room connecting the show
kitchen and a secondary kitchen, but could see the courtyard set with
tables for those who had booked. At one point we were joined by a
couple of whom the lady had a particularly wide hat, but they clearly
preferred to be outside. Then later a small group of achingly trendy
young people arrived, of whom the woman was especially stylish with a
startling tattoo extending over the front of her throat and a dramatic
sleeve tattoo revealed when she took off her jacket.
A good meal, despite the slight pisstake of the punch counting as a
course. And a good start to Oaxaca.