Mexico

Please pardon this post for being late. We have been out of Mexico for some time but just found a film lab to develop rolls in Buenos Aires.

We left the United States after the holidays and headed straight for Mexico City. We first visited Mexico City in 2019 during PA school and we had been dreaming of that first bite of a street taco throughout our flavorless New Zealand leg. Our first stop was Tacos Los Caramelos (#1 best taco of our lives). We stayed in Condesa, a dreamy corner of the city filled with small cafes, restaurants, and tree-lined streets that give the neighborhood an eternal golden-hour vibe drenched in dappled light. From there we walked everywhere, over 11 miles a day through the neighborhoods of Condesa, Roma Nort Polanco, Bosque de Chapultepec, and Centro Historico.

To list all of the excellent food in Mexico City is far too great a task, but some of the highlights were of course Tacos Los Caramelos (I think we went here 3 times…), pastries at Panederia Rosetta and Odette, tacos al pastor at El Califa, Clandestina Mezcaleria for muchas besitas of mezcal, and a spit-roasted half chicken at Rosticeria Los Pioneros. The honorable mention goes to Finca Don Porofino on the 8th floor of the Sears building for the shittiest latte but the most impressive view of Palacio Bella Artes.

We visited some excellent (free) museums as well. The Post Office Museum was a sneaker highlight, we walked through the Department of Education building with 3 floors of Diego Rivera murals, and also two art museums- Jumex and Soumaya.

We flew to Oaxaca City next and our immediate impression was that we definitely need to come back with two empty suitcases to fill with textiles, ceramics, and glassware. Oaxaca reminded us of Santa Fe in that nearly every town square was dedicated to artists and their craft, whether that was street art, blown glass, pottery, painting, woodworking, or weaving. The buildings were shocking and brightly-colored. We also had some excellent food here like mole and of course had to wander through some of the big markets to get the classic horchata de atun. We were not a huge fan of the full grown fried chapulines (grasshoppers) but the bebe chapulines and also the ground gusano (worm) powder on the rim of our mezcal drinks were quite nice. Em will one day reluctantly accept insects as the protein of the future.

From Oaxaca, we rented a car (a Nissan Los Kicks) and started on our road trip to the coast. We had decided this was a reasonable adventure to grapple as there was a new highway built from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido that cut the drive time down from 7 hours to 3 hours. The highway cuts through the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range. In fact, it was finished within the last year so how bad could it be? As it turns out, the highway is new but the mudslides are far newer. In the last 50 km or so, the landslides were so numerous that they just became a feature of the road. Several places were reduced to one-lane traffic and a significant mudslide extended over the entire road at one point so Los Kicks got a bit of off-roading under her belt. But, we arrived in Brisas de Zicatella intact and had a nice Airbnb here with a small pool and a sweet pack of feral dogs that called our place home. Brisas is a surf town which Ror was excited about but there was not a whisper of a swell while we were here, unfortunately. We instead enjoyed a great Peruvian restaurant called Chicama for some fiery ceviche and Pisco sours.

We continued our road trip south to Mazunte. By now, we were out of the mountains and it was a smooth one-hour drive along the Pacific coast. Strangely enough, four of our friends from Hawaii had separately planned a vacation to this small dirt-road beach town at the same time (the depth of this coincidence can only be understood after seeing the village. No addresses, no pavement, just landmarks and dirt roads). We had a lovely spot of our own perched on a hillside overlooking the ocean but spent a lot of time at their beachside house and met their great group of traveling friends. We saw pods of humpback whales, swam in the ocean, sipped on mezcal and cold coconuts; it was quite the vacation from our sabbatical.

The drive back to Oaxaca was at least not a surprise and no new mudslides were a plus. We did our best to eat and drink our way through Mexico City and Oaxaca and hopefully those memories will prove satiating in what is sure to be some future bleak and dry culinary landscapes. For now, we leave with full hearts and full bellies. Damn, we love Mexico.