Our first stop is the viewpoint above Huatulco where we can see the entire beachside town laid out below us, our ship figuring prominently docked in Santa Cruz Bay. Alex gives us a nice overview of the area, the 4 bays that are designated commercial and 5 that are part of the National Park. He also explains Fonatur, how the government agency works and how the people of Huatalco (actually Santa Cruzita – the area where all the locals were “expropriated” when Fonatur took over Santa Cruz, the main bay) protested and pushed back so that the development didn’t get out of control like Cancun and other government organized resort areas.
Back in the van, we begin our half an hour drive, out past the airport and up into the hills for our first village stop at Santa Maria. On the way, Alex points out all sorts of different trees and the different curative values of the seeds and nuts of many plants and trees. He points out the Sabor tree, special to the Mayans, because it has roots that go down to the water so it needs little care and can always be used to find a water source. This tree is also hollow, so it is used for canoes as well. There is the Pistachio tree, where he stops to grab a seed/nut pod and then proceeds to give us a lesson on how the pistachio is grown and harvested. The locals don’t harvest the nuts though, with is perplexing to us. If you had plentiful pistachio trees, you would think you’d harvest them, if not for yourself (which we would!), but for the high price you can get by selling them. Next is the mahogany tree, the seeds of which help the pancreas produce insulin. And the Noni tree where “Fruit is good, seeds are bad,” (which cracks us up for the entire trip) and is used (mixed with another fruit because of the smell) is a cure for cancer when eaten. It’s a whole botanical litany that keeps us occupied for our trip up into the hills.
Wednesday in Santa Maria is the weekly market day, and we arrive to find the main street completely pedestrianized and filled with tent after tent of goods to buy. They set up for one day, then pack everything up at the end of the night and move onto another town tomorrow. It is like the Chiang Mai night market, only for locals! There is everything you’d ever want here, clothes, toiletries, kitchen and home goods, shoes – literally everything and anything you would need on a daily basis. And it goes on forever. Some of our tour partners can’t believe they actually set this up every day in a different town, much less close down the main road for it – but as unbelievable as it seems – it is definitely true – and we were there to see it in person.
Alex walks us through the market to the end of the town and the Church square, which features a wide plaza, covered rectangular promenade type area and the Chapel of Santa Cruz, where the a piece of the sacred cross which was how Santa Cruz got its name (Santa Cruz is Holy Cross in Spanish). Unfortunately, we can’t go into the church due to earthquake damage, but Alex leads us over to the municipal building to use the restrooms, shows us a beautiful mural of Huatulco (the left side represents the old city, the right side the new, current, city) and tells us the story of the sacred “log.” Legend has it that in the first century and man with a large white beard rowed up to the shores of what is now Santa Cruz with a huge log that was shaped roughly like a cross. The man hoisted the log up onto the shore all by himself, then proceeded to stay with the natives, teaching them different agricultural and cultural skills. Then he rowed away in his boat, leaving the cross standing where he raised it.
The cross stood there for centuries until the 1500s when Cavendish came and ransacked the area. He didn’t like that the native Mexicans were worshipping the cross, so he tried to destroy it but couldn’t. It wouldn’t burn, he couldn’t cut it or pull it down. It became a sign of a miracle and everyone kept coming and taking little splinters off it to keep at home as a blessing. Finally the church decided to cut it into 4 pieces and send each piece to different churches. One to the Vatican, one in Mexico City, one somewhere else I don’t recall and one here in Santa Maria.
After our history lesson (where we also learn about 2 presidents, one killed for some reason that now escapes me, with their busts on the plaza), we have some free time to wander around while Alex runs back to the get the van. Most everyone stays in the shade of the gazebo, but we wander through the market a bit, hoping we could make it back to the little food area for some of the fresh bread there, but it was way to far back down the market. We end up buying 2 pretty coffee cups, finally convincing the proprietor to take our US dollars, then head back to the plaza to wait for the van.
Alex navigates his way out of the market mess and we quickly turn uphill, driving through the beautiful mountain range with long views of the hills and valleys, heading to Pluma Hildago, the “coffee town.” The Pluma variety of coffee is renowned as the best, and this little town is famous for it. 90 percent of the people in the town work in the coffee business, and when it is harvest time, the town swells to over 30,000 people. We’re past harvest time, fortunately, but the little town square is still bustling with people – mostly tourists – and other “Bill” tours! We meander about, taking pictures of the small church, while Alex coordinates our visit to the local coffee roaster. One tour group out, next tour group in! We sit around the cute little open air shop while we get a quick coffee production explanation. Then we get to try Mexican dragon fruit (which is very good), a cup of excellent coffee and some even better chocolate! We can’t buy the chocolate, but we can buy the coffee, so we use Alex as our money changer and buy a kilo of fresh roasted coffee (so fresh in fact the guy has to bag it for us!).
From here, we take a little town tour, walking down to the huge basketball court perched on the top of the hillside with great views across the mountains. Basketball is the favorite sport in Oaxaca, not soccer. We’ve noticed there are basketball courts in some of the small towns we’ve passed, which now makes sense in context. We circle down around some colorful buildings, looking out over the lush landscape – it is truly like a tropical rain forest up here. We pass kids with baskets of fresh bread on their heads, taking their wares from door to door, selling the bread to residents (oh, I want to move here just for the bread – the smell is intoxicating!), arriving at the Orchid Lady’s house – a bizarre little structure with the most amazing orchids and other flowering plants creeping up the sides of the house. She has planted flowers all over, in all sorts of vessels, and we squirm our way through tight spaces between the house walls and the fence, oohing and aahing over all the varieties. It is really quite bizarrely interesting! Maggi and Richard would have LOVED this – we may never have been able to pull them away had they been with us!
Inside the house they have a little window cafe-type kiosk where they sell chocolate covered fruit – while we weren’t too interested in that, they did have chocolate covered coffee beans which we purchased with our last remaining pesos, and stood happily squeezing the quickly melting chocolate out of the plastic bag into our hands and mouths as we looked down the street over the Orchid Lady’s roof which was covered in flowering vines. A really different and interesting visit.
Alex arrives with the van – and our coffee – and we pile in, heading down hill on narrow winding lanes, avoiding walkers and potholes, to arrive at Finca del Gabriel, our lunch spot. This venue is a hotel in the mountains with the best guest rooms – facing out over the valleys with a hammock strung on every porch. It used to be a coffee plantation, but it isn’t producing any longer, although I think Alex said they had plans to maybe start again one day. In the meantime, we' are happy enough on the shaded patio, enjoying a great lunch of chorizo, chopped meat, guacamole, fresh tortillas and chips, along with piping hot quesadillas straight from the outdoor oven. Excellent!
After lunch, we wandered through a museum area that gave some history of the property, watched all the Celebrity people arrive (who paid WAY too much for the same type tour, but didn’t get anywhere near the food we did – and probably not the same attention or guides, either!), then took a walk around the hotel grounds, past the little forest cabins sitting all alone in the solitary woods, up to the pool (which made even us want to get in and take a dip) around to the hot tub, which is filled with this hose contraption Alex demonstrated for us) and past the spa room for massages. It is a great place – one that Alex said he and his family would visit at the end of the season just to relax and disconnect from the craziness of daily life. We can see it. If the rooms only had A/C, we’d book ourselves a few nights here. 😀
Next we hiked back to the van, hopped in and made our way back to down the winding, steep mountainside roads to Huatalco. It wasn’t a bad drive, really. Alex is an excellent driver as well as guide – and a great conversationalist, so we all spent the hour plus ride back into town chatting away about everything and anything. He offered to let us off in Santa Cruzita to shop – someone must have mentioned it to him – but no one took him up on it. We left him in the square by the marina and while others may have wandered through the shops and such, we made a beeline for the ship to cool off, visit our happy bars and get ready for dinner.
Once again, a spectacular day with great people and wonderful tour and guide. Thank you Bill and Christy – one more tour to go – and we’re sure it will be equally enjoyable!
No comments:
Post a Comment