If only place names were allowed in Scrabble....

....then Oaxaca would undoubtedly be high scoring were it to be allowed, but it is arguably even more exciting than its theoretical word score, because of what it offers both in terms of crafts and culture.

Ralph enjoying empanadas at the fairground

The fair, part of the same Virgin de Guadalupe celebrations that were going on in Mexico city, was in full swing.  Ralph was particularly impressed with the handmade backgrounds at the shooting gallery including full size Terminator and Michael Jackson figures.

So many stalsl of all types of food

An elaborate street corner

One street had lots of artists workshops and galleries on it.  The walls were covered in pictures.

We visited this artist Cesar Chavez doing wood cut printing, see more of his work at www.cesarchavez79.blogspot.com

Church of Santo Domingo

Oaxaca is full of markets and everything is so colourful.  Look at this ladies dress, amazing.  I seem to be very pleased with this purchase!

There were hundreds of miniature 'day of the dead' models, we couldn't think of anyone to buy this one for so took a picture instead!  Day of the Dead, November 2nd is celebrated by families all over Mexico by visiting graves of family members with gifts, flowers, favourite foods of the dead person and there are special decorations including these skeletons.

Day of the dead figures

This sweet old couple we met in the craft shop were really nice!

Dried flowers arranged around the doorway of the bookshop, with a welcoming skeleton lady.

Too much food!  We took what we could in a doggie bag and gave it to a little boy who had been hiding from the waiters in between the tables.

We had a song 'Mexico Lindo'played to us by a Mariachi band with a great trumpet player.

Grasshoppers for sale at the market, small, medium and large, we took a mixed bag, they are roasted and really salty.

Grasshoppers

A Oaxacan speciality is Mole a rich sauce that comes in 7 different colours, we had red and black, black has chocolate in it.

Ralph tucking into his grasshopper snacks

Posada Don Mario

 At Los Girasoles - The Sunflowers restaurant we were given a shot of Mescal which is served with lime and an orange salty substance which we later read is crushed roasted Maguey worm, the caterpillar that lives on the agave plant that Mescal comes from.  We added a comment in the extensive visitor book.

The owner Mario ( in the green top) was quite a character.  He'd lost his legs from having diabetes so he ran the place from his chair.  He wanted to know what I thought of Oaxacan men and Ralph of the local ladies...also some football chat and he said he thought English people seem aggressive compared to other tourists, well that's what we imagined his mime to mean as our Spanish only gets us so far!

Stupid gringos took several attempts to get the parcel correctly addressed, wrapped but in the end the initially scary post office lady looked pleased with our efforts.  Other stupid gringos in the background doing the same!  Oh the parcel was the result of overindulgence in craft shopping.

One of several Christmas/nativity scenes set up in the main plaza, though elaborate this one lost out to the nativity with hundreds of ceramic sheep and a volcano which was complete with scaffolding walkway for viewing it from.

A bad photo of the volcano in the plaza

Ralph was very excited to hear about the worlds largest tortilla on display in the museum, too big even for him to manage.

Detail on the world's largest tortilla

View from the museum into the plaza

Mural on the museum wall

This stray dog was weaving in and out of the restaurant tables and we were surprised that it wasn't getting chased off...then Ralph worked out what was going on when he saw that the dog was stalking and chasing off pigeons on the tables so doing the restaurant a favour!

Raw chips of an unidentified fruit or veg which was like a cross between apple, cucumber and celariac, covered with lime juice and black pepper with our jug of orange juice.

What a shame to miss this 'Noche de Rabanos', Night of the Radishes.  It looks as though everything is carved out of radishes!