Do you like food? Do you like mezcal? Do you like churches? Do you like mezcal? Do you like museums? Do you like chocolate? Do you like mezcal? If so, you’ll love Oaxaca.
CDMX is a city in a way that San Francisco is not. SF is pretty small and sleepy; there are 20 million people in CDMX and you can feel it. It’s bustling and busy and alive. Not to be ‘Guy who has only seen The Boss Baby’ about it but Mexico City is like Manila if Manila didn’t get bombed out in World War II as an open city.
In comparison, Oaxaca is a lot more chill.
We arrived hungry so first stop was Copal in Oaxaca for a very late lunch/ very early dinner.
Shrimp and scallops in leche de tigre; guacamole with chicharron; bone marrow with shrimp; carrots in a pumpkin seed sauce
Then we went to Templo de Santo Domingo where there was a wedding going on.
I sent this photo to my family group chat and my brother was like ‘This looks like Nacho Libre.’ Then I found out they shot Nacho Libre in Oaxaca
One thing I envy about Mexico is how much pre-Hispanic history they’ve been able to preserve. Either we haven’t been as interested, back in the Philippines, or I just haven’t tried harder to see what we do have now. There’s probably a bit of Imperial Manila and casual racism against the indigenous thrown in there, too. I did see they’re opening a new Museo del Galeón but even that still looks heavily Spanish-influenced.
All that is to say that the Museum of Cultures of Oaxaca, next to this church, contains a pretty sweet room with all the artifacts found in one tomb on Monte Albán, as well as a comprehensive series of galleries detailing the earliest civilizations in Oaxaca all the way to the fight for independence and the modern day. I don’t have any pictures of it though.
I did, however, get one of this ox.
And here is the interior of the church. It’s a lot of gold, which, considering Oaxaca is like the third-poorest state in Mexico, is pretty messed up.
Anyway. We also signed up for a tour of Central de Abastos market which is this fuck-off huge market with 3,600 stalls, and we definitely needed that guide (shoutout to Goyo) because the place was chaotic. It reminded me of going to the wet market when I was younger, back in my hometown, except much, much bigger. I didn’t take a lot of photos but here are a couple
Some memelitas from a street cart
Having some memelas at Memelas Doña Vale
We also went to Monte Albán, a large pre-Columbian site which was in use for ~1,200 years until around AD 800.
Overview of the main plaza
When these carvings were first found, they were called Danzantes (dancers), but they’re more likely captured enemies that became sacrificial victims with their genitals mutilated so that’s fun
View of the valley
Yours truly at Monte Albán
Food
We took a class at El Sabor Zapoteco, in a small town called Teotitlán del Valle, where we learned how to make chicken enchiladas in a delicious sauce.
Spices ready for the comal
Reina teaching us how to use the metate
Enjoying the spoils of our labor
We ate a lot of meals, and a lot of street food, but don’t have a lot of pictures of it.
But here is a particularly good meal from Levadura de Olla. The theme was ‘Reminiscencia de Jitomates’ (Memory of Tomatoes)
Criollo avocados (they’re little and you can eat their skins. So good); uhh can’t remember; native Oaxacan tomato salad (there’s like 500 kinds of tomatoes in this); mole with nopales; tostada with dried shrimp; atole with tomatoes; layered tamal with beans and pork in salsa verde; tomato sorbet palate cleanser; coconut and mango dessert
Mezcal
I mentioned mezcal earlier, right? I don’t know why I thought I could do a 5-mezcal tasting (I tapped out at four) but it was very interesting to learn more about all the different kinds of agave. I also learned that apparently the way to distill tequila and mezcal actually came from the Philippines, and that lambanog (or vino de coco) was very popular in Mexico in the 16th and 17th centuries. (Source)
I also tried pechuga for the first time, which is when you redistill mezcal with some proteins (could be chicken breast, rabbit, iguana, lobster, whatever you want) or berries or whatever else, and it makes the mezcal taste really funky and savory.
Definitely do a tasting at Mezcaloteca if you can swing it. They do get a little dogmatic about mezcal — for example they don’t like añejos or reposados because it ‘taints’ the purity of the mezcal but you will learn so much
Then we spent a day touring different mezcal palenques (in Tagalog, ‘palengke’ is like, a wet market. I wonder if the words are related). Shoutout to Randall of Mezcal Educational Tours for being a delight.
At Don Felix’s
The aftermath of a tasting at Rambha; this is run by a woman, which is a rarity in mezcal, and Rosario’s a badass and I love her. Her family never did mezcal, but she decided she wanted to, and so she did.
I ended up flying back with like 3 liters of mezcal. Oops. (Also, like, six bags of coffee. I just finished the coffee I bought from Japan last year.)
Then I was supposed to fly out of Oaxaca at 6am but my flight got delayed by four hours.
Overall, a very restorative trip; I’d go back to explore more of the art (there are a lot of woodcut print studios), the barro negro pottery, and just eat a lot more food.