Rooftop Dinner Attempt to Recreate 2018: Ants, Wednesday night on the plaza

Tonight is a big night. As has been noted several times in past blogs. Most of the time we cook our dinner at home. Many days all of our meals are home meals. Tonight we are going out, not only going out, but going out to an expensive dinner. We are going to revisit the site of a magical rooftop dinner in Oaxaca from 2018.

We did it and now we are back home. These admittedly poorly lit photos are the best representations of the dinner I have.

The experience was not magic like in 2018, but the food was incredible. We shared a very tender octopus dish over rice in a chile sauce with a cooling aioli and avocado, and a cut of pork that looked like a big cube, but was wonderfully tender and coated with a sugar free glaze. It was served with a delicious mole laced with chorizo, and a side of rice in olive oil. Both dishes had to be amended for Sheila’s dairy and sugar allergies and that was not a problem. The portions were generous with 250 grams of pork and 175 grams of octopus (they list the weights on the menu). Dinner was topped off with a decaf Americano and a very rich hot chocolate. Sheila declared the coffee to be among the best she has had.

The total cost was about $57, a lot for Mexico, but in Spokane it was incredibly easy to pay that for fairly mediocre meals. We are happy to spend that amount of money for the experience and the flavors we experienced tonight. Tomorrow we go back to cooking  and $57 may last us 5 days.

The restaurant overlooks a beautiful old church with a large square. When we left the restaurant at 8 we walked through the square and even on a Wednesday night it was well populated, full of old and young alike, listening to music, talking and laughing. This is the kind of communal energy we miss out on back home.

On a vastly differing note; ants are such interesting creatures. We were walking back to our room this morning when we noticed a trail of ants. At first I was aware of how tiny little red ants were carrying leaves that were many times their size. The ants with leaves were going one direction, a whole bunch of ants were going the other direction.  We wondered where the leaf carriers were headed, although I thought I knew. About 20 yards back in the direction we had come there was a break in the sidewalk where a two foot square of dirt is home to a tree. Sure enough, that is where the ants were headed.

Here’s where the story gets more interesting for me. One would think this sight was an example of incredible cooperation between non-communicating (?) insects. Well, on one had they appeared to be communicating. But! The ants headed in the opposite direction from the ants with the leaves consistently ran smack dab into the ants with the leaves. It did not seem to phase the ants with leaves, but why would they do that if they were all involved in a cooperative endeavor? I doubt this is a uniquely Oaxacan phenomenon, but it has made the cut for this blog post any way. Perhaps ants are endowed with a magical transformative power that allows them to transfer their energy to another ant by running into that ant.  I will leave this anecdote behind with that science fiction explanation that may be appropriate for a world gone mad.