A Month and a Half of Friends, Food, Fun and More Ruins

In the last month and a half we have had the opportunity to visit four more ruins, three new pueblos, several cathedrals and ate more great food, all with wonderful friends. We have also had several young people that we have grown to love leave on missions. This gave us the opportunity to attend several despedidas (farewells) and apartaros (setting apart) for these wonderful young people. We are so grateful for having gotten to know them and hope to see some of them in the future.

This blog is going to be about the pictures, as they say, a picture can say a thousand words. So we will let the pictures do the talking.

First off is the ruins of Zachilla and the mercados there.

Tomb A in Zaachila

The mercado in Zaachila during Dia de Muertos, notice how they deliver the fresh baked bread, on a long board using their head.

My favorite type of mercado. The barbacoa (goat) was amazing.

A beautiful fountain in Zaachilla

The amazing cathedral at Cuilapam de Guerrero. This is where Vicente Guerrero was imprisoned during the Mexican war for independence.

The Perez family, they are great friends and amazing tour guides.

We went to Oxoxcotlan and celebrated Dia de Muertos. We visited a cemetery, enjoyed bunuelos, marveled at the skill needed to create the tapetes de arena (sand paintings). We ended the evening in Oaxaca where I met a new/old friend. Fantastic evening !!!

We visited the ruins of Atzompa, a suburb of Monte Alban. 

The main ball court at Atzompa

The pottery kiln

A cool plant with birds? Nope those are seed pods.

Looking back toward Oaxaca from Atzompa.

The next ruin was Dainzu

The entrance sign written in Zapotec.

The ball court.

Rosa entering a tomb.

A view from the top looking at the ball court and a couple of the edifices.

The next ruin was Lambityeco. In the main tomb here there were four generations of genealogy documented in the stone carvings.

We visited the Santa Domingo Cathedral in Oaxaca. It is the most famous cathedral in Oaxaca and was built in 1639. The history around this cathedral is amazing. 

Rosa's favorite saint, the one who hands out bolillos.

We visited San Marcos Tlapazola where they make the famous Oaxaca Red Pottery.

The cathedral in San Marcos. The stone of this cathedral was beautiful

Where else in the world do you see cactus and Poinsettias growing over 10 feet tall next to each other. Oaxaca is beautiful !!!

Here is Rosa at the book fair in downtown Oaxaca where we bought some Pop-up books to read to our grandchildren. 

One of our dear friends from the temple Claudia.

One of the sisters heading off for her mission in new Jersey. She is fluent in both English and Spanish.

This blog would not be complete without a few more food pictures. Here we are enjoying ice cream with the Zapata's, one of the  missionary couples serving in the temple with us. And last is a taco of chapulines, cheese and salsa.....YUM !!!

Rosa is not Mexican enough to eat these : )

So this is what we do on P-Days (missionaries one day a week for preparation) We realized today we have 15 P-Days left before we return home and two of them will be spent with Ali when she comes for Christmas and two visiting others temples in southern Mexico when the temple is closed for maintenance in January. We are shocked at how fast the time has passed and hope to see all we can of Oaxaca before we return home.

We love you all, but our time here in Oaxaca is quickly passing so we will soak up as much as we can.