I got an airbnb in Barrio de Xochimilco, a quiet and safe little neighborhood just north of the commercial hub of the city, known as Centro. The Airbnb has a large, magnificent cactus and regional foliage-filled courtyard and as I am the only gues right now it is all mine, with the exception of the few times the owner has had her business meetings here.
I wake up and make myself a pour-over with some excellent Oaxacan espresso. Oaxaca is known for its coffee, and has a lot of fancy coffee shops, but one thing I really like is NOT having to leave my place to have my coffee. I have a multi-course breakfast, a combination of pan dulce, eggs, cheese, and fruit. Current fruit favorites are guava (tiny and yellow here), sapodilla (a pod about the size of the nectarine containing passionfruit-like pulp that sweeter and more fragrant) and zapote negro. Zapote negro is green on the outside, black on the inside, and the creamy dense fruit inside is likened to a dense, less sweet, chocolate pudding. I usually save the zapote for dessert in the evening, as I find most mexican desserts a little sweet for my liking. I only really like tropical fruit, and almost never eat anything but banana and coconut at home, so this is a real treat. I also credit my daily fruit binge with giving me all the vitamins I need to help the fight against getting COVID.
Oaxaca is in a valley, so the mornings and the evenings are cool and breezy, about 50 degrees, so I spend some time in the morning crafting until it warms up a bit. I brought some embroidery with me and knitting. Handicrafts like this are sources of income for people of this region, and I am sure local people are very confused when I take my knitting out at a bar. This once happened to me in NY too… I was knitting on a subway platform and a mexican man asked me where I sell my work… I said I was doing it for fun and he told me I could just buy a sweater very cheaply.
What is there to do in Oaxaca under normal conditions? Eat, shop, drink mezcal, see ruins. When I first started traveling, I was fascinated by ruins. I have never been into history, but I was very into ancient greek philosophy, so one of my life goals was to go to Greece to see the ruins. Well, I have done that. In Greece, Turkey, Italy, Mexico…. I’m done with ruins. And I have been to Oaxaca before, I don’t really need to see the ruins again. And as much as I love food, I certainly can’t eat (or drink) all day, so shop it is.
I leave the apartment about 11 am with a bottle of frozen water and a bottle of electrolyte liquid. I down one of these bad boys every day as a preventative. Oaxaca is about a mile up, and 85-90 degrees every day, very dry. You don’t feel yourself sweat, and I am prone to dehydration and altitude sickness. The electrolyte liquid is an off-brand pedialyte and is so popular they sell it everywhere, and in many places if you buy two they give you a free cup of noodles. They come in fun local flavors like jamaica (hibiscus), horchata (cinnamon rice milk), guava, coconut.
Right outside the airbnb is a bus stop. It’s hard to figure out the bus routes here. Every bus has a list of places on the windshield that it goes to, and I don’t know where and of these places are, but every bus that passes by passes through the center of town so I just hop on any one and it saves me the 25 minute walk to the center of town. I do love a walk, and walking to the center of the town is downhill but I have learned that if I don’t take some shortcuts, by the end of the day I am completely exhausted and dehydrated. Without the bus up and down, one day I walked 29,000 steps and couldn’t feel my legs at the end of the day. Too much.
In the center of town, there are a number of small taxi stands that go to other villages of Oaxaca. You just find the stand (thanks internet) that has the terminal town on the windshield and get in. These red shared taxis are called “collectivos” and they cost anywhere from $1-2 to take you on a ride to these villages. If you don’t make it to the taxi stand, the taxi drivers will honk the horn as they drive down the street, with fingers out the window to indicate how many spots left are in the taxi. It’s a very efficient system, and all the collectivo drivers have been very honest about the price of the ride and where they are going. There’s a lot of scamming in Mexico but this isn’t one of them. If I ask someone if they are going somewhere, and they aren’t, they say so AND help direct me to the collectivo that does.
In fact, EVERYONE in Oaxaca is so nice and helpful. I was looking for paper filters for my coffee and this store didn’t have them (almost nobody does btw) and the gentleman directed me to a nearby store that did. I have experienced this everywhere I have been here.
Oaxaca is part of mexico with a high indigenous population, and much of the tradition has lasted to this day. One of the ways this can be seen is through the town’s “market days” known as tianguis. Every little town in the Oaxacan valley has its own market day, and on that day the center of town is filled to the brim with people selling produce, meat, local cheeses, and handicrafts particular to the area. I LOVE doing this. The produce is so fresh and stupidly cheap. They might be marking up the prices when they see me just a little, but if so, not by much. A kilo of avocados or limes are about 30 pesos. That’s $1.50. Unfortunately it took me some time to recognize that I kilo of ANYTHING is pretty hard to go through when you’re one person. I made a lot of guacamole last week. So it’s not a lot of money but I hate wasting food and I have no one to give the extra to. This is my biggest problem so far.
I have developed over the years a love of folk art. My apartment is full of mexican sacred hearts; I’m a little obsessed with them and bought a lot back from Guadalajara last year. There are a few kinds of pottery that this area is known for: barro negro, which is all black with intricate geometric designs carved into out out of them, glazed to a high shine. I have come to like this a lot and went to the village San Bartolo Coyotepec to buy some. All of the artisans live right off the main road, and if the village is a bit away from the main road then you can take a tuk-tuk mototaxi) to the village easily. I went into every store on the main drag of coyotepec and not one artisan was pushy. This is the best part to me. They welcome you in, they let you walk around, they don’t really bother you, and they quoted me very reasonable prices and were happy you were buying anything. I do NOT know how I am going to get all these hearts home safely but I guess it’s going to involve wrapping them all lovingly in the mass quantity of brazilian spandex I procured in Bahia.
There is a green glazed pottery that is known to leach lead into the food it holds. I’ll be passing on that.
I also go to the Village of Teotitlan del Valle, known for its traditional Zapotec weavings. They still hand-card (brushing to straighten and clean) and hand-spin wool, and use natural plant and animal dyes, and weave by hand. I am not so into rugs thank god, because finding a way to bring expensive rugs back home is not on my agenda. But they are magnificent. I stopped into one shop, and the guy just told me to enjoy myself and wander around. I couldn’t help to buy a few skeins of yarn from him. He wasn’t even trying. The wool is very scratchy and the hay still needs to be picked out of it and is definitely more suited for weaving than knitting, but I am still excited to have it, and at $5 a very large skein of wool, how can I not. Now I want to take up loom weaving.
I have some food at one of the food stalls in the market. I have a VERY weak stomach despite my love for spicy and heavily seasoned food. I also have a hard time digesting things that are fried. This doesn’t even touch upon the “Montezuma’s revenge” that tourists are prone to get. I have been to mexico a good 4 or 5 times, and I have gotten violently ill all but once. This does NOT stop me from eating what I want to eat or returning. But it also means that every time I eat something, I say a little prayer that if I get sick, I can at least make it back to the apartment where I have a working toilet and a supply of electrolyte solution, bread, and a cup of noodles. So far, I have been OK but there’s only so long you can avoid the inevitable.
I take a collectivo back to the center of town and lately I have been going to the central market for some nieves. Nieves are creme or water ices that are made the old-fashioned way, by putting a vat in another vat with rock salt to lower the freezing temperature of the water. They’re delicious. Is it a bad idea to eat ices in Mexico? Probably.
I also want to try the local drink called tejate but am a little afraid of what it’s going to do to my gut. It’s a pre-columbian beverage made from ground cacao, pits of zapote, corn and is mixed by hand with water in a giant bowl. I am guessing that in the center of Oaxaca, that normally sees a lot of tourism, the tejate is made with purified water. I know I can ask, but am I going to get the real answer anyway?
At this point I am completely exhausted and want to rest, so even though alcohol is a bad idea when you’re dehydrated, it seems like it’s the appropriate thing to do especially when some of the rooftop bars have such a lovely view of the mountains and the church. This is mezcal country, not tequila country, and I DO love mezcal but that shit is strong, and combined with the altitude and the heat, well… there’s only so much mezcal this body will tolerate. And it is ONE. ONE mezcal is all I can do here. Oaxaca has a mix of the old and the new. There are cheap taquerias and fancy restaurants. There are cantinas with swinging doors and there are hipster cocktail bars. I hate overpriced hipster bullshit, and I’m one of those self-loathing americans who hates being around other americans when I travel. So I found this lovely place called Mezquite that has a GREAT cocktail menu with a great view but isn’t too packed. I don’t know what it’s like normally, during non-covid times. The cocktails are $5 or less, the service is excellent.
I got an amazing massage one day… they guy used a combination of techniques including swedish, chiropractic, native zapotec… place was called Native Spa and I would go back every day if I was really treating myself. I am also taking a little trip with them today to get a traditional temazcal experience in the mountains with native herbal steaming. I’m pretty excited about this.
Then I head back to the apartment. I’m usually wiped out at this point. The bars are all open, and although almost everyone is wearing masks in the street and the stores, nobody is wearing them in the bars. I went to listen to some music and hopefully dance a song or two the other night; I was the only one wearing a mask, and the one dance I allowed myself was pretty terrible. And the music only lasted an hour because of the government covid regulations.
Sometimes I make dinner, sometimes I go back out to eat, depends on whether or not I can tolerate one more tortilla that day. I love mole, which is what Oaxaca is best known for, and they have 7 traditional types of mole. I’ve had 4 at this point: negro, amarillo, coloradito, and almendrado (black, yellow, reddish, and almonds.) They’re all great, but I’m done. In Oaxaca, the mole (sauce) is the star, and the protein is minimal; I’d prefer it the other way around. At least there is protein; I was taken for a special anniversary dinner to the very highly rated NYC upscale-mexican place and we ordered a $30 plate of mole. It was just the sauce and some tortillas, and we just laughed. No protein. To me, it was the emperor’s new clothes of meals. Everyone else loves it, I thought it was total bullshit. I can’t even remember the name of the place but every time I think of mole I laugh.
I am having a great time here, and the COVID situation here is much better, and the town is much safer here than it has been in the other places I’ve been so it’s just nice and relaxing. I have 5 more days here and I am sure it will be more of the same and I’m super happy about that.
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