Oaxaca, Mexico

From Veracruz I took a night bus to Oaxaca (pronounce “wahawca”) which is located about 5 hours southwest of Mexico City. There I spent the next 5 days enjoying the city and relaxing a little bit after moving around so much. I was staying in a great place that had a couple of cabanas on the roof with hammocks strung up under a shaded area on the roof as well as around a great courtyard below. For 12 bucks a night I had a place to myself and a comfortable roof top lounge over looking the city. It was a good place to do some reading as well as all of the other administrative stuff that a trip like this requires. As I'm traveling I like to stop in a comfortable place every so often to back up my photos and send them home, and to keep up with the blog and do some writing.














Oaxaca is a wonderful place. It has a lot of colonial charm mixed with the vibrancy of the nearby indigenous cultures. It was a great city to wander around in as you can tel fron }m the photos below. The big surprise for me in Oaxaca were all of the tourists. It had the most tourists of any place I have yet to visit in Mexico. It's a great place with a unique culture so I guess that makes sense.






























The markets in and around Oaxaca are terrific. Oaxaca is specifically know for it's mole sauce, mescal (which is a spirit similar to tequila made using a very different process and different type of agave), chocolate, and roasted grasshoppers or "chapulines." I actually tried a sample of the grasshoppers and they weren't bad. They were crunchy, salty, and a little spicey.

























About 20 minutes by bus from the enter of Oaxaca is an terrific set of prehispanic ruins called Monte Alban. To get there I actually walked from the city and then caught the bus back. They were great ruins with terrific views of Oaxaca below.






















Another impressive sight just outside of Oaxaca is one of the largest oldest trees in the world. With the trunk measuring over 40 feet in diameter it takes 17 people stretched hand to hand to reach all the way around the over 2,000 year old giant.


















Here are a few other photos from around Oaxaca that I enjoyed.
















Watermelons in the sun