What is it that people find so wonderful about the warm and friendly Oaxaca? Is it the wonderful museums? The theatres? The delectable cuisine?

When it comes to the art of Mexican tourism, knowing where to go for what activities is key. There is so much to do while visiting Mexico and each region offers something unique. Oaxaca offers some of the best cuisine in the world. When it comes to having the best in the all of Mexico, Oaxaca is definitely the culinary capital where all your palette’s dreams come true.

In Oaxaca, you will find that life is a celebration. Parties filled with dancing and music are regular events, and the tourist is treated like family. This is one of the vibrant cultural centers of the world. This is where you can explore a variety of aspects of your life from salsa with habaneras to tamales made with eggplant and onion. The only thing sacred is the enjoyment of life!

Of course, Oaxaca has more than just delicious dishes. There are historical churches and ruins dating back over two centuries. With over 4,000 archaeological sites in the state of Oaxaca, you will definitely never run out of exciting things t explore or visit. Whether you choose a tour guide or explore on your own, you could spend a lifetime never finding everything there is to find in this glorious state.

One of the reasons people love Oaxaca as much as they do is that they climate is always spring-like – never too hot and never too cold. The consistent climate makes it easy to play in a vacation or holiday filled with mountain biking, exquisite cuisine, and exploration of ancient ruins. The climate is steadily one of the most stable in all of Mexico. What is there not to appreciate?

Mexican tourism is a hot topic these days because of a more stable infrastructure and the price of visiting this enormously popular location. With so many locations, choosing Oaxaca is great for family vacations as well as personal time with a loved one or even alone. Limitless possibilities and luxurious opportunities await you and yours.

There is no doubt that the popularity of Mexican tourism has brought to light many of the many possibilities in Mexico. Oaxaca is only the beginning, but what a beginning to have! Activities range enough to offer a great time for families as well as the person traveling solo. Because you demand more for your money in this economy, you will appreciate all you have at your fingertips when you choose the best state in Mexico for exploring and eating to your heart’s content.

The Paseo de la Reforma is an almost 4 km long tree-lined boulevard, connecting the center of the city with the Bosque de Chapúltepec. Various monuments adorn its glorietas, or traffic circles, and we had already seen one of the monuments, the Caballito, yesterday.

Right next to the Angel de la Independencia, an officer of the tourist police stopped us and asked us where we were going and if he could be of help. He was a very charming young man and pulled a laminated map out of his security jacket and pointed out all the major sights in Mexico City. We had seen quite a bit, but inevitably we were going to miss quite a lot as well since there was so much to see and there just was not enough time.

After a photo op with the tourist policeman we headed on and kept exploring the Paseo de la Reforma. From the Angel de la Independencia we continued on to the Diana Cazadora (Diana the Huntress) statue, which caused quite a stir when it was originally unveiled since it is a statue of a naked woman. The city authorities decided to cover up the statue for a while, but sanity prevailed and the shameful covers were removed after some time.

We continued our mid-morning stroll towards the Bosque de Chapúltepec, a former sacred ground for the Pre-Colombian cultures and now Mexico City’s biggest park. Walking up to the castle, you first encounter a big monument called the Monumento a los Niños Héroes, commemorating the army cadets (the “boy heroes”) who died defending the castle from an American attack in 1847.

From there we explored the Castillo de Chapúltepec, which was originally built in the 1760s, but is most well-known for having being the residence of the unfortunate Austrian-born emperor Maximillian, and his wife Princess Charlotte, who only governed Mexico for a few short years until 1866 when he found an unfortunate end by firing squad.

We slowly strolled up the castle hill, paid our entrance fee and started exploring the castle. In true Habsburg tradition, it is furnished with ornate, baroque style furniture, and the first thing you see are the royal “carrozas” (carriages) when you come into the first hall of the exhibition. From that point onwards you see a variety of rooms as they were used by the Habsburg monarchs – dining rooms, living rooms, a bedroom as well as a meeting room, that illustrate the extreme opulence that these royals enjoyed. No wonder the population, who was merely scraping by, got upset with the dominance and privilege of the aristocrats.

We then walked to the top level garden which is enclosed by glass windows. Right next to one of these glass walls on the ground we noticed a tiny “colibri” (hummingbird) that had flown against the glass enclosure and knocked itself out. Vanessa rescued it by taking it gently in her hand, we then walked downstairs and Vanessa set the tiny bird free on the grass. When she opened her hand, the bird had regained its wits enough to fly away back into freedom.

Then we explored the Museo del Caracol (the “Snail Museum”, due to its shape), which also holds a museum on the history of Mexico (Galeria de Historia), featuring a series of dioramas depicting scenes from the fight for independence to the Mexican Revolution.

The view over the city from the castle hill is astounding and you literally enjoy a 360 degree panorama. Then we walked down the hill, past a whole series of street vendors, selling everything from Mexican snacks, to sun hats and visors, to disposable cameras, much of which is announced by promotionally shouting out the assortment of merchandise to the parade of visitors.

The Lago Chapúltepec is a popular weekend destination for Mexican families and features rowboats, swans, stages for theatre and ballet presentations and many beautiful spots to relax. We explored the Casa del Lago, an art centre run by Mexico’s largest university, the UNAM. Right in front of the Casa del Lago people of all ages were painting, drawing, reading newspapers, and this location offers many free artistic and cultural activities to the local population.

Just after our visit we continued walking on the walkway with all the street vendors and saw a local artist who was producing miniature paintings, using his fingers, his fingertips, and the occasional brush stroke. He produced a variety of landscapes, including one with the well-known Mexican volcano Popocatépetl. I had a chance to take a video of his artistic endeavours and ended up buying 3 very colourful miniature paintings depicting typical Mexican scenes. While he was painting he was telling stories about the themes he was painting, and he cracked the occasional joke, which made the entire crowd of onlookers laugh.

Then we headed back onto the Paseo de la Reforma towards the Auditorio, Mexico City’s famous outdoor concert facility. On the sidewalk beside the busy 6-lane road, there was a public art project: a whole series of life-sized cows that had been painted and decorated in very unique ways and provided great photo opportunities for the enthusiastic visitors. This public art campaign reminded me of Toronto’s moose exhibits from a few years ago. I believe Chicago had a similar campaign with cows as well.

Once arrived at the Auditorio we purchased a refreshing “nieve” (crushed ice, in this case flavoured with lime) and walked back on the Paseo de la Reforma towards the famous Museo de la Antropología. We explored the outside and the lobby, unfortunately we did not have enough time to explore the inside. The Museo de la Antropologia is one of the most famous and most extensive museums in Mexico. It was opened in 1964 and has various collections of artifacts from Mexico’s various pre-Columbian cultures. Right outside the museum is a huge stone statue of the rain god Tlaloc.

Then we took a bus (a “pesera”) to the another part of the Bosque de Chapúltepec, close to the Lago Mayor, where we exited near the Children’s Museum and started exploring this portion of this huge park. We were in search of the restaurant overlooking Lago Mayor and had a bit of a hard time finding it first, since there is a Restaurante del Lago and a Café del Lago. Finally after Vanessa had asked several passers-by, we figured out we had to go to the Café del Lago and sure enough we found our lunch destination. The Café is an attractive looking structure overlooking the lake, and it features a buffet lunch every day. Fortunately we negotiated our way into just ordering a soup since we had already snacked on “chicharrones” (usually puffed and fried pork rinds, but these ones were made of wheat flour) and there was no way we could handle a full meal. I simply had a delicious chile poblano, a green soup made of chili peppers that was very tasty and creamy.

Then we made our way back onto the road where we hopped onto another “pesera” that would take us to the subway station at Los Constituyentes, where we descended about 3 or 4 major staircases downwards (we must have been about 40 or 50 meters below the surface) and caught three subway trains back into Vanessa’s neighbourhood. After a quick and inexpensive stint (5 pesos, 70 cents) in an Internet café, Vanessa’s parents and her sister picked us up to take us to San Angel, another beautiful neighbourhood in Mexico City with colonial buildings and cobble-stoned streets.

We started by exploring the Iglesia de San Jacinto, which features an inner courtyard with a rain chute to capture rain water, and a beautiful enclosed private garden in the back of the church. Inside a big festivity was taking place: a “quinceñera” – a ritual celebrating a 15-year-old girl’s entry into adulthood. Then we explored the Plaza San Jacinto which had hundreds of street vendors, selling different types of artwork. San Angel is known as a city district that is home to many artists. It features numerous permanent galleries as well as the weekend “tianguis” or “mercado ambulante” (“walking market”) with vendors that set up shop only on the weekend.

For dinner we picked one of the restaurants overlooking the square and had some traditional Mexican dishes. I had a “sopa de la fonda” (chicken soup with pico de gallo and avocado) followed by an “ensalada de berros” (watercress salad with diced tomatoes, onions and bacon). Vanessa’s family had a variety of seafood dishes and “chile relleno” (chili peppers stuffed with minced meat, covered with a sauce made of cream, nuts and cinnamon).

At about 8 pm we had finished our dinner and since we had had a pretty exhausting day we headed back to catch up on some sleep and rest up for our departure day.

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