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A Balloon in Cactus
Oaxaca: What Is It Like?
By Maggie Van Ostrand
Her Email
Her Bio
What is it like in Oaxaca? It's like no other place in all of Mexico. It is as close to a true mixture of the various Mexican cultures as can be found. Visitors to Oaxaca City will find a large number of Zapotec Indians, descendants of the great Zapotec Empire, which existed even before the Aztecs or Mel Gibson.
Colonial Oaxaca may be one of Mexico's poorest states, but it is rich enough to have produced the great Benito Juarez.
Photo by Geri Anderson  |
When traveling to Oaxaca, you might want to go during the last two Mondays in July, and partake in, or just watch as others partake in, "The Guelaguetza" (the offering) and check out the colorful regional dances.
We saw The Guelaguetza danced by professionals at the five-star Camino Real Oaxaca, the former convent of Santa Catalina, when my friend, Tomás, and I stayed there. It's one of the most beautiful hotels in the world, built in 1576, and meticulously restored to its former Spanish baroque style of architecture. The original stone floors remain cool on warm summer nights, and wide stone archways, supported by massive, thick pillars, are a study in graceful design. Steep stone steps leading to the second floor are smoothed low and deep in the center like a wide "U," due no doubt to the many spiritual feet that once trod there.
The feet we witnessed one evening were far from spiritual. They were dancing The Guelaguetza. The Guelaguetza is performed weekly, and was to be performed that very night in the Camino Real's vast dining room. Observing the performances of these magnificent looking dancers sporting massive feathery headdresses that would make Florenz Ziegfeld pea-green with envy, was as exhausting as spending ten days on a treadmill in your local gym with a 50 pound bale of hay tied to your head. They whirled, twirled, leaped and cavorted, sometimes as lovers and other times as warriors. It certainly is an effective way to get one's heart started.
on the plaza Photo by Alan Cogan  |
Food was set up at a long table at the back of the room, and diners had time to return for second helpings before the show began. All in all, it was a most pleasurable experience and it had it's extremely amusing moments. When Tomás I and first entered the dining room, we saw no vacant tables, so we took two empty seats at an otherwise-occupied table for ten. In an effort to be friendly, one of the diners asked Tomás what he did for a living. Just for fun, knowing we would never see any of these people again, he replied, "I'm a rocket scientist," and the man beamed and cried, "What a coincidence! That is what we do! This is our annual conference of rocket scientists!" I'm not making this up. It really happened.
A sight not to be missed at Camino Real is the beautifully carved stone basin called Los Lavaderos (the laundry), located in the center of one of the hotel's patios. It's where the Dominican sisters of the convent used to wash clothes by hand using water from the city's aqueduct. It is only one of many calming areas in this place of beauty and history.
Photo by Tony Burton  |
Walking from the Camino Real to the Zócolo about four blocks away, we discovered art galleries, charming shops with reasonable prices, and the magnificent Santo Domingo Cathedral with incredible frescoes and artwork on every inch of the interior. This Cathedral boasts a ceiling so profuse with golden portraiture that one's neck can get stuck in a permanent crick from trying not to miss anything. One gets the distinct feeling that Michelangelo himself may have inspired the artists. Santo Domingo Cathedral surely has more gold in it's interior than there ever was in Fort Knox.
The Zócolo features many wonderful restaurants with tables both inside and on the sidewalk, serving what Oaxaca is most famous for: mole. The chicken mole negro is a memorable eating experience even Wolfgang Puck cannot equal, and the quesillo-stuffed fried squash is probably better than in other cities, as is nopal cactus salad, and chicharrones, the like of which you'll rarely find elsewhere.
The eyeballing is fabulous. To watch the street musicians, vendors, and children in the Plaza Principal with their special elongated balloons used in nightly dueling, is better than television; one never tires of it. Music abounds and, if you want to drive the tuba player crazy, just stand there sucking on a lemon, for he cannot play if he salivates.
Photo by Tony Burton  |
For more than two thousand years, Zapotec and Mixtec families have come from the countryside into Oaxaca City every single day to sell their wares, as did their parents and grandparents before them. The market is a cultural extravaganza that titillates all the senses simultaneously with violent colors, intense fragrances, buzzing conversations, fabrics at once soft and rough, and the blissful taste of mole.
In the bustling Oaxaca market, every type of mole is available: chocolate, verde, rojo, coloradito and amarillo. You can watch someone with generations of experience grind cacao beans for hot chocolate, and better chocolate does not exist on the planet, not even in France or Hershey Pennsylvania.
The food and sightseeing are wonderful both within and without Oaxaca City limits.
Twenty-four miles outside the city, you will find two of the most interesting sights in the world: Mitla, a fascinating and sacred place that has been there since 900 B.C. and, six miles west of Oaxaca City lies Monte Albán, the first city in North America, with its tombs, courts, and pyramids, there since 200 B.C.
Photo by Tony Burton  |
When women visit these historical sites, they should be sure not to wear a dress, as the steps are extremely high. Men shouldn't wear dresses either for the same reason. It boggles the mind to think. . .
Maggie Van Ostrand is a wonderful storyteller with great insight. To read all her articles all the time, we invite you to join our family of subscribers... it isn't expensive. A monthly subscription is just $5.00 USD - that's $1.15 per week. An annual subscription costs $30.00 USD - only $2.50 per month or 58 cents per week. If you're interested in living or retiring in Mexico, we think you'll find it's money well spent.
Subscribe today and always read all the articles!Maggie Van Ostrand, writer, lives in Ajijic, Mexico and Pine Mountain, California. Her stories appear in the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, El Ojo Del Lago, and various magazines. She co-authored "Home Is Where The Hurt Is" with Tony- and Grammy-winning country humorist Roger Miller, and ghostwrites for television sitcoms.
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