Things to do
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Árbol del Tule
In the churchyard at Santa María del Tule stands a Montezuma cypress with a trunk over forty metres around, wider than it is tall and variously reckoned to be well past a thousand years old. A railing allows a full circuit in a few minutes, and local children offer to point out the animal shapes in the bark. Falling groundwater has left the tree under constant care and irrigation.
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Hierve el Agua
Mineral springs on a cliff edge east of the city have deposited calcium over millennia into two formations that hang like white frozen falls. Spring-fed pools at the top take swimmers and look out over the Sierra. The drive runs beyond Mitla, part of it on a rough track. Access is controlled by the landholding community and has closed for long stretches, so confirm before setting out.
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Mercado 20 de Noviembre
Two blocks south of the zócalo, a covered food market whose smoke alley is a row of charcoal grills: buyers choose thin beef tasajo or chorizo from a butcher, hand it over, and eat it with spring onions, nopal and tortillas at communal tables. Elsewhere under the roof are mole pastes, bread and chocolate ground to order. Lunchtime is thick with smoke and queues.
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Mitla
Geometric stone mosaics cover the walls of the Columns Group, tens of thousands of cut pieces fitted without mortar in fret patterns that repeat nowhere exactly. A Spanish church stands on an adjoining courtyard, built from the same stone it displaced. Cruciform tombs run underneath and are entered by ladder, stooping. The town lies on the Tlacolula road, often combined with the mezcal distilleries alongside.
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Monte Albán
A hilltop levelled by hand around 500 BC, where the Zapotec built a capital four hundred metres above the valley floor and held it for more than a thousand years. Carved slabs called danzantes show contorted figures, probably captives. One skewed building may track the stars. The site sits ten kilometres from town, served by shuttle vans, and offers almost no shade.
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Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca
The Dominican convent beside Santo Domingo now holds the valley's history in rooms off two storeys of cloister, from Zapotec settlement to the present. Its centrepiece is the gold, turquoise and carved bone lifted from Tomb Seven at Monte Albán in the nineteen thirties. Labels are mostly in Spanish. Windows on the upper floor look down into the ethnobotanical garden. Allow two hours; closed Mondays.
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Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán
Gold leaf covers the vaults, and over the entrance a polychrome vine carries the relief figures of Domingo de Guzmán's ancestors. Thick walls and squat towers were built against earthquakes, which flattened much else. The Dominicans took a century over it. Outside, the plaza fills most evenings with wedding parties, brass bands and dancers, and the facade takes the light best in late afternoon.
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Teotitlán del Valle
Wool rugs on treadle looms are the work of this Zapotec village in the foothills, dyed with cochineal insects, indigo, marigold and lichen, and families demonstrate the carding and dyeing before showing what they have woven. Carved stones from a Zapotec temple are visible in the walls of the parish church. A rug of any size represents weeks at the loom. Combine it with Tule or Mitla.