Christmas Eve, aka Noche Buena. The first year I came to visit here, this was a huge family deal—all or most of the eight siblings and their various spouses, children and grandchildren converged at the house for the evening, singing and going through the whole Baby Jesus drama and finally eating a huge meal around 11 or 12 p.m., then visiting into the wee hours.
But times have changed in the last few years; people started doing their own thing and it’s very toned-down now—which, to tell you the truth, I rather prefered. It also meant that I ended up doing much of the cooking. I made the tequila lime chicken I’ve been wanting to try, and it turned out really good, to my surprise. Also I made the key lime pie (“pay” en español) that everyone liked so much last time, and we made the traditional Noche Buena salad (lettuce, beets, oranges, jicama and peanuts—yum).
Somewhere in the middle of the cooking frenzy, I was rummaging around in the kitchen cupboards, looking for the right-sized casserole dish, and came upon a scorpion happily nestled between two glass dishes. I yelled for help, not wanting to stop what I was doing, and macho Mexican came to the rescue. I thought he would just take it outside, which he did, but, to my horror, he proceeded to stomp it to death. It was just a little old scorpion! It certainly does not belong in the kitchen, but sheesh—there’s no need for such violence. It has done nothing that warrants murder. Cultural difference number… 98?
Anyway, sister Pati had made bacalao and Liliana contributed ravioli, and that was dinner. And it was really good, even if we did have to wait until the usual ridiculous hour to eat it. These people are pretty stuck on their traditions. Seven o’clock and everyone is hungry, but no one will eat dinner because it’s Christmas Eve, so let’s just sit around and eat peanuts instead. Seems silly to me, but what do I know—I’m not Mexican, or Catholic, so clearly I’m not authorized to speak on this matter.
On Christmas Day we left for our road trip to Oaxaca. It just worked out that way, and it turned out to be a good thing, because Christmas Day is one of the few days in the year when there is not much traffic in Puebla. So when we picked up the rental car and I had to drive the family clunker back to the house, it was easy-peasy rather than the nerve-wracking experience I remember from last time. And getting out of the city, usually a matter of crawling through traffic for an hour or more, was a breeze.
Oaxaca is both a state and a capital city. Our plan was to head for the beach, and then stop in Oaxaca City on the way back. But it is a long, long drive from Puebla to the Pacific Ocean, so after about seven hours on the road, we stopped for the night in a little mountain town called San Jose del Pacifico.
What I learned that night was that if you’re Mexican and you’re spending the night in a cheap hotel in a podunk town, you might want to check the mattress for evidence of bedbugs before getting into bed. The way you do that is you look under the sheets and see if there are little red spots on the mattress; if not, then you can probably quit worrying about it and go to bed.
The next day, we drove down the mountain to the ocean. This took a long time; there were still a lot of miles to go down a windy, twisty road. Kinda challenging for the driver, especially since he was not too crazy about this car we rented. It was a Dodge “Attitude,” bright red and all, brand new even, but it was not living up to its name very well. The best attitude it could muster climbing up and down the mountains could only be termed wimpy, which doesn’t really qualify as an attitude. But it bothered the driver more than the passenger; riding shotgun was a pleasure. I enjoyed the remote countryside, little mountain towns, beautiful scenery, banana trees and coconut palms and roadside stands selling the bananas and coconuts—also watermelons, though I couldn’t figure out where they were growing those. The land was practically vertical, and though it didn’t seem like farming country somehow, they must be growing the watermelons, because they are certainly not importing them.
Finally we got to the bottom of the mountain and followed the coastline south until we reached our destination: Hotel Salchi. This was the only beachside hotel we could find that was relatively reasonably priced and had a vacancy this holiday week. Hey, hey, we’re at the beach! ¡Vamos a la playa!