Oaxacan Food, plus Chimps and Charlie´s Angels and Columbine.

So long to Oaxaca, hello to the ADO 11 o´clock bus to Puebla, which today took more than 5 hours, but Plot survived without carsickness, probably due to the sandwiches he made this morning in Sophia´s kitchen, from avocados, Oaxacan cheese, tomatoes and rolls that he bought in the nearby marketplace. He dipped the bread first in the pot of rajas still cooking on the stove that Sophia had served for breakfast -- poblano chilies, cheese, fresh epazote and squashes, simmered in cream. You can´t imagine how tasty that was, and the sauce made the sandwiches even better.



Oaxaca is a strange place these days -- it´s only a few months since everybody was at the barricades, fighting the ridiculously corrupt and repressive government. The tourist areas are clean, but there is terrible poverty in the outskirts and the governor and his boys are interested only in looting the place until there´s nothing left. Yes, George Bush looks...well, almost good compared to these creeps.



Plot has learned a few things about Oaxacan cooking. Everything is fried, like these squash blossoms filled with local, stringy Oaxacan quesillo cheese, or else simmers for a long time, like the chicken tinga, infused in a red sauce, under all that queso fresco above. You can´t really get broiled or grilled anything, and of course tourists always watch out for the fruits and vegetables they can´t peel, so of course we're not sampling everything we might.

When Plottie traveled through Mexico in college, he was basically sick the entire time. Mexico was India then, but no longer. Thankfully, the ubiquitousness of bottled water has removed the dysentery worries. For sure, after they get home and make and devour a huge green salad, Plot will try making Morita Salsa and Enfrijoladas with his chilies from Etla. And don't forget the Caldo Tlalpeno below: a really hot and delicious vegetable soup with moritas, chipotles and pasilla chiles plus half a tree's worth of avocados.



The bus -- you can´t run away from the movies on a bus. They started out with the usual Chinese martial arts lunacy, dubbed into Spanish of course, then followed with Charlie´s Angels (Cameron Diaz is really beautiful but this was an astoundingly stupid film, at least with the bad Spanish dubbing and a child coughing his lungs up in the next seat), then something about chimpanzees, and lastly one of the most depressing movies that could have ever been made, about a woman dying of a brain tumor and then to make matters worse her children go to Columbine High, right as the shooting starts. Plot prayed the bus would get into the station before something else awful happened.



Now it´s almost 6PM in the Hotel Colonial in Puebla, which is old (17th Century building), very vibey with twenty feet high ceilings. Plot and Duck have a balcony which looks out on a lovely tree-shaded plaza, and the hotel is half the price of the Holiday Inn Plot and Duck stayed in last Friday and Saturday. And remember that astonishing mole poblano? It´s here.

Only one more day in Mexico, though. Tomorrow, the Plotniks will probably take a bus tour to Cholula, the city of 365 churches (maybe there´s a Saint Plotnik up there), then come back into town, mess around the main square and go to sleep early for the 6AM flight Saturday morning back to LAX for Mummy P´s birthday. It hasn´t even been a week yet, but it feels complete already.



Mexico is wonderful. The duena of Casa Ollin and two of her women on staff lined up on the street to wave and hug goodbye to P and D this morning. As pretty as they all are, each woman, young and old, was helping at her village or neighborhood´s barricades last fall, as Oaxacans continue to try to fight this Neanderthal state government. So many stories.