Day 6, in which we went to the market

Today began with a trip to the Abas­tos mar­ket, near the south edge of the cen­tral dis­trict of oax­a­ca. Today was the open­ing of the spe­cial ‘Muer­tos’ sec­tion of the mar­ket, full of spe­cial flow­ers, can­dles, trin­kets and food for the “dia de los muer­tos” cel­e­bra­tions. We bought flow­ers, can­dles, lit­tle skele­ton fig­urines, copal incense, and incense burn­er, and some sug­ar cane. Here, Lara buys some marigolds

On the way there, we found elvis!

and on the way back, we found a sign which if direct­ly trans­lat­ed to eng­lish, results in a hilar­i­ous, if off-colour phrase (grupo=group, tornillo=screw)

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Then it was back to San Mar­tin Tilca­jete, to see our old friends Jacobo and Maria Ange­les, and to leave a bunch more mon­ey there in exchange for exquis­ite wood carv­ings. As always, there were a bunch of gor­geous pieces there, fin­ished and in progress, as well as a huge stock of carved blanks, ready for paint­ing. We select­ed anoth­er ‘gato’ blank:

and chose black and red for this one, kind of in the style of this one

after­wards, Jim found a lit­tle ‘Oso’ that he had to take home, too. Before we left, we made sure to get a pic­ture with the artist and one of his recent works!

After such a stren­u­ous shop­ping expe­ri­ence, we went to Jacobo and Mari­a’s restu­ar­ant and had a great comi­da. Then back to town, drop of some laun­dry, then back to the casa for seista!