Market Day in Etla

Wednesday is market day in San Agustin, Etla, a village in an agricultural valley about 15 miles north of Oaxaca.  We arrived before ten and had a couple hours leisurely strolling the stalls.  I sampled smoked fish, was offered rat poison (mataratas) multiple times, and many of us headed to the food section for a mid morning breakfast.  I passed up the visceras stand for a barbacoa, slow cooked lamb in broth.  It was delicious!

On our way out, I stopped and mentioned to this woman that her dolls were pretty scary.  She laughed and said, "Yes, they are the nephews of Chucky!"  What a great sense of humor!

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From  the market, we headed up into the mountains to the Centro de las Artes de San Agustín.  C.A.S.A. was founded by the Mexican painter, Francisco Toledo in 2006 in a building that had been an abandoned textile factory.  We watched a demonstration on the process of taking plants and making paper, then spent an hour in the calm beauty of the C.A.S.A.  It was a great day.

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