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Today’s newsletter is a photo gallery of images taken during the spring of 2026 in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 260 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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Oaxaca’s most vociferous protestors are its public school teachers, and for the next six weeks or so, hundreds of tents will be set up across a multi-block radius as teachers stage a camp-in in the center of the city to demand corrections to the nation’s public school pension fund. While the placement of the tents themselves is hugely disruptive to Oaxaca’s traffic, the teachers also block intersections of highways and occasionally the entrance to the airport. But on Wednesday, May 27th, things took a dramatic turn, and when protestors tried to shut down access to the town of Mitla, which is famed for its archeological ruins. In an incredible turn of events, the mayor of Mitla and members of the government appeared with guns and started firing them into the air over the protestors. This was a remarkable escalation of this perpetual conflict, and it remains to be seen how the protestors will respond.

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We almost always seem to have butterflies around, and one of the most common is the Crimson Patch, a lovely little visitor I often see fluttering around the garden.

This sign, advertising seasonal sandwiches, was posted at the to-go bakery counter for our favorite café, Onnno. As you can see, the flavors and combinations being sold are a combination of Oaxacan and international. Menus like this are increasingly common here, and they reflect both the growing metropolitanism of what was once a small and isolated city and the success being found by restaurants that are willing to serve dishes influenced by other food cultures. Mexico is more worldly than a lot of people give it credit for, and while Oaxacans remain dedicated to preserving their culture, they are also very tolerant of experimentation.

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Corn tortillas are a staple food in Oaxaca, and we (but especially I) have formed strong opinions about the various tortillerías in our general area. One of the best is nameless, it’s dimly lit interior featuring three gigantic comales manned by women who all day long slap freshly pressed tortillas onto the huge griddles and then flip them by hand before sliding them onto a paper sheet and wrapping them up for waiting customers.

On Thursdays, the tortillería I like so much also sells fresh chiles rellenos, roasted chiles de agua (a type of heirloom Oaxacan pepper) stuffed with pulled chicken that’s been mixed with dried fruit and other ingredients, which are then battered and deep-fried. I’d always just gotten my tortillas and chiles wrapped to go and spent the short trip back to the house salivating, and then one day I saw a guy who was probably about 22 years old order his tortillas and ask the ladies to put one aside, outside of the paper. As I stood behind him watching with curiosity, I saw him take a small plastic salt shaker from the counter that I’d never noticed before, sprinkle some table salt onto the tortilla, and then roll it up and eat it as he lft the shop.

From then on, I did the exact same thing, and I can assure you that the pro move at the tortillería is to get enough chiles rellenos for us all to have them for lunch as well as sufficient tortillas to wrap the chiles in, but also a single loose tortilla to eat, piping hot and still wafting steam, while I sit in the car.

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Oaxaca is a city of hidden courtyards, and this one is just outside the entrance to a new galería that opened in the city’s Centro neighborhood. To my eye, there is a distinctly Moorish influence to the metal gate guarding the entryway, and this gateway, with its large plants and backlighting, is particularly elegant.

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This mural advertises the 2025 Día de Muertos parade, called a muerteada, in the town of San Sebastián Etla. The baseball iconography is common in Oaxaca (which has its own MLB-equivalent baseball team), but is particularly meaningful for San Sebastián, as the town is home to a professional baseball clinic run by a former Mexican major league all-star.

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Oaxaca has a long and proud tradition of street art, both authorized and guerrilla, and these pieces were definitely posted without permission. Enhancing the illicit nature of the work is the “Obra Suspendida” sticker, which at some point in the past was put up on this building by the government to indicate that whatever business happened to be inside was abruptly shut down for violating a rule related to maintaining a historic building.

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To understand Mexico, you must understand the wealth and class disparities that define the country. In Mexico City, a decent middle-class salary, such as one earned by someone who works in an office, is around 5000 pesos a week. At an exchange rate of 20 pesos to the dollar (and right now it’s lower), that’s $250 USD a week. So, $1000 USD a month. In Oaxaca, the second poorest state in Mexico, that number is much lower. Based on data from the first quarter of 2025 that was supplied by the Mexican federal government, the average monthly salary is about $225 USD.

The chair pictured here, which I found in the incredibly bougie Mexico City neighborhood of Polanco, costs—for just one!—approximately $2000 USD. One chair, from a famed designer, for the equivalent of two months’ salary in Mexico City, or just shy of nine months’ salary in Oaxaca.

Needless to say, we did not buy this chair, or any other furniture from this shop. You’ve got to have real “fuck you money” to spend $2000 for a dining room chair, let alone in a country where a ghastly proportion of people live in poverty.

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One of the more prolific artists in the town of La Unión Tejalapam is Plácido Arturo Santiago Cruz, and even though I didn’t buy one at the time I visited, I do love his little hand-carved figurines of peeing dogs. There’s something so funny and idiosyncratic about them.

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Today’s newsletter is a photo essay from La Unión Tejalapam, a community of artists that most tourists will never step foot in.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 260 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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Earlier this week, I published a paid post detailing the challenges of visiting La Unión Tejalapam, a town of exceedingly talented artisans that is so incredibly difficult to visit that, frankly, I don’t think I can recommend that the average visitor to Oaxaca even try.

Don’t get me wrong; the rustic wooden carvings of La Unión, which predominantly take the form of animals and devils, are gorgeous. They’re also almost ridiculously affordable, especially when compared against the far more famous and mildly similar art form, the alebrije. But due to a combination of location, poverty, and culture, La Unión is not just difficult to get to, but, for a regular traveler, effectively impossible to shop in. There are no stores selling art—literally none—, artisans often can’t be contacted due to a lack of cell phone reception and internet service being either unavailable or unaffordable, and no one speaks English, which is a barrier for many non-Mexican tourists. But by far the hardest hurdle to pass over is that homes and workshops aren’t just not listed on the map, many streets and houses have no names or numbers at all. Unless you speak fluent Spanish and are willing to ask strangers for directions, and and then walk onto the land of someone you’ve never met to basically invite yourself into their home, you’re not going to be able to buy art in La Unión.

The following photo essay is for the people who will never make it there, so that you can see some of the remarkable art coming out of this far-flung community. But this post is also for those of you who have read my description and thought, hell yeah, I’ll walk up to a stranger’s home to buy incredible art. If you’re that second kind of traveler, leave a comment or send me a message; I’d be happy to send you some map pins to help you with your adventure.

Editor’s Note: The best information I’ve found about the artisans of La Unión Tejalapam comes from FOFA (Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art), a non-profit organization that exists to support and promote the incredibly talented folk artists of Oaxaca. Please note that for reasons beyond FOFA’s control information such as phone numbers may not be accurate.

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It was the work of maestro Gabino Reyes López that first drew me to La Unión. His venados (deer) with their intricately carved, flowering wooden cacti antlers are utterly bewitching. If you buy them directly from him they’re also much less expensive. In Oaxaca, I only know of a single gallery that carries them—La Mano Mágica—where the markup is somewhere in the range of 200-300%. For this particular deer, I paid 2000 pesos (about $110 bucks), which is an absolute steal.

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This particular statue, also from Gabino Reyes López, is an excellent depiction of how Mexico, and especially Oaxaca, often combines elements of traditional Catholicism with Indigenous iconography. Here, la Virgen de Guadalupe (the Virgin Mary) emerges from an agave plant, which is very culturally significant in Oaxaca. Her robe, covered in stars, carries the same verdant green as the spiny paddles that frame her, and Oaxacan birds sit on her hands and shoulders.

This statue was a special order for an undisclosed client and stands about three feet tall. As I think the person who ordered it intends to resell it, I won’t tell you what it costs. Suffice it to say, it’s less expensive than you might expect.

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Alebrijes, the elaborately painted and carved wooden figures from San Martín Tilcajete and San Antonio Arrazola, are made exclusively from copal, a soft-wooded tree that produces a resin that can be burned as an enticingly aromatic incense. Copal has been overharvested, threatening the livelihood of the communities that use it in their art. Carvings from La Unión, though, are made from the wood of the jacaranda tree, which is sturdy and not under any sort of usage restriction.

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I seriously considered buying this wooden devil riding a bull, thinking that because he’s proudly hosting a mezcal bottle he would look great amongst the bottles of my own, growing mezcal collection. He is the work of Plácido Arturo Santiago Cruz, whose brothers, children, and other family members as well are all artists.

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In general, I find the wooden devils to be a lot of fun, and they’re often portrayed in a variety of ways. In these particular photos they’re all mounted on a variety of animals, but I’ve seen them seated at tables playing cards, grilling meat, and, just once, arranged around a little handcarved stripper, whose tableau included a little hand-carved wooden stripper pole. Diablos indeed.

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Avelino Pérez Muñoz was the only artist we were able to find the first time we visited La Unión, and upon our most recent visit he shared with me, Enrique, and Mariana some rather shocking news; the batch of carvings pictured here might very well be his last. His eyesight has been deteriorating to the point where he’s almost blind, and doctors are not confident his upcoming surgery will resolve his issues.

I was dismayed when I heard this, both for his sake and because of the potential loss to Oaxaca’s folk art scene. These photos (which I think are not very good) do not accurately portray how lovingly made his figurines are, but his work is exceptional, and he’s especially adept at creating human-like animals playing musical instruments. The idea that his art may simply come to an end because of a loss of eyesight, which I’m sure would be financially devastating to his family, is something I’m still ruminating on many days after my visit.

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These instrument playing animals were made by Calixto Santiago López, the son of Plácido. I adore them, and find both the quality of the carving and the paint jobs to be charming. Calixto also makes a wide range of non-musical animals such as rabbits, dogs, and hippos. You can see one of his rabbits to the right of the pig with the guitar.

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Today’s newsletter is a guide for evaluating and buying handmade Oaxacan wool rugs. Use this guide to help make a purchase you’ll treasure for a lifetime (without getting ripped off in the process)!

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 240 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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One of the most beloved art forms in our part of Mexico is rugs. Handwoven on huge, clanking wooden looms, wool rugs are far less expensive here than they are in the U.S., and visiting Oaxaca gives you an incredible opportunity to meet directly with an artisan and buy something made in their workshop or home that they created with their own hands.

It’s easy to find incredible rugs here, and we’ve been so enamored by some of the designs we’ve seen that we’ve purchased close to two dozen rugs over the past two and a half years, from a variety of workshops.

It took a long time to understand exactly what we were buying, though. Early in our time in Oaxaca, before we knew what we were doing, we bought several rugs that in short order began to pill, lose their shape, and even to deteriorate. We were, frankly, ripped off, and we learned an important lesson: it’s not enough that something be beautiful, it also has to be well-crafted in order to keep both its loveliness and its utility.

Now, thanks to years of experience and the tutelage of some friends who are weavers, we’re experienced rug buyers, and today I’ll be sharing some of that knowledge with you. Use this guide, and the next time you come to Oaxaca, you can buy a rug you’ll cherish for a lifetime, and not get taken advantage of in the process.

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Pricing

Unfortunately, there’s really no good way to establish what you should pay for a rug. Each one is unique and subject to a variety of forces that determine its cost and its value. Those factors—the quality of the materials, intricacy of the design, and the level of experience of the artisans—will be discussed in this piece in their own separate sections.

Personally, the most I’m willing to pay for a 3x5’ rug is around $300-400 USD, if it’s especially beautiful or if the design is very intricate, but prices can run much higher than that. At Fe y Lola, a high priced taller and galería that sells rugs made with avant garde designs, rugs can range from as low as $700 all the way up to between $12 to $15 thousand U.S. Dollars, if not more.

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Uniformity

The uniformity and consistency of a design are a clear and unmistakable indicator of skill. While you can expect some variation in a design and imperfections are inevitable, flaws should not be obvious. If a design looks uneven, wonky, or disproportionate, it’s a sign of inexperience or that not enough time was spent on the project.

It’s also very important to look at the dimensions of the rug itself. If a rectangular rug isn’t actually all that rectangular, that is evidence of flawed creation. I would not purchase a rug where the dimensions of the rug itself were not even.

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Quality of Wool

Not all yarn is created equal. A good quality yarn should feel durable, somewhat soft, and should be free of debris.

Run your hand over the wool. Are there rough fibers, sticks and twigs, bits of grass or other organic material, or even little bits of plastic? If so, the wool was not appropriately cleaned before it was processed into yarn, an indication of poor quality.

Rugs can be made from many types of wool, including alpaca! Artisans should always be transparent with you about the type of wool they’ve used. No rugs made in Oaxaca should ever include synthetic yarn.

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Natural vs. Synthetic Dyes

Artisans are quick to tout when their rugs are made with “natural dyes” created from foraged wood, fruits, insects, and botanicals. Many workshops will even be happy to give you a demonstration of how these dyes are made, crushing up the ingredients, diluting them in water, and making the colors before your very eyes. Many artisans will also tell you that natural dyes are inherently better than artificial ones, and this is not strictly true. Each offers its own advantages and disadvantages.

Natural Dyes

Rugs made with natural dyes are a more premium product and rightfully command higher prices. After all, collecting, cleaning, and processing the ingredients into tints is time-intensive and difficult. Natural dyes will also give wool beautiful, subtle, organic-looking colors. But, natural dyes are also more fragile than synthetic dyes, and are more vulnerable to staining and sun bleaching.

Synthetic Dyes

Synthetic dyes, on the other hand, are an industrial product, which in the context of artisan crafts make an object a bit less “special.” But the advantage of synthetic dyes is that they produce bright, deep, eye-popping colors, and are much more stain- and sun-resistant.

Understanding the Color Spectrum

Because rugs made with natural dyes command higher prices, some artisans and vendors will tell you that a rug is naturally dyed when in reality it has been made with synthetic dyes. If a rug has incredibly bright, vivid colors, it has almost certainly been made with synthetic dyes.

It’s important to remember that wool itself has a natural color spectrum. You will encounter undyed wool rugs in various shades of white, grey, and brown. The natural color of the wool also impacts the hue and intensity of dyes.

Some particularly skilled weavers will use both naturally and synthetically dyed wool in the same rug, to give both color contrast and natural softness to their work. If you see a rug that seems to have the characteristics of both types of dyes, it very well might be made with both. A single rug might even be made with natural dyes, synthetic dyes, and more than one type of undyed yarn!

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Today’s newsletter is a free guide to using public restrooms in Mexico, including information on paying and tipping, bringing toilet paper, washing your hands, and more!

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 240 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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Any traveler worth their salt knows that bathrooms and the culture behind using them changes from country to country. In parts of Europe, it’s extremely common to find the dreaded trench-style urinal, where men line up, shoulder to shoulder, hogs out and swinging, to pee in unison into what’s basically a long, filthy spittoon. In the Caribbean, you’ll very often see signs advising you not to flush toilet paper (often with a little note saying that it damages the reefs and hurts the fish) and to instead deposit the soiled sheets into a basket next to the toilet. In India (and Japan!), squat-style toilets are the traditional cultural norm, and Japan also, famously, has its robot bidet toilets that will wash (and dry!) your nether parts, all while playing a cheery little song and thanking you at the end for your transaction.

In Mexico, too, rules and norms apply that you may not be familiar with (although, sadly, the toilets won’t sing for you). If you plan to visit Mexico, it’s good to understand ahead of time how facilities might be accessed and used, and what you can do to prepare yourself if you might need to use a toilet that’s away from your lodging.

Editor’s Note: This topic was suggested by a loyal reader, Luke. Thanks for the idea, Luke! If you, my other readers, have subjects you’d like covered, please let me know.

Public Restrooms Are Not That Hard To Find (if You Know Where To Look)

It’s often said that Oaxaca doesn’t have enough public restrooms, and while that’s true, part of the solution to finding these facilities is knowing where to look. Mexico has a great many museums, some of them free to enter, and you can pretty much count on them to have public restrooms. Government buildings, too, are likely to have public restrooms, although you may be stopped by a guard at a front desk who will want you to either sign in or who may require you to have an appointment (which obviously you won’t have). You can also often find public restrooms inside parking garages, but they will almost certainly be dirty and in poor condition.

But the best place to reliably find public restrooms is undoubtedly a mercado. Public markets, large and small, are guaranteed to have public restrooms. You’ll need to pay to get in (which is addressed in the entry beneath this one), so make sure you’ve got exact change.

If all else fails, you could also try just walking into a large hotel and asking where the bathroom is. There’s a small chance you may be asked if you’re a guest, but a great many hotels also have restaurants, so it’s not like you’re committing a crime by sneaking in to use the toilet.

Public Restrooms Often Are Guarded by Turnstiles (So Carry Exact Change)

In Mexico, public restrooms often are guarded by a large, subway-style metal turnstile, and you’ll need to deposit exact change in order to enter and use the bathroom. The cost will be minimal, typically 5 or 10 pesos, which in U.S. dollars, not accounting for currency fluctuations, is between .25 and .50 cents.

If there is a turnstile but not an attendant, look for a machine dispensing toilet paper. Except in airports, you will not find toilet paper available for free in the stalls, so make sure you’ve got your paper needs squared away before it’s too late.

Public Restrooms Often Have an Attendant Who Will Give You Toilet Paper (Whom You Should Tip)

You may be surprised to find that public toilets in Mexico are often cleaner than those in the United States. This is because, quite often, there is an attendant on duty whose job is to constantly clean and maintain the restroom.

Sometimes this person may be seated immediately outside of the restroom, and sometimes they may be seated near a small table inside. Unless a price is prominently displayed, payment is not mandatory. Do keep in mind, though, that the attendant is paid mostly (if not entirely!) by tips, and this is not the moment to be a cheapskate. Typically, a 5 or 10 peso tip is generous, but feel free to scale up, as it’s not a fun job.

The attendant will be the one who gives you toilet paper, which has typically been pre-portioned. If they don’t give you enough paper to get the job done, just ask them for more.

Toilet Paper Is Not Available for Free in Stalls (so You May Want To Bring Some With You)

It’s important to reiterate this point: toilet paper will not be freely available inside the stalls of public restrooms, except in places like airports, museums, and government buildings. Instead, someone will either hand you pre-portioned paper, or you’ll be required to buy it from an automated dispenser that often is located outside of the bathroom itself (so bring exact change!).

After two and a half years of life in Mexico, I’ve never actually needed to carry paper with me, but a good friend had a bathroom emergency in Mexico and found themself without paper or a means of securing it. Be prepared!

Public Toilets Will Not Have Toilet Seats (Except in Airports)

Public toilets, such as in markets (and occasionally in restaurants as well), quite often will not have toilet seats. You’ll either need to hover or be willing to put your butt directly onto the bare, chilly porcelain.

As with everything in Mexico, this custom may vary from place to place, and perhaps tourist destinations I have yet to visit (such as Cabo or Puerto Vallarta) are better about this sort of thing. But the only place I’ve consistently seen public restrooms with toilet seats is in Mexican airports, and I suspect that’s because of the sheer number of international visitors who expect (and I think, demand) that toilet seats be present. If you have firsthand experience with this, let us all know in the comments!

Toilets May Not Have Running Water (*This Is Not Typical*)

This is very uncommon in urban settings, and I think only tourists venturing off the beaten track will experience this, but you may find yourself facing a toilet with no handle and no obvious way to flush. If this occurs, look for a small plastic bucket or large(ish) cup located near the toilet. You’ll need to fill the bucket or cup either from a large bucket or drum of water, or from the tap of a sink, and then pour the water directly into the toilet bowl. The increased volume of water and corresponding increase in pressure will cause the toilet to “flush” (more or less).

You (Almost Without Exception) Cannot Flush Your Toilet Paper

Unless you are in a resort or a particularly modern building, it is very unlikely you will be unable to flush your soiled toilet paper. Instead, you are expected, nay, required, to deposit your used paper into a small trash can that sits immediately next to the toilet.

For most tourists, this can feel pretty weird. But the reason you’re being asked to do this isn’t because of a strange cultural practice; it’s because toilets are often plumbed with pipes that are too small to accommodate toilet paper, because plumbing systems may be antiquated and prone to clogs and leaks, and because of drought, where there simply is not enough water to be able to always flush the toilet.

You should know that if you do decide to flush your toilet paper anyway, you very likely will clog the toilet and may even break a pipe somewhere in a wall. So, unless you want to be responsible for that problem, do yourself (and everyone else) a favor and toss your paper into the trash can.

For a detailed analysis of why you can’t flush toilet paper in Mexico, check out this in-depth report!

You May Want To Carry Hand Sanitizer or Cleansing Hand Wipes

Mexico’s hygiene is much better than people give it credit for, and people are good about washing their hands here. Even roadside taquerias under tents will have handwashing stations set up so that you can clean your hands before digging into your food.

That being said, it’s not a bad idea to carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer or individually sealed packs of alcohol-soaked hand wipes. Bathrooms may run out of soap, sometimes during droughts sinks may not work, and it’s possible a bathroom simply may not have running water. For those cases, as atypical as they may be, you’ll be glad you came prepared.

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Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 240 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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Mexico is a country that takes its celebrations very seriously. Día de los Niños (Children’s Day), Día de los Abuelos (Grandparents’ Day), Día de los Maestros (Teachers’ Day), and many others, are days people actually pay attention to. Towns and cities schedule public events, people buy gifts, and, in general, people celebrate, even on holidays that feel a little manufactured. But one holiday that gets virtually no attention in Mexico is Cinco de Mayo, and that’s because, in the way Americans recognize it, it’s not actually a Mexican holiday; it’s one born in the U.S.A.

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Cinco de Mayo’s first iteration was, in fact, a Mexican one. In an interview with NPR, historian Kelly Lytle Hernández relayed the tale as it relates to Porfirio Díaz, Mexico’s infamous (and Oaxacan-born) dictator, whose reign of terror is known in Mexico as the Porfiriato. The year was 1846, and Díaz was a 19-year-old enrolled in a seminary school when the United States invaded Mexico, triggering the start of the Mexican-American War. Two years later, by 1848, the U.S. had taken control of the territories that would later become California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and portions of Colorado.

Díaz was radicalized by the events of the war. When the nation’s conservative faction reached out to France for military assistance, then-Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte III saw an opportunity to reestablish a French empire in America. French troops arrived in Mexico with an aim to conquer, and Porfirio Díaz left the seminary to fight for the liberal faction alongside his then-mentor and future enemy, Mexico’s famed populist revolutionary savior, Benito Juárez (also Oaxacan-born).

Over time, Díaz established himself as a skilled military leader, and on May 5th, 1862—Cinco de Mayo—the liberal Mexican guerrillas engaged with French forces in the city of Puebla. Against all odds, the liberal forces prevailed, and the day became one of Díaz’s most important victories, as well as an important first step on his road to becoming Mexico’s influential and reviled dictator.

Looking for ways to prop up his ascendency, Díaz leveraged the unexpected success of the Battle of Puebla as a messaging tool. It worked. Díaz accumulated power, and by 1876, thanks to a military coup, he had seized control of Mexico, initiating a reign of power that would last for more than 40 years.

Díaz’s victory wasn’t just celebrated in Mexico. Even though California had officially become a part of the United States in 1848, the Latinos living there had been Mexican just two years prior. Mexican pride was strong, and when news of the Battle of Puebla reached the residents of Columbia, California, they celebrated.

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According to Barbara Balen, one of the organizers of that community’s contemporary Cinco de Mayo celebrations, when news of Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Puebla reached the residents of the area, they broke out into spontaneous celebration. Newspaper clippings from the San Francisco publication, “La Voz de Mejico,” reported that Mexicans in California celebrated with music, speeches, dancing, and even celebratory cannon fire.

The influence of Cinco de Mayo as a holiday waned, though, when it was no longer needed as a political tool. In the United States, the event was virtually forgotten until 1989, when Gambrinus Group, the Texas-based importer of the Mexican beer brands Corona and Modelo, launched an ad campaign targeted at Mexican-Americans. Those ads leveraged a little-known holiday known as Cinco de Mayo as a way of using Mexican national pride to get immigrants and their descendants to drink beer imported in from their country of origin.

The campaign was a titanic success and firmly reestablished Cinco de Mayo as an American holiday, albeit one designed explicitly to sell beer. The U.S. research firm, Nielsen, reported that, in 2013, Americans spent more than $600 million dollars on beer during Cinco de Mayo, making it, at least for cerveza, a more commercially successful holiday than either the Super Bowl or St. Patrick’s Day.

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From there, tequila companies got in on the action, and later on, companies selling chips and snacks. Soon, Cinco de Mayo—which many Americans incorrectly believe is a celebration of Mexico’s Dia de Independencia (Independence Day)—had become little more than a marketing holiday. In fact, according to The New York Times:

David Hayes-Bautista, a professor at U.C.L.A., published a book in 2012 titled “El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition.” In the book, he called “Cinco de Mayo” a “fake holiday recently invented by beverage companies.”

Here in contemporary Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is a holiday, but barely. It is not federally recognized, nor is it widely celebrated. It is common nationwide for schools to be closed, but this is not considered to be a manifestation of national or Mexican pride, but rather just another opportunity for Mexico’s infamously corrupt teachers’ union to seize a day off from work. Cinco de Mayo is also only a full, non-working holiday in two of the country’s 31 states: Puebla, where the battle took place, and neighboring Veracruz. It is not recognized in Mexico City, which, like Washington D.C., is not a state, but an independent federal entity.

But perhaps the single most important way to tell that Cinco de Mayo isn’t a real holiday—not the way Americans think it is—is because no one in Oaxaca is setting off firecrackers, the universal way that people, young and old, rich and poor, signal that a day is worth celebrating. The silence speaks volumes; except for in very particular parts of Mexico, Cinco de Mayo, a holiday created in Mexico but revitalized in the United States to sell booze to Chicanos, is more like a footnote in history than a day people recognize.

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Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 240 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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My wife and I have lived in Oaxaca for two and a half years, and during that time, we’ve eaten at a really significant number of restaurants. Enough so that we’ve come to realize that most of the dining guides to Oaxaca are pretty bad! People love to parachute in here, drop definitive lists of places to eat (when really they’re just following the siren song of the Michelin Guide, and then fly out, having no idea that they’ve missed some of the best food this place has to offer.

What follows is a list of the places we, as full-time residents, recommend to tourists and travelers. All of these restaurants are located in the Valles Centrales, the part of Oaxaca where we live and which is home to the city of Oaxaca de Juárez, meaning that if you’re looking for coastal recommendations, you’ll need to consult a different guide. You may (and perhaps should) notice this list also doesn’t include some of Oaxaca’s most famed and buzzy restaurants. That’s both because we still have many restaurants we need to visit, but also because some of the city’s most famous restaurants aren’t very good, or clean, and might offer poor value, bad service, and tired menus in desperate need of updating. You’ll notice a distinct lack of Michelin stars on this list, and that’s not an accident.

A previous version of this list was published in September, 2025. You can find it here.

Almú

Over the two-plus years we’ve lived in Oaxaca, we’ve seen Almú become increasingly more professional, and based on our most recent visit, it may now be one of the best restaurants in Oaxaca.

This “smoke kitchen,” thus named because everything is cooked outside over charcoal or wood, sits on the outskirts of San Martin Tilcajete, one of Oaxaca’s most famed artisan towns. San Martín is where most tourists go for alebrijes, the colorful and fantastically carved wooden statues made from copal wood, and this restaurant is actually owned by the town’s most successful businesspeople, Jacobo and Maria Angeles, who founded the titanically popular (and absurdly expensive) alebrije workshop that carries their name.

The food at Almú is, simply, fantastic. Unless they’re hosting a visiting chef, which happens on occasion, the food is straight up Oaxacan classics, served simply, homestyle, but the quality can’t be beat. Their trilogía de moles, featuring mole colaradito, mole negro, and mole amarillo, is heartstoppingly fabulous, the cazuelas (casseroles topped with molten cheese that are served in almost dangerously hot clay pots) are stunning, and the salsa de carne (a huge chunk of fried pork ribs served in a chunky, rustic red salsa) is a must-order. But the restaurant itself is also charming and beautiful, having been built in the midst of a grove of copal trees that were planted as part of a reforestation effort.

Almú does have a tendency to try to upsell you on things. Don’t order the guacamole (it’s not worth the price of entry), and if you’re ordering mixed drinks, ask what they cost first; they can be surprisingly expensive.

https://www.instagram.com/almu.uuuuu/
Phone: +52-951-327-0343

Bodæga

Bodæga quickly established itself as one of the best pastry shops in all of Oaxaca. The sweets that appear on the menu will seem familiar, as you’ll find croissants, danishes, cookies, sweet buns, and slices of moist bread pudding, all things you could find at pretty much any bakery around the world. What helps Bodæga stand out is that virtually everything you order from behind the glass counter will then be plated in the kitchen and topped with freshly-made whipped cream, freeze-dried fruit powders, and compotes made of fresh and local tropical fruit like maracuya (passionfruit). In this way, these European-style pastries are grounded in Mexico and the seasons and flavors of Oaxaca. The bakery also has a limited selection of savory goods, all of which are fantastic; the grilled cheese sandwich, which changes flavors more or less quarterly, is a standout.

You should note that Bodæga has become so popular with tourists that it’s basically impossible to eat there, and to-go orders also aren’t managed efficiently. Expect to wait half an hour or more for a simple takeout order. Seating is communal, which is a bummer, and the space can only accommodate 10-15 people at a time, so this is not the right place to come with a group of friends. The food also doesn’t travel well; if you order something to go, plan to eat it within, at most, ten minutes.

https://www.instagram.com/bodaega.oax/

Criollo

Criollo no longer appears on many (if not most) listicles and travel stories, and I’m not sure why. Personal experience suggests Criollo remains one of the city’s better restaurants.

Criollo offers three very different experiences. The first is their most famous option, a set price menu for about $95 USD a person with an optional $29 beverage pairing. I loved it, and found the dishes to be generously portioned, inventive and playful, and also intellectually interesting. The second option is their “barra de tacos,” clearly a nod to the taco omakase served at the famed Mexico City restaurant Pujol. This makes sense, given that Pujol’s owner, Enrique Olvera, is a co-owner of Criollo. The third option is breakfast/brunch only, an à la carte menu seated in a large and pleasant hidden courtyard you’d never know even existed unless you visited in person.

The restaurant also has a hotel, which we’ve never stayed at, so we can’t speak to the quality of the lodging. If you’ve stayed there, let me know!

https://www.instagram.com/criollo_oax/
Phone: +52-951-351-1908
Reservations (OpenTable)

El Milenario

El Milenario is a comfortable, Mexican Colonial-style restaurant with excellent service and a menu stuffed with Oaxacan classics. Beyond the easy comfort of the restaurant and the excellent food, it’s a particularly great stop less than a five-minute walk from the famed tree of Tule, a nearly 2000-year-old Montezuma Cyprus that, by circumference, is the largest tree in the world. While the entire menu is solid, we particularly enjoy the chile relleno filled with chicken, the Botana Oaxaqueña (a basket filled with all sorts of Oaxacan specialties suitable for two people to share as an entree, or four people as an appetizer), the entomatadas, the enchiladas, and the papas con chorizo. The restaurant has particularly excellent tortillas, very good fresh quesadillas (don’t miss the flor de calabaza or the huitlacoche), and also very good fried quesadillas. The freshly pressed mixed juices are also excellent.

https://www.facebook.com/RestauranteElMilenario/
Phone: +52 951 518 0775

El Lechoncito de Oro

This late-night taco stand is famed, and for good reason. It sells tacos, tortas (sandwiches), and tostadas that are filled/topped with lean, flavorful carnitas (chopped fried pork), and that’s it, so if you don’t eat pork, this isn’t the right spot for you. I especially love the tacos topped with crispy chicharrón (pork rinds). Pork on pork!

The stall is open Monday through Saturday. Service starts at 8 pm and goes until either 2 am or as soon as everything is sold out. If you order the tacos, do yourself a favor and get at least five of them; 3 simply aren’t enough, and the line to order is long enough that standing around a second time is a pain.

https://www.instagram.com/lechoncitodeorooaxaca/

Onnno

Onnno operates both a café and a street-side window selling pastries, coffee, and loaves of bread, but it’s the café that’s captured our hearts. It’s a bright, airy, white space with nicely spaced tables and excellent service, and the menu is divided into drinks, pastries, and American brunch-style entrees. While we’re still slowly working our way through their menu, standouts have been the generously portioned salad with grilled chicken (make sure to add on a slice of bread!) and the egg sandwich. Their pastries are also incredibly good, with the red fruit twist being a consistent standout.

https://www.instagram.com/onnno.mx/?hl=en

El Pasillo de Humo

The Pasillo de Humo is so wonderful that I devoted an entire article to it, which I suggest you read for a full explanation. The summary, though, is that inside of the Mercado 20 de Noviembre lies a passageway filled with butcher stands laden with freshly sliced meat and accompanying charcoal grills. You pick your meat, take a table, order some drinks, sides, and tortillas, and wait for the freshly grilled meat to be delivered to your table. It’s a good, affordable, fun, and extremely local experience that every meat-eating visitor to Oaxaca should experience at least once.

Sanzin Cocina Oaxaca

Oaxaca has many Japanese restaurants, but none are like Sanzin. It has only three tables, the daily set menu is extremely reasonably priced, and the food is decidedly more Japanese than Mexican. But, because many Japanese ingredients are hard to come by here, and especially fruits and vegetables, the chef and his team must out of necessity include local ingredients and Mexican flavors. The results are incredible; food that is sparklingly fresh, beautifully and thoughtfully prepared, and definitely very Japanese, but with hints and twists of Mexican soul.

Sanzin can be hard to eat at. The restaurant opens at 1 and closes at 5, and the presentation and dining experience are leisurely. The restaurant is only able to squeeze in 2 to 3 seatings during the time they’re open, so if you can’t get a table when you walk in, you’ll probably need to find somewhere else to eat. I asked the restaurant via Instagram if they accept reservations, and it sounds like they do beginning at 1:30 on the same day, but you should contact them yourself to be sure that’s correct.

https://www.instagram.com/sanzin_cocina_oax/?hl=en

Tacos del Carmen

Tacos del Carmen is a taco stall on a street corner that sells affordable tacos, quesadillas, and empanadas, all of them cooked hot over a comal fired by either wood or charcoal. Everything on the menu is a Oaxacan street food classic, but a few things stand out. The chile relleno taco is the must-order item on the menu, and a quesadilla stuffed with squash blossoms (flor de calabaza) would also be a good choice. For something extremely Oaxacan, order an empanada amarillo, which is an extra-large corn tortilla that’s been filled with cheese, yellow mole, and shredded chicken, folded over, and then crisped up on the comal (griddle). The stall has three or four benches, a cooler full of sodas for sale, a few free salsas, and napkins—that’s it. Find it at the corner of Jesús Carranza and Calle de Manuel Garcia Vigil.

https://www.instagram.com/carmentacosdel/?hl=en

Terraza Istmo or Zandunga Istmeno Sabor or Zapoteca

It may seem like a cop-out to recommend three restaurants in one entry. After all, these restaurants aren’t all the same, and suggesting they’re interchangeable isn’t fair to them or the food of Oaxaca. But I’m urging you to choose at least one of them, because all of them serve food from Oaxaca’s Istmo region, which most tourists won’t get a chance to experience.

Oaxaca is a state of distinct cultural regions, and when it comes to food, the Istmo is one of the most important. Istmeño food is a mix of both coastal and inland. You’ll find dishes such as pico de gallo mixed with tiny, briny, salted, and dried lagoon shrimp, and also complicated, long-simmered stews featuring beef and fruit. But the Istmo especially has incredible fried food, and if you can try only one Istmeño dish, it should probably be garnachas. These small snacks consist of a thick fried tortilla topped with pulled pork, strong and salty Istmeño cheese (which is sort of like a cross between parmesan and cotija), fresh red salsa, and salted, marinated shaved cabbage. You’ll find all of the dishes mentioned here (and more!) at all three of the restaurants listed above.

Terraza Istmo: https://www.instagram.com/terraza_istmo/
Zandunga Sabor Istmeño: https://www.zandungasabor.com
Zapoteca: https://www.instagram.com/zapoteca.oaxaca/

Vianda

Vianda is located in the sleepy town of San José del Magote, a small and seemingly affluent community named for the fact that it has a magote (tomb) located right at the entrance to the town. It’s a quiet, low-thrill place to visit, and yet we’ve taken practically every guest we’ve ever had to eat at Vianda, which has to be one of the best restaurants in the entire valley. The space is gorgeous, a covered terrace in an inner courtyard that faces an open-air comal where the chef, Teutli Estrada, prepares fresh tortillas and an array of modern, delicious, and very reasonably priced dishes that rival some of Oaxaca’s most famous restaurants. I’d choose Vianda over either Levadura de Olla or Los Danzantes, Oaxaca’s two Michelin-starred restaurants, any day of the week, and I think that after eating here, you would too.

https://www.instagram.com/viandaoax/
Phone: +52 951 168 5748

Xaok

This restaurant exists in an urban real estate fantasy, a large, walled compound in the midst of a closely packed city neighborhood with a small Mid-Century Modern brick building nestled in the center of it. The restaurant is gorgeous (and has free parking!) and the food is fantastic. While the dishes are undeniably Mexican, many recipes have clearly been influenced by the wider world, giving you an opportunity to see what it would be like if Oaxacan food were combined with flavors from countries like Italy. It’s hard to go wrong on their menu, but a particular favorite of mine is the milpa green bean soup paired with a quesadilla in adobo with a chile de agua mayonnaise. Xaok was also in 2025 awarded a Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand.

Xaok also has a chef’s table option, which we booked for my birthday this year in 2026. The experience was exceptional, and the value excellent for what you receive. If you’re interested in a tasting menu experience while visiting Oaxaca, I highly recommend it. They also do a really fabulous brunch, which is only served on Sundays.

https://xaokoaxaca.com
https://xaokoaxaca.com/menu-english/
https://www.instagram.com/xaok.oaxaca/?hl=en
‪Phone: +52 951 185 7318‬

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Many readers of this newsletter have expressed an interest in learning more about Oaxaca’s art scene, and today’s newsletter comes to you courtesy of the Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art (FOFA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit based here in Oaxaca that helps to promote and support Oaxacan folk artists. The following article was written by Annie O’Neill, an expert in Mexican folk art and advisor to Nelson Rockefeller, and was originally sent to FOFA members via email. It is being republished here with permission.

“Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art (FOFA) seeks to preserve and promote the rich folk art traditions of Oaxaca, Mexico, which have been passed on from generation to generation over hundreds of years. FOFA collaborates with the local folk art community to create and implement a range of programs that support this mission.”

To help support FOFA, please consider either donating or volunteering.

Donate to FOFA

Volunteer with FOFA

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 240 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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Introduction

Josefina Aguilar, renowned for her celebration of Oaxacan daily life through her whimsical, emotive painted terracotta figures, died this past February at the age of 80. Following are remembrances shared by three people whose lives she touched in profound ways, and through whom her legacy lives on.

The story of how Nelson Rockefeller met Josefina Aguilar Alcántara and her family in the late 1970s has become legendary. Annie O’Neill, a Mexican folk art expert, artist and longtime FOFA advisory board member, is the person who organized Rockefeller’s visit with the Aguilars following years of advising Rockefeller and helping him build his extensive collection, the majority of which now sits at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Here is Annie’s recollection of Josefina’s and her sisters’ early days and that historic meeting.

Annie O’Neill

Mexican folk art expert and advisor to Nelson Rockefeller

I met Josefina Aguilar in the late 60s when I owned a Mexican folk art gallery and store called The Mexican Art Annex in Manhattan. I took twice-yearly buying trips to Mexico and first saw the Aguilar animal bells in a store called Yalalag in Oaxaca that had bought most of the Aguilar family’s production.

An ardent collector of Mexican folk art, Nelson A. Rockefeller discovered my store in 1968 and continued to stop in for years while he was governor and vice president. We started working on the book about his collection, “Folk Treasures of Mexico: The Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection,” and the trip to Oaxaca that I organized for him in 1978 was to reacquaint him with some of the areas he had visited in 1948.

When I brought Rockefeller to the home of the Aguilars in Ocotlán in 1978, Josefina was 33 years old. She and her three sisters – Guillermina, Irene and Concepción – were starting families, and at this time they worked with their mother and father in their home workshop. Ocotlán had no paved streets, and on the main road were some traditional homes and a patchwork of farmland. It was dusty and not well travelled. There was a picket fence outside their home with oversized (two feet tall) figures displayed on the pickets. The paint on these figures was faded from the sun and disappearing because of rain. But they looked so wonderful in their crookedness with flowers reaching up to their ceramic clothing!

Josefina and her sisters were working on the dirt floor surrounded by crying kids, paint containers and an occasional chicken. I was struck by how such interesting pieces could be created in a rather chaotic space where life and work were intertwined. They were so happy to sell directly to a buyer rather than a middleman and had no idea who Rockefeller was.

Since pre-Classic times, and earlier, “dolls” or figurines were very common in Mexico. The Aguilars departed from tradition by creating a bell shape for {the bases of} their figures so they could make them stand. The early Aguilar bells initially only had painted faces; the bodies were terra-cotta color with a little clay clapper inside. Today these early Aguilar pieces are in both the San Antonio Museum of Art, where we gave the major part of the Rockefeller Collection of Mexican Folk Art, and the Mexico Museum in San Francisco.

Eventually the four Aguilar sisters went their separate ways and moved into their own home workshops. After the road was paved in Ocotlán, they erected large signs for their roadside studios, receiving steady visits from collectors who preferred traveling to where the work was made and buying directly from the artist.

Josefina and her large family were on the cusp of change and innovation, and to this day she has influenced so many younger family members and visitors. Her sons and daughter and their families have all branched out to create their own unique pieces, making sure her legacy will live on.

Leticia Aguilar, Daughter of Josefina

A loving daughter recounts her mother’s gifts

Leticia Engracia García Aguilar is Josefina’s only daughter, and throughout her life they shared a close bond. To Leti, her mother was an extraordinary woman — she was strict as a teacher yet deeply loving and understanding. She recalls with affection that Josefina never neglected her upbringing; she was present at every stage of Leti’s life to guide her and offer advice, while simultaneously teaching all her children how to work with clay. It was an arduous task, considering that, in addition to Leti, Josefina had seven other children.

Leti cherishes the memories of her first moments working with clay. When she was very small, she would sit beside her mother and observe her every movement. In those moments, Josefina was both mother and teacher: she looked after her little daughter while patiently imparting the secrets of her craft. Leti grew up surrounded by clay, paint, and the guidance of her mother, who taught her by supervising her work and offering recommendations. “You need to make your women’s arms wider; they are too thin,” she would tell her, or “You must reduce the size of the nose, or fix their mouths, because right now it looks like they’re whistling.” From these corrections emerged the very quality that distinguishes Leti’s work today: her mastery of facial expression in her characters.

As she learned the craft, Leti witnessed her mother’s rise as a renowned artisan. She soon realized that Josefina was famous: people would flock to visit her—taking photos and conducting interviews—as if she were a movie star. Leti deeply admired her mother from a very young age, eventually leading her to dedicate herself to the same trade. Today, Leticia is a renowned artist in her own right, having found her own distinct style over time – though, as an homage to her mother’s legacy, her work continues to feature some of Josefina’s trademarks. Followers of Josefina’s work will recognize how Leti renders her figures’ eyes—those two unmistakable little lines—as well as her recurring representations of market vendors, flower sellers, and “Fridas.”

Josefina imbued each piece with expression and vitality, as if breathing a piece of her own soul into every character. Leti feels that every figure Josefina created possesses its own unique personality and character—as if they truly possess a life of their own.

To this day, Leti uses the technical advice that her mother gave her as a child and knows she always will: how to repair damaged pieces, the best methods for constructing figures over a meter in height, and so on. In the face of every challenge, Josefina’s words remain with her—as relevant now as when she first heard them as a child.

Leti would like Josefina to be remembered for who she was: a person generous with her family and her community, a loving mother, and an artist—a pioneer in the craft of polychromatic pottery in Ocotlán. That’s why she feels a responsibility to continue crafting every piece with her entire heart, honoring her mother’s legacy.

Fran García Vazquez, Granddaughter of Josefina

The child of a new generation, forever grateful for her grandmother’s kindness

Fran remembers Josefina as her second mother. They shared a very close bond—one filled with affection, acceptance, and clay. To Fran, her grandmother was the pillar that held the entire family together; her home served as the central gathering place where they could socialize, share stories, and celebrate traditions such as Holy Week and the Day of the Dead. From a very young age, Fran noticed that Josefina’s home was constantly visited by tourists and journalists—an observation that sparked a profound admiration for her grandmother.

Josefina was her life teacher. A demanding mentor, she taught Fran that every piece must be crafted from the heart. Fran learned to sculpt almost as if it were a game, mimicking the movements of her father, Demetrio, and her grandmother, and watching closely as they brought their creations to life. Amidst these daily lessons, Fran heard her grandmother utter a phrase that remains etched in her memory to this day: “Always leave a piece of your heart in every piece you make.”

One memory Fran cherishes is an afternoon when Josefina—who had by then lost her sight as a complication of diabetes — taught her how to make a “wico” (a small pitcher topped with an animal’s head). Fran watched in awe as her grandmother’s hands shaped the clay, creating the form without the need to see it. Then Fran took the clay and continued sculpting, while Josefina listened in silence. A mere touch of the piece was enough for Josefina to know exactly what was needed—or what needed to be removed: a little more clay here, a little less there. She taught with her hands. It is a moment that Fran carries deep within her heart.

Over time, Fran has found her own style. She began by creating traditional pieces—such as market characters—but today, her work addresses social themes such as diversity and inclusion. She creates “muxe” mermaids, for in her view, neither muxes nor mermaids are bound by gender. She also has a series of colorful drag queen characters. Through the medium of clay, Fran seeks to bring visibility to what already exists—to that which deserves to be seen.

Fran would like her grandmother to be remembered as the great artist and generous soul she was. Fran is grateful to her for teaching her the craft that now serves as her livelihood, and also for her acceptance—first when she came out as gay, and later when she embraced her identity as a trans woman. Her grandmother never rejected her. “She opened the doors of her home to me. Beyond being an artist, she was a grandmother; she gave me so much love and taught me so many things.”

Fran is determined to continue this work she loves for as long as life allows. For her personally, this is her grandmother’s most valuable legacy: bequeathing to her a passion for what she does. She dreams that one day, she herself might serve as an inspiration to someone else—and that her work might help change something: homophobia, bullying, or the labels that divide people.

WATCH: Josefina Aguilar molding clay

Editor’s Note: Thank you again to Annie O’Neill and FOFA for this insightful look into the lives of one of Oaxaca’s most influential artistic families. In the words of FOFA;

“Your donations help preserve tradition while building futures! Please consider a one-time or monthly gift to support FOFA's efforts to enable talented young Oaxacan artists to achieve sustainable livelihoods.

Donate to FOFA

For a comprehensive look at FOFA's programs, please visit us at www.fofa.us or www.fofa.com.mx.”

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It’s far (far, far, far) past time for me to finish my book proposal, and so today’s newsletter is another guest post from my wife, Andrea, who has kindly offered to step in this week so that I can focus on finishing that document. Her entry is an ode to lemons, and a reflection on what it’s meant to us to have moved to a place where we can grow our own fruit all year long.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 240 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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I remember visiting my paternal grandmother in central California as a child and being so enamored with the gigantic grapefruit tree in her backyard. I grew up in Montana, though, a place with distinct climates that included a very cold (and long) winter, and I never pictured myself living in a place with a lemon tree as a prominent feature of the home.

Yet here we are, after two and a half years of living in Oaxaca, with a flourishing lemon tree as one of the prized attributes of our home.

Rarely does a day go by that Leo and I don’t head up to check on the lemon tree. This new routine (established by Leo) has given me new insights into the already beloved tree.

When we first visited the home we now call Casa Secreta, we noticed the lemon tree and were impressed. Fast forward to our moving in, the tree has been consistently bearing fruit year-round. One of the former owners, Penny, noted somewhat mournfully that the tree was not as prolific for them as it has become for us. We did absolutely nothing different for the tree; my guess is that it has simply matured over the decade-plus that has passed since it was planted by Victor and Penny.

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In our earliest days in New York City, I stumbled across a lemon cake recipe from King Arthur Flour, which was their 2017 recipe of the Year. The Lemon Bliss Cake I have now made over 40 times—truly, I had to count for a story Jake wrote last year— is a triple lemon cake: lemon zest in the batter, a lemon syrup poured over the baked and still-warm cake, and a lemon glaze to top it off. It is baked in a bundt pan and looks beautiful when the cake comes cleanly out of the form (which it does not always do if the bundt pan is at the end of its life or if I have not greased the form properly…). It is my go-to dessert, and the dessert Jake immediately defaults to when I need to make a sweet treat to end an evening of his amazing food, regardless of the type of cuisine he’s prepared.

For all of the lemon cakes I bake each year, it is still not enough to use up all of the lemons the miraculous tree produces. I now make lemon bars, and am working hard to figure out how to make drinkable lemonade, still a work-in-progress due entirely to user reluctance—to have delicious lemonade, you need an obscene amount of sugar, which I cannot bring myself to use, leading to a tart and unpleasant lemonade. And even with me using as many lemons as possible, we still give away bags of lemons to friends, who are always happy to accept the bounty.

As Leo becomes more and more aware of the world around him, we thought he had followed my love of lemons, but really, his love is for the tree itself. Every afternoon after his nanny, Liz, leaves for the day, he and I get to spend time together while Jake prepares dinner. Inevitably, young Leo wants to go play with a hose and check on his favorite tree, so he climbs up the witches steps to the upper garden. Even without shoes on, he confidently walks down the gravel path to the fenced-in garden towards his beloved tree. He stops at the tree, grabs a nearby bamboo stick, and attempts to poke at the lemons above to get them to fall down.

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When we have ripe lemons ready for consumption, Jake and I take turns with harvesting. We have invested in a few simple tools to help us get the lemons off the tree, and Leo is absolutely fascinated by the process. We always hand the lemons to him for safekeeping, and he’ll have a pile of lemons at his feet before we are finished harvesting.

We have been visiting the tree every day for the past few months; first, when it was hanging with beautiful ripe lemons, then when the blossoms came in across the tree, and now as the next crop grows visibly week by week.

Right now, the tree is laden with beautiful but small lemons, still in the stage where they look like tiny limes. Leo does not see the difference, though, and every day he pokes at the tree with his stick, hoping to get the tree to release a few of its treasures.

Leo loves eating straight lemon wedges (and in fact, will eat the rind of the lemon as though it is an apple), but has yet to have a piece of the lemon cake. Soon, once his parents decide they’ve deprived him of desserts long enough, he’ll be as much in love with the cake as he is the tree that makes the cake possible.

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Today’s newsletter is about doors. Beautiful doors, mysterious doors, doors to make you wonder and draw you in, into Oaxaca, into Mexico.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 240 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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I’m a sucker for photos of doors, and Substack, being a social media platform in disguise, is happy to oblige me. Hardly a day goes by that I’m not being shown a photo or image—these days, sometimes made by AI, which is sad—showing a fantastic door belonging to a residence made all the more enticing by the fact that we can’t see what’s inside. The door invites, provides tantalizing details about what might be behind it, and the lack of a view of the interior provides a perfect, beautiful opportunity for imagination.

Sometimes I wonder if my love of doors makes me perhaps a bit basic, but I think that terrible voice in my head, the one that lives in a fetid pit in the back of my mind that tells me from the gloam that I shouldn’t enjoy things that other people enjoy, should take the night off. The door as a metaphor to discovery, travel, entrance and exit to and from experiences, is a good one, and one I like reading about and writing about. And, physically, Oaxaca has a lot of doors and entrances to draw one in.

Here are some of my favorites that I’ve seen so far, and I know more are out there.

This gorgeous entryway sits down an alleyway in the neighborhood of Xochimilco (So-chee-MEEL-ko). A small sign to the right of the door indicates that it’s a clinic for alternative medicine, which here in Oaxaca is more or less the middle option between typical western medicine (so, a university-trained, licensed doctor) and a curandero, a type of healer that claims to use “Indigenous wisdom” to cure all sorts of maladies, both physical and spiritual alike. It’s important to note that curanderos sit apart from people with true knowledge of herbal medicine, which is an ancestral practice still used in some rural communities in Oaxaca. Curanderos, instead, are more like quasi-religious drug dealers, and they play up the Indigenous history of Oaxacan herbal medicine in order to take advantage of gullible gringos. We know one person in Oaxaca who was sexually assaulted by a curandera, who portrayed the violation as being part of the healing session our acquaintance paid for.

This community pharmacy is in the town of San Martín Tilcajete, and sits in part of a string of buildings that house the town’s government. I’ve never actually seen a community pharmacy before, and think from context that this business is operated by the government itself, thus offering convenience, lower prices, and probably an array of small packaged goods (such as diapers and feminine hygiene products).

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This photo was taken from the interior of Bodæga, a bakery in the Centro that we adore and which has become so unbelievably popular with tourists, and has such slow service, that it’s kind of impossible to actually eat there anymore. I took this photo during the lead-up to Día de Muertos in 2025, which is why it’s strung with huge strands of marigolds, which in Mexico are known by their indigenous name, cempasúchil.

This impossible-to-ignore doorway is the entrance to a Freemason’s Lodge. I have no idea how prominent the Masons are here in Oaxaca, or for that matter in Mexico, but this isn’t the only building in the city that carries their sigil.

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La Mano Mágica—The Magic Hand—is one of my favorite art galleries in Oaxaca, and especially for its front gallery housing arte popular (folk art). This is one of the few places in all of Oaxaca that you can find carved wooden art from the community of La Union Tejelapam, a town that sits close to the western border of the Etla valley. This town sees virtually no tourist traffic despite being the home of multiple talented artists who create elaborately carved wooden figurines quite stylistically different from the alebrijes of San Martín Tilcajete and San Antonio Arrazola.

This gorgeously patterned metal door can be found in a public courtyard near Xochimilco, mere steps from one of our favorite pottery shops, Cooperativa 1050 Grados.

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This old, rusty door is made superb by the addition of the mosaic. I found this door in Xochimilco as well, and based on its location, I don’t think it’s a business. Rather, I think the two names that appear on the hanging sign portrayed by the mosaic are the names of the owners.

It’s not really a doorway, per se, but I love the entrance to CASA, the Centro de las Artes de San Agustín. This is an old factory building in our town that was converted into a home for an art foundation started by famed artist and activist Francisco Toledo. The grand building also serves as a production, exhibition, and education space.

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Today’s newsletter is about the history of the bougainvillea, one of Mexico’s most famed and colorful shrubs.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive for A Year in Oaxaca—more than 240 guides, journal entries, photo essays, and news analyses—by clicking here. It’s paid subscriptions that allow me to take the time to write this newsletter. If you’re able, please consider upgrading your subscription. Your support is enormously appreciated!

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One of the first things you’ll notice in Oaxaca is the bougainvilleas. They are everywhere, dense shrubs heavily laden with thick, piercing thorns and festooned with brilliantly colored, papery blossoms. They grow on the borders and medians of seemingly every road, freeway, and highway in the Valles Centrales, Oaxaca’s Central Valleys, and are also just as at home in the urban mix of the state’s towns and cities.

Sometimes, bougainvilleas are small and compact, sending out thorny tendrils but not growing much beyond their meagre footprint. Other times, they are huge, towering, sending wrist-thick vines up the sides of buildings and growing several stories tall, where they spill out over homes, sidewalks, and courtyards with a canopy made of pure color. But where did they come from, and why are they so present in Mexico, and in Oaxaca?

Bougainvilleas: An American Original

While bougainvilleas can now be found all across the world, the plants are actually native to the Americas, growing naturally in North, Central, and South America in the countries of Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. According to Shahnaz Habib, author of the book Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel, the discovery of the plant was originally credited to Philibert Commerçon, a French government-sponsored naturalist who was part of an expedition that sought to make discoveries in the South Pacific.

It’s said Commerçon first encountered the plant in Rio de Janeiro in 1767 and then named it for the expedition’s leader, the French admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville. The truth, though, is far more incredible. The botanist who first recorded and took samples of the now-beloved bougainvillea was not actually Commerçon, but rather Jeanne Baret, his assistant and secret lover. According to the New York Botanical Garden, Baret, who was known to the expedition’s crew simply as “Jean,” was a woman who spent the entirety of the voyage dressed and posing as a man. She was the one responsible for collecting most of the botanical samples that the ship eventually brought back to France, and by accompanying the crew on this particular journey, also became the first woman in history credited with circumnavigating the globe.

Commerçon’s claim to fame was entirely undeserved. Not only was he not the person who first found and documented the bougainvillea, he also may not have been the one who named it. In the pages of Charleston Style & Design, freelance writer PJ Gartin writes, without providing citations or evidence, that, “After two years at sea, and while anchored off Tahiti, the island’s inhabitants discovered her [Baret’s] identity. In an attempt to wiggle out of this dangerous situation, Commerson [sp] assured the admiral that his name would live on in botanical perpetuity if he spared Baret’s life and protected her from Bougainville’s angry, not to mention lascivious, sailors.”

Oxford University disagrees. In their botanical encyclopedia, the Herbaria, they state (with citations) that, “Two decades after the expedition’s return, the French botanist Antoine de Jussieu described the genus Bougainvillea in honour of the expedition’s commander.” Commerçon neither found nor named the bougainvillea; he was merely along for the ride while others did the real work.

Blossoms Across the World

How the bougainvillea spread across the world is unclear; none of the sources I used to research this story provide any history of it past the point of its first European recording. Habib wrote that, one year after the expedition of Admiral Bougainville and the botanists Commerçon and Baret, Captain Cook and the crew of the Endeavor arrived in Rio, where they also took specimens of the colorful bougainvillea, as well as the first known sketch of the plant. But Habib doesn’t note if they took living samples, or if those samples were propagated and transported around the world. The global emigration of the bougainvillea remains, as far as I can tell, a mystery.

The brightly colored bougainvillea spread its tendrils quite far, though. The plant can be found in countries and continents such as Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, South Africa, India, and the United States, and as it moved, it also changed names. Habib writes that it’s called “Santa Rita in Uruguay, trinitaria in Mexico, jahanamiya in Arabic, bunga kertas in Indonesia.” In Mexico, the name is bugambilia, an idiomatic derivation of the Spanish translation, buganvilla.

In Mexico, the Bougainvillea is Everywhere

Oaxaca is charming for a lot of reasons, and no one can resist commenting on its almost unrepentant colorfulness. This is a place with a broad adoration of vivid color, and Oaxaca’s natural splendor is particularly unrestrained. Bougainvilleas in Oaxaca can be orange, red, purple, pink, yellow, white, and especially a deep shade of magenta.

People plant them everywhere. They do exceptionally well in places with shallow dirt and virtually no water, and so the government has planted the shrub-like version in seemingly every traffic median they can find. But Oaxacans adore the vining form as well. Because it likes to climb, it’s not uncommon to see its thick, woody vines in homes and compounds all over. It’s stupendously impressive and requires very little care, although I can tell you from experience that because it drops leaves on a daily basis, it’s a pain to clean up after.

It’s also remarkably useful. Its colorful leaves aren’t blossoms at all, but rather are bracts, a paper-like leaf that hides and protects the actual, far smaller blossom. Here in Mexico, the bracts are sometimes steeped in hot water to make tea, and to color aguas frescas, wonderful flavored waters that can be made with a variety of fruits. Evidence suggests that bougainvillea bracts also have medicinal benefits, and in Mexico (and in other countries as well, such as Nigeria), bougainvillea tea is used to treat respiratory infections and gastrointestinal problems such as diarrhea.

Memorable Beauty

It’s the beauty of the bougainvillea that people love most. The plant thrives all around the planet, and so it’s not hard to find them, but here in their native Mexico, they do seem to particularly shine. People love taking pictures with them, both tourists and locals alike, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. Bougainvillea are so captivating that even when you see them on a daily basis, you can’t help but be stopped by their beauty.

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