Oaxaca: Street art, Mezcal and Mountains

After a 5 hour bus ride, we finally got to our next destination. On the way we saw cactus forests!!!! 🌵😁🌵🌵Oaxaca de Juarez deserves every praise it gets: it's colorful, flavourful, spicy and beams with art and indigenous spirit. Since it lately got a lot of attention from media and travelbloggers, we encountered here the highest number of western tourists - who shape the atmosphere and the local economy: you see colorful colonial buildings, many fancy restaurants, art galleries and decor shops praising handmade artifacts - it looks original but I can't help finding it a bit staged - it seems like walking in Berlin, Friedrichshain. Made pretty for good willing, concious hipster travellers willing to pay thrice the price for anything ,,authentic".

But what I find good on the other hand, is, that the markets, the zocalo (main square) and the dance square still belongs to the locals: there is a huge abundance of street food around the markets, open air dance and sport rehearsals in the main square, kitchie pop music, artifacts and ice cream sold all around the zocalo for Oaxacans.

Regarding street food - we had one bad experience ( the food was just old and tasted of nothing - but we didn't get sick - as Albert warned us). I think you can find very good stands if you do your research and ask locals - I personally gave it another chance and had the famous beef pozole soup at @LaChefinita , a street food stall at a busy road intersection. It was busy, full of kids, parents and people eating away with enjoyment.

Our apartment had the most beautiful view towards the mountains, the rooftop terrace was magnificent, especially at night! It was nice to share the ride to Oaxaca with our friends, Orsi and Albert. We went for a very hot sightseeing of the Monte Alban Archeological Area - an ancient zapotec city located on a high mountain - from where you could see not only Oaxaca, but the entire valley - standing on top of the Pyramid was an allemcompassing, magical feeling. Too bad we didn't hire a guide, to understand the place a tiny bit better. (Alex edit: at the top of the pyramids we were treated to a beautiful symphony from the cicadas!)

Btw, Tequila doesn't exist here - only Mezcal, which is much more flavourful - however, still an aquired taste. We had soooo many mezcalitas but still never got drunk from them - except when it was in the middle of the day. That happened after visiting Monte Alban which left us slightly drunk and sunburned.

Oaxacan food is very spicy, and full of flavour - I especially loved the worm salt - a mix of dried and toasted agave worms, salt and chilli. They used it for spicing drinks, salads and fruit.

All the street art was amazing, all in all, we had a great time. Thank you all ♥️💐🌵!

-Reka Czytaj więcej