Feed Me Tortillas: Oaxaca

Get ready...Here it comes....Oaxaca!

Ok. I know it's not that exciting, but I hope you enjoy some of the photos and are inspired to visit this amazing part of Mexico sometime in the near future! I'm going to skip most of the details, so if you have any questions just leave me a comment.

Giant Cathedral in the Zocalo

We arrived very, very early in the morning and were exhausted from trekking all around D.F. for the last two days. As we were landing, it dawned on me that I hadn't printed out or written out anything about our hotel reservation. In fact, not only did I not know where our hotel was, I hadn't a clue what it was called! Shit.

So we land and immediately realize we are forced to fork over an obscene amount of pesos just to get from the airport to the city center (Zocalo) (20 min max). There are no buses and your only option is to use the van company that has a monopoly on airport transportation. So, we get dropped off, part ways with our preciously scarce dinero and try to find an internet place open at 7:30 in the morning so I can get the name and location of the hotel from my email. Ha. Ha.

Hungry and exhausted, we circled the blocks around the Zocalo for close to an hour before we gave up and ate breakfast at our favorite type of restaurant - a hole in the wall. While enjoying our food at a window table, I was blown away by the number of tourists walking by! Here in Patzcuaro we think 5 gringo sightings a day is 'swarming with tourists', but in 30 minutes of not moving we counted maybe 10 separate sightings. I couldn't get over it!

Ceiling mural at the government building

After more wandering around we finally got to our hotel "Hotel Posada del Centro". At one point in our trip we had searched for another place and quickly realized that this place was a gold mine. For the price, it was the cleanest, brightest, friendliest, most comfortable and prettiest hotel we found..and I mean by a long shot. We were really happy there and definitely recommend it for anyone who's looking for lodging in this price range. If you ask they'll give you a nice discount for booking several days.

We spent a lot of time exploring the streets and were really shocked at how different the city was from any other place we've visited in Mexico. Surely there's nothing shocking about different states being very different places in almost every way, but with our narrow experience of Mexico we were still shocked. The dress, mannerisms, food, music, transportation systems, art, crafts, churches.. everything was incredibly new and exciting.The abundance of tourists and all the things catering to them was actually kind of difficult to get used to. We just aren't used to it and weren't expecting to be bombarded with expensive (and crappy) cafe's on every block, expensive hotels, tour guides, 150 street vendors selling 20 different things (not 150 different things), etc etc. But we finally found the mercado and felt much more at home :)

This is the back of a sculpture. It´s made of nothing but MASA and was maybe 2 meters in diameter.
One of the most amazing things I have ever seen!

We eventually settled into a routine of museums, artisans, mercado food, music, sight seeing and strolls through the Zocalo at night. By the end of the trip we found that almost all restaurant food is not to be trusted, pozole is absurdly expensive and Oaxaca truly has both the best mole and the most beautiful textiles in the country. The colors on any given walk are astounding and it was all I could do not to buy all the exquisite handmade rugs, dresses, shoes and purses I saw :) Luckily, Nathan was there to remind me that we were allowed two carry on bags and absolutely nothing else...oh and that traveling is expensive enough as it is on a no-income budget. In the end, we packed a box and shipped it to our place in Patzcuaro for a fraction of the cost we thought it would be.

Between indulging our starving museum cravings, wandering

streets, church hopping, mole feinding, a fun head cold and two day trip out on medication, we didn't leave ourselves much time to get out of town and explore the surrounding areas. We visited the largest tree in the world by girth, the town of Mitla and its ruins, Hierve el Agua and the magnificent Friday market in Ocotlán.

The ruins in Mitla were amazing and beautiful and I would definitely recommend taking a day trip out there. Unfortunately, we didn´t find the town of Mitla to be very agreeable when we stayed the night. There were few restaurants that were actually open at any given time of day and there were only two options for lodging. Word for the wise: stay away from the cheaper option!

I was completely unprepared for the ruins at Mitla. Their grandeur, scale and detail are on a level far above any advertising I ever saw. The whole site is split into three sections, two of which you pay to enter. Luckily, we got there early before all the other tourists and mostly had the place to ourselves until mid morning, allowing time to truly appreciate the place in all its past glory. The site has been remarkably well preserved and I often wondered why the Spaniards had spared these buildings the destruction they wreaked on many other places..

Close up of greco at Mitla

The church was literally built on top of the Zapotec building. There are pre-hispanic walls still attached to the right side of the church courtyard walls.

Hierve el Agua (Boil the Water) was very much worth the pain it was to get ourselves out there. We needed seven people to take a camioneta (truck) out there. We started with four, then down to two, then finally after what seemed an eternity, enough people showed up and we were able to leave. The ride was extremely bumpy and quite windy as we were sitting on benches in the back of a pickup. However, the view was without a doubt the best view we could have hoped for. We climbed up a switchback laden road, got to the peak and descended down into the opposite valley..passing majestic views of mountains, valleys, farm fields, and forests. It is called Hierve el Agua because the water appears to boil when it comes up from a spring, though it is not actually hot. People swim in the naturally made pools, lined with walls of calcified water.

The waterfalls appear frozen in time! The water has such a high content of calcium that it calcifies before it can reach the bottom of the valley. It is still growing, but very very slowly.

Back in Oaxaca City, we found more art treasures: