Spring Break Stop 1: Oaxaca, Oaxaca

My 18-day trip has finally begun! On Saturday, I flew from Mexico City to Oaxaca City to meet Britney and Frankie. We spent the first day exploring the city. After we unpacked, we went to the center on a tlayuda hunt. A tlayuda is like a massive crunchy quesadilla with veggies and meat. It was alright. Once was enough for me. After the meal, we walked around the market in the center. I don’t know why but I had such an urge to buy everything. The culture in Oaxaca City is so different than Toluca because Oaxaca City is more traditional. When we were walking through the market, our 13-year-old selves came out and asked for braids in our hair. We caved in. Then we walked down the commercial strip. We had coffee, walked through an art gallery, and found an art fair. I wish Toluca had culture like this. At night, we stayed at the same hotel where I brought my family when they visited in December. Unfortunately, they gave us a room that was far from the patio area in the middle of the hotel with no windows or wifi but we were only there to sleep.

Sunday was Palm Sunday. Before going to mass, the girls and I met up with Jess and Clara for brunch. We ate in the cutest place. Outside of Santo Domingo, the main church of downtown Oaxaca, there were dozens of women and children selling craftily folded palms. At my church in the states, they just hand you one palm as you walk in. In Mexico, they say that you’re supposed to put the palms on the door of your house as a way of blessing the house. In the afternoon, we visited the archeological site of Monte Albán. The pre-Columbian partially excavated ceremonial center is located only a few miles from the city. When we came back from Monte Albán we were craving tortas so we found a place by the food market to eat and I had some wonderful hot chocolate. Oaxaca is known for their chocolate so you know it’s good. At night we went out for a fam dinner at a place in the center where we sat on the rooftop and could see Santo Domingo.

Monday was the day of the big tour. The first stop was the tree of Tule. It the widest tree in the world! We wanted to hug it, but it had a fence around it. Then we headed to a tapete workshop in Teotitlán del Valle. We got to see how they make and dye the fibers. They make a dark red color by squishing a little white bug that is found on cacti. With a squeeze of lime juice, they make a blood red color. All of the dying is natural. Then we got to see how they actually make the rugs on the wooden machines. First they draw the design on a piece of paper then on the base fibers in the machine. The rugs were beautiful. After Teotitlán, we went to Mitla. This was the main religious center. What makes Mitla unique among sites is the elaborate and intricate mosaics and geometric designs that cover tombs, panels, and even entire walls. I learned that the stairs on pyramids are so steep because you are supposed to go up and down diagonally, never having your back squared to the top because it is disrespectful to the people of power who worked/lived on the pyramids. We even got to go under some of the pyramids to see the tombs.

Next, the tour took us to Hierve el agua (boiling waters), which is a petrified waterfall. It got its name because there are a few places where the water is bubbling but the water isn’t hot. On top of the waterfalls there are some natural swimming holes. There are only 2 petrified waterfalls in the world, Mexico and Turkey. The final stop to quench our thirst was a mezcaleria. We got to see how mezcal is made and then we were able to sample different kinds. They use the vapor from animals to help with the flavor, which was very interesting. Mezcal is younger than tequila Mezcal came around in 1980s. It has a smokier taste. For tequila and mezcal, the more gold the color, the longer it was in the barrels and the smoother the taste. I preferred the creamy drinks personally because they were sweeter and not as strong. We were wiped after the tour so we just headed back.

Tuesday was our last day in the city. We had made a friend at the art fair who offered to give us a tour of his pueblo of Villa de Zaachila so we took the most inexpensive taxi ride ($1USD for 30 minutes) to get there. We ate the traditional dish and toured the center. There’s a small archaeological site that we went to with a good view. Then we walked down the street between the main church and the cemetery. It was about 2 city blocks long and all houses. The walls of the houses had all sorts of murals about death and life. It was so artfully done. Our new friend had actually painted some of them. They change the murals every year around the time of Day of the Dead. We took another cheap cab ride back and relaxed the rest of the night. For our last night in Oaxaca, we went out to dinner in a recommended restaurant downtown which had very unique dishes and was delicious! There was a dog that kept trying to come into the restaurant and a 2-year-old boy who was yelling at it. It was adorable. Around 11PM, Brit and I hopped on an overnight bus to our next destination!