Typical of Mexican towns and cities, Oaxaca has a tree-shaded zocalo with bandstand and benches, shoeshine stands, and a seemingly endless streams of vendors selling flowers, fabrics, food and funky trinkets.
Also, like most cities, Oaxaca has a surrounding countryside of less-hectic pueblos. Some of these villages are cashing in on Norteamericanos' penchant for handmade products.Teotitlan del Valle specializes in woven rugs. In Arrazola and San Martin Tilcajete, villagers carve and paint whimsical creatures. You can go to Atzompa for green pottery and San Bartolo de Coyotepec for black pottery. These are quaint villages, with artisans at work.
However, if you just want to get out into the country to meditate, paint, write poetry, or sit quietly while gentle breezes comb your hair, I suggest Tlacochahuaya. (If you can't pronounce it, that's OK, neither can I.)
The focal point of this pueblo is the 16th century church. It will cost you two pesos to enter (to pay for preservation). It's cool inside, and the entire church - almost every inch of it - is painted in motifs of flowers and faith. The reds and blues and browns of the paints made from plants and earth and bugs understandably show the wear and tear of their 400 years. Yet they are deep and vivid in their emotion. The stories of faith, hope and suffering come through loud and clear. Be sure to take a peek at the 16th century, flower-decorated organ, and venture into the ex-convento in the rear of the church.
When I was there, a small wedding party gathered at the door, so I suspended my admiration of the framed, religious oils scattered here and there. (These are probably as rare, and certainly equal to, any genre art in the great museums of the world.)
Walking around town I came upon several small stores, a fruit and vegetable stand, a farmacia, a school with basketball court, a courtyard where a family was busy making tortillas, and the town's central well where burro-drawn carts line up to fill their metal cans with agua.
Along the Tlacochahuaya's main street, rows of homes are protected from street noise and nosey tourists by walls of cascading bougainvilla. Behind the purple and pink blossoms, families love, fight, sing, cook, eat, and play music which
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