Oaxaca (Part 1)

On my first day in Oaxaca, I arranged with a few other travellers at the breakfast 🍳 table to to visit the "Central de Abastos" market in the morning. The market was huge. You could buy pretty much anything there: Fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, clothes, Christmas 🎅 decorations ...
However, there was no recognisable order. It could be that a fish stall 🐟 was next to a stall with clothes 👕. Although we had just eaten a great breakfast at the hostel, we lined up at Doña Vale Memela's stall. It's so famous that you have to queue and wait a few minutes almost any time of the day. The stall is even featured in the Netflix show "Streetfood Latin America" in an episode about Oaxaca (see https://www.netflix.com/mx/title/81249660).
At lunchtime, Andrew (from the US) and I attended a free walking tour. To our astonishment, we were the only ones there. So it was more or less a private tour. 😅 Maria (our guide with an Italian background but who has lived in Oaxaca for 10 years) gave us a great introduction to Mexican and Oaxacan history and culture as we walked 🚶‍♂️ through the city centre and stopped in front of a few buildings worth seeing. We learnt about Juárez Benitez - the first and only member of the indigenous population of Central and South America - to become president of his home country 🇲🇽 ! During his time in office, he pushed through many important reforms, including the strict separation of church, military and state. In this way, the population regained around 50% of their land, which had previously been the property of the Catholic Church ⛪️ in the Vatican. And this all happened in the 19th century. Since then, there has probably been no one who was both intelligent, charismatic as well as lucky enough to be supported by the right persons with ties to the government.
Another figure of whom Oaxaca is very proud was Francisco Toledo. A talented but down-to-earth artist who did a lot of good in Mexico with his fame and his social and political commitment.
Maria gave us further insights 💡 into the history of the indigenous population and the period of Spanish colonisation. It was news to me that before the Spanish conquest of Central America, the Aztecs were greatly feared by the smaller tribes (Zapotecs and Mixtecs) who also lived in the region. The reason for this was the aggressive expansion 👹of the Aztecs, which was mainly driven by the fact that they brought new captives to sacrifice to the multitude of their gods. The Spaniards capitalised on this fear and formed an alliance with the smaller tribes to defeat the Aztecs. The Zapotecs 🐲 were apparently more cooperative and were henceforth treated favourably by the Spaniards, while the Mixtecs tended to belong to the lowest rung of society.
We walked a little further through the streets of the city centre and Maria gave us a few more recommendations for cafés ☕️ and restaurants. Then our tour ended in front of the "La Consecha" organic market. There we treated ourselves to two memelas and pulque🍷for a late lunch. Pulque or agave wine is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the agave plant. It tasted a lot like cider and was pretty refreshing to me.
The market closed at around 4pm. So we made our way back to the hostel. Several parades 🥁 awaited us in the city centre where the locals celebrated their minor or major achievements (e.g. turning 15 or getting married). As you can easily see from the video, it was a colourful hustle and bustle on the streets. We were back at the hostel around 7pm - just in time for the event of the day: pizza 🍕 and beer 🍻 with the other travellers. The hostel is extremely good at creating a good atmosphere in which travellers can quickly and easily connect to each other. That evening, the others went to a trendy location 🪩 with 70s, 80s and 90s music. However, I had to miss out due to jet lag - I had already fallen asleep at 9.30 pm. 😴Læs mere