Mercadito “10 de Mayo”
Friday, October 27
The village of “San Pablo Etla” in the state of Oaxaca is beautifully situated between the green mountains of Oaxaca. It is very quiet in the village, there are almost no cars and when you go for a walk you'll meet many villagers who have just come from the fields with their donkeys.
Overall, our life in the Mexican village was of course very different than it was in the city. A big advantage of staying in San Pablo Etla was the peace and the beautiful mountain views. A disadvantage of this idyll, however, was that there were only a few places in the village where you could buy (fresh) fruit and vegetables or freshly baked bread.
After we had been looking for a bakery for days and couldn't find one, a lovely Mexican woman from the village explained to me that the bakery car drives by the houses every morning and honks loudly. The very next morning we listened particularly carefully and sure enough: there was a horn honking in the street. We quickly ran out of the house onto the street where there was a large truck with baskets full of freshly baked bread on the back of the truck. An older man with a mustache and a hat, the baker and driver of the truck, sold us some rolls, then covered the baskets again with cloths, got into his car and drove on. After a few days and thanks to the help of the villagers, we knew where we could buy fresh bread. And eventually, a few hundred meters from our house, we discovered a small vegetable stand run by a friendly young family, where we could now regularly buy vegetables to cook with at home.
The only thing we hadn't found yet was a restaurant. Once again we asked around and got recommended the village's market, which was about a 30-minute walk downhill from our house. Since the market was only open in the morning and until lunch time, the next day at noon we decided to have lunch at the local market!
When we arrived at the market, it turned out that no fruit or vegetables were sold at the market, but that the market really only consisted of various food and drink stalls. The stands were covered by a thin tin roof, but were generally outside. So you could sit in the shade, but were still outside. We sat down at one of the free tables and immediately everyone else in the market stared at us curiously. During our whole stay in San Pablo Etla, we didn't meet any other foreigners once. Apparently no other tourists stays up here in the village! At lunch, we first ordered a freshly squeezed fruit juice from the drinks stand and then a quesadilla and enchiladas from the food stand. The women working there were all super nice and the freshly cooked food tasted wonderful every time we had lunch there!
While we sipped our juice, we watched the Mexican grandmas forming freshly ground corn into tortillas for our lunch and then cooking them on the wood fired stove. After we had observed this from a distance for weeks, a few days before we left the village I asked the women at the market if they would teach me how to bake these delicious corn tortillas. This led to my absolute favorite moment of our time in San Pablo Etla: the lovely grandma “Lupita”, owner of the food stand, taught me herself and explained to me step by step how to make the best tortillas and quesadillas. A truly special experience and the perfect last visit of the market in San Pablo Etla.
