Capulalpam

Say that three times fast!
Last Sunday found us heading up into the mountains again, this time to Capulalpam. Capulalpam is in the Sierra Norte but quite a drive from Bonito Juarez. Both villages are part of the Pueblos Mancomunidos, which consists of 7 villages, within 200km of each other, that pool their resources. Capulalpam is beautiful, perched on the side of the mountains and dominated by a Dominican church. I have been told that Mexico was divided up between the Dominican and the Jesuits, when the Spanish came calling. At least, this part of Mexico.
The cast of characters on this trip consisted of me, Shoshanna, Alejandro, Anya, a lovely Dutch lady spending a few days at Casa Sagrada, Daniel, who owns a massage studio in Oaxaca and Omar, the rock star. Ok, so he's not a rock star, he is actually a masseuse, but he does play in a band. One of the reasons for the trip was to look for river rocks for the hot stone massages they do at the studio. If you've never had one I highly recommend it.
It's almost a 2 hour trip up and down the mountain switchbacks with postings every now and then about "curva peligrosa". For my non-Spanish speaking friends that's dangerous curve. Well, let me tell you they should put signs on all of them! Alejandro is a great driver so we made it to the village with no problems.
Of course once there we had to eat. There were ladies cooking all sorts of wonderful food in the square behind the church, so we sat down and dug in. Those of us less stout of heart ordered the chili rellenos, stuffed with pollo(chicken) and wrapped in a tortilla. Spicy!!!!!!!!!! Omar on the other hand, ordered a soup made with cow(maybe, I think it was goat) stomach, he said it was good but even he didn't eat all the strange pieces floating around in his bowl! See picture above. When one of the ladies heard it was my birthday, I got a great big hug and a wish for many great years to come.
We then headed for the Traditional Medicine clinic to have a look around. When the clinic was opened, quite a few years ago, they had 45 healers. Many of them have passed on but they handed their knowledge down to the next generation. Lucky for us! Some of us got traditional massages, quick but very relaxing!
We found a great place to look for rocks, pretty little waterfalls and a dammed off area that the local puebla(village) uses for swimming.
On the way home we almost got creamed by a bus coming round one of the curva pelagrosas but Alejandro's quick thinking saved us. It was really close, could see the white of the bus driver's eyes!
When we got back to the valley we headed to Shoshanna and Alejandro's casa . A wonderful dinner, beers, a few shots of mezcal and the next thing you know we were sitting around the firepit in the back yard singing songs and listening to the boys play guitar. A great day and a nice way to celebrate my getting younger!