Random Descriptions of My Travel Adventures

A video of my favorite song by my favorite band from Oaxaca. The song, Son de la Barricada, is about the resistance movement of 2006. I lifted this from a blog called Angry White Kid which details the ongoing struggles occurring in Oaxaca. He includes the English translation on his website. The video is shot in a bar called Nueva Babel, one I attended frequently with friends. We saw Raices perform there twice and both times I was blown away by their music.

As a teacher, and a former slacker undergraduate student, I have seen, heard, and offered some pretty creative excuses for missing class. Most excuses are pretty run of the mill, got sick, car broke down, witnessed a shooting (yup, got that one this semester) but a few weeks ago one of my students furnished me with one of the most hilarious bits of "proof" for their absence I have encountered. Said student missed a class in which we had a quiz. He claimed to have had very bad food poisoning and I told him that if he could bring me a doctor's note I would let him take the quiz. He shows up to my office, not with a doctor's note, but with a note from his roommate . Not only was it a note from his roommate but it was on half a sheet of ripped paper. Despite the fact that I knew this guy was lying through his teeth, I let him take the quiz because he made me laugh so hard. See for yourself....click on the note below.

I should have posted these images a long time ago but never got around to it. Now that I'm procrastinating when I should be writing my dissertation this seems like a great time. The competition and the events surrounding it deserve much more explanation than I'm going to offer here but I will let the art speak for itself. A flyer announcing the competition. At the top it says "The color of the resistance" and at the bottom it reads "For the respect and freedom of expression of urban and street art" or something like that anyway. In really fine print at the bottom it says "Stop facism in Mexico, Free the political prisoners, Stop the privatization of PEMEX." This might give you an idea as to the tone of the event and the art being created. The line up of blank canvasses. Art taking shape. The evolution of a picture. An interpretation of the Oaxaca state government. At one point a skirmish broke out and the state police arrived, guns drawn. We were ...

Darren and I drove up to Salt Lake City in August, just after I returned home from Mexico, to pick up my little Mexican street dog Gretel. On the way to SLC we drove through Zion Canyon and spent the night in Springdale, the small town at the entrance to the canyon. Some photos below. The drive there. Buffalo! Inside the park. If you look closely at the bottom of photo is the traffic tunnel. Traffic tunnel. Zion Canyon lodge.

I'm currently sitting in the Mexico City airport waiting for my flight back to the inferno that is Phoenix. I'm very sad to leave Mexico and all the great people I met there but I guess it is time to head back to the real world and start writing the dissertation. Yikes. Not looking forward to that. I decided to take a taxi to the airport this morning instead of a prearranged colectivo so that I could have an hour or two more to get things in order before I left. We live right next to a fairly busy street so typically walking out to the corner and standing there less than 5 minutes is all that is required to procure a taxi. This morning I dragged my VERY heavy luggage to the corner (lots of books) and waited (sweating profusely after carrying the luggage) for a taxi to pass by. I waited, and waited, and waited, for about 15 minutes, but no taxi. Finally one came by with streamers all over it and I flagged him down. He informed me that the cost to the airport would be 120 pesos ...

This past weekend some friends and I went to Puebla. Road trip! Puebla is about 4 hours away from Oaxaca towards Mexico City. A big bull on the drive to Puebla. Street scene. Tiled building facade. Cool window. Wonderfully bright building! Hotel sign. Puebla is known for being a very pious city, there are literally churches on every corner. Catholicism is king here and the amount of jesus (not capitalizing jesus or christ out of protest) oriented souvenirs, photos, etc. is mind boggling. While we were cruising up and down the pedestrian walkway in the historic center we encountered people cleaning the street for christ and painting light posts for christ. Yes, seriously. One of the more ridiculous jesus-centered items were photos in which your child was superimposed sitting on jesus's lap, or standing in a field with jesus, or generally in some way interacting with a super white and healthy representation of the man. One photo I saw depicted him with what appeared to be ultra whit...

A poster on the street that says basically (bad translation) "to the police Guelaguetza, I'm not going" except someone scratched that last part off. Elaborate stencil on the wall. Arranging the flower baskets the women will wear on their heads while dancing. Sunshine en la boca!

This is a short video of one of the dances at the Mitla Guelaguetza, the bullfighting dance! The women act as the bulls and knock the men, the bullfighters, to the ground. What fun!

This past Sunday some friends and I headed out to the town of Mitla, about 40 minutes outside of Oaxaca, to attend the Guelaguetza. It was a great afternoon, the Guelaguetza was a small celebration, compared to the event in the city of Oaxaca, and this smaller venue made you feel a part of the festivities. Click on the photos to enlarge them. Dancers.... Dancers waiting their turn... The danza de la pluma..... The organizers and dancers handed out drinks, hats, tortillas and dolls made of yarn among other things to the attendees. The first drink we were offered was tepache, fermented pineapple juice, in a cup formed from half of a gourd. These young gentleman are enjoying their beverage. Then a bit later they came around with free mezcal! This is me enjoying my free mezcal in a bamboo shot glass. Notice the look of deviant pleasure on my face...that is what mezcal does to you. Makes you a deviant. Who enjoys things. Notice behind me the man pouring the mezcal out of a green plastic g...

Much has changed since I was here in 2006, the year of the conflict in the city. The official Guelaguetza did not happen that year and most of the festivities and tourism surrounding it did not happen either. This year it is quite a different scene, the streets are filled with tourists, Mexican and foreign alike, and there are too many events to possibly attend. Saturday we stood on the street to watch the parade of dancers show off their traditional costumes and dancing skills, sort of a preview of what is to come at the official Guelaguetza event. Some pictures and video below. As you can see the event was quite popular Spectators of all kinds, including roof dogs. A woman from the Isthmus of Oaxaca. Freaky dude! Masked dancers. Walking home that evening we happened upon a truck unloading some maguey plants for the mezcal tasting fair. Yummy, mezcal...