After a lot of trial and error, we decided to start a new blog: OurSandTracks.com
It's late notice, I know. If you want to see our latest trip to Southern Africa, Jan-Apr 2024, you'll find it on our new website.
Only seven and a half months late... :-)
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| Detroit Eastern Market |
And we had great food--Mother's Day brunch, and later in the week a leisurely breakfast at a newly opened biscuits and gravy place (my pile of sweet cinnamon roll pancakes almost put me in a sugar coma, but they were delicious; Richard, of course, got the biscuits and gravy with bacon). We had an afternoon picnic at Belle Isle Park (it was perfect!), stopping first at Sister Pie for slices of maple salt, coffee chess, and strawberry rhubarb pie. It turns out, Detroit is really a great stop for foodies! We didn’t even get to Detroit -style pizza, coney dogs, barbecue, chicken shawarma and all of the other delicious foods to be found.
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| Sister Pie — they even have a cookbook! |
We also made a trip to Detroit’s huge Eastern Market for some fresh fruit and veg. And doughnuts. 😊
And just before we left for Oaxaca, we all went out for dinner at Fogo de Chão, a Brazilian steakhouse where grilled meats are brought around by the wait staff and carved for you at the table--ribeye, picanha, bacon-wrapped tenderloin, grilled lamb, chicken. Well, Richard did say this was going to be a food tour! 😊
We're in Oaxaca now.
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We arrived on Monday night, almost four hours late because our flight was delayed out of Houston, but everything worked out fine. Our Airbnb is lovely and peaceful with an inner courtyard and a private upstairs terreza with a small outdoor kitchen. There are bookshelves (with lots of great books) and even a yoga loft in our room! (I explored yoga space a little bit, but even I bang my head on the low ceiling; Richard wisely avoids the yoga loft completely).
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| The note for all bookshelf browsers |
The terreza and courtyard are filled with plants (beautiful, minus the mosquitos that flourish in the planters) and we enjoy a lot of outdoor time in the morning and evening.
There are also two big friendly dogs downstairs that greet us most mornings. And a very talkative resident cat that is sometimes around and sometimes not--I guess he has his own things to do.
We are only a few blocks from the Zócalo main square and cathedral. And in a few minutes I think we should head across the street for a pastry!
Our first morning, Richard discovered a tamale food cart near the school where I'm taking Spanish lessons (I abandon him for three hours each morning). He took me by early the next day before class for breakfast, and now I'm a bit hooked on dolce tamales, though the rojo are good too!
There are bakeries, coffee shops, and a ton of food trucks. We shared a marquesita a few nights a ago after dinner--strawberries, Nutella, and banana in a crispy rolled crepe--yummy but really messy to eat and walk (I seem to end up with mole or chocolate somewhere on my shirt each day).
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| Making our yummy marquesita |
We also had a homemade kombucha-like drink called tepache:
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| Tepache and tlayudas |
Yesterday we found the car cafe, La Selva de Los Gatos:
And we walked a few blocks more to the Merced Market for some fruit, tomatoes and a jalapeño—fruit for breakfast and all for salsa and chips later in the afternoon.
A couple of nights ago we tried a michelada with our dinner. It's a spicy mix of salsas, lemon/lime, salt and cerveza. It's light, refreshing and spicy! Kind of a beer Bloody Mary. We've had delicious tacos already, but we still need to have some empanadas. I think we'll explore the area around Santo Domingo de Guzmán again today and try one of the food trucks on C. de Manuel García Vigil.
Also, my school had a tour of the Abastos market on Friday. It's a crazy busy place and an absolute maze of stalls where vendors sell everything! It's really a city onto itself. The instructors from the school worked really hard to both help us practice Spanish and not get run over by carts of fruits and vegetables being urgently pushed through the packed narrow aisles of butchers, bakers, food stalls, cheese makers, clothing vendors, and stalls selling everything under the sun. I don't know quite what I'd do with a 5 kilo ball of yummy quesillo, the Oaxaca string cheese, but I'd probably eat the entire thing in a day, which would no doubt cause some difficulty in the morning, so I passed on that. Instead I limited myself to a memela with a little quesillo and salsa at Doña Vale's food stall, now well-known by tourists thanks to the Oaxaca episode of Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix. And that memela was as good as you'd expect!
Here are some more pics to share:
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| I think this was my tlayuda—I’ll have to have another to make sure 😊 |
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| Tacos with agua de sabor |
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| This is a city of the arts |
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| At the gato cafe |
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| And this merited a separate post, as you may have seen. If you ever have your camera set to live (accidentally) and then edit it to loop, this is what you get. In this case, a picture of me looking dorky turned into a picture of me looking really, really dorky! We laughed so much about this last night after Richard discovered this new (to us) camera function. 🤣🤣 |
Stay tuned. First we are off to see the new grandson which, by the photos, appears to be 63 pounds at a couple months old. Then the Latin food adventure begins:
Oaxaca - moles, markets, and salsas.
A few months back in the States to earn money from golf and perhaps a coronary artery stent with statins in preparation for the upcoming food orgy.
Chile - scrumptious seafood
Argentina - gauchos, all things meat and cheese
Brazil - African inspired delights with dende oil and Brazilian bikinis
Peru - Fantastic food from the multiple micro climates
5 countries and 73 days 🦀🐂🐖🐟🌵🥥🌽🍈
We are back home in Olympia! After one night of barking dogs at the don't-pee-standing-up signage place and a stressful exchange with our taxi driver who wanted to overcharge us by almost 25% (we had trouble even getting a taxi at the airport, but that's another story), we decided that the downtown Hilton would be a better option than the Airbnb, so we moved locations. It was a good choice.
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| A stormy downtown Quito |
The Airbnb itself was nice, though the description online was a bit misleading. The host's husband helped us get some pizza delivery, which was super nice.
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| Richard went out and got food and flowers! (Of course, there is more signage on the windows!) |
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| These stairs up to the terrace were a bit crazy with no handrail |
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| The Airbnb did have a great view! |
We'll see what the next adventure holds!
The last two nights we decided to stay outside of Quito and closer to the airport. We chose a cute but “interesting” mix of German and Ecuadorian culture. Sort of laid back while “these are the rules and there will be a exam in 4.8 minutes”.
In my exam preparation, a pee was required only to be met by:
At first I thought it unusual to tell someone not to pee on a computer but clearly the sign was made by someone with a one centimeter urethra.Once I understood the message I drank extra water just for the enjoyment of an activity that was verboten.
Also, there were various signs/writings of what to not do. Images of the world’s best apple cake from Namibia returned and sleeping was difficult thinking about the world’s smallest toilet plunger in the bathroom and how I could attack even the tiniest of turds with it
Did I mention I chose Colombia but was overruled for Ecuador?
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| Not sure how to use a plastic bottle instead of a towel but it didn’t work for me. |
Two posts in a row!
Thursday our plan was to stroll around and visit some museums, but first, we had to start with chocolate made from Ecuadorian cacao at Paccari cafe!
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| The Paccari cafe building with early 20th century architectural detail and decor—painted tiles, frescos, chandeliers and narrow staircases |
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| Even the bathrooms are elegant |
After our hot chocolate and brownie, we walked over to tthe Cuenca Bienal Arts building. The city hosts a biennial art contest for Latin American artists. The offices for the biennial contest are located in an historic building with beautiful ornate tiles and murals. The city arts organization purchased and refurbished the building and now give tours. It was initially the residence of a photographer named Pasántez León and his family. He used the murals as backdrops for some of his pictures.
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| The inner atrium |
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| The family had to sell part of the house at one point. Here’s where they put the dividing wall! |
We continued our walk through the Plaza de San Sebastián.
A few blocks of walking and we came upon the Mirador del Barranco viewpoint overlooking the Rio Tomebamba. This plaza-like area is also the street of quirky art:
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| A beautiful view of the city and mountains |
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| Pots and pans up top— hmmm? |
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The Museo del Sombrero de Paja Toquilla was our next stop. First though there was the drama of the fender bender. Actually the dent was almost nonexistent.
We were curious to see how everything would turn out, though. We hung out for a few minutes watching and listening to the symphony of honks and horn blasts. In the end, the bus driver just got back into the bus and left.
Our first stop on Calle Largo after wading through the crowds at the bus stops, wasn’t quite what we thought it would be. We thought it would be… well, a museum. Really it was a big hat shop posing as a museum. I was disappointed because I’ve been hoping at every turn to see up close how these hats are woven from start to finish. We browsed and then continued onward.
Another museum I had on my list to see was the Centro Interamericano de Artes Populares (CIDAP).
I read that CIDAP was a museum of women’s traditional textile work. Alas, it was a small exhibit with some, but not much, contemporary pieces of folk and textile art, with some for sell. I enjoyed looking, but I was done quickly.
We headed down Hermano Miguel Street to wind our way back to the hotel and look for a place to get a late lunch along the way. This was the street of bookstores! I was very happy to see them and popped in one of them to browse. Richard had a different reaction to my enthusiasm:
A couple of shops further down, Richard found a wonderful restaurant, Warmikuna Cocina Taller. The proprietor offers cooking classes in addition to a great lunch. I had quinoa and Richard had goat stew. For a drink I ordered something called Yaguana.
It was so good! And it was neon purple! The ingredients were some things I’d never heard of—ataco and babaco for starters. I asked the server what these ingredients were, so she took me over to the kitchen and showed me. The ataco was a bright red frozen juice made from steeping small amaranth berries, if I understood correctly. There was an Amazonian fruit similar to cinnamon. There was also something like tapioca pearls. I am always grateful when someone takes the time to explain things to me.
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