Today
marks the end of the first week of our cruise; time certainly does go by
fast. This is our second day in Huatulco
and we have booked a ship excursion called Rural Communities and
Traditions. We were out on the dock just
after 9:00 AM and were soon loaded into vans to start our excursion. The day was hot and humid, but luckily the
vans had air conditioning (kind of).
We drove
off into the countryside on a dirt road.
Eventually we arrived at a small village where we were given a
demonstration on making fresh tortillas and then got to sample them with
tamales. The tortillas were made in a
very old adobe kitchen on a wood stove with a stone cooking surface. I have to
say that eating them fresh was a real treat, much better than eating them in a
package from the grocery store. The
woman making them was very skilled and it looked like she had made many, many
tortillas in her life.
Next it
was on to another village where we visited a place where they grew various
types of cactus for medicinal and cooking uses.
I really had no idea that cactus was used in so many ways. After listening to the talk we were able to
sample some various food made from the different types of cactus. There were scrambled eggs and a salad
incorporating different types of cactus, and some roasted cactus leaves (which
smelled like cooked artichokes and had a similar texture as okra). Once again there were fresh tortillas that we
could make tacos with using whatever combination of the above foods caught our
fancy. They also had freshly made salsa,
one “gringo style” (not hot) and the other one was muy caliente.
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| Our guide Fernando explains the uses of the various types of cactus. |
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| A plate of cooked cactus leaves and the bowl of "gringo" salsa. |
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| Taking the sharp thorns off the cactus leaves. |
Our next
stop was to show and sell some local handicrafts woven with dried palm fronds. The work was quite good and the prices were
very low, it hardly seemed fair as there were some mats that took up to three
days to make and the lady who made them only asked $15.
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| The Oaxaxan version of a lemonade stand. |
Our last
stop was an iguana habitat where iguanas were being raised to be released into
a nearby national park. Evidently the
iguana population is diminishing and they want to restore them. Reptiles are not my favorite animals at all,
but it was very interesting and I learned quite a bit and Jorge, the fellow
running the place, seemed very dedicated to what they were doing. After his talk on iguanas, Jorge gave us
fresh lemonade his wife had made from lemon trees we were sitting under,
delicious and refreshing!
That was
the end of our tour and we were driven back to the ship and its welcoming air
conditioning. All and all, it was a very
interesting day. We learned a few things
and got to sample some more of the local foods.
It was
mid-afternoon by the time we were back on board and spent most of the afternoon
resting and looking at the numerous pictures we took today. There was a sail-away party on the sea view
deck at 4:30 so we went out there for a while and watched as we sailed away
from Huatulco. We returned to the room
where I caught up on my daily log that I used for the blog and then it was time
for dinner.
Tomorrow
morning we will be arriving in our next port, which is Puerto Chiapas in the
state of Chiapas, Mexico.
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| Adios Huatulco. |
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