¡Qué colorido!

Colorful: people, fabric, art, music, language, buildings, celebrations, food…. they are all cultural guideposts and a visual explosion we basked in for a weeklong stop in Oaxaca, MX. The pre-Hispanic Zapotecs laid the foundations for all of this, and that influence is still celebrated, dissected, merged and referenced as a point of national pride – well worth its reputation as a Travel and Leisure’s top city in 2023.

Basecamp was cuarto cuatro at the Agrado Guest House in Centro, an art-inspired hotel where traditional interior courtyards blend with converted warehouse style rooms and social spaces perfect for any digital nomad. It’s just one of the many jewel-box buildings that line the streets of Oaxaca de Juarez, all containing hidden gems within their walls. Many of those same exterior walls are adorned with street art of all kinds, from graffiti to well-developed stylised pieces. The most ubiquitous (and the most oaxaqueña" (feminine) or "oaxaqueño" (masculine)) being the printed and plastered woodcut prints, often tagged with @subterraneos.oax - an art collective that seeks to raise awareness of social issues through public intervention.

Since the most “red and green” we’d seen leading into this stay was the occasional tomato in our guacamole and lime in our margaritas, we weren’t thinking much about the upcoming holidays - until we rolled down these cobblestone city streets. Navidad was in full swing in Oaxaca. In Centro, the decorations go beyond that simple palette with trees festooned in multi-colored ornaments and ribbons, mirroring the already vivid streetscape. The zocalo was the most traditional, decked out with poinsettias, white lights and a grand Christmas tree in red enamelled metal that you could walk inside - brought back memories of our New Orleans hanging trees that we used to feast beneath for the holidays – pass the cornbread dressing and pecan pie! IYKYK

On our first day, we walked up to the Catedral de Santo Domingo past all the holiday excess and stumbled across one of what would be several bodas (weddings) - a kaleidoscope of celebratory color with dancers, firecrackers and oversized balloons all spinning around. This troupe, along with the traditional gigantic puppets representing the bride and groom (mojigangas) led a procession of guests throughout the old town. It’s a spirit-lifting montage, bringing smiles and cheers to the onlookers (tourists included) and parades around for hours after the church service. The groom at this one was rumoured to be pretty important - maybe army or government - reinforced by the two military music ensembles who brought the night to a close.

When we told anyone that we were coming to Oaxaca, their first words were something like “oh, the food!” It’s not always the color on the plate but certainly the colorful complexity of flavour that gives Oaxacan food its uniqueness. What was once exotic (chocolate in a savoury sauce) now has influenced cuisine around the world. Besides sampling the chicken mole negro on our first night out at Levadura de Olla, we discovered hoja santa (Mexican pepper leaf) a flavour neither of us had experienced or even heard of before. That dinner set the bar pretty high. Almuerzo found us at La Cosecha Oaxaca, an organic market with various food stalls preparing all kinds of local specialties from tamales, to tlayudas, to tortillas-stuffed-with-just about anything.  El plato fuerte came in the form of a special night out at Los Danzantes. The Michelin-starred restaurant has been around for over 20 years and kept coming up in our restaurant searches -- ultimately recommended specifically by two friends.  The evening had all the high points of a perfect dining experience: attentive but not intrusive service, on point lighting with just-the-right-volume of music, and of course amazing food. We sampled five types of mole by dipping in Chochoyotas, enjoyed perfectly presented dorado and pollo, raved to the server in broken Spanish about the huitlacoche (at least we thought we gave it a rave), and finished the meal with the innovative tortilla y café. We hadn’t had that level of date night in a while.

One thing we haven’t completely given up this year is our constant search for an Australian quality level coffee. Stopping in a different café every few days, we kept hearing Oaxaca is on its way to becoming a “coffee city”. One young barista explained how the best coffee for many years was mostly exported so Mexicans didn’t have much left to drink themselves. With recent export regulation, that has changed and created a coffee buzz especially for the younger crowd. Young entrepreneurs are setting up hip coffee shops all around Centro. Definitely enjoyed some of the best coffees we’ve had in recent months. Pabilo was our favourite and deserves a shout out.

Unlike most, food wasn’t our priority in scheduling this Latin American culinary capital. Erik’s mom spent a few months studying in Oaxaca in the 1950s and that family lore gave us even more incentive to visit. We’re reminded everyday of this through a painting of the Oaxacan markets that hangs in our place (when we have one) in Sydney.

We don’t know which markets are depicted or the name of the  artist. It’s location, Oaxaca, is noted on the back with a label. We set a goal to solve the great mystery of the provenance of the Oaxacan market painting and with our combined C-level Spanish asked around. But no joy. The mystery continues, but the most common answer was that it most likely depicts a regional market that no longer exists. It was fun to explore and platicar – any excuse to practice our español muy malo.

The usual guide-book day trips took us to Mt. Alban, the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca Santo Domingo and Hierve el Agua. In each of these places we got a taste of the colorful culture of the Oaxacan people and its natural and man-made wonders - from the centuries old founding of the Zapotec empire to the present-day Zapotec-inspired tourist fare.

The cottage industry of bi-lingual tour guides thrives here. It’s easy to tailor a multi-stop small or private tour through a simple Google search or conversation with a hawker on the street. On another long, but jam-packed day, we sampled traditional Mexican breads, drank mezcal from an agave leaf at Bitao palenque and got a full-blown soups-to-nuts understanding of the creation of sustainable, hand-crafted rugs by the Familia Lazo of Teotitlán de Valle whose claim to fame we're told was a custom replica of a Picasso painting that sold for "quadrillions". It all referenced a modern-day tourist-based economy, still grounded in its traditions.

Oaxaca deserves its accolades. We only scratched the surface, but it’s very easy to see why. There’s so much on offer, with a still evolving food and cultural scene. It’s no “Disneyland”, frozen-in-time-costumed-old-world-stage-set, and absolutely worth the time it takes to wander and uncover its multiple levels of color.