Last weekend I took Mica, Bardo and the kids from Hauyapam, and Charlie, who used to be a coffee bean roaster in Oaxaca in the 70’s but now is a roaster in Canada and here for a few weeks, in the car to Hierva El Agua about 50 miles into the mountains. There cold water mineral springs fall over steep cliffs and solidify into rock-hard deposits forming algae-painted slabs in level spots and accumulating into what appear to be grand frozen waterfalls…shining in the sun.

The governor is building a huge glassed-in pyramid-shaped restaurant within yards of the springs…giving diners (what diners?) a spectacular view of the Sierra Sur mountains where the indigenous Mixe live…but the place is accessed by pot-holed dirt roads. The only place to eat was an empty shack…interestingly named “Alice’s Restaurant” where we were the only patrons. The first evening a good-looking young woman gave us black beans, salsa and bread and coffee while she nursed her ten-month old little boy…her two year old by her side. She says it is common here for women to have ten children…but she has had her tubes tied, she says.

We stayed in the only bungalow…with “matrimonial” bed in a loft and two sets of bunk beds below. There was no gas for the stove or water heater. The gate-keeper in the same building had spent six years in LA and wanted to practice his English.

The next day we sat next to a smoke-filled wood fire in the corner of the dirt yard of the “restaurant” while an older woman made fresh corn tortillas on a huge comal. The tomatoes for the fresh salsa were roasted in the wood ashes…giving it a wonderful smoky flavor. She amazingly was able to grind the chilis on a window sill next to the fire. We devoured the avocados and cheese memelitas with the salsa and coffee…running for cover from the wood smoke whenever the woman stoked the fire. Best-tasting Oaxacan food yet!

On the way home, we stopped at a small family-run traditional mescal factory to buy jugs of Mescal. I will buy a small oak barrel with a spigot at the market to keep the mescal from drawing the taste of the plastic jug. The maguay plants are ground to a pulp in a round concrete “trough” under a huge marble “wheel” that is pulled round and round by a donkey. The mescal I chose had been stilled and aged with several different local fruits-and chicken breasts-in addition to the magay plant! Smooth, slightly sweet and full of flavor…40% alcohol…compared to the young 100% alcohol stuff that burns the gullet all the way to the stomach.

This week, Joe, a recently retired CPA from Chicago who is living in my apartment complex and teaching English, and I will have lunch together. Joe was married and has two grown children. Has also come here for a new life. Funny and gregarious…very nice guy. A young couple has just moved into the apartment (there are four apartments) from Canada. He is a writer …they have a 4 year old little boy who is squaring it off with the little girl in the manager’s apartment…neither of which knows the other’s language. They are driving the mothers nuts!

Can’t believe I’ve been here six months already. When my visa expires in August I will go to Asia to see my son and his wife, Josh and Amy, in Beijing China and son Doug and Luk, his wife, on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand…then probably back here if everything returns to normal politically. If not I’ll just stay in Asia.