Day 4: Jacobo and Maria Alebrijes art workshop, and Tijano mezcal factory.
This morning, we are walking through a quaint suburb of Oaxaca...
...still decorated for the Day of the Dead (more like the Month of the Dead).
Our destination is Ancestral Cocina Tradicional Restaurant, also mentioned in the Michelin Guide.
We will be eating traditional (pre-Columbian) dishes on this delightful patio.
Chicken and mole sauces, with fresh grapefruit juice.
After breakfast, we walk through some more buildings painted for the Day of the Dead.
We arrive at the Jacobo and Maria Alebrijes art studio and workshop.
On display are some of the artworks, including this Jackalope ...
...and this flying armadillo.
This is what the front facade of the building looks like.
Our guide gives us a history of the artists and the workshop.
A ritual cleansing with some herbs.
She then demonstrates how various colors are made from local plants and insects ...
...along with some powdered lime, zinc, and lime juice.
In this room, the carving and drying of the wood sculptures is completed.
Here are some of the artists at work. The level of detail on each piece is astonishing.
The rooms are divided up between the apprentices and the professionals.
We didn't take a lot of pictures of the artwork, but there were several of these pooping dogs.
We had a turn at trying to paint some small figures ourselves, and this is us posing in front of
the studio with our "creations".
The next stop was an artisanal mezcal factory.
We get some crunchy treats including more chapulines.
We taste these raw strands of the harvested agave; you can taste the sugars in it.
The strands are ground in this pit with a horse-powered grindstone.
Then they are transferred to these vats for fermenting.
The bubbling in the fermentation process from the heat generated.
The distilling area.
A simple still, with the pipe taking the vapors over to another barrel in cool water to condense.
A shot of the grounds and some agave growing.
We have lunch at a small outdoor restaurant called Almu.
They also have a ton of local plants and planters for sale on the way in.
It's good the weather was nice, because we are eating out on the patio again.
Lunch was delicious, and of course centered around traditional Mexican food.
A shot of the kitchen area, also outdoors.
That night was dinner on our own, and we went to a Michelin-starred restaurant called La Catedral.
It was very laid-back in presentation.
The lovely couple at dinner.
Our appetizer was a delicious beetroot salad with goat cheese foam and arugula.
For the entree, we split a "favorites" combination plate, including mole, the quesillo (string cheese),
roasted pork, and a chile relleno.
The dessert was this delicious and very light corn "pound" cake, served with ice cream and sauce.
It was a real highlight of the meal.
