Night of the Radishes was bizarre... mainly because of the sheer number of people there. People were queueing several times around the square just to get onto a viewing platform that ran around past all the radish displays. Each sculpture was labelled, telling you who had made it, what its title was, and where the makers were from. Everyone was exclaiming at the 'beauty' of the sculptures.. but in reality they were quite ugly - ingenious yes, but gnarled & somehow gnome-like, with splindly roots coming off them & limp leaves draped all around. Most of the themes were religious or cultural - with traditional dances depicted or scenes of people plouging fields etc. There were also sculptures in flowers and corn-husks. We couldn't face the queue, so managed to get behind the displays & view them from there. It wasn't ideal, but it did allow us to see something very funny - one group had made a huge sculpture of a cathedral, but had also made something else which was hidden from general view. It was a radish that looked like the body of a man with a big penis, and they'd embellished it beautifully with a head and arms etc. We particularly admired the way it was placed behind the cathedral. The other thing that was entertaining was the way everyone rushed around, spraying their creations with water from flower-spray bottles, to keep them shiney & colourful.
The christmas eve celebrations were really lovely - each neighbourhood made a float with a nativity scene, and they all converged on the square in the evening with processions, music & fireworks. Each one was quite beautifully decorated, covered with fairy-lights, & children in costume playing Mary & Joseph etc. Sometimes the children threw handfuls of sweets out into the crowd... each float was followed by people waving sparklers & carrying lanterns. Occassionally someone let off spinning Catherine-wheel style fireworks on the end of a long pole. My favourite procession featured the three wise men on real horses, the kids looking very solemn in giant flase beards. Around the square hawkers sold sparklers, eggs filled with confetti, & cans of shaving foam (which seems to be a popular thing for kids at festivals - for spraying each other with). Christmas day was very pleasant - we got slowly sozzled on White Russians... at least that's what we thought they were. On boxing day we discovered to our dismay that the bottle of 'vodka' we'd bought was in fact gin... Mmmm - gin and milk! Always a delicious combination.
We did a few more things around Oaxaca before we left - visited the ruins of Monte Alban. The ruins were incredible, but we had a traumatic time getting there as our bus driver decided to drop us about 4 km down-hill of the ruins. The bus drivers out here have such a sense of humour! We also visited a couple of nearby indigenous Mixtec/Zapotec villages... in one there were processions going on that we didn't understand - little girls in white dresses were being escorted along the street with musicians & flowers.
Leaving Oaxaca was really sad, but the next place - Zipolite - was great too, and a great place to celebrate new year. We caught a 5.00am bus down to the Oaxaca coast... an American we were chatting to in the queue in the bus station warned us that it was a very curvy road to the coast, and that sometimes people felt a bit ill after 8 hours of being thrown from side to side. Luckily we weren't ill, but a little boy sitting on the floor next to Richard threw up in a plastic bag, and then had to hold it for the rest of the journey. Just as we neared our final stop our American friend leapt to his feet - it turned out that the woman he'd been sitting next to had been breast-feeding her baby, & the baby had been sick all over her. This in turn had set off her other child, also crammed onto the seat next to the American. When we got to Zipoltie finally it was with some relief, and it turned out to be a truly beautifu beach. There wasn't even a town as such - the place consisted of wooden shacks along the beach and one road further back, which had several shops & accommodations along it. All the buildings were colourful & thatched with palm-fronds, and there was a definate hippy feel to the place, with names such as 'Lo Cosmico', 'Tao', and 'El Eclipse'. It's a back-packers place really, with a reputation for laziness and weed-smoking. Our fist few hours were miserable, as we'd arrived the day before new year's eve - and every room was taken. We trudged up & down in the heat wearing far too many clothes, & eventually we found a place where a friendly woman said we could rent hammocks - we had wanted a room but we were so desperate we took it. The first thing I did was shower - then relax in a hammock with a beer. The people who ran the place were lovely - Cecelia was half American, half Costa Rican, & she had an ex-hippy boyfriend Mike who spent every day lounging in his hammock drinking beer, smoking spliffs & playing cheesy music. That evening we ate in a restaurant overlooking the nudist beach! The tables were right in the sand, & it was lit by candles & lanterns.