Plumbing matters (TMI alert)

You cannot drink water out of the tap here as is true in many parts of Mexico.  So you have to buy purified water to drink, brush your teeth, wash vegetables, etc. It costs around $1.30 for 5 gallons. There is a lot of disagreement about how far to take this.  For example, I was brushing my teeth with tap water.  Then I got diarrhea. Now I brush my teeth with purified water, and rinse vegetables with it, too, after washing them with tap water. I have no way of knowing what caused the problem.  I have read that it takes around six months to become acclimatized to the local common bacteria.  This would be true for a Mexican going to the US.

Another interesting plumbing issue, indirectly related to the first, is that you cannot flush toilet paper down the drain.  The sewage systems are very old and cannot handle the paper.  We have a little plastic trash can next to the toilet where toilet paper must go.  The man who handles maintenance in this apartment complex, Manuel, comes in every day to take this and other trash out of the apartment.  How are they related?  Imagine being up all night with diarrhea and going through a lot of toilet paper.

Monte Albán

We went to Monte Albán today to see what remains of the great Zapotec state.  It's only 6 miles from Oaxaca at 6400 feet above sea level.  Building began around 500 B.C. by flattening the mountain top.  For unknown reasons the site was abandoned around 600 A.D.  Perhaps they had just reached the end of their particular empire.

It's a massive site.  How did they flatten a mountain?  How did they quarry the stone, transport it and build these enormous structures 2500 years ago?  They had an incredibly developed math and astronomy.  It boggles the mind to be there and consider these things.  And, of course, there's the fact of sacrificing human beings to the gods.

They played a kind of game similar to basketball.  One article I read said that the losers were beheaded.  Sounds like Red Sox fans.  This is the ballgame court:

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It's a Small World, Part 1

Ray and I went for a three and a half hour walk today.  He looking for a rock climbing place and I for a yoga studio.  We found both, but they were closed.  We keep forgetting that most everything closes down from 2-4pm.  (We also found out that there are four AeroMexico offices located around the Zócalo, all with different functions, but more about that some other time.)
At the yoga place, there were two young women looking at the yoga schedule, looking appropriately yoga-like. So in clumsy Spanish I asked them about the studio.  They told me what they knew in Spanish--not a whole lot.  We kept looking around trying to find someone to talk to and ran into them again.  They asked me where I was from.
US.
Where in US?
North Carolina.
So are we. What town? (Now in English)
Chapel Hill
So are we.
I said, UNC?
Yes
So is he (pointing to Ray)
It turns out they are getting MSWs in social work at UNC.  They are in Oaxaca doing one of the intensive Spanish courses for a month.  They have been in Oaxaca since last Friday and we have been here since last Wednesday.

The clothes thing

OK.  I just went out to buy beer wearing shorts and sandals (and t-shirt).   In all this beautiful weather Ray and I have been wearing shoes and jeans.  Why?  Because Mexican men do not wear shorts.  And they do not wear sandals.  We've seen a couple of guys wearing shorts and can't remember seeing a guy in sandals.  And we have seen a hell of a lot of people.  So I felt kind of weird out there.  Not exactly Lady Godiva, but still.  (By the way, the store I went to is around 100 yards from the entrance to the apartment.)  Will I be able to develop the sangfroid needed to defy these customs and let it all hang out?  Or will I be a pollo grande?

Los Arquitos: the Oaxaca Aqueduct

We walked to a neighborhood in Oaxaca that has what remains of an aqueduct built in the mid eighteenth century.  It brought water from the mountains north of the city until 1940.  It creates a really interesting neighborhood.  Some houses are built right into the aqueduct.  While we were there, we saw a taxi drive through an arch and continue on  a stone path we would have guessed could not be driven on.

Aguacates! (Avocados)

These are the avocados I had heard about.  You can eat them skin and all.  Bought a dozen at the market for 10 pesos, around 90 cents.  There are other varieties as well, but this is not prime avocado season.  They are delicious, although one vegetable dealer who did not carry them insisted that the Hass avocados were better.

Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca

We were walking to Santo Domingo church and walked by this beautiful old building that turned out to be the Etno-Botanical Gardens of Oaxaca.  There is an entrance fee, but apparently today is national botanical gardens day in Mexico.  Surprisingly, we had not known this. So we got in free if we went on a guided tour in Spanish.  The woman giving the tour took forever to talk about the plant/plants at each stop.  She did, however, talk relatively slowly so that this was a Spanish lesson as well.

This green stone is typical of the quartz-based volcanic stone used to build much of the city.