#3169: Monday, March 11, 2024: Adios, Oaxaca and farewell, Winter travels

Post 3169

- 13 years and 71 days since I started this blog -

March 10, 2024, across the street from Chepiche Café.

Journal

(written March 10-11, 2024)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 13 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling (except for food shots when I've eaten something interesting or pretty. And that's where we find ourselves now.

My winter travels have come to an end. I'm a little wistful, but I'm also ready to go home. I miss my friends and my band, and my home cooking.

While my day-to-day doesn't change (smoke weed, play bass, eat well and avoid pointless drama), that style originated in, and has reached it's current level of ease in the US, specifically, Syracuse.

I look forward to the high level of music making that is most available to me in New York. I miss cooking for myself - I know exactly what I like and make it well. 

And, oh, how I miss my friends.

My Oaxaca situation has given me a lot of time to think. That's always dangerous..

Good thing my luck continues to hold in regard to getting good weed.

I got asked a question I think I'll answer here, more fully than I did when I replied when asked.

The question: "How do you do it? How are you able to travel like you do?".

My original reply took the question to be about my finances. My answer to it, in that simple light, is that I am wealthy, very rich. Not in the sense of having a lot of money and assets (I don't), but in the simple sense of having more than I need to live on and maintain a modest lifestyle.. 

I don't own a house. My rent is relatively cheap. I have no dependents. I have no debt. My income comes 99% from Social Security and two very small pensions (from my days with IBM and the VA). That is more than enough to pay rent on my apartment and my car (I lease), buy my food, pay for my medical insurance (subsidized), and provide me with a modest entertainment budget. My music pays for itself and my weed.

The excess gives me enough money for four months of travel to mostly (except for visits to LA to see my son Alex) places where the living is very inexpensive. Transportation is the biggest expense, but travel hacks and being able to buy far in advance keeps it manageable. So far,

I stay in AirBnBs when I travel. That has worked out best for me, in terms of cost and comfort. given that I stay in one place.

Then there's that portable lifestyle, that doesn't change when I travel. 

My goal when I arrive at my destination: Smoke weed, play bass, eat well, and avoid pointless drama. It doesn't lend itself to extravagance. It's not different than home, except in context. It is, in general, not transactional.

Speaking of which, when I travel, I have no agenda, open or hidden. I'm not buying or selling anything. I have no ambition, I am not seeking. What I buy, I consume. 

I am additionally enabled by the fact that I am a happy single guy, not looking to change that status. I enjoy alone time. I do not feel incomplete. I get to be selfish, do just what I want, without consulting anyone else.

I get to enjoy other people without triggering all the neurotic drama that goes with the dating/romantic game. I am not looking for my missing piece. I sleep alone, and I'm fine with that.

Are you still here? Okay, back to my last days in Oaxaca.

I am getting around much better. My knee has improved a lot, I can walk a bit with no pain, and when there is pain, it is much less. Unfortunately, it is still too hot from Noon to sundown to walk comfortably.

I had a couple of great days with friends, and met some wonderful new friends as well. but I haven't been to anyplace new, so really don't have anything new to report. So, just a couple of pictures.

Bird of Paradise blooming in the garden of my AirBnB's beautiful courtyard.

This alley, formed by the walls of two fairly massive haciendas on either side of a drainage ditch, is typical of the unexpected beauty I find every minute I walk around Oaxaca.

And, that's it for this year, Dear Readers. On Wednesday, this blog goes back to weights and food logging, for which there is little audience and none really expected. Come back next year, if you've been digging this stuff. I fully intend to pick this back up next December. Ciao!

Food Comment

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Introducing the new champion of octopus, and, the best dinner I've had in Oaxaca, Casa Oaxaca. An upscale restaurant, they have tasting menus that are booked up months in advance. I just walked in off the street, though, and ordered a la carte. I started with the best mescal cocktail I've ever had, made with ginger and lime and something I don't know how to translate, called, of course, the Casa Oaxaca. Then waiter mads a fresht bowl of salsa at your table, customizing the ingredients to your preferences (I said yes to everything). Rather surprisingly (how do they do that?), the instant the salsa was finished, another waiter brought a blue corn tlayuda (think really big crispy tortilla) with melted queso, to try it on. Later, there was a basket of blue and white corn crisp tortillas. Then my order started coming, beginning with the best, freshest, most delicious salad I've eaten since I left New York. The main course was the most delicious octopus, grilled perfectly, every bite tender, I've ever eaten. Better than in Portugal, better, in its entirety, than the pulpo I enjoyed at Capitán, the previous best. It was served on a creamy, well-spiced with a bit of heat, rich risotto that complemented the pulpo perfectly. I was too full for dessert, a mistake I won't make next time. 

Back at Pan:Am for a vegetable omelet with molé frijoles and a bowl of oatmeal con frutas - nothing to challenge my favorites, but the only one I found offered this trip.

Just this morning, I went to Chepiche Café, my favorite breakfast place, and had my favorite breakfast there: A vegetable omelet with a side of crisp bacon and a bowl of fruit with yogurt and granola. I knew I couldn't finish it all, but I also knew I wanted to have it all, so I did.

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