Among other things, we learned that altars are personalized to reflect the lives of the returning spirits. Next, we visited the excellent Rufina Tamayo Museum with its collection of pre-Hispanic pottery and sculpture. Pope John Paul celebrated mass in the church in the early 1980s. We enjoyed lunch at a nearby restaurant with many samplings of local dishes. The hardier souls also sampled the fiery local mescal.
Lunch is the main meal of the day in Oaxaca.
We boarded our comfortable bus for a visit to the village of San Bartolo Coyotepec to see a demonstration of how the local black pottery is made. Basically, it is formed by hand using a dish as a crude potters wheel. It is fired in the ground after air-drying. A local youth wearing a magnificent headdress performed a lively dance for us. Following comida at a village restaurant, we watched wood carvers in San Martin Tilcajete where the famous brightly painted animal figures identified with Oaxaca are made.