The big shopping area was one long tunnel of tents and tin shacks, connected together, within walking distance of our hotel. A straw hat salesman was convinced he could find a hat for my size 8 and a half head but no luck. I did find some sandals that fit and bought those with American money.
The people at the hotel were different than the local natives and spoke rapid Spanish. Locals spoke in “chants” that to my ears seemed to rhyme.
Curiously, there are Oaxaca locals, short, brown Indians, working in a local Mexican cafe and at a local nursery here in mid-Missouri. When I mention the radish festival, they seem to make a connection.
There was some kind of sewer gas coming up in the shower of our hotel room and my wife got a little woozy. The hotel called a local doctor and he showed up, carrying his medical kit in a nice Plano tackle box. He listened to her lungs and throat and concluded it was “all in her head.”
He wrote a prescription but we never filled it and checked out the next day...
Yes, traveling in Mexico is always, well, different. I lived in DF after high school, got to know the City pretty well, improved my Spanish a lot. Have driven down Baja from California (when it was a dirt road) — which is where I saw the courting young people walking in circles, I think - and poked around Yucatan. The people are lovely, really. I have had wonderful experiences and yet, I would not go there now. Too much lawlessness. So interesting to hear about your trips.
And so interesting - you have the Oaxacans there in Missouri?