OÁXACA STATE - HUATULCO - GREEN PEARL OF THE PACIFIC

 

Our circular two-month route of Oáxaca state started in the beach town of Puerto Escondido, and so it ends in the beach town of Huatulco (except that we return briefly to Escondido to fly home).

The ADO bus trip was comfortable and uneventful.

Bahías de Huatulco is known for its pristine nine bays and thirty-six beaches.  In pre-Hispanic times, various indigenous groups utilized the bays for food, salt extraction, the harvesting of a marine snail to make a rare purple dye used in sacred textiles and as a regional first line of defence.

When the Spanish arrived, they established Santa Cruz Bay as a commercial port for trade with Peru and Asia.

Today, Mexico markets it as the anti-Cancun place to be, tranquil and uncrowded, with plenty of green space.  We have two weeks here and settle into an apartment in 'town', La Crucecita.

La Crucecita is a planned town, laid out in sectors.  We stay in sector M, a residential area known for its quiet and green spaces.  The building has a huge rooftop sitting area where we enjoy early mornings and evenings.  

In the green space across the street, we are reacquainted with birds from our days in Tulum.  Green parrots fly overhead; the large and raucous chachalacas sound off at dawn and dusk; the kiskadees skim the pool in the back, and the white-throated magpie wags its head feathers and sounds as jays do.  Flashes of brilliant yellow on black introduce us to a new bird: the yellow-winged cacique.

We can walk from Sector M to most places we want to go, and taxis are reasonable to go from one sector to another.

Walking is a bit tricky in some areas as the mature seed pods from the Elephant Ear tree litter the ground.  They are as big as the palm of my hand.  I have not seen these before, and am struck by their beauty.  On the left are the unripe pods still on the tree, and on the right is one lying on the ground.

This is a time of relaxation for us before heading home, so we mostly prepare our own food and don't go shopping for souvenirs or take day trips.  A blogger has documented much of that information:

Tours from Huatulco are many and varied, restricted only by interests and bank accounts, some going to Puerto Escondido and beyond.

Sector H, the town center, is a 25-minute walk.  The zocalo here is a shady, restful place surrounded by shops, restaurants with authentic food, the local Mercado de Artesanías, and Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de la Guadalupe.

The photos below are of the parroquia.  In 2000, muralist José Ángel del Signo painted the ceiling with the world's largest image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  That and other images on the walls have been described as ''psychedelic''.

In this mural, the Virgin is pregnant with fetal Jesus, portrayed in blue.

From our apartment, we can walk to Playas: Santa Cruz, Entrega and Chahue.  

Chahue is beautiful and largely undeveloped.  The beach is vast and open, lovely for walking, but its undertow is so strong that swimming is not advisable.  It will likely be developed with big resorts and condominiums with big swimming pools.  

Playa Entrega is described as a family beach.  We spend half a day and are eager to leave.  It's very busy, with restaurants, people, and water activities with boats that come right alongside the swimming area.  At the taxi drop-off site, entrepreneurial locals have beach umbrellas and chairs that you can rent for a reasonable price, as there are no others on the beach.

Then we find Playa Santa Cruz.  This is the main beach and the transit zone for taxis to other beaches.   It becomes our happy place, so we don't even bother looking at the other six beaches.  The cruise ship port is here, and in the entire two weeks that we are here, not one ship comes in.

We go to the far end of the beach, away from the cruise ship dock.  We can sit all day at a chair and table, and the servers are happy if we order a drink every once in a while, or something from the menu to share - no pressure.  We are here in the off-season, and perhaps it is different in the main tourist season.  The tables are mostly empty; the bored servers love to chat and joke around; the sea is calm, sandy and warm ... perfect.

On the way to the beach is a plaza with places to sit, a cafe, some shops and on one Sunday, a market with goods and music.

RANDOM PHOTOS

In both Puerto Escondido and Huatulco, we see a lot of these Volkswagens called the Thing.  They are otherwise unusual.

 One of our favourite murals in Huatulco, especially liking how the roof is incorporated into the painting as a beach hat.

And the armadillo at the beach ...

We divide grocery shopping between the big Chedraui store near the apartment and walking to another sector where there are small local markets, including fishmongers.  

Mussels are so inexpensive that we have this simple, but deluxe meal twice: mussels, wine, and bread.

The beets in this market near the fishmonger are as big as softballs.

These are the only beaches in Mexico we have been to that rival the quality of sand and water in Southeast Asia. We would return for both the beach and more of Oaxaca City and the Central Valley.

PUERTO ESCONDIDO - AGAIN

Under normal conditions, it is a two-hour drive to Puerto Escondido.  It's another road with steep curves, lots of twists and speed bumps as well as pedestrians, stray animals and agricultural vehicles to deal with, so I ''gravol-up".  

The highway is torn up and under construction for many kilometres, so it turned into a 3-hour trip with ADO.

This time we stayed in the Rinconada neighbourhood.  It's further north than other places we stayed (and closer to the airport for departure), but we can still walk back to Zicatela.  We don't bother with any beach time, just lots of walking.

Our apartment this time is on the top floor of a house, again with a good-sized deck and this view:

In another direction our gaze falls on this unusual building that we guess is a vacation rental, but we never see anyone there.  Perhaps it's a private mansion.

Walking around brings the discovery of the Santa Madre Iglesia Catedral on the edge of the neighbourhood.  It seems cavernous, partly due to its open architecture:

On a pedestrian walkway over the highway on the way to Chedraui, this view is a treasure.  You can see Play Principal, all the way south to the curved tip of Playa la Punta.

Passing through Play Principal, all the hallmarks of a party are there - shelters on the beach, people picnicking, music, kids running around - and suddenly we realize it's a fishing derby.  It's hard to imagine catching a fish in this surf.

That's a wrap.  We enjoyed the couple of days back in Puerto Escondido and will finish with some street art that we missed seeing the first time around:

OAXACA & VALLEY - PART 6: OTHER MUSEUMS & GALLERIES

 Just as art and history seem to be everywhere and in everything in Oaxaca, so too are museums and galleries: big ones with international recognition to small, intimate spaces; workshops in a room off a house where passersby are welcome; collections displayed in stores and markets; the body of work that an artisan takes to market; the living galleries of street art and the ink of a tattoo artist ... and most are free of charge, or a nominal fee, or a showing of interest.

There is no particular order to the following notes, just what we were able to see and a note on what we ran out of time for.

MUSEO de FILATELIA de OAXACA (MUFI)

A fascinating and free little museum in a beautiful building with a relaxing, charming courtyard houses the stamp museum, the only one of its kind in Latin America.  It kept us delighted for over an hour.

It has every Mexican stamp issued since 1856; rare stamps from around the world; thousands of stamps from other countries; some historical letters (Frida Kahlo to her doctor); fascinating and interactive displays; a gift shop; a couple of rooms dedicated to coins; a reading space; and a place to sit down, write and send postcards to anywhere.  

While really enjoying this visit, which showed a profound respect for stamps and communication, we also found it very ironic.  Living in Mexico for six years, we didn't use the post office.  A family member mailed a Christmas card that arrived the next summer.  For several months I sent weekly postcards to nephews in Canada, and they arrived all on the same day, months later.  It was hard to reconcile what we saw in the museum with what we experienced.

MUFI looks rather ordinary from the outside, but once through the doors, the outdoor spaces and courtyards and even the roomy interior are a wonderful surprise.

Outdoor spaces at the Museo

Incredible displays for a favoured sport - soccer.  Stamps from FIFA games all over the world, reproductions of stadiums, Mexican soccer heroes and more.

Baseball is another passion.

All kinds of unusual displays, including ceramic interpretations of post boxes, a VW Beetle entirely coated in stamps inside and out, everyday items covered in stamps.

Random art - not sure how it fits with stamps

Thousands of stamps from around the world, easily seen from pullout drawers.

An old-time post office.

The Reading Room

MUSEO TEXTIL de OAXACA 

This little museum in a carefully restored 18th-Century mansion in Centro exists to promote education about and preservation of Oaxaca's textile industry.  

Sadly, in several museums, all information was in unilingual Spanish.  Even without the explanations, the fabrics were lovely to look at.

One display that I could find information about on the web is called Embroidery in Glass.  The work is a tribute to the intricate floral embroidery found on traditional garments from the Isthmus of Oaxaca.

Specialized glass pigments imitate the texture, overlapping lines and contours of real stitched petals and leaves.  You can feel the raised "thread" texture on the glass surface, and it looks very three-dimensional, just as if you are looking at embroidery.  Remarkable.

These two pieces of lacework are so fine, it's hard to imagine doing them. The black piece is especially delicate work.

I think of the two pieces below as 'samplers'.

Woven work

I assume (but am not sure that ) the three items below are all shirts/blouses for women.  The square shape remains prominent in woven clothes sold today.

MUSEO de los PINTORES OAXAQUENOS (MUPO)

(Museum of Oaxacan Painters)

This museum was built in 1686 as a girls' school.  It has four galleries with rotating exhibitions and primarily showcases modern and contemporary art.  

We were glad to have made it here as we did not get to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), AKA: the Museum of Contemporary Art and Culture of Oaxaca.

Here are a couple of works, in no particular order, from each of the four artists on the day we went:  Guillermo Olguin, Hermann Orduna, Katherine Wong and Cesar Villegas.

The courtyard had some interesting sculpture and a gift shop.

GALERIA RUFINO TAMAYO

Walking along one day, we stopped to admire a serpent, or dragon sculpture in the middle of the sidewalk.  We learned later that it is by Allan Romeo Amador Maya, a contemporary artist who specializes in taking industrial waste and discarded everyday objects and turning them into something else.  This massive creature, named Quetzalcoatl, is made from tires.  Quetzalcoatl is the Feathered Serpent deity in ancient Mexican mythology, creator of the world and humanity, god of wisdom and corn and is associated with wind and rain.

Behind this creature we see a single room with art on the walls and a security guard who lets us in, no fee as usual.  Little do we know that this gallery is but one small part of a massive complex called Casa de la Cultura Oaxaquena.

We enjoy the work of Christina Lopez Casas who paints completely from memory, her own lived experiences as a woman, immigrant and grandmother.  A couple of her pieces: 

MUSEO COMMUNITARIO Ta Guiil-Rein (Matatlan)

This little two-room museum is operated by a grassroots community-curated space.  

Lobby of the museum

To see our visit to a palenque, go to Part 3 of this series.   

One room is all about mezcal - equipment used, methods, etc and it shows both the traditional and ceremonial uses for mezcal.  This information comes from the lived experience of the Zapotec people involved with the museum.

The second room is about El Palmillo and the archaeological site at the edge of town, including artifacts dug up.  It is possible to hike up to the site, but in the summer heat we chose not to.

To learn a bit about the town Matatlan go to Part 4 (Some Villages)