Guelaguetza

The Guelaguetza is an annual celebration in the capital of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, and many Oaxacans here gather for the Oregon Guelaguetza and enjoy familiar food, dancing, and other traditions. With Alexis and Lalo, some friends who just moved to Portland from Oaxaca this spring, we drove down I-5 to the Salem fairgrounds for the event yesterday. It was pretty cool to watch the regional dances with folks who actually know something about the meaning of the dances.

We also waited in line twice for tlayudas, a traditional Oaxacan food, but the the vendors ran out each time we reached the front of the line. Oh, well. We had sopes instead. Alexis and Lalo also found some ingredients to make Oaxacan mole at home.

Amazingly, we ran into a couple of people that we know, including Eliser's brother and his family. His wife is from Oaxaca and knows how to make tlayudas, so she said she'd invite us over when she makes them next--yay!

Here's a short video of a neat dance where the men wore giant feather headpieces.

Since Alexis and Lalo hadn't been to Salem before, we also walked around downtown in the rain and pointed out the good cafes and used book stores.

And, of course, we picked up a couple of orders of General Tso's "chicken" at Marco Polo on our way out of town. It smelled sooo good that it was hard to wait until we got home to eat it! Eric wondered afterward if he may have built it up too much to tell our friends, "it will change your life." I bet they liked it though. It really is the best food we've ever eaten.