Oaxaca

Friday 31/10 - Tuesday 4/11/2008

Friday - Oaxaca, Halloween
Took car to mechanic to have transmission fixed, making increasingly disturbing noises. Cost estimate at 10,000 pesos maximum. Ouch. Called back later, transmission now in pieces and will cost 19,000 pesos - that's £1000 - more money as transfer chain also needs replacing. Barter to 15000, then 14000 pesos. Still outrageously expensive for South Mexico. But they kinda have us by the balls, with the transmission in pieces. Parts cost 4 times what they cost in the US, but no time... hence price.

Eve dressed in my braces and trousers outfit, looking sharp.

Jay and 15ft tall paper mache dude

Dancing down the streets, crazed salsa soundclash - as soon as one stopped the next started, passing bottles of mezcal around between smiling strangers, failed to find a good bar despite getting sent over to a place with a live band by the bartender of the sister venue - they wouldn't let us in.

Saturday - Day of the Dead, Oaxaca
Morning went to cemetary. Lots of flowers, bright colour. Highlight - awning and patio grave with table and chairs. Symbolic of the light yet reverential atmosphere, where people still smiled at each other and said hello.

Extremely tasty street food - hard to get a handle on what's called what though - empandadas, tlayudas...

Partied at the cemetary/graveyard, with a carnival set up outside, inside with 2 brass street bands playing a soundclash, playing a twisted up salsa/cumbia/merengue mashup, with an experimental jazz vibe thrown in. Hard to dance sensibly to but easy to get down... in the graveyard. The atmosphere was incredible - drinking and dancing and livin it up, in the most unlikely (from a non-Mexican perspective) of places. The Day of the Dead is a pre-Columban festival, celebrating the dead. Replete with skeleton imagery, the dead are treated with reverence and respect, and celebrated as people do best - by having fun.

Sunday
Watched film at hostel, a great place called Banana Magic Hostel. Nice airy but part covered courtyard, rooftop patio garden, with kitchen, internet, dorm beds for 70 pesos.

Monday
Last day in Oaxaca, tried to sort out some film contacts. The 'Cine 8 Cafe' is run by a not particularly political couple, so not much use. Pablo, the hostel owner, is trying to get a friend of his to meet me, we keep missing each other. He's a film buff, probably with some useful ideas.

Tuesday
Decide to leave for San Jose del Pacifico by bus, a few hours South, while car is at mechanic, with some people from the hostel - Damian, a bearded mountain goat from Boulder, Colorado, US , Jay Tostado, a Mexican guy from Tijuana with a very funny name - "Hey man, I'm Jay Tostado", Chantelle, a reserved black London girl, and Julia, the squeamish German psychology student who Jay really wanted to score with (some names changed to protect the guilty).
Stayed at a cabaña, with an awesome mountainside view down the West side of the valley.