Oaxaca

Oaxaca is good at any time of day.

At 7 each morning a flock of parrots arrives to feast on pecans and awake the dead. The air is cool, around 70 degrees, and the sky gray but promising.

Our apartment is in a small complex of about ten units nestled in the garden behind the house of Dona Teresa. She advertises her rooms as “An Oasis in the City,” and it is an accurate description. The simple, clean apartments, surrounded by a stone wall and lush vegetation, are filled with tourists and ex-Pats, mostly Americans, who are here for more than a week and less than a few years. There are two families in the apartments adjacent to ours who have children between the ages of five and ten. They have been here for a couple of months, one spouse conducting research while the other holds down the fort. We leave our doors open and the kids dart in and out of kitchens, play with the adopted street dog, snack on fruits and vegetables doused in salt, lime and chili. One family is Mexican- American and based in San Diego but very experienced, connected and astute at navigating Mexico. They have already escorted us to the markets and told us the best places to get a cheap meal.

After a morning of tending to breakfast, shopping, laundry, cleaning or whatever needs to be done, we can wander up to the Zocalo (main square) for a meal or just people watching. This week is the Gueladuetza, the annual cultural festival which draws musicians, dancers and artists of all sorts to the city to perform and exchange ideas. Lovers make out in the shade of kapok trees. Ancient women pedal crafts, small children push candy and cigarettes, and men of all ages circulate with guitars and marimbas playing for pesos and selling self-produced CDs. We could spend all day moving in and out of churches, galleries, and markets, sampling sweets and savory fried pastries. But eventually we tire and return to the apartment for a siesta.

At the hottest time of day it is still quite pleasant, but warm enough to warrant a retreat indoors. Josie sleeps, Jasper reads and I write. We rest as much as possible in a place with so many ready distractions. I insist on an hour of “quiet time,” which is usually easily extended into two, as we gather strength for the evening.

On our first night in Oaxaca we walked to the Zocalo, about 15 blocks or a 15 minute walk. Nothing prepared us for the throngs of people we found there. Families, couples, tourists, vendors, musicians, students. It seemed like everyone was out, eating, playing music, listening, talking, dancing, with no particular objective or destination. The plaza in front of the cathedral was crowded with vendors selling balloons. For ten pesos you could buy a 6 – 20 foot long cylindrical balloon. Dozens of children ran back and forth in front of the church launching the balloons into the air and chasing them before they crashed into an unsuspecting passerby. Our kids purchased two and joined in the fun. We then bought beers and ice cream and sat on the main square listening to a marimba duo until the kids seemed to fade.

The following night we struck out again, this time for an exquisite dinner of black mole at a recommended restaurant (La Olla), and then a walk around town. We came across a free jazz performance outside the Santo Domingo cathedral, a demonstration of didgeridoo in an artisan gallery, fireworks, dancers, stiltwalkers and endless streets filled with crafts and musicians with plenty of visitors to revel among them. Again we returned home only once our children could no longer stand on their own.

We are here for over a week and will doubtlessly continue to explore the city of Oaxaca in a similar way, with no danger of running out of things to do. We will also go to Monte Alban, and Teotitlan del Valle, a mezcal tour through the countryside, more ruins, and other attractions within an hour's drive, of which there are many.

When it is time to go, we will be ready but hardly finished. Doubtlessly we will have to brace ourselves for the shock of returning home to a world without flocks of parrots or Zocalos, where time races instead of standing still.