La Ciudad de Oaxaca | The City of Oaxaca

Two visits to Oaxaca, late October / early November 2018 during ‘Dia de los Muertos’, and again in March 2022.

Oaxaca is the heartbeat of Mexico, its cultural ground zero, and although beloved by foreigners, it is not (or has not yet) become a tourist mecca, and so its distinctive identity and history is accessible, and the people of Oaxaca are welcoming without harboring the jaded attitude found in heavily touristed locales. A colonial city built adjacent to the Zapotec capital Monte Albán. With its propensity to earthquakes, all the structures in the city are quite low, just a few stories, and based on its economic struggles, it retains an original and untouched urban environment. But the real story of Oaxaca are its resident artisans; its cotton spinners and weavers, its potters and sculptor’s, its cooks with their seven moles, its maize growers, its nixtamalized masa makers, and the omnipresent mezcal-distillers.

NO MAÍZ, NO PAÍS!