Wandering Oaxaca: History, Culture, Art and a Nature Smack

Though a lot of our time in Oaxaca City was spent wandering spontaneously simply exploring, we did manage to make a few plans and spend time in the areas outside of the city. The valley is beautiful! The area is currently at the end of dry season, and I found the starkness of it quite stunning. I can’t even imagine how vibrant it must be when there’s a burst of green during the upcoming rainy season.

One of the easiest ways to feel like you’re out of the busyness of Oaxaca City is to go to the archeological site of Mount Alaban which is only 10km from the city. This is such an important site in Mexico, it can be found on the older 20 peso bill.

Some interesting tidbits about this site:

• It is the second largest ceremonial site in Mesoamerica (Teotihuacan near Mexico City is the first).
• It is situated on a 400m high hilltop and provides a 360 degree view of the area.
• It was inhabited for over 1,500 years and at its height was the capital for the Zapotec (about 500BC to 850 AD).
• Mount Alaban was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
• It is one of Mexico’s best preserved sites and was one of the few that wasn’t destroyed by the Spanish (it was already abandoned when the Spanish came across it).
• It’s not fully known why this site was abandoned or where the inhabitants went.

We spent one morning up at the site, getting there as early as we could to beat crowds and/or heat.

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Despite B-Rod and I having very different interests, we still seem to work. So though when we travel we’re together quite a bit, there are times we go off to do our own things. One of those times during this trip was another excursion I took outside of the city to go to a temazcal ceremony.

Temezcal is a word that originates from the Nahuatl word Temazcalli (tetl = rock, mazitli = hot, cali = house) which loosely translated means ‘house of the burning rocks’ It’s a sweat lodge ceremony that is common throughout Mexico, but varies by region. The particular ceremony I went to was led by a couple named Julio and Raquel who are from a northern part of Mexico, so they said the way they do and learned the ceremony is slightly different than what is common in Oaxaca.

It wasn’t my first experience with temezcal, as I had done one in central Mexico a few years back with my friend DawnO, but it was a bit more impactful as Raquel spoke very good English and could lead us through the whole process of the what’s and why’s. Myself, two Germans and two Mexicans got to be involved in the whole process from collecting the herbs in the garden that would be used in the sauna, to lighting the fire, to intention setting based on their traditions, to walking us through the different stages in the sauna (it WAS different than the last temezcal I had done). While we waited for Julio to attend to the the fire and get the stones that would be placed in the sauna to heat up, Raquel taught us about some of the more spiritual aspects and practices she had learned from elders in her area while sipping on cacao that her and Julio had planted and harvested themselves on their land. After the sauna, we sat together, had some amazing vegetarian food (which was very welcome after the heavy meat meals I had been eating) and simply connected.

I know this would not have been B-Rod’s jam at all, but for me, it was a very magical day!

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Activities like the temazcal are ones that are relatively easy for me to do on my own – that’s my jam, the type of things I’m interested in and learning more about. However I also chose to do another activity on my own that put me very much outside of my comfort zone.

Maybe it’s the art all over the city, maybe it’s the galleries and museums I’ve actually enjoyed going to, but for whatever reason this poster caught my eye. B-Rod wasn’t interested as he didn’t want to interfere with my experience having done some of this type of work on his own in art school. It was so interesting how nervous I was and how much it even stressed me out to try to pick an image to work with before getting to the studio. I spent a lot of time coming up with excuses in my head of why I shouldn’t go. Even once I got there, I was so uncomfortable and for the first two hours out of the four, I seriously contemplated leaving (I actually could have). I was pushed further out of my comfort as it wasn’t really a workshop. The guy helping me may have been a good artist, but a teacher he was not, and I spent a lot of time sitting around trying to figure out what to do next and trying to track him down to show me.

In the end it provided me with some great lessons – I can do things that I perceive as difficult, discomfort is temporary, and on the other side of fear and discomfort is pride!

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One of the days, B-Rod organized a tour for us to head back out into the countryside. There was a main site we wanted to see, but we also got to go to . . . . . . .

But what we most wanted to see on the tour, and one of THE highlights of our trip was going to Hierve el Agua. Hierve el Agua is often referred to as calcified waterfalls. They are one of only TWO petrified waterfalls in the world and are formed by mineral deposits left by water that has calcified over thousands of years! It’s about a 2-hour drive from Oaxaca City, and it wasn’t until I started looking into them now that I realize how lucky we were to see this. There have been a few times this site has been closed for several years (including during the pandemic) because of frequent land disputes in the area, and there was a period of time after the pandemic that it was questioned if they would ever even open again! I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to see these in person.

Several years ago, we went to the Grand Canyon. This is a place that had never been a high priority to see. I had seen pictures, and it didn’t seem that impressive to me. When I physically stepped up to the edge and looked over the canyon, it’s almost like I was smacked in the face with how utterly and overwhelmingly beautiful it is. I had that same sensation with these rock formations at Hierve el Agua when we went to hike to the bottom, and we turned a corner to see the falls from the side. It took my breath away.

Nature is so incredibly amazing!

Looks like that’s a wrap as we begin our journey home and see if we remember the ins and outs of standby travel on different airlines. Oaxaca has been amazing and it is somewhere that I intend to return. I say I’m not really a list keeper, but there are a few things from here that I’ve added to a list! It’s been so great to be out in the world again. I think I was choosing to forget how much warmth, water, exploring and travel truly does light me up . . . just in case! Though these past couple years have taught me that you just never know what will happen, I’m setting the intention to be out there exploring more regularly again!